... is the talent for turning gold into, ah, dross. FIDE has it in spades.
As you have no doubt read elsewhere, Armenia took first place in the recent Dresden Olympiad. The U.S., after a rocky start, took the bronze medal with a last-round upset of Ukraine. Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of it.
Immediately after his last-round loss to Gata Kamsky, Ukraine top board Vassily Ivanchuk was ordered to take a "random drug test." He was understandably not in the best of moods, and he refused and stormed off.
This brought into play the idiotic rules FIDE has adopted in the course of its long and pointless attempt to suck up to the IOC. Ivanchuk may face a two-year suspension (though he'll certainly be welcome in my tournaments). Even worse (though Ivanchuk might not agree) is that his team may be disqualified. If so, the teams that faced them would lose tiebreak points, and the U.S. would be knocked out of third place in favor of Hungary.
One can only hope that this absurdity will lead to the top players telling FIDE what to do with its Olympic pipedream. (Nothing printable.) There is some evidence that this may be happening. Will the players stand up for themselves this time? Or will another infusion of Ilyumzhinov's money buy their acquiescence? Only time will tell.
Many of Mikhail Chigorin’s ideas were well ohead of his time, and were not fully appreciated for another half-century. It was his misfortune to be surpassed in his own era first by Steinitz and, later, Lasker. Here he shows the superiority of Knights over Bishops in a closed position.
By transposition, we have reached one of the main lines of Chigorin’s Defense (the usual move order is 1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nc6 3. Nf3 Bg4). Foreshadowing the ideas of Reti and Gruenfeld a generation later, Black pits rapid development and active piece play against White’s pawn center and two Bishops.
A surprising and strong idea. Black foregoes prressure on the center pawns to obtain a pawn majority on the Queenside and use of the light squares for his Knights.
There are some rules in which when you say it matters as much as what.
Touch-move: A claim that your opponent touched one piece but moved another must be made before you make another move (10J). In fact, it must be made “before deliberately touching a pieces” (i.e., touching a piece with the evident intention of moving it). Claiming after the game that your opponent violated the touch-move rule is a waste of time. The most you’re going to get, even if the TD believes you, is a warning to your opponent on the order of “You didn’t do anything wrong and I’ll be watching to make sure you don’t do it again.” Which won’t do you much good.
Winning on time: A surprising number of players do not understand this, perhaps because of the cancer growth of sudden death. In order to claim a win on time in a non-sudden death time control, a player must have a “reasonably complete” scoresheet, defined as one that has “no more than three missing or incomplete move pairs,” at the time the flag is called (13C7). Moves filled in after the flag fall do not count (13C3). It’s worth noting that you can’t get around this by waiting to call the flag until after you’ve filled in your scoresheet, since the opponent may “call his own flag” by pointing out to a TD (or spectator) that his flag is down and your scoresheet is incomplete.
Possibly a clearer way to explain the “reasonably complete” rule is this: the TD must be able to play through the game – without you standing there telling him what you scribble means – and reach a position that’s within three moves of what’s on the board, without any illegible or impossible moves earlier in the game.
The "FIDE time forfeit procedure" is another matter. If this is announced, a TD will watch all games in time pressure, count the moves, and forfeit a player who exceeds the time limit. This is used in many round-robin events, but USCF rules require that if it is used for any games, it must be used for all games without exception. For obvious reasons, very few people try to use it in large Swisses.
Draw? The “correct” way to offer a draw is to make your move, offer the draw, and press your clock. What happens if you don’t do it that way?
1) If you offer a draw while your opponent is thinking, he may accept the draw, decline the draw, make a move (which amounts to declining), or complain to the TD that you are distracting him. This is just bad manners.
2) If you offer a draw before making your move, your opponent may a) accept, b) decline, or c) ask to see your move before deciding. The offer cannot be withdrawn, period (14B3). Making an offer this way is unlikely to annoy the opponent, but it’s, well, dumb. If only because he could also say nothing and wait for you to either make a move or lose on time.
Steinitz began the era of scientific play, as his games and writings demonstrated that games were won or lost for objective reasons. Here he provides a (then startling) example of the proper use two Bishops against a Bishop and Knight.
Rosenthal – Steinitz Vienna, 1873 C46 THREE KNIGHTS GAME
In playing over these old games, it is best not to ask too many questions about the defender’s play — the gap between master and amateur was often enormous — but relax and enjoy the tragicomic plight of the White King, as he is driven across the board and mated with his pieces still at home.
White’s set-up (known as the Kieseritsky Gambit) is acceptable — he can recover either the g5 or f5 pawn — but he should now play 6. d4, to answer 6. ... d6 with 7. Nd3.
The 2008 Los Angeles Open, held at the LAX Hilton from October 31 to November 2, ended in a 4-way tie at 4-1 among GMs Rogelio Antonio and Melisket Khachiyan, IM Entico Sevillano, and master Jeol Banawa. Only Banawa suffered a defeat, losing to Antonio in round 2. In the Amateur (U2000) section, Bobby Hall took clear first with 4½-½. Both sections of the 40-player Halloween Scholastics produced perfect scores, with Ishan Bose-Pine taking the Open and Ankur Gupta the Reserve. Dan Alvira swept the Hexes with 3-0. Complete standings are available at westernchess.com.
Despite a disappointing turnout, the 2008 Los Angeles Open attracted a powerful field of two GMs and three IMs. After two rounds, the five were tied for first at 2-0. Complete standings will be available throughout the weekend at westernchess.com.
