0 The New Informants

Long a publication that crosses language barriers, in recent years Chess Informant has been expanding its front sections with articles written in English. These changes began with opening theory and expanded into articles on many topics.

Informant 110 offered a new feature called CI Labs with five articles concerned with new trends in the openings. Each article contained a short introduction in English. CI Labs expanded to six articles in the next issue, which also added two other articles. "Chess History" by Harald Fietz celebrates the centenary of Jose R. Capablanca's entry into the world elite. Anna Burtasova's "Women and Chess" marked the 50th birthday of Maia Chiburdanidze, five-time world champion.

CI Labs peaked at ten articles with Informant 113 and that issue also included the first "Garry's Choice" column, which ran through Informant 118. In these columns, Garry Kasparov offered his analysis of recent Grandmaster games. The number of articles continued to grow as did their breadth and depth. With Informant 119, the company added download versions customized for the ChessBase database software. Because I use ChessBase daily, this feature puts Informants in easier reach.

The new content is outstanding. While Informant has long been a periodical that was indispensable to professional players, some average players found it intimidating. Many of the new articles aim at the average tournament player.

Mihail Marin's column, "Old Wine in New Bottles," has proven illuminating. In Informant 119 (the Viking edition), he explored rook endings. Viswanathan Anand missed a draw in a difficult rook ending in his World Championship match with Magnus Carlsen. Most chess enthusiasts know that, but still may find Marin's analysis illuminating. In the same article, he points out a hidden resource in the well-known game Capablanca -- Tartakower, New York 1924. Marin poetically notes that the reputed author of the aphorism, "all rook endings are drawn," missed a drawing opportunity in his most famous loss.

In Informant 122, Marin examines the role of memory in chess through an exploration of the double bishop sacrifice. He works his way back through time, beginning with recent play by a teammate and working towards Emanuel Lasker's famous game against Johann Bauer (1889). The importance of pattern recognition in chess training is brought home for ambitious players and chess teachers working with all levels of students.

There are also compelling columns by Alexander Morozevich, Ivan Sokolov, Karsten Mueller, Wesley So, and an ever changing cast of Grandmasters. These columns are suitable for chess enthusiasts across a wide range of skill levels.

Informants have long had versions compatible with ChessBase, but not all commentary translated well. The image below shows Informant 75/156 in Chess Informant Expert (left) and ChessBase (right). The intended text "with the idea of 17...Rac8, 17...Qa1" is almost unreadable in ChessBase. (readers may click on the image for better viewing).

Side-by-side CI Expert and ChessBase

In the latest versions created especially for ChessBase, such commentary reads perfectly. Below is some text from "Midnight in Moscow: Avoiding the Saemisch by a Less Traveled Road" by Alexander Morozevich. "With the idea" is spelled out, and the figurine algebraic displays correctly.

Informant 122 in ChessBase

I have been a fan of Chess Informants for nearly two decades. My first issue in late 1996 or early 1997 was Informant 64 and it quickly paid dividends in a nice win in a correspondence game (see "Playing by the Book"). In the early years of this century, I started buying electronic editions of Informants and reading them in Chess Informant Reader (CIR). Later, the company came out with Chess Informant Expert, which offered editing and publishing functions not available in CIR. CI Expert also offered a more pleasing interface with options for different color combinations.

CI Expert offers functionality not available in ChessBase. For example, from the electronic edition of the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings, it is possible to jump to reference games in the relevant issue of Informant, as I demonstrated in this YouTube video.

Despite the advantages of reading Informants in their proprietary software, or in print, I welcome these new ChessBase versions. Designing Chess Informant publications specifically for ChessBase software makes Informants more accessible.

Detail: The New Informants

0 An Unplayed Brilliancy

This was a betrayal of myself.
Mikhail Tal

There is a line of the Alekhine Defense in which the Black king strolls towards the center after White's knight sacrifice. The line resembles the Fried Liver Attack, but is more often played by Grandmasters.

In one game, Bent Larsen defended the Black side well and won a nice miniature against Mikahil Tal. In another game, Tal worked out the variations all the way to checkmate before sacrificing the knight. The Black king was driven to a1 where it was checkmated with White's few remaining pieces.

These games are fantasy variations that stem from a war of nerves in which Larsen scored an important victory against the master of attack, but still lost the Candidate's Match against the former World Champion. Tal spent fifty minutes contemplating the knight sacrifice, trusted his opponent's preparation, and opted for a safer route. He ended up in a worse position, but managed to salvage a draw in the endgame.

My interest in this line was provoked by Yasser Seirawan's excellent recent lecture at the Chess Club of Saint Louis, "A History of Chess Openings". Near the end of the lecture, Seirawan indicates that he may have mixed up the moves of Tal -- Larsen, but goes on to make some astute comments concerning opening preparation. He had spent several days been looking at "the conservative and the super sharp lines" of this opening. Tal's trapped queen and another quieter game he showed first illustrate the possible varieties. Seirawan predicts that the Alekhine Defense, like the early queen exchange in the Berlin Defense, could become a new hot trend in Grandmaster play.

Here is the game that Seirawan remembered.

Tal,Mikhail -- Larsen,Bent [B04]
Candidates Semi-Final Bled (4), 1965

1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.Nf3 dxe5 5.Nxe5 Nd7

Larsen offered Tal an opportunity to drive his king to the center with a knight sacrifice.

6.Nxf7 Kxf7 7.Qh5+ Ke6 8.c4 N5f6 9.d5+ Kd6 10.Qf7 Ne5 11.Bf4 c5

White to move

12.Nc3

12.b4 is the main line in my edition of Encyclopedia of Chess Openings.

12...a6 13.0–0–0

See the next game for 13.Rd1

13...g5 14.Bg3 Bh6 15.Re1

Seirawan does not offer 15.d6, which has been played in similar positions (after 13...g6 and no 14.Bg3).

15...g4+ 16.Kb1 Bf5+ 17.Ka1 Rf8 18.Bxe5+ Kd7

White to move

Unable to rescue his queen, it is time for White to resign.

0–1

In Attack with Mikhail Tal, trans. Ken Neat (1994), Tal explains his thinking after Larsen's shocking 5...Nd7.

My intuition insistently kept telling me that the sacrifice had to be correct, but I decided to calculate everything "as far as mate", spent some 50 minutes, but then in one of the innumerable variations I found something resembling a defense, and ... rejected the sacrifice. This was a betrayal of myself, I saved the game only by a miracle after the adjournment.

Here is the variation that Tal presents in the opening section of his book.

Tal,Mikhail -- Larsen,Bent [B04]
Candidates Semi-Final Bled (4), 1965

1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.Nf3 dxe5 5.Nxe5 Nd7 6.Nxf7 Kxf7 7.Qh5+ Ke6 8.c4 N5f6 9.d5+ Kd6 10.Qf7 Ne5 11.Bf4 c5 12.Nc3 a6 13.Rd1 g6 14.Bxe5+ Kxe5 15.d6 g5 16.Rd2 Bf5 17.Re2+

Black to move

17...Kd4 18.Re4+ Bxe4 19.Qe6

Black to move

Perhaps the defense that he found in his calculations was 19...Qd7, covering h3 or 19...Qb6, covering b3.

White's threat, according to Tal is 20.Ne2+ Kd3 21.Qh3+ Kc2 22.Qb3+ Kb1 23.Nc3+ Ka1 24.Bd3 Bxd3 25.Kd2+ Bb1 26.Rxb1# 0–1

Here is the game that was actually played.

Tal,Mikhail -- Larsen,Bent [B04]
Candidates Semi-Final Bled (4), 1965

1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.Nf3 dxe5 5.Nxe5 Nd7 6.Bc4

Black to move

6...e6 7.Qg4 h5 8.Qe2 Nxe5 9.dxe5 Bd7 10.0–0 Bc6 11.Rd1 Qe7 12.Nc3 Nxc3 13.bxc3 g6 14.a4 a6 15.Rb1 Qc5 16.Be3 Qxe5 17.f4 Qf5 18.Bd3 Qg4 19.Qf2 Be7 20.Bd4 0–0 21.Be2 Qf5 22.Bd3 Qg4 23.Be2 Qh4 24.g3 Qh3 25.Bf3 Rad8 26.Bxc6 bxc6 27.Be5 Qf5 28.Qe2 Bd6 29.Rd3 Bxe5 30.fxe5 Rxd3 31.cxd3 Rd8 32.Rd1 c5 33.c4 Qg4

White to move

34.Qxg4 hxg4 35.Kf2 Rb8 36.Rd2 Kg7 37.Ke3 g5 38.d4 Rb3+ 39.Kf2 cxd4 40.Rxd4 Kg6 41.Rxg4 Rb2+ 42.Kg1 Kf5 43.Rd4 Kxe5 44.Rd7 f5

White to move

Black must be better here with an active king and a pawn majority on the kingside.

45.Rxc7 Ke4 46.Rd7 Rc2 47.Rd6 e5 48.h4 gxh4 49.gxh4 Rxc4 50.h5 Kf3 51.Rd3+ Kg4 52.h6 Rc7 53.Rd6 e4 54.Kf2 a5 55.Rg6+ Kh5 56.Ra6 f4 57.Re6 Rc2+ 58.Ke1 Rc1+ 59.Kd2 Rh1 60.Rxe4 Kg4 61.Re6 Kg3 62.Rf6 f3 63.Ke3 Re1+ 64.Kd3 Re7 65.Rg6+ Kf4 66.Rf6+ Kg3 67.Rg6+ Kf4 68.Rf6+ Kg4 69.Kd4 Kg3 70.Rg6+ Kh3 71.Rg7

Black to move

71...Rxg7 72.hxg7 f2 73.g8Q f1Q 74.Qe6+ Kh4 75.Kc5 Qb1 76.Qc4+ Kg3 77.Qc3+ Kf2 ½–½

All three games are instructive. This is as true of the game played as of the two unplayed fantasies.

Detail: An Unplayed Brilliancy

0 Lesson of the Week

The lessons this week focus on elementary tactics that build a foundation for more complex tactics. They stem from a major blunder by the current World Champion. Magnus Carlsen is the highest rated player in history and regarded by growing numbers as the strongest player ever. Even he makes mistakes, however.

In the sixth game of the current World Championship match with Viswanathan Anand, Carlsen played 26.Kd2 to reach this position.

Black to move

Anand was in some time pressure and missed the correct response. He could have gained an advantage that would have made a win in this game likely. He went on to lose and remains one point behind.

My advanced students are asked to find the combination that Anand could have played.

Some of them are presented with other positions inspired by this game, which was a Sicilian Kan.

Black to move

This position arose in Ricardi -- Polgar,J 2001. It is one of the reference games for the Kan in the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (ECO). 

Black played 25...Kg8 and the game was drawn by repetition a few moves later. Pablo Ricardi sacrificed a rook to expose Black's king. How would he have continued the attack if she had played 25...Ke7?

Beginning students are shown the solution that Anand missed in the first diagram and are given a worksheet with six elementary discovery problems created after a pattern found in Bruce Pandolfini, Beginning Chess (1993). Each problem in Pandolfini's book has ten pieces or fewer. I have found a lot of value creating worksheets for my students with similar problems.

Beginning Tactics: Discovery

White has a winning move in each of these positions.

Detail: Lesson of the Week

0 Knight Forks

When I get a new copy of Chess Informant, I play through all of the games published therein that are classified C00-C19. These are the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (ECO) classifications for the French Defense.* New on my computer are the download versions of CI 119, CI 120, and CI 121. These electronic publications are in ChessBase format.

This morning I glanced through an excellent instructive article on pawn endings in Informant 120, "Precision" by Eduardas Rozentalis. Then I started working through the French Defense games. Naturally, the tactics in these games are instructive.

The position below appears in the notes to CI 120/100 Solak -- Bartel, Yerevan 2014.

White to move

The correct move in this position is the final one in Solak's annotations. He leaves the reader to work out why it is a winning move.

I may use this position with some of my students next week. After White's move and an obvious looking subpar response by Black, a position is reached that may be useful with some of my beginning students.


*ECO Code is a trademark of Chess Informant.

Detail: Knight Forks

0 Opening Inaccuracy

Chess is so deep and varied that even on the sixth move in a familiar line, one can reach new positions. Yesterday, I had the Black side of a Nimzo-Indian Defense that transposed into a somewhat obscure line of the Queen's Gambit Declined.

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Nf3 d5

4...c5 is the normal move in the spirit of the Nimzo-Indian Defense.

5.Qa4 Nc6 6.e3

6.Bg5 is almost as popular and is given in the first four lines of the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings. It may be of interest that in Chess Informant 10/600 Vladimir Sokolov judged 6.Bg5 as dubious, suggesting 6.e3. Perhaps 6.e3 is slightly more accurate than 6.Bg5. Even so, both moves have been played often.

Black to move

6...O-O appears to be the normal move here. My 6...Bd7 is the second most popular choice. Zoltan Gyimesi is the highest rated player who has played 6...Bd7 and he lost that game in a queen ending with most of the pawns remaining on the board and a nearly locked position.

It is hard to blame the opening for that loss. Nonetheless, the scoring percentage differences between 6...O-O and 6...Bd7 seem significant. White scores 55.6% over 411 games after Black castles. In the 55 available games with 6...Bd7, White's score jumps to 68.2%.

In my game, my position quickly grew poor with terrible piece coordination. My position was lost until my opponent blundered an exchange that led to an ending where I had a rook against a knight. All the pawns eventually came off and the game was drawn.

Is 6...Bd7 an inaccuracy, perhaps even an error? I think so.

6...Bd7 forces White's queen to move a second time due to the threatened discovery. 6...O-O steps out of the pin. Perhaps the queen then has less purpose on a4 and will be compelled to move again when Black's bishop is no longer a target.

Why is it an error? Does the bishop have a better square? It may. In games where Black castles, the bishop often goes to d7, but sometimes it goes to e6 or f5. In a few games, it takes up a position on b7. The major problem with 6...Bd7 is that it wastes time. Pieces should be placed on their best squares when they move for the first time. It is not clear in the diagram position where this bishop will be best placed. It is clear, however, that Black will castle kingside.

Detail: Opening Inaccuracy