Next OTB Meeting Jan 24 @ 4pm to 10 - BWW Brighton - Interview with Svetozar Gligorich

 

LCCC will meet again over the board on Monday Jan 24 2022 from 4pm until 9 or 10pm at the Brighton Buffalo Wild Wings at the Green Oak Mall. See you all there!

(Hat tip to Canadian GM Spraggett)

Now an interview from one of my all-time favorite players - Svetozar Gligorich [pic] (born 1923), also known (affectionately) as Gligo.

An amazingly talented player, for decades he dominated European chess. Gligorich’s games in my opinion, rank as some of the most beautiful examples of how chess should be played, much like my other hero Tigran Petrosian.

In his prime, there was hardly a player that he did not beat! His score against some of the world champions says it all:

he won 4 games against Fischer;

5 games against Smyslov;

8 games against Petrosian;

2 games against each of Botvinnik, and Tal.

When I am asked by chess amateurs, interested in improving the level of their play, what player’s games they should study, I have never hesitated in recommending the games of Svetozar Gligorich!

Let us listen to the man himself:

I started much later than many to-be-chessplayers, learning how to play the game at the age of eleven. As I discovered shortly thereafter, chess came easy to me. In 1939, at the age of sixteen, I became a master, this from the era when there were relatively few masters, and at a relatively young age.

 

Unfortunately, coinciding with my becoming a master in 1939, World War II broke out, and for the subsequent six years I fought as a member of a partisan unit against the Nazi-led Axis powers, and I was forced to put on hold the studying chess until 1945. At that point in time, I started to play chess again, and in 1951, I became a GM.

Although I was far removed from the latest goings-on about the game, chess actually saved my life three times. Those stories are probably too lengthy to get into now, maybe we can discuss those later on. (Your humble scribe will research these stories!)

 

On Tigran Petrosian:

Yes, we played each other a total of 27 times, with 17 of the games decisive. I won eight of the encounters and Tigran came out on top nine times. Ten of the games were drawn.

 

As I said earlier, we were very similar to each other philosophically and stylistically. We both preferred to play chess according to strict logic, as it is called, correct chess. For me it was not important who the opponent was sitting across from me, it was important that I play correct and active chess. Maybe I was, relatively speaking of course, a more unpleasant opponent for Petrosian for the reason that I was both logical in my approach and active in my style. Regardless, we were close friends away from the board despite our competitive struggles during our games.

What is amazing is that in many respects, Tigran and I were so similar. We both were simple men and not saddled by ego problems. We both enjoyed music, humor, and we understood the intricacies of the game of chess. Possibly most interesting is that neither of us had pretenses that we must become champions. Regardless, nature and talent combined in Tigran and carried him to the greatest of heights.

Let me share some of my personal insights in the form of a story: In 1963 he was playing Botvinnik for the World Championship, and he confided in me that he couldn’t believe that he is playing Botvinnik for the title. Petrosian lamented that he was unable to concentrate and focus on the task at hand to compete for the title.

As a result, I think he was unable to collect himself and he lost. But then after gathering his energy and focusing on the task at hand through three stabilizing draws, Tigran struck back in game 5 and won a beautiful game with a king invasion; at this point, the impossible was already possible. It was a fantastic display of understanding, intuition, and skill all fused into one.

The standard question was put to Gligoric: How did you digest your defeats? How did you overcome failure?

To be honest I don’t think that I took it all that badly. This is the nature of sport. Defeat should be a motivation for you to improve, work harder, and do better the next time. As Capablanca said, the best teacher is defeat. You simply need the will and strength to be able to turn the experience into something positive.

These are great words for your humble scribe to re-read. My response is either to tip over the chessboard or drop kick my computer! Neither response seems to improve my play.

I think Gligoric and Capablanca have a more enlightened response to losing.

Happy New Year! Next Meeting on Monday Jan. 10 - and LCCC Top 1% !!

 As the new year rolls in, the first order of business is to announce when the next OTB (over the board) meeting of the Club is.

Monday January 10th from 4pm until the Buffalo Wild Wings in Brighton Michigan throws us out. Usually around 9 or 10 pm.

We will have casual chess that night and discuss which Monday meeting will begin our 2022 Fischer Random 960 Club Tournament. Entry fee will of course be free to all who wish to enter.

It is also with great pride that your humble scribe announces that the LCCC Chess Club on Chess dot com, has moved into the TOP 1% of all the Daily Play clubs on the #1 chess site in the world! A Daily Play club is a club that plays matches against any and all of the other clubs on the site. Which, as this is typed, the number of clubs is 111824. We are #1168 and will be moving up! Yes, all you calculator nerds would put us at 98.9555%, but never fear. When we stand at 99.1% shortly, we will still only claim the Top 1% title.

I wish to thank all the players who play for us on-line, and especially those carrying the heavy lifting. You know who you are. 

If you wish to join this elite group of on-line chess players at LCCC on Chess dot com, we really only have two rules of entry and being a Member-in-good-standing:

1. Sign up to play in at least a 1/4 of our matches. Sometimes you may get bounced because the other team did not have enough players to cover your rating level. Don't worry. You still get credit for signing up to play!

2. Don't forfeit your games.

Now since the discussion was about chess on computers, let's review a brief history timeline of computers playing chess.

1770 - A chess playing machine toured Europe, only to finally be discovered that it was controlled by a 'little person' hidden in the bottom working the controls.

1956 - A machine called Maniac defeated an unrated player. 

1967 - Mac Hack VI defeats a 1510 player. No, it was not me. I was unrated at the time and would have lost to both of them anyway.

1968 - The movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. predicts the future correctly. Computer HAL defeats Frank, the human astronaut.

1978 - Chess program Chess 4.6 achieves and Expert rating of 2040.

1981 - Program Cray Blitz achieves a Master rating of 2258

1989 - Program Deep Thought achieves a 2400 rating and loses to World Champion Gary Kasparov in a two-game match.

1997 - Program Deep Blue does a checkmate heard around the world as it defeats the World Champion Gary Kasparov.

2004 - Grandmasters Topolov, Ponomariov and Karjakin lose to the chess programs; Hydra, Deep Junior and Fritz (see pic - our own Igor 3000).

2016 - Program Komodo wins the Computer Chess Championship and it's rating is over 3400 (World Champion Magnus Carlsen stands at 2890)

2019 - Program Lc0 wins the 2019 Computer Chess Championship beating the two-time champion Stockfish and establishes it's rating over 3900.

 Both Lc0 and Stockfish have not responded to your humble scribe's challenges to chess matches (to be played underwater in snorkel gear). They must be scared of defeat.

Dec 20 Last Club Meeting of 2021! - Be There for the Joy of Chess!

 It will be a casual chess night from 4pm until you want to go home, or Santa's lovely elfette - Sydney - tells us to. 

Last meeting held our 2021 Club Speed Chess Championship! We had twelve attendees and ten entries in the tournament. Here are the results:

1st - James K.

2nd / 3rd - tie - Ken T. and Vince V.

4th / 5th - tie - Charlie S. and Sam T.

That's enough. If your humble scribe completes the list, everyone will know where he finished. His chess ego is bruised enough already! But fun was had by all!

 On tap for some time soon in the New Year will be our 2022 Fischer Random or 960 Club Championship. For those of you who have never played this variation of chess, you are in for a treat. 

How it is played is the pieces are randomly placed behind the pawns, so all opening theory you may know is out the window! You are actually playing 'middle game' chess from the first move. And it leads to some crazy positions with tactics possible all over the place. 

Ok, that was chess speak. In plain English, the games are wild and a lot of fun!

For a more detailed description of 'Random' chess, just search for it in our blog search box. Or of course, on-line.

Now for a nice debate topic. How would you build the perfect chess player? 

Well, first thing we have to do is eliminate two players. Because all you would have to do really is clone our club's two current champions - Paul M. and James K.! So, we must ignore the obvious!

One famous chess writer, who has been referenced before on this site, Irving Chernev, said the chess player would need ten attributes. I will list these and put his selection first (produced in 1933) and your humble scribe's second (produced in 2021). The only rule it seems is that you cannot use the same chess player twice. 

Now we have some fine chess minds in this club and it would be nice to see their list in the comment section. Hope all our readers will chime in! Here we go;

The patience of Steinitz or Smyslov

The accuracy of Capablanca or Anand

The brilliancy of Alekhine or Fischer

The attacking skills of Spielmann or Tal

The defensive genius of Maroczy or Petrosian

The combinative skill of Anderssen or Spassky

The endgame technique of Lasker or Karpov

The will to win of Bogoljubow or Kasparov

 The imagination of Reti or Kramnik

The confidence of Tchigorin or Carlsen

Making my list was much tougher than I thought! Where is Morphy, Caruana, Nepomanchi, Botvinnik, Euwe, Ding, So, Aronian, Korchnoi, Larsen, etc?

At any rate, studying the games of any of these players will leave you amazed at their talent!

Cannot wait to see some lists formed in the comment section!

Next Club Meeting Monday Dec. 6, 2021 - Speed Tournament - and More Chess Facts

We had another fine evening of casual chess and conversation at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Brighton, MI.

We will be meeting again this coming Monday, December 6th, between 4pm and 10pm. 

Stop on by.

We are also having our Club Speed Chess Championship that night. Entry fee is FREE!

The tournament should start around 6:30ish. Every entrant will play 2 games against his opponent each round. Each player will have only five (5) minutes to complete the game. No delay or increment will be used. You will play one game with White and one game with Black. Two wins or a win and a draw, and you win the match.

Depending on the number of entries, we may complete the tournament that night, or we will finish it on December 20. I am guessing we will get it done in one night!  Even a 6:30pm start and 40 minutes for a round, we can get 4 rounds in. 

Feel free to stop in and try out your chess skills! And if you don't want to play in the speed tournament, there is usually other non-participants around to play casual chess with. Or, watch the action! Speed chess is very exciting!

Now for a few more chess facts:

The worst score ever recorded in a chess tournament took place in Monte Carlo in 1903. Colonel Moreau played in all twenty-six rounds and lost every game. (Sounds like your humble scribe on casual chess night)

Ernest Grunfeld, one of the greatest authority on the openings back in the early 1900's, always opened a game with White with 1. d4. (Bobby Fischer of course said 1. e4 is best for White)

Frank J. Marshall found what he thought was a winning line in the Ruy Lopez opening and saved it for ten years to use on a specific opponent. That opponent was Jose Capablanca, who Marshall played in New York in 1918, and lost the game.

Perhaps the most fanatical devotee of chess ever known was Daniel Harrwitz. He played at the Cafe de la Regence in Paris, morning, noon and night seven days a week. In addition, he had chess figures embroidered on his shirts and wore stick pins shaped like chess pieces. 

But perhaps, you know someone like this yourself.

Harrwitz was one of the very few players to beat Paul Morphy with the black pieces. He played a 12- game match against Morphy in Paris and won the first two games! But then lost the next five of six with a draw sprinkled in there. Down 5.5 to 2.5 Daniel quit the match siting health reasons.

We mentioned child prodigy and American GM Sammy Reshevsky in the last article. Before the Western Open in 1933, a reporter asked Sammy if he expected to win the tournament? Sammy replied, "There is no one here who can beat me." He was correct. No one did beat him, but he did not win the tournament either. Rueben Fine won the tournament, drawing Sammy and beating more of the other participants than Sammy did.

Speaking of Sammy and Rueben, here is another piece of chess lore. But we have to add into this tale the American chess Master and author Fred Reinfeld.

Reshevsky and Fine were grandmasters. Fred Reinfeld was a master, but never earned even an International Master title, let alone a GM title. But with Reshevsky being #1 and Fine being #5 in the United States, and Reinfeld ranked usually between #8 and #15 in the country, they seemed to meet each other quite often in big tournaments in the USA.

Now rankings at this level are usually even more accurate than ratings in the more normal ranges of let's say 1900 to 1000. There is much fluctuation and many upsets at that lower level. In the nosebleed section of the rankings, there is much less of that.

So Reshevshy had a predictable winning record against Fine. Sammy was too great a tactician for Rueben. That just makes sense.

And Fine had a dominating record against Reinfeld. Fine just crushed Reinfeld in the middle game or the endgame. Again, sort of expected.

However, the lower rated Reinfeld had a winning record against Sammy Reshevsky! How can this be??

Well, you might have heard it said that styles make fights, or classic battles in other sports. The puncher versus the counter-puncher, the strong offense against the strong defense, the attacking player versus the volley/return tennis player. 

Well Fred Reinfeld was a chess opening expert! He wrote books on the subject, from beginner to grandmaster level books. Sammy, as we told you in the last article, never bothered to learn openings that deeply. He played mostly by genius, tactical analysis and some chess intuition thrown in. 

Reinfeld was Sammy's perfect Achillies Heel. Sammy would get so bogged down in the opening against Fred, that Sammy would fall way behind on his clock. This time trouble caused him to error even worse. Other times he just fell into clever opening traps Fred knew and Sammy did not.

As we maintain on this blog, chess is the greatest game in the world. Period.

Next Club Meeting This Monday November 22, 2021 - And Some Chess Opinion

Another night of casual chess is on the slate for this coming Monday. So don’t be a turkey and miss out. And who wants to be a turkey this close to Thanksgiving? And add to that, the thrill of meeting your humble scribe in person! No autographs please. Well for an adult beverage, ok.

In addition, we have a chess player of much acclaim in the chess world - coming all the way from Beverly Hills! You don’t want to miss his visit! What is his claim to fame? Well, he claims to be a chess player. As the great Zen Master said, “We’ll see.”

LCCC had another fine night of casual chess on Nov. 8 with 14 players in attendance. We almost always have at least 10 players in attendance, guaranteeing a nice mix of opponents so you can get your chess on!

Not only that, our Club’s personal server, Sydney, will make sure your hunger and thirst are taken care of. She may be the best part of the entire visit to Buffalo Wild Wings.

Our LCCC Tournament Director, Ken T, has slated that the 2021 LCCC Speed Chess Championship will be held on December 6, 2021 and maybe December 20, 2021. The tourney is free to enter! The games will all be of 5 min with NO delay!

You will play two games against the same opponent. Two wins or a win and a draw gives you a victory. A split match is a draw for the result posted. We are figuring about a half hour to complete a round and maybe ten minutes for Ken to set up the new pairings and post them.

I believe a 6:30 to 7 pm start for the first round, depending on attendance and the number of entries. Late entries always welcome, even after the first round.

If the number of entries is large, we may go two nights of play. If we can get it done on the 6^th, we will do that instead. Three rounds @ 40 minutes is …..if my public school education doesn’t fail me….is two hours. That is easily done in one night. This is the most likely scenario.

Four rounds might be a go too, but we might let the leaders of the tournament decide if they want to play or wait two weeks.

Now for some chess history. Irving Chernev was a chess player, chess book writer and a chess historian. This 1933 article of his, is where this material was pulled from. Now the reason I post it here is because there are some suggestions of great games you can look up and play through at your leisure. Not to mention the list of great players from the past, a little history about them, or an opinion about them, that your humble scribe thinks are fascinating! My comments in brackets. Here we go:

 The perfect game is Reti-Kostics, Teplitz, 1922. (I could of swore it was my victory in the tournament of …oh, any one of them!)

The most important game, Pillsbury-Tarrasch, Hastings, 1895.  (ed. Note – I would like to know why?)

The greatest queen-ending player was Marcozy. (That happens almost never happens but good to know)

The most exhaustive…… and exhausting annotator is Tarkakower. The laziest, Lasker and Teichmann. (Ouch, and from a fellow writer? Me thinks he protest too much.)

The most artistic Rook endings are found in Rubinstein’s games. (Rubinstein was a great player!)

The most interesting matches were Alekhine – Bogoljubov, 1929, Tarrasch-Schlechter, 1911, and Capablanca-Euwe, 1931. (Agreed on two. Didn’t know about the middle one)

The most interesting combinative game was Alekhine-Cohn, Stockholm, 1912. (need to see it and run it thru a chess engine!)

The best tournament was Carlsbad, 1911. (Maybe, but that was before the 2nd Piatigorsky Cup, August 1966. What a tournament of chess greats that was!)

The three greatest books, “My Best Games of Chess” – Alekhine, and “My System” – Nimzovitch. (And Chernev left off one of his due to modesty. Uh, …….ok. But those are two great books!)

The coolest player under fire – Issac Kashdan. The hardest fighter – Lasker (which Lasker, he did not say, but I can guess)

The best annotators – Alekhine (agreed), Marco and Grunfeld (never saw their work).

The most unexpected move ever played was played in a game between Lewitzky-Marshall, Breslau, 1912. (uh, who made it and what move was it?)

The quietest finishing move was Black’s 25^th move played in the Samisch-Nimzovitch, Copenhagen, 1923.

The most brilliant move was move 36 in the game between Alekhine-Tartakower in Vienna, 1922.

The most brilliant player beyond a doubt is Alekhine. (Bobby Fischer and Magnus Carlsen were not born yet)

The most over-rated player was Paul Morphy. (How would you like a punch in the mouth? Bobby Fischer calls Morphy the most under-rated chess player of all time, and he also said Morphy was farthest ahead of his contemporaries than any other player.... ever)

The greatest blindfold player is Alekhine. (At that time, yes, he was)

The greatest simul player was Capablanca. (correct, for that time)

The greatest natural player was Zukertort. He once one a tournament in 1883 by 4.5 points and his closest competitor was the current world champion Steinitz.

Ed. Closes - One could argue that American Sammy Reshevsky may have been the best natural player ever. This child prodigy chess player never bothered to learn or memorize opening theory at all. He played nearly every game by the seat of his pants, and was #2 in the world many times in his life. But he had a propensity to fall for deeper opening traps for just this reason, leaving him in positional and/or time trouble many, many times.

2021 LCCC Champion Crowned! - Next Meeting Nov 8, 2021 -And Some Chess Facts

 

The wily veteran and retired school teacher, Paul Mills (left) captured the club championship! Paul (4 - 0) played steady and never varied from his solid chess approach. Congratulations Paul!

Sam Thompson was a clear second (3.5).

Pete Bruder and Mike Nikitin finished tied for 3rd (3).

Thank you to all 15 players who participated.

We are meeting again this Monday at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Brighton MI at 4pm until 10pm. Please stop by for some fun casual chess.

Now for some fun chess facts:

> An English Master J.H. Blackburne was a player in international tournaments for over 50 years! (1862-1914).

> A. F. Mackenzie, although blind, composed some of the finest chess problems ever published.

> Judge James McConnell had the distinctive honor of having played chess games with both Paul Morphy and Jose Capablanca.

> Former USA Champion A. B. Hodges participated in every cable match between the USA and England and never lost a game.

> Alexander Alekhine played in a GM tournament in Bled, Slovenia in 1931 and did not lose a game for 26 full rounds. His margin of victory was 5.5 points over second place finisher Efim Bogoljubow, who was only 6 points ahead of the last place finisher.

> GM David Janowski lost a match to Frank Marshall. But confidence in his own play never waivered. A few months after the match, Janowski cabled Marshall and challenged him to another match and he would give Marshall knight odds.

> German Master Arnold Schottlander needed only a draw to win the Leipzig Tournament in 1888. His opponent, German Master Jacques Mieses offered him a draw during the game. Schottlander turned him down, then promptly lost the game and with that, 1st prize.

LCCC Meets Next Oct 25. - Last Rd of Club Champ. - and a Nice Endgame

 

Another great evening of chess at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Brighton, MI. Twelve players were present and the LCCC 2021 Club Championship continued.

Feel free to stop by for some casual chess as, not only can you play before and after the tournament games are done, but not all our members are in the tournament. So you can find a casual game anyway!

Here are the pairings for the last round of action. The first player listed has the White pieces:

Board 1 - Paul M  - Ken T

Board 2 - Sam T - Charlie S

Board 3 - Levi T - Mike N

Board 4 - Pete B - Jeremy N

Board 5 - John T - Jacob W

Board 6 - Jeff S - Tim S

Board 7 - Jakob K - Eric V

Board 8 - Leo B   - Bye

 Now for a pretty endgame:

Your humble scribe made the decision to stop putting games on this blog. The reason is that you can find annotated games anywhere – either on-line or in books and magazines. Me reviewing a game on this blog, probably gets almost as little attention than me walking into a singles bar.

Ok, more attention than that, but my point is, the article will not get much attention.

But I found this endgame and thought it was worthy of noting. It is noteworthy because it shows the absolute beauty of chess.

White is ahead in material, but his King is woefully out of play having unsuccessfully attempted to protect a pawn into a new queen. White has issues in attempting to stop Black’s h-pawn from queening.

The White Knight cannot get there fast enough. Do you have the bishop play guard duty at the expense of the knight and the b-pawn, or are there other options?

Let us investigate with the help of Igor3000 as we review Grandmaster Max Euwe’s style and amount of correctness in the face of our Super Grandmaster Igor3000's computer chip analysis. Oh, and mine. 

Stop laughing please.

       1.     Nc1            …….

GM and Doctor of Mathematics Euwe makes the correct play. I would have played Bh5. Just sayin. White is winning after Euwe’s move by the equivalent of 6.5 pawns.

       1.     ……             h2

       2.     Be8+          Ka5?

Black, shall go nameless because I do not know who it was. But he was one of the many excellent chess players of that era who never got the recognition they deserved. Much like the writers of chess blogs, who toil in anonymity, long hours, for no pay! These bloggers should be heralded from the highest mountain and……..sorry. Back to the game.

 Igor3000 says that 2. …..  Kb4 was much better. A blunder which makes Max’s job easier. Igor’s move puts Black down 7 pawns as opposed to the 14 pawns he is down with the text move.

I am sure the Doctor would not have a problem with a blogger of my stature calling him Max. Just sayin.

        3.     Nd3           h1 = Q?

Black errors again, but who can blame him? Queening the pawn looks like the only move for humans. Igor says Kb6 was best but still leaves Black down 16 pawns. I would get the queen also. Maybe my opponent blunders. Get the bullets while you can if you are losing. Maybe you will get the chance to use them.

       4.     b4+            Kb6

       5.     Nb2!          a5???

The final nail in the coffin for Black as he walks into a mate in two. Both Qa1 or Qe1 prolong the fight to a mate in 20. If that means anything.

       6.     Na4+          Ka6

       7.     b5 mate

Why bother stopping the pawn when you can mate your opponent instead? An amazing finish!