Friday, March 18, 2022

Two Great Players You Never Heard Of - and LCCC Random 960 Final Monday!

 


LCCC will be back at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Brighton, MI this coming Monday March 21, 2022 from 4pm until 10pm. Stop by for some chess! There will be players available for a casual game.

But our Fischer Random 960 Tournament final round will also be played. Here are the final pairings. The first player listed is playing the White pieces;

Board 1 – Paul M – Vince V

Board 2 – Sam T – Pete B

Board 3 – Mike N – Ken T

Board 4 – Jeff S – AJ E

Board 5 – Jim G – Leo B

Board 6 – Frank F – Levi T

Board 7 – Mary B – Charlie S

Thank you to all the participants!

Now a little remembrance article. I like to call out great chess players that faded away from even most of even the most ardent chess players. And there are many of them. Here are just two.

About 188 years ago was the last match between two of the best players of their era – Louis de Bourdonnais of France and Alexander MacDonnell of Ireland. Their matches were a rivalry of styles and of countries. Each nation behind their guy completely.

In all, there were six individual matches over a span of less than 6 months in 1834. 85 games in all. MacDonnell has a variation of the King’s Gambit named after him as he introduced it in these matches.

Match 1: Louis de Bourdonnais 16      MacDonnell 5          Drawn 4

Match 2: Louis de Bourdonnais 4          MacDonnell 5         Drawn 0

Match 3: Louis de Bourdonnais 6        MacDonnell 5          Drawn  1

Match 4: Louis de Bourdonnais   8       MacDonnell 3          Drawn  7

Match 5: Louis de Bourdonnais   7        MacDonnell 4          Drawn  4

Match 6: Louis de Bourdonnais   4          MacDonnell 5          Drawn  0

The sixth match was not completed as MacDonnell was hospitalized with kidney disease and he died. How much the health of the frail MacDonnell played in his losses is open for debate. But both men were considered the two best at that time.

Many impartial chess experts said that MacDonnell was starting to turn the tide in their rivalry, even with his declining health. But posterity seems it was justifiable to heap most of the praise on de Bourdonnais, and that really cannot be argued with the results given.

MacDonnell was buried in London’s Kensal Green Cemetery. When Louis de Bourdonnais died penniless 6 years later in 1840, leading chess players made arrangements for him to be buried near his rival.

If you get a chance to, play over some of the games between them. Two men, the best at their craft at that time, playing mostly for the love of the game.

Wednesday, March 2, 2022

LCCC Meets This Monday - 960 Tournament Continues - And Meet the 14th Chess World Champion!

 


Come on by the Buffalo Wild Wings, in Brighton, Michigan for chess! Casual chess will still be played this Monday, March 7, starting at 4pm until approximately 10pm. However, we also have a Fischer Random 960 tournament going on! It will start at 6:30pm or earlier, if the players are there and want to get started. Or a little later if folks can’t make exactly at 6:30. Our club is very player friendly! Here are the pairings for Round 3. The player listed first is playing the White pieces:

Board 1: Mike N – Paul M

Board 2: Ken T – Levi T

Board 3: Sam T- AJ E

Board 4: Pete B – Jeff S

Board 5: Vince V – Mary B

Board 6: Frank F – Leo B

Board 7: Jim G – Charlie S

Stop on by to play or to watch the action!

Now meet the 14th Chess World Champion!

Alexander Valerievich Khalifman (see photo) was born on January 18, 1966, in Leningrad. Khalifman is of Jewish descent. When he was six years old, his father taught him the game. From there, he became the FIDE World Chess Champion from 1999-2000.

Khalifman studied in the mathematics and mechanics department at Leningrad State University. He served in the Russian army. He is married and has a daughter.

His first trainer was Vassily Byvshev. Later he worked for many years with a Honored Trainer of the Russian Federation, Gennady Nesis. Alexander achieved his first major successes in youth chess. He was the two-time junior champion of the USSR (1982, 1984) and junior champion of Europe in 1985. Among the titles he has won in official competitions are: two-time champion of Saint Petersburg in 1996-97, champion of Russia in 1996, member of the winning Russian world championship team in 1997, and a member of the winning Olympiad teams in 1992, 2000, and 2002.

He achieved the title of International Master in 1986 and became a Grandmaster in 1990. His highest FIDE rating was 2702 (October 2001, January 2003, April 2003). His current FIDE rating is 2625.

He was a participant in the Candidates’ matches in 1994. He has been the victor or a prizewinner in many international tournaments, among them Plovdiv 1986 (3), Dordrecht 1988 (1), Moscow 1990 (1), Groningen 1990 (1), New York Open 1990 (1), London 1991 (1), Ter Apel 1993 (1), Rakvere 1993 (1), Elenite 1994 (1), St. Petersburg 1995 (1), Hastings 1995 (1), Bad Worishofen 1996 (1), Ischia 1996 (1), St. Petersburg 1997 (1), Aarhus 1997 (1), Hoogoven 2000 (1), Kazan 2005 (1) (sharing first place in the premier league of the Russian championship) and others.

His greatest success was his victory in the FIDE World Championship in Las Vegas (USA) in 1999, a tournament in which practically all of the strongest players in the world participated, with the exception of Kasparov and Anand. The tournament was conducted by the knockout system.  After winning the title of FIDE World Champion the Petersburg grandmaster admitted, “I always knew that someday I would be first!”

Alexander Khalifman is a famous chess theoretician and writer. He is the author of the popular series of opening books, “The Opening for White According to Anand” (analysis of the move 1. e4, in 12 volumes) and “The Opening for White According to Kramnik” (analysis of the move 1. Nf3, in 3 volumes), which have also been translated into English.

He is the co-author, with G. Nesis, of the books “Tactics in the Grunfeld Defense” and “Tactics in the French Defense“. He has written numerous columns, which have been published in practically all the leading chess periodicals of the world.

 Below Khalifman is interviewed for a Russian chess magazine.

 To promote children’s chess – what applied skills of chess education do you consider the most significant?

Chess is fairly unique for the precise reason that it teaches you to think. Most subjects taught in school only weigh your memory down with information, without giving you the skills of independent mental work. Even the solution of physical or mathematical problems most of the time can be reduced to one standard algorithm or another.

But chess teaches you to think, and not only that, does it in a playful form that is very natural for children. And at the same time, it brings you face to face with a very concrete result.

Your most memorable game?

Now I have to talk about missed opportunities after all. I was 20 years old, and several rounds before the end of the USSR Championship (Kiev, 1986) I played a good game and had a simple win against the respected GM Vitaly Valerievich Tseshkovsky. If I had won, I would have moved into first place. Alas, I lost the game, and after that I fell apart at the finish. You would think that was all long ago, but it still bothers me to this day.

Tell us, please, about your most memorable victory and most painful loss!

The most painful loss was against Tseshkovsky (USSR Championship, 1986), and the most memorable victory was my draw in the 6th game of the match with Akopian (Las Vegas, 1999). For several days after the defeat against Tseshkovsky I would even wake up, as in “Groundhog Day”, hoping that it was only a bad dream, and today I would play the game as it ought to be played. Unfortunately, it was not a dream… But after the game with Akopian, such a feeling cannot be described. I was happy that this happened to me.”

Is your style more tactical than positional? How would you assess your style of play in chess (brilliant tactician, strategist, attacker, defender, etc.)?

My style is more universal than either of the categories you just named. The absence of even the smallest apparent talent always forced me to play off my opponent, in other words, to play in that style that would be most uncomfortable for that particular opponent in that particular game. That’s difficult work, of course, but at times it didn’t work out badly. I tried to be a universal player and act in a fashion that would be maximally uncomfortable for the concrete opponent.

After this victory, did you consider yourself an equal classical champion in the line beginning with Steinitz-Lasker- … up to Kasparov, or did you somewhere in your heart of hearts understand that it wasn’t so? [Ed. Note: Brutal question. The interviewer is asking, ‘do you rightfully consider yourself the weakest World Champion of all time, or are you lying to yourself?’]

Thank you for your undoubtedly good intentions, but it never even came into my head to consider myself the equal of Steinitz. He defeated Zukertort, but I had to master Kamsky, Gelfand, and Polgar. Now compare. In my perhaps uneducated opinion, a world chess champion should prove his superiority not only over one outstanding challenger, but over others who are, perhaps, equally outstanding.

I do not idealize the knockout system and I do not even have any thought of considering myself a great chess player, but nevertheless the ideal system for awarding the world championship has not yet been invented. [Ed. Note: An absolutely beautiful answer to a boorish question.]

Whose games, among the former world champions, created the strongest impression on you?

You can learn something from all of them, but if I had to choose the absolute favorites, it would probably be Fischer and Tal.