My Chess Blog

One of the finest games played in the modern times and surely would find a place right at the top in this edition of Qatar Masters! After going through the game once, you might be tempted to ask..."what is so great about it!?"....and probably even be deluded to think that this is a pompous exposition.... .....and to that inveterate questioner I only hope that he allows him sufficient time to see through the game again and again....dispassionately....and more importantly.....without that 'devil called engine'. For under its apparent simplicity, the game hides a silent dynamism ....a poetic concept....and hence I am tempted to find a parallel to it in that great game played by Capablanca against Lasker in their world championship match, almost a century back; which I shall deal in a separate post. Again please don't expect a similar ending...in fact it is a Rook and Knight ending, but in spirit, both these games are 'similar' - a carefully chosen...

"..... then, you should say what you mean ," the March Hare went on. " I do ," Alice hastily replied: " at least....at least I mean what I say ."  - Lewis Carroll The position that occurred in Vishy - So game yesterday in Bilbao. 14.Nc3 A novelty on the 14th move - unless one chooses to play an obscure setup - in itself is a novelty these days! In an earlier experiment in this position, L'Ami tried 14.Qf2?! against Volokitin in 2007 which ended in a disaster for White after 14....Nd4! the annoying move which exposes the weak spots in the White camp 15.Nf3 e5! This move underlines the strength of Black's position and it germinates primarily from the the presence of White's Knight on a4 (the take on d4 deprives of the return journey for that Knight!), whilst opening up the line for the c8-Bishop, and threatening the e4 pawn! 16.Nd4 ......Ng4 was threatened! 16.....Ng4; 17.Qf3 ed4;  18.c5 OO; 19.Rc1 Though...

"For me, the most important thing was the inner contents of the fight, the inner state of the two opponents at the board." - Tigran Petrosian The prophetic words of the great master of strategic play studded with great deceptive dynamism, is the underlying factor....chief one in determining success. Stress......the oft mentioned term in modern days, is the chief component of this inner state! Simply put, " stress refers to that quality of experience, produced through a person-environment transaction, that, through either overarousal or underarousal, results in psychological or physiological distress " - the best description of the term that I've come across. Without getting into the science of it, suffice to say that it is merely a perceived sense and the protagonist in the 'act of stress' is Mr.Mind! Stress can be "experienced" either through overarousal or underarousal and Svidler exemplified both in two games!  It can be psycholog...

" To value, to valuate, to judge, to estimate a thing does not pretend to exact knowledge "                                                                                                               - Steinitz-Lasker ....and.....therefore, it is not 'static' calculation but the 'dynamic' evaluation which is paramount in determining the success of a strategy; and as Einstein said, we can only strive to find, derive, manifest value and have absolutely no control over success - which incidentally depends on the interplay of valuation by two different minds and its capacity to stay and thrive in the state of flux without swaying much! Well.....then, in the first game of the World Cup final between Svidler a...

"It is usually thought that the prerequisites of chess creativity are logic, accurate calculation of variations, and technique; the latter including theoretical knowledge. There is a fourth component, however, perhaps the most attractive, although it is often forgotten. I have in mind "intuition", or, if you like, "imagination" - David Bronstein Lu Shanglei - Veselin Topalov, WC, 2015 This opening by Lu, dating back to " Qing Dynasty ", is probably for celebrating the great escape in his first game..... and he managed to survive this too....not so elegantly. What was shocking was the first game between these two! Veselin Topalov -  Lu Shanglei - WC, 2015 - Game: 1 A guy who fires even without bullets in his gun, got a loaded AK-47! 23.....Qg2?! When one would have squirmed seeing his previous move 22.....h5, this move would have defied expression!  No longer Topalov has AK-47, instead Black has sold him a missile launc...

" For a long time, I suspected that the question of dark-square weaknesses and attacks on the dark squares that I read about in books was incomprehensible not only to me but to the writers themselves. I used to tell myself, in fact, that my opponent's dark squares were weak when his men stood on light squares and he had no dark-square Bishop. But what if he took all his pieces off the dark squares? What could I attack then? That is how I reasoned until one day it dawned on me that a dark-square weakness meant that the pieces on the light squares were also weak. Likewise, a weakness of the light squares leads to the weakness of the men on dark squares. " If Kafka's famous opening sentence in ' Metamorphosis ': " One day, Gregor Samsa wakes up on his bed to find himself transformed into a giant insect... " was revolutionary in literary fiction world; then so is David Bronstein's famous opening paragraph from the 'bible for chess players...

"You cannot solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that you had at the time of its creation" - Albert Einstein Einstein was ruing after realising that. what he discovered has the potential to destroy the world.  The problem confronting us now in Chess is also similar; the human quest to exercise his intelligence and invent lead to the 'creation' of engines, which has spread like virus.  It bestows ill-found power and means to over exploit the profoundness of chess and rob it off all the wonders and surprises.  I wish we have a reset button pressing which will take us back to the age without chess engines, computers..... .....a walk on the roads, amidst woods also took us to our destination, as did the air-plane, but as one might say, delayed…. But the delay provided us with unbound treat of observing the nature, in its own terms; discovering new men, their culture, and exploring mystery amidst our walk, without compromising on the target of...