Chess to Enjoy / Entertainment
2013 U.S. Chess League
More than 160 players competed on 16 teams in matches from August to November in the 2013 United States Chess League season. The last team standing was the Miami Sharks, which crushed the New York Knights 31
⁄2 -1 ⁄2
Problem I Bryan Hu Siddharth Banik
Problem II Jared Defibaugh FM Tian Sang
Problem III FM Marcel Martinez Diego Garcia
to win the championship. The league’s games provide our six quiz positions this month. In each diagram you are asked to find the fastest winning line of play. This will usually mean the forced win of a decisive amount of material, such as a rook or minor piece. And keep your eye out this month for queen sacrifices. For solutions, see page 71.
BLACK TO PLAY
Problem IV IM Akshat Chandra FM Rico Salimbagat
BLACK TO PLAY
Problem V GM Pascal Charbonneau FM Steven Winer
WHITE TO PLAY
Problem VI FM Curt Collyer FM Yian Liou
WHITE TO PLAY
diminutive Reshevsky sandwiched in between the burly Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin. Other players, such as Donald Byrne, Alexander Kotov and Her- man Steiner, stood in the background. According to Mark Taimanov, who was
present, the photo came about because of Reshevsky: “Shmulik, as we called him, approached me and said, ‘Mark, for us it would be such an honor to be photographed with the leaders of your country,’” he wrote on the
e3e5.com website. “I went to Nikita Sergeyevich (Khrushchev) and said ‘Our American colleagues would like to be pho- tographed with you.’ He said, ‘Well, let’s do it. Gather everyone.’ ” Afterwards Khrushchev said he was impressed by Reshevsky. “Such a little man, but so big in chess!” he said. There used to be a tradition that when
a national team went abroad to compete, the players had to be photographed as they boarded their ship or airplane. But when Soviet chess authorities wanted a group photo of the 10-man team that was headed to Belgrade to play the “Rest of the World” former world champ Mikhail Botvinnik refused because he was upset about being assigned eighth board. So a Soviet artist superimposed a sep-
arate snapshot of Botvinnik into the group photo, making it seem like he, Petrosian, Viktor Korchnoi, et al were one big happy Bolshevik family. That was a rare case—in the pre-Pho-
WHITE TO PLAY
toshop era—when you couldn’t trust a photo. In the main, snapshots are more credible than the stories you can find on the Internet. Take the case of Arnold Denker winning
the 1944 U.S. Championship. The April 1944 Chess Reviewpublished four photos of him with the man he de feated in the key game.
Nimzo-Indian Defense, Rubinstein Variation (E43) Arnold Denker Reuben Fine U.S. Championship, New York, 1944
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 b6 5. Bd3 Bb7 6. Nf3 Ne4 7. 0-0 Nxc3 8. bxc3 Bxc3 9. Rb1 Ba5 10. Ba3 d6 11. c5! 0-0 12. cxd6 cxd6 13. e4 Re8 14. e5 dxe5 15. Nxe5 Qg5
Fine later felt 15. ... g6 was an adequate defense. When Denker claimed an edge with 16. Bb5 Qd5 17. f3 Bc6 18. Ng4 (18. ... Qd8 19. d5! threatening Qd4!), Fine said it was Black who is better after 18. ... Kg7!.
16. g3 g6 17. Qa4! Qd8 18. Rfc1 (see diagram top of next column)
18. ... b5 19. Bxb5 Qd5 20. f3 Bb6 21. Rc5! Bxc5 22. Bxc5 Rf8 23. Bc4! Bc6 24. Bxd5 Bxa4 25. Bxa8, Black resigned.
WHITE TO PLAY
Chess Review, which billed itself “The
Picture Chess Magazine,” ran the photos with the players’ comments about the game. “Anytime you can get Reuben here to lose a game by winning a pawn in the opening, that’s something,” Denker said in one caption. “What makes you think I like pawns so
much,” Fine replied in another. “Confi- dentially, I don’t think a pawn is worth much more than a finger!” “Well that depends on what pawn!” Denker answered. But history mangled the quotes. Look
on the Internet and you’ll find dozens of sites that credit “I’d rather have a pawn than a finger”—to Fine. And the reply, “It depends: which pawn
and which finger,” is credited to ... Roman Dzhindzhichashvili—who was born during the 1944 tournament.
www.uschess.org 19
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