Chess to Enjoy / Entertainment
2014 U.S. and Women’s
Championships
Rapid playoffs helped decide two national titles earlier this year: Gata Kamsky ended a tie for first place in the U.S. Championship by beating Varuzhan Akobian, while Irina Krush won the U.S. Women’s Championship title in a tiebreaker with Tatev Abrahamyan. Games from the two tournaments, held at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, provide our quiz positions this month. In each of the six diagrams 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 pieces. For solutions, see page 71.
Problem I
GM Alex Onischuk GM Aleksandr Lenderman
Problem II
IM Anna Zatonskih WGM Camilla Baginskaite
Problem III
GM Alejandro Ramirez GM Joshua Friedel
BLACK TO PLAY
Problem IV WGM Tatev Abrahamyan WGM Sabina-Francesca Foisor
WHITE TO PLAY
Problem V GM Joshua Friedel GM Timur Gareev
BLACK TO PLAY
Problem VI GM Irina Krush FM Alisa Melekhina
WHITE TO PLAY
2008 in a dead-silent, glass-enclosed “aquar- ium,” Vassily Ivanchuk still kept his fingers in his ears. “It’s my habit of many years,” he told the ChessPro website. “It’s hard to avoid it for one tour na ment.”
Get your mind off the game—Many players are relatively calm while thinking about a move but begin to worry immediately after playing it. That’s why some Soviet- era coaches taught their students to turn their mind off and do something trivial: As soon as you make a move, slowly write it down in the long-form of notation: Not “1. d4” and “1. ... Nf6” but “1. d2-d4” and 1. ... Ng8-f6,” they advised. Some elite players unconciously adopt tension-reducing habits. Garry Kasparov waved his head from side to side. Alexander Alekhine twirled a lock of his blond hair. Tigran Petrosian moved his legs under the table so much that he was called a “cyclist.” One frequent U.S. Championship player shook his body back and forth in his seat. His colleagues gave the agitated grand- master a nickname—“Maytag.” Other players like to pace. During Mark Taimanov’s 1971 Candidates match with Fischer, Bobby asked USCF Executive Director Ed Edmondson to complain to the Russian that his pacing near the board was upsetting him. Taimanov agreed to stop but added, “Only tell Bobby not to wag his foot under the table when it’s my move. I have nerves, too.”
WHITE TO PLAY
Move faster—It sounds strange to people who don’t play competitive chess, but faster time limits tend to reduce nervous- ness. Players don’t agonize as long while their opponent is thinking. The tension is dissipated, not compressed. Ivanchuk won a strong international
this year with an 11-1 score, an amazing 3045 performance rating. It may have been his best result ever—and being a speed tournament helped.
Symmetrical English (A30) GM Vladimir Malakhov (FIDE 2717, RUS) GM Vassily Ivanchuk (FIDE 2753, UKR) Latvian Railway Open (4), 03.28.2014
1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 b6 4. Bg2 Bb7 5. 0-0 Be7 6. b3 0-0 7. Bb2 c5 8. Nc3 d6 9. e3 Nbd7 10. Qe2 a6 11. Rfd1 Re8 12. d4 cxd4 13. Rxd4 Qc7 14. Rad1 h6 15. R4d2 Rac8 16. h3 Bf8 17. Nd4 Bxg2 18. Kxg2 Qb7+ 19. Qf3? d5!
The standard way of handling this kind
of position is 19. f3! followed by 20. e4 with a slight edge. As it stands, Black threatens 20. ... Ne5 21. Q-moves dxc4+.
20. Kh2 Ne4 21. Nxe4? dxe4 22. Qe2 Ne5 23. Kg2 Nd3 24. Ba1 b5 25. cxb5 axb5 26. Kg1 Rc5 27. Nc2 Rf5 28. Rf1 Rc8 29. Rdd1 h5 30. Ne1
(see diagram top of next column)
Black didn’t need to think much about his next series of paralyzing moves.
BLACK TO PLAY
30. ... Nc1! 31. Qb2 Rfc5 32. h4 b4! 33. Qd2 Qa6! 34. Ng2 Rc2 35. Qd7 Qxa2 36. Be5 Nd3 37. Ra1 Nxe5! 38. Qxc8 Nf3+ 39. Kh1 Qxa1 40. Qxf8+ Kxf8 41. Rxa1 Rxf2, White resigned.
Six years after their game in Havana, nervousness struck Boris Spassky in his world championship match with Fischer. After the match he said that when Fischer got into an argument with the arbiter dur- ing the third game, “I should have made a show of getting up and refusing to play. I’d have gotten a zero, but at the same time I’d have preserved my nerves.” Instead, he played the game, lost and
didn’t recover until late in the match. By then his nerves had failed him in five favorable positions, he said, and he was an ex-world champ.
Look for daily chess world updates on Chess Life Online at
uschess.org!
www.uschess.org 21
WHITE TO PLAY
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