City Chess

Wrapping up 2011, Big Vlad in London, Rybka muddies the water, double-time Donastia, and Nakamura's 'In Da House'. Or, in other words: The Full English Breakfast #16 is out!

Mission: Bring the serious chess news analysis. VERY serious, and not at all witty. Definitely not tongue in cheek. ;) Origins: The Full English Breakfast started life as a late night brainstorm at the 2009 GibTel (now Tradewise) Chess Festival in Gibraltar. Trent and Macauley struck up a conversation about things missing in the chess media, and hit upon the idea of doing a podcast combining the serious with the slightly sophomoric. Trent quickly brought in his pal Stevie G. dramatically raising both the intellectual and the dialectical heft of the new ensemble. And the rest, as they say, is hysterical.

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Every week we present you an endgame study selected by IM Yochanan Afek: player, trainer, endgame study composer and writer. A week later the solution is published. Good luck solving!

--> IM Yochanan Afek's Official Website

I. Akobia 2011  

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White to play and win

Next week the solution.

Last week's solution:

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Iceland celebrated its first "Chess Day" on January 26th, the country's first GM and ex-FIDE president Fridrik Olafsson's birthday. GM Olafsson, who turned 77 that day, was honored at a reception at Bessastadir, the Presidential Residence. The day featured many events across all of Iceland, including simuls and blitzes in schools, shopping malls, swimming pools and at Althingi (the Parliament House).

By Gunnar Bjornsson

GM Fridrik Olafsson (born 1935) joined the world's chess elite from the mid 1950s onwards. His illustrious career included victories at Hastings, Wijk aan Zee and the Reykjavik Open (three times), beating four world champions on the way, Tal, Fischer, Petrosian (twice) and Karpov.

Fridrik Olafsson

GM Olafsson played significant part in the programs offered on Chess Day 2012. At Bessastadir, he played Iceland's newly crowned Under-14 national champion (10-year old Nansy Davidsdottir, one of the many promising young players emerging in Iceland currently) and simuls at the headquarters of the Icelandic Broadcasting Company, including its director general.

Iceland now counts 13 GMs, despite a population of only 300,000. GM Johann Hjartarson, who 20 years ago played in the semi-finals of the candidates matches, played simuls against MPs. Althingi has many notable chess players, including WIM Gretarsdottir, former president of the Icelandic Chess Federation. Another former president of the Icelandic Chess Federation is the chief political advisor to the Icelandic PM. So the words chess and politics are really intertwined in Iceland!

But the Chess Day wasn't only celebrated by the Icelandic president and MPs; 18-year old IM Hjorvar Steinn Gretarsson, who had a breakthrough performance at last year's European Championship (including a famous win against Shirov), where he captured two GM norms, played a game against the people of Iceland on the Internet. ICC hosted the Icelandic Championship in 2-minute blitz.

Iceland's latest GM, Stefan Kristjansson and IM Bragi Thorfinnsson, played a marathon blitz match in a shopping mall in Reykjavik; another simul was played by Bragi's older brother, IM Bjorn Thorfinnsson, in a swimming pool, where he swam between floating chess boards. Playing chess in swimming pools is gaining popularity in Iceland (which is known for its geothermal energy and naturally heated swimming pools) – remember that famous Evans-Fischer photo?

The Chess Day was also celebrated on the Artic Circle, in Grimsey, which counts only 60 inhabitants. Grimsey is famous as being the beneficiary of a major chess gift from American scholar and chess enthusiast Willard Fisk, who helped organize the first American Chess Congress in 1857. Grimsey's own national holiday is in fact November 11, Fiske's birthday.

The Icelandic Chess Federation, together with the Reykjavik Chess Academy, and the Icelandic Chess School, organized the Chess Day. The Chess Day will be celebrated annually in the future.

The Icelandic Chess Federation is now in the midst of preparations for the famous Reykjavik Open tournament, which will take place in perhaps the most spectacular playing venue any chess tournament in the world has ever enjoyed. Among registered players are 25 GMs, including Italian GM Fabiano Caruana, who finished in 2-4th place in the recent Wijk aan Zee event.

There are very attractive travel packages offered with Icelandair. For more information about the Reykjavik Open, please visit www.chess.is.

Around the same time that we received this article by Gunnar Bjornsson, we read at the website of the Dutch chess federation that Secretary of State Fred Teeven is trying to create a National Chess Day in The Netherlands as well. He said this during the annual simul for politicians in The Hague, which always takes place on the first Wedensday after Wijk aan Zee. Tata Steel sponsors this event every year and last Wednesday it was Kateryna Lahno who gave the simul. (She won 24 games and drew 2.)

Among children who play chess, we see less truancy, less crime and less drug use.

said Teeven.

Chess teaches a child to be creative, to follow his intuition, to analyze, and to make decisions for which he is responsible. He cannot, like in team sports, hide behind the group or blame the team. No, he is responsible for the game he has played. He learns to deal with blows.

Teeven intends to make the Wednesday immediately after the Tata tournament as the fixed date for the National Chess Day. The mayor of The Hague, Jozias van Aartsen, has already pledged its support for the initiative. As far as Teeven and Van Aartsen are concerned, the first Chess Day will be in 2013. (And because the 75th Tata Steel tournament will take place January 11th-27th, 2013 that would be Wednesday, January 30th, 2013.)

As a life-long King's Indian player (not counting the occasional flirt with the Grünfeld), I've never been very enthusiastic about answering the move 1.d4 with putting my pawns on d5 and e6. In Queen's Gambits White always has a small but very annoying edge, the Nimzo & Queen's Indian complex somehow doesn't seem to suit my style and without my bishop on g7 all those London Systems (where White goes 2.Nf3 and 3.Bf4) and Torre Attacks (3.Bg5) seem so much harder to beat! The Ragozin Complex (New in Chess, 2011), however, gave me that final push over the edge and into unknown queen's pawn territory. I might just have lost that complex of having to start with 1...Nf6 and 2...g6!

Let me start by saying that in my view, Barsky's book belongs to the same category as classics like Understanding the Grünfeld by Jonathan Rowson (Gambit, 1998) and Queen's Gambit Declined by Matthew Sadler (Everyman, 2000). It's a wonderful guide to this more or less neglected opening system, with about as much attention to explanation as to the actual theory. On top of that, the author not only provides a lengthy introduction about Ragozin himself, but also the full translation of Isaak Lipnitsky's 'forgotten research' from 1956 on the Ragozin Defence, including his article 'How to Study a Concrete Opening'. All this together makes The Ragozin Complex more than just another opening book.

The Ragozin is basically the opening system that arises after the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 d5 3.c4 e6 4.Nc3 Bb4. Naturally, a lot of games start with 1.d4 d5 or even 1.Nf3.

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This defence, which at first sight looks like some kind of mixture of the Queen's Gambit Declined and the Nimzo-Indian, was introduced into practice by Viacheslav Vasilievich Ragozin (1908-1962), in his time a top grandmaster from the Soviet-Union, and also a well-known theoretican. He was a close friend of Mikhail Botvinnik and helped him in many occasions, including World Championship matches. Ragozin's best individual achievements include a 2nd place at the 1947 Chigorin Memorial ahead of Keres, Smyslov, Boleslavsky, Kotov and Gligoric, and winning the 1959 World Correspondence Championship.

The author of The Ragozin Complex, Vladimir Barsky, is an International Master himself, but mostly involved in coaching and journalism. For instance, at the moment he is also editor-in-chief of the website of the Russian Chess Federation. Besides, many of his photos appear on websites and in chess magazines. Opening lovers might know him for his The Modern Philidor Defence (Chess Stars, 2010) and, of course, for co-authoring The Chigorin Defence According to Morozevich (New in Chess, 2007).

Already in his introduction, the author reveals his love for the historical aspect of the game of chess. He quotes Alexander Alekhine, who at first is sceptical about putting the bishop on b4. In his article 'The Significance of the New York tournament (1924) for Opening Theory', Alekhine wrote:

...Still less can one recommend the development of the bishop to b4 on move four (as in the game Capablanca-Marshall), since then by the reply 5.Qa4+! White can force 5...Nc6, which makes it significantly more difficult for the opponent to achieve the important task of opening lines in the centre. It is remarkable that the world champion did not exploit this possibility.

According to Barsky, it was this remark by Alekhine that got Ragozin interested in exploring the position after 5.Qa4+ Nc6 6.e3 more. And in fact soon after, Alekhine softened his opinion. In his game against Colle at Hastings 1925/26, he played it as Black, and said:

Although, strictly speaking, this defence is not fully correct, it is not easy to refute. I chose it specifically in order to convince myself of the practical chances which can arise in the event of inaccurate play by White, and of those dangers which he faces, if White plays correctly.

In the 1930s the Ragozin Defence started to become more and more popular. In subsequent decades the opening setup with ...d5, ...e6, ...Nf6 and ...Bb4 never grew into a main-line, but it always kept its special place in 1.d4 theory. In recent years strong players such as Levon Aronian, Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Grischuk, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Pavel Eljanov and Hou Yifan have played it more than once.

It's quite amazing that there hadn't appeared a book on the Ragozin before! The only substantial theoretical research ever published was a section in the famous book Questions of Modern Chess Theory by Isaac Lipnitsky (yes, the book that got Bobby Fischer to learn Russian, and... play the Ragozin!). A second edition of this book (the English translation was reviewed by us) was published in 2007, but the theoretical section on the Ragozin was replaced by a selection of Lipnitsky's best games.

Once a 'Russian schoolboy' himself, Barsky was lucky enough to become acquainted with Lipnitsky's book when he was young. Therefore, when he started to write a book on the Ragozin a few years ago, he decided that he couldn't do without Lipnitsky's research, even though it was more than half a century old. The result of Barsky's approach is a wonderful mixture of what you might call 'Soviet School of Chess analysis and explanation' by Lipnitsky, and up-to-date games and theory brought together by Barsky himself, all interwoven in one book.

The additional value is that Barsky makes clear that Lipnitsky's explanations and even variations haven't lost their topicality. Take, for instance, this brilliant game:

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This game cannot be found in the Megabase 2012. And so it can happen that in a game from the 2009 Spanish team championship between two players rated around 2400, Black didn't play 8...Bd7!! but 8...0-0?! instead. Barsky tells the whole story, quoting from an article by Mihail Marin published in the German magazine Schach, called 'Old wine in new bottles'. The game itself is given later in the book by Barsky, where he combines, like in the whole book, quotes from Lipnitsky with personal annotations.

Let us give the microphone at least once to Lipnitsky himself, so that you can decide for yourself whether you can learn something from words and sentences written in 1956.

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 O-O 5. Bd3 d5 6. Nf3 Nc6!? 7. O-O dxc4 8. Bxc4 Bd6 9. Bb5 e5 10. Bxc6 exd4 11. Bxb7 Bxb7 12. Nxd4 Qd7

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Black brings his queen into play and prevents the threats 13.Ndb5 or 13.Nf5. Either move would allow White either to eliminate the bishop on d7 or force the exchange of queens... Now Black has compensation for the pawn in the shape of greater freedom of action and two bishops, with White's queenside insufficiently developed.

Playing similar positions involves well-known difficulties. Black's compensation is of a temporary character and could evaporate quite quickly. White only needs to liquidate his development lag and ha can go over to a policy of exchanges or utilise his extra e-pawn in the centre. However one should not draw any hasty conclusions from this and start attacking the enemy king with all of one;s pieces, trying to mate him or else regain the pawn before he can develop, Such an approach can easily turn out to be a false trail. On the other hand, of course, if there is a chance of a successful attack on the king, one should exploit it.

But often such attacks can be easily repulsed, and in the process of defence, the underdeveloped pieces gradually come into play. The attacking side, having placed his pieces on the kingside, often lacks sufficient effectiveness in the centre and this can enhance the defensive possibilities in several ways: 1. by the exchange of the attacking pieces; 2. by driving them away; 3. by returning te extra material at the right moment, and taking key squares.

Thus, in this position, with the initiative for the pawn, to throw all one;s forces into an unclear attack on the king would be to burn one;s boats and play va-baque. A different method of play is correct - exploit the greater freedom of movement for further annexation of key points on the board, and the quickest possible mobilisation of the remaining forces. In doing this, it is important to prevent successful development by White.

The structure of the book is a collection of complete games (sometimes all the way up to a tablebase analysis of an endgame), which may not be to everyone's liking. This way it's not easy to get a good idea of the basic structure of the theory: what are the main-lines, which moves are important to remember, which not... However, the publisher put a lot of effort in creating structure around these games. The main chapters are named after the main alternatives White can play at move 5:

Chapter 1 - 5.Qa4+
Chapter 2 - 5.Qc2
Chapter 3 - 5.Qb3
Chapter 4 - 5.e3
Chapter 5 - 5.a3
Chapter 6 - 5.Bg5
Chapter 7 - 5.cxd5 exd5 6.Bg5

These chapter names are also shown at the top of each page (where unfortunately an error slipped in: Chapter 6 is called '6.Be3' on each page). Besides, at the end of the book there is an index of players, a games list, an index of variations and a bibliography so all this makes it more easy to get an idea of the different possibilities.

It's important to note that the book isn't especially focused on White or Black. It's not a repertoire book - in fact the subtitle is 'A guide for White and Black'. Therefore, it might take a bit more time to create your own repertoire if you decide to try out this system with Black. However, this can't be a real problem. I mean, for me the Ragozin would be something completely different, so I don't expect to be able to play it well after only a few hours of looking at critical lines! Barsky forces you to read about the history of the opening, and its development over the course of seven decades. But isn't that how new openings should be studied in the first place?

The Ragozin Complex is one of the better opening books I've seen in recent years. It's a highly interesting read for both opening theoreticians and lovers of chess culture and history.

English grandmaster Nigel Short won the 10th Tradewise Chess Festival in Gibraltar on Thursday after beating Hou Yifan of China in a blitz playoff. Both players had finished on 8/10.

17-year-old Hou Yifan was already assured of the top Woman’s Award of £10,000, irrespective of what would happen in the last round. She was lone leader on 7.5/9, and assured of some sort of open prize as well as the U18 prize! On the last day, all eyes were on Gibraltar to see if Hou Yifan could also claim the first prize of £20,000.

In the final round Hou Yifan drew with White against Shakhiyar Mamedyarov in a rather nice game.

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Mickey Adams, who had been leading the tournament until the 8th round, had to play with Black in the last two rounds. He drew both games, on Thursday against Viorel Bologan, who seemed to have a technically winning ending.

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The other two players who were trailing by half a point were Krishnan Sasikiran and Nigel Short. The Englishman didn't hold back and played the Benoni. He won a good game where he showed better tactical vision than his opponent.

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Emil Sutovsky won a queen ending that was theoretically drawn, but very difficult to hold over the board.

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Another nice last-round pairing was Judit Polgar vs. Viktor Korchnoi!

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A truly fantastic game was played by Emanuel Berg - the Swedish grandmaster beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in a mere 29 moves with a queen sacrifice:

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The ever-creative Emanuel Berg sac'ed a queen against Vachier-Lagrave. Game of the tournament?

This meant that Hou Yifan and Nigel Short had finished on shared first place, with 8/10 (see below). Traditionally, in such cases the Gibraltar tournament is decided in a playoff. Hou Yifan and Short played two games with 10 minutes on the clock, and 5 seconds increment per move.

In the first game Hou Yifan missed an excellent chance, after Short blundered in the middlegame. Both players missed an intermediate moves, and Short then won convincingly. In the second game the Chinese had to go all or nothing, and it became nothing. Well, the half point was worth as much as nothing.

Here are the two games, and the video commentary with GM Simon Williams and GM Mickey Adams:

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