Potpourri!
Norway Chess, games from the Women's Candidates, a Niemann brilliancy at Sharjah, Kasparov interview, Sadler interview, Dvoretsky articles, TCEC, another prodigy, and have you caught Meadow Hay fever?
Norway Chess starts in a day or two (depending on your time zone as you read this) with an incredibly strong field: Magnus Carlsen (#1 in the world), Fabiano Caruana (#2), Hikaru Nakamura (#3), Ding Liren (#7 and the World Champion), Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (#14), and Alireza Firouzja (#16). Unless everyone’s opening preparation is so good that no one manages to get a game, this double round robin should be a thriller. There’s also a concurrent and correspondingly strong women’s event, and a big blitz tournament to boot.
The Women’s Candidates are over, of course - they ran concurrently with the Open/”Men’s” event - but there are some nice games I’d like to show you, in case you missed them at the time. (I’ve analyzed the first three of them in more depth over on ChessLecture.com, and may present the fourth one there as well.)
A more recent game of note is Hans Niemann’s second-round win from the Sharjah Masters over Jakhongir Vakhidov (with my notes, here). It’s a complete game, with an ingenious new opening idea, lots of sacrifices, and a successfully executed king hunt. He didn’t manage to keep this high level throughout the event, but if he ever publishes a best games book this will surely be included. (Question: Are we in such a digital age that no one will ever publish a “best games” book again? I hope not, but I’m not sure.)
I think I’ve mentioned the series of interviews (in Russian, but with English subtitles) Garry Kasparov is doing on the Levitov Chess World YouTube channel, but even so it may be worth a reminder. Here’s episode 18, which covers his chess exploits over the board in 1988 (he presents some of his games during the episode, albeit quickly), as well as discussing notable off-board matters like his falling out with Mikhail Botvinnik. Worth browsing if you have any interest in chess history or Kasparov’s chess.
Not as momentous, perhaps, but still of interest is this interview with Matthew Sadler, a great chess player in his own right and the author of some fine chess books both in the pre-computer era and now. It’s part of a series of New in Chess interviews, so you may wish to browse that collection as well.
Once upon a time the late great chess player, author, and trainer Mark Dvoretsky wrote a monthly column for the ChessCafe website. I’m not sure what the status of that site is - it seems to be in a sort of limbo - but you can find Dvoretsky’s articles archived here. If you’re a fan of his work, as I am, but weren’t around at the time to know of the column’s existence, go here and look for “Dvoretsky Lessons”. Happy browsing.
I used to blog with some regularity about the Top Chess Engine Championship (TCEC) tournaments. At some point I lost interest in reporting that Stockfish had defeated Leela or Komodo in the finals, but while that’s true it’s still a website you might enjoy browsing, especially since you might find some interesting games in your openings. Right now, the Season 26 Superfinal is up to game 64 of 100, and - brace yourselves - Stockfish is leading Lc0 35.5-27.5 (and looks reasonably likely to make it 36.5-27.5). Who’d have guessed?
Prodigy alert. Levy Rozman has mastered the clickbait approach, but a bit of over-the-top enthusiasm (“NEW WORLD RECORD!!!!!!!!!!!”) isn’t out of place for 12-year-old GM-elect Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus of Turkey, whose FIDE rating is a whopping 2569 or 2570, the highest rating ever achieved by a 12-year-old. As they say in the financial world, past performance is no guarantee of future results, but I wouldn’t bet against the youngster’s prospects either. Have a look, at least at the three games Rozman presents (starting around 3:12 into the video).
Have you come across the Meadow Hay Gambit? For those of you who are blissfully unaware of this nonsense, it’s 1.a4 e5 2.Ra3 (generally continuing 2…Bxa3 3.Nxa3 followed by 4.b3, 5.Bb2, and often a quick Qa1), and it can be played by Black as well. It has been around for some time, and not just counting the games of countless beginners who have played this as a blunder. I was at the World Championship in Mexico City in 2007, and my recollection is that study composer Gady Costeff mentioned to me that he and some of his friends were playing it in online blitz games. My recollection it that I had already seen it by the time he mentioned it, and I had not always managed to beat the mischievous souls employing it. Still, it was a rarity, and one could go years without seeing it. (It wouldn’t be surprising if some or even most of you had never seen it, excepting perhaps the Blundering Kid version.) Now, however, it has hit the big time, or is at least receiving its 15 minutes of fame.
The precipitating event was a long blitz match between American GMs Brandon Jacobson and Daniel Naroditsky, in which Jacobson played it in every game, with both colors, and won the match fairly convincingly. Given the unsoundness of the gambit and Naroditsky’s great strength as a blitz player, the result was shocking. (Jacobson, incidentally, gives the credit for the ideas to another American GM, Andrew Hong.) After this, Magnus Carlsen took it out for a spin in a Titled Tuesday event, and he too did quite well with it. (Of course, he also has the advantage of being Magnus Carlsen.)
I’ve had some fun with it myself lately (and had tried it a little bit back in the ‘00s), winning the vast majority of my games with it (but how much is due to my generally being the stronger player is an open question). There are three advantages the gambiteer enjoys: (1) The surprise factor (and the related experience advantage), (2) the contempt factor (facing this garbage will immediately put some players on tilt), and (3) there is often persistent pressure along the a1-h8 diagonal (or the a8-h1 diagonal, when it’s Black playing the gambit) exacerbated by Black’s no longer having a dark-squared bishop. (Perhaps a fourth point: the gambit generally doesn’t produce any open files, at least not all that quickly, so Black’s extra rook is slow to play a role.) Of course it’s objectively garbage, but it’s not so simple to prove it in a clear-cut way, at least or especially in a game with a short time control. (It’s one thing to play this in blitz; I don’t expect to see this in slow or even rapid games any time soon.)
What should be done against it? I’ll leave that to you to work out, but will note two “psychological” approaches: play normally but decline the gambit, or (with Black) play the “Double” Meadow Hay; i.e., meet 1.a4 with 1…a5, 2.Ra3 with 2…Ra6, etc. (And maybe if White takes your rook, don’t bother to capture on a3, either immediately or later.)
If you’re interested in seeing more, IM Robert Ris did an hour’s worth of videos for ChessBase on the gambit, summarizing some of the highlights and extracting some of the ideas Jacobson in particular managed to demonstrate against Naroditsky. Just to be clear, I’m not recommending the gambit, except as an interesting diversion. But for that purpose why not give it a try, at least for a few days, to expand your horizons?