Winning a won position…

… is known as one of the most difficult things in chess. Which is kind of a paradox, because when a position is already winning, the winning method shouldn’t be the problem anymore? But so often we think that such a position wins by itself, and suddenly we see that the opponent found some nasty counterplay. One thing I learnt is that, in a winning position, you shouldn’t stop calculating! Try to find the quickest way to win by just calculating accurately. All this is very relevant to the fantastic manoeuvre David Eggleston and I found in his fifth round game of the current First Saturday IM tournament in Budapest. full story »

Interview with Anatoly Karpov

There it is. The Big Chessvibes Interview with Anatoly Karpov. Wednesday morning I spoke to him about half an hour in The Hague, where he was to play a simul later that day against members of the Dutch parliament. (By the way, the score was 21 wins and 2 draws for the ex-world champion). The questions I asked him, were put forward in advance by you, the visitors, on the Chessvibes website. (Because we were limited by the clock, not all questions could be asked.) This way I think we managed to make it an interview with a nice mix of subjects that are interesting for a broad audience. Enjoy! full story »

Fritz, Rybka, or think for yourself after all?

In the glorious past grandmaster games still had something invincible, something you would look at with respect and would not dare giving your opinion about. Grandmaster games were something very complicated, something you should not show to beginners, since it would only confuse them. Since the rise of the computer, databases and engines, that is all gone. You can check in the database up to which point it was still theory and from that point on you can judge the players’ performance with any engine. The audience at home knows exactly what is happening from move to move and top players are complaining about the decline of respect. full story »

Analysis Shirov-Radjabov by IM Notkin

One of the most beautiful games so far, at the Corus Chess Tournament, was Shirov-Radjabov. We already brought you Radjabov’s ideas about it and IM Maxim Notkin agreed to let us publish his extensive analysis on this rest day, which appeared earlier at the website Chesspro.ru. The translation is by Paul Janse. full story »

Choices and doubts (part I)

The cool thing about analysing your own games is that you can never tell beforehand how long you will be analysing. A serious tournament game against a strong opponent might be forgotten only hours after the game, while a relatively unimportant club game can haunt you for weeks. Recently, I played such a game on the competition of chessclub Max Euwe Amsterdam. full story »

Torre too got his Memorial

One of the more boring opening lines is the Torre Attack: 1.d4, 2.Nf3 and 3.Bg5. If the Mexican chess player Carlos Torre Repetto (23 November 1905 - 19 March 1978) finds out he’s mainly remembered for these opening moves, he’ll turn around in his grave (can you say this in English?). This was probably what the organizers were thinking when setting up the Torre Memorial which is held this week. full story »

Oplossing Kasim-Bruzon

Het was al vrij snel duidelijk dat met de zet 24…Tg4 van zwart weinig mis was. Daarna was 25.Tb6? van wit een grote fout en 25…Lxg2 was wel winnend maar niet de enige goede. full story »

Opgave: Kasim-Bruzon

Met al dit verhalen, foto’s en filmpjes van de Olympiade kwam ik vorige week nauwelijks toe aan de partijen zelf. Een laatste schaaktechnisch artikel met ‘flitsen’ ligt op zich nog in de planning (tips zijn welkom!) maar hier alvast een aardig partijtje waar ik op gewezen werd: Kasimdzhanov-Bruzon, uit de match Oezbekistan-Cuba (elfde ronde). full story »