A few weeks ago I visited an exhibition in the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, Spain. The exhibition featured some very explicit classic Japanese erotic paintings (there was actually a warning sign at the entrance of the exhibition, prohibiting visitors below 18 years of age) which served as a source of inspiration for Picasso and his contemporaries. Though I had seen some of these paintings before, I was amazed how deeply such works from a competely different culture had influenced some of Picasso’s works. For me it was yet another proof that what makes a true artist is his ability to be inspired by literally everything around him.

A contemporary of Picasso’s, Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) is without a doubt the most famous chess-playing painter of all time. In fact, apart from being obsessed by it, he was a rather strong chess player, who played in the French Championship (in 1924) and scored real results against some of the world’s chess playing sub-top of the 1920s and 1930s. It was Duchamp who famously said that, “while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.” A new book by Francis Naumann, Bradley Bailey and Jennifer Shahade focuses on Duchamp’s artistic life as a chess player and his chess life as an artist. Marcel Duchamp – The Art of Chess, published last year by Readymade Press, is an inspiring little book, beautifully illustrated and beautifully printed, which made me realize Duchamp is not only my hero but also an example and a teacher with an important lesson.

The Chess Game (1910)

The three authors focus on different aspects of Duchamp’s chess-art life. Francis Naumann, an art scholar and curator in New York, describes the development of Duchamps artistic works as if it were a game of chess, starting with the learning of the rules (1902-1912) and the opening (1912-1918) and so on, until the endgame which ended in Duchamp’s death in 1968. My first impression of this method was that it was hardly original, life being described as a game of chess having been tried from medieval storytellers to Garry Kasparov. But when I read on, I found out that this method actually fits Duchamp’s life quite well, and there are several others who have noted the parallels.

In 1951, [art collector Walter Arensberg] wrote to Duchamp: “It’s curious how I get an impression when I look at our paintings of yours from the point of view of their chronological sequence of the successive moves in a game of chess.” Duchamp responded: “Your comparison between the chronological order of the paintings and a game of chess is absolutely right… but when will I administer checkmate or will I be mated?”

Here we already see the way Duchamp looks at things: from a broken angle, taking the common analogy somehow literally to the domain of chess and giving it quite an original twist at the end. Naumann himself drily notes that serious chess games (such as Duchamps played regularly), “rarely progresses to such a dramatic terminal point; the losing player usually resigns first.” It shows Naumann’s no-nonsense approach to his subject and he goes on to describe in great detail the various aspects of chess as a major influence on Duchamp’s work.

Portrait of Chess Players (1911)

From the well-known post-impressionist The Chess Game (1910) and the Cubist Portait of Chess Players (1911), Naumann takes us to the infamous Nude Descending a Staircase No.2 (1912) and he prepares our mind for this work with the following quote from Duchamp:

In chess there are some extremely beautiful things in the domain of movement, but not in the visual domain. It’s the imaginging of the movement or the gesture that makes the beauty, in this case. It’s completely in one’s gray matter.

Again, we see how relevant chess is as a metaphor to describe Duchamp’s artistic works: what chess player wouldn’t recognize what Duchamp is hinting at here? In chess, it’s not about the beauty of the wooden pieces but about the potential movement of the pieces. And so it is in Nude Descending a Staircase, which is not a painting of a nude descending a staircase, but rather, as Duchamps put it:

Painted as it was in severe wood colors, the anatomical nude does not exist, or at least cannot be seen, since I discarded completely the naturalistic appearance of a nude, keeping only the abstract lines of some twenty different static positions in the successive action of descending.

Nude descending a Staircase No. 2 (1912)

Naumann coins the possibility that, since The Nude is restricted to wood colorings, “tracing its origin to a chess piece is not entirely implausible, particularly when we consider the fact that the queen is the most mobile piece on the board, a feature reinforced by her rendition in multiple form.” Again, to his credit, Naumann is not forcing his ideas upon the reader in order to fit the analogy of chess and art too rigorously, but merely suggesting possibilities and ways of thinking to enhance aesthetic pleasure. Reading Naumann’s essay, I increasingly felt drawn into Duchamp’s world where one thing can so easily be linked to another that you really feel like you’ve entered Wonderland or went Through the Looking-Glass, where a slightly puzzled but intrigued Alice remarks:

Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas-only I don’t exactly know what they are!

An even more ambitious approach is taken by art professor Bradley Bailey, who makes the case for the idea that in Duchamp’s huge The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even – also known as The Large Glass – (1915-23), “chess is a critical and largely unrecognized thematic element.”

The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), 1915-1923

Bailey, it seems to me, makes more bold assumptions than Naumann. In his description, for instance, of the famous photograph (taken in 1963) of Duchamp and nude model Eve Babitz playing chess, he writes:

Duchamp and Eve Babitz playing chess (taken by Julian Wasser, 1963)

The chess table – complete with a double-faced chess clock for authenticity – was set up in front of [a replica of] the Large Glass, such that the board seems almost a continuation of the Large Glass beyond the frame at its bottom. (…) The brilliance of this photograph lies in the fact that it incorporates three of the major themes of Duchamp’s art and life in a single image: art, eroticism, and strategy. Achille Bonita Oliva reads the image as an erotic stalemate, which echoes the theme of sexual frustration in the Large Glass.

Such statements can, of course, be read with rigorous skepticism, but that would be missing the point of art in the first place. Art – and modern art in particular – is associative by definition, and Bailey’s essay is one long associative excercise, obviously backed by solid research, references and a vast amount of art experience. I did find his writing slightly more academic than Naumann’s, and I suspect readers unfamiliar with the way art conaisseurs tend to talk about their passion will probably be put off a little by all this erudition and huge display of knowledge, ranging from medieval manuscript to World War architecture. All the same, Bailey makes a convincing case that The Large Glass does indeed contain more than a haunting hint of chess and it more or less proves the work is so rich that such a lenghty essay can be written about this work alone.

A final, not unimportant question is how good a chess player Duchamp was, anyway? Edward Lasker (not to be confused with Emanual Lasker) called him a “master among amateurs” and said that “it there were official rankings of United States chess players in the 1920s and 1930s, Duchamp have certainly ranked among the top twenty-five.” WGM Jennifer Shahade, who analysed Duchamp’s games and picked 15 for the book (chosen for “their quality and their importance to Duchamp himself”), takes a more nuanced position on the question:

In analyzing dozens of his games, I saw flashes of tactical brilliance as well as deep understanding of strategic concepts, such as open files and pawn structure. Duchamp also had weaknesses. He sometimes played too passively against strong players and he occasionally lacked precision, especially towards the end of the game. Yet it was clear to me in annotating the fifteen games to follow that this artist, who excelled in so many styles, also mastered the ultimate in conceptual art: chess.

Shahade’s analyses are accurate and easy to follow, with a focus on weaker players. This is perfectly reasonable as it is the only way of presenting Duchamp’s chess games to a broad audience. The game layout and diagrams are somewhat tougher to follow, since they are based on Duchamps own Design for Chessmen (Buenos Aires 1918). It’s an interesting concept, but still one that doesn’t exactly help following the game from the book only. Especially the king is a strange piece in Duchamp’s design: it looks more like a pigeon with a crown to me – but then again this probably shows I’m still in Wonderland where Duchamp wants me to be anyway.

Here’s an example of Shahade’s game comments, combining general statements and concrete analysis:

F. Michel [sic; in my database, his name is listed as 'Edmond Michel' - AWM] - Duchamp
Strasbourg 1924

13…c5

The American Bobby Fischer famously said, “You gotta give squares to get squares,” but in this case Duchamp gives more than he receives. The d5-square is now available to White’s knight, which gives White a recurring, simplified motif. The d5-square is a quasi-outpost. Although the pawn on e7 can slide to e6 to force the knight away, the advance would weaken Black’s dark squares and his d6-pawn.

Shahade refrains from mentioning the stronger alternative 13…a5! as indicated by D. Primel in the ChesBase MegaBase and prefers to talk about general ideas. As said, this can easily defended, but the chess player in me sometimes wished for just a little more depth. What I found impressive in both Shahade’s and Naumann’s part of the book, though, is their restraint in hinein-interpreting: they do not indulge in far-fetched and hard-to-prove pseudo-theories of how Duchamp was magically inspired by chess and art respectively; instead, they take the rational approach and describe his efforts in a cool yet sympathizing way. The effect? The focus is on Duchamp’s creations themselves and not on their interpretation – or their interpretors.

The beauty of many Duchamp paintings, and indeed in his chess games, for Duchamp the chess player was in some respects quite ahead of his time, the beauty of all this is in the eye the beholder: Duchamp is providing the rough material and the spectactor is invited to let his head “be filled with ideas”. I find this to be an important general lesson: art and indeed all creative effort is not about making things accurate or even reasonable – that’s the realm of science. It’s about generating ideas, now matter how wild or far-fetched, and enabling new associations to be made in one’s gray matter. This is also how chess can become art: when it transcends the completely rational.

Reading about Duchamp inspires me to try and do the same, to achieve something more than just chess prose or good journalism. The stuff in The Art of Chess provides an excellent playground for this, both to Duchamp fans and to chess players who had never heard of him. If you’re interested in having your chess mind turned upside down in an artistic way (or your artistic mind in a chessy way!), this is the book for you.

Links

• Get yourself a copy of Marcel Duchamp – The Art of Chess
• Read more book reviews

The advice frequently given to chess-players eager to improve their results is straightforward: study tactics! This book presents a structured approach to tactics, and belongs in the library of every ambitious player.

The authors discuss each major tactical theme in turn, explaining how it works, and providing inspiring examples. They then explain how you can spot the idea in your own games and use it to your advantage.

You immediately get a chance to put your knowledge to the test, as there are challenging exercises throughout the whole book. You will learn how tactical themes are combined, and employed to achieve strategic goals.

This book also shows how grandmasters spot the targets for their breathtaking combinations, which you thus come to see not as sheer witchcraft, but as the product of disciplined thought and training.

It will help you develop an understanding of the principles of chess tactics.

The 6th Moscow Open took place January 30-February 7 at the Russian State Social University in Moscow, Russia. The festival consisted of many different events, and attracted 1,500 participants from 30 countries worldwide. The main event, a very strong 9-round Swiss, consisted of 187 players, including 73 grandmasters and 49 masters. The time control was 1 hour and 30 minutes + 30 seconds increment from move 1.

The tournament was surprisingly won by 46th seeded Konstantin Chernyshov. In the last round the grandmaster from Voronezh drew with Vietnamese GM Le Quang Liem and so the two ended the tournament with 7 points, together with Evgeny Bareev and Ernesto Inarkiev. Chernyshov was declared winner as he had the highest number of wins. Le Quang Liem ended second and Bareev third. The prize fund of the main tournament was 2,500,000 rubles (60,000 Euros) and the first prize 500,000 (12,000 Euros).

Chernyshov and Liem shaking hands for their last-round game

Selection of games

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Another famous name who could be found in the playing hall almost every day was Alexei Shirov. The reason? He came to support his girlfriend Olga Dolgov, who played in the women’s tournament (and who could be found in the playing hall of the Corus Chess Tournament almost every day, supporting her boyfriend). Besides, Shirov decided to meet with relatives and school friends, as he mentioned in an interview at the tournament website.

Apparently the two believe in the power of love. The interview was conducted when Sasikiran was leading the tournament. Shirov: “Naturally, he is very high class player. Besides, not so long ago he got married, and this also gives an additional impetus.”

Winter in Moscow, chess in Moscow

One of the playing halls in the university

Second on tiebreak: Le Quang Liem

Third on tiebreak, still going strong: Evgeny Bareev

Fourth on tiebreak: Ernesto Inarkiev

Krishnan Sasikiran had a good start, but finished on shared 5th-15th

Vladimir Belov, also shared 5th-15th

Bu Xiangzhi, also shared 5th-15th

Open tournament tiger Evgeny Najer, this time shared 15th-28th

Top seed Alexander Motylev, also shared 15th-28th

Giovanni Vescovi from Brazil, shared 15th-28th

Semen Dvoirys ended on 5.5 points

Ian Nepomniachtchi, also shared 15th-28th

Hou Yifan ended on a disappointing 4.5/9

Evgeny Sveshnikov still plays and ended on 4 points

Photos © Maria Fomynikh, Eldar Mukhametov, Yana Melnikova

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC

Linares: Feb 12-25
In five days from now, the second Grand Slam tournament in 2010 will already start. Linares runs from the 12th till the 25th of February . Like last year it will be a six-player, double round-robin with rest days on February 17th and 22nd. The players are Veselin Topalov, Levon Aronian, Boris Gelfand, Vugar Gashimov, Alexander Grischuk and Francisco Vallejo.

MTel Masters: May 25-June 5
Two weeks after the Anand-Topalov match (April 23rd – May 12th), Sofia will again host the MTel Masters. This year the tournament runs May 25th – June 5th.

Bazna: June 10-22
Last year it was already terribly strong, with Radjabov, Ivanchuk, Shirov, Gelfand, Kamsky and Nisipeanu. This month the Kings Tournament in Bazna will decide whether they’ll be part of the Grand Slam; the Romanian tournament runs June 10th – 22nd this year.

Masters Final: Sep 3-12 & Oct 6-14
The biggest news from the Grand Slam board is about the Masters Final, which was organized twice in Bilbao, Spain. The first year it was a 6-player double round-robin won by Topalov, and the second year Aronian won a group of 4 with Karjakin, Grischuk and Shirov. This year the event will be split into two parts: one part in Shanghai, China (September 3rd – 12th) and one part in Bilbao, Spain (October 6th-14th). In between, the Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk takes place September 19th – October 4th.

Nanjing: Oct 17-29
The third edition of the Pearl Spring tournament in Nanjing, China will start already three days after the Final Masters ends. It runs October 17th till 29th.

Corus: January 14-30
The 73rd Corus Chess Tournament will take place January 14th till 30th in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands.

As always, the winners of the Grand Slam tournaments will qualify for the Masters Final. Since Magnus Carlsen won two consecutive Grand Slam tournaments (and might win more), the organizers we will wait until all tournaments have finished, and then look at best performances of the runner-ups.

The above information was announced last week by Corus tournament director Jeroen van den Berg, after the Grand Slam board meeting held in Wijk aan Zee. (We have entered all super-GM tournaments in capitals in our tournament calendar. Organizers of open tournaments are invited to enter their events there.)

V. Kalandadze
1962

White to play and win

Next week the solution.

Solution last week

N.Kralin & A. Kuznetsov
1966

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OSG Baden-Baden is the only team of the Schachbundesliga left without any loss of points. The upcoming weekend the German champion will face the two teams of Berlin and is odds-on favourite. Under the same precondition starts the only serious competitor for the title Werder Bremen. Bremen is facing the teams of München and Erfurt. Both of them are relegation candidates. Some interesting derbies are taking place in Mülheim, where the host is facing Katernberg and Wattenscheid for the “hegemony in the West”.

All line-ups of the teams in Berlin, e.g. OSG Baden-Baden, are published two days in advance. This is carried out due to the new rule, which was implemented from the beginning of this season.

Live coverage
All games of the Schachbundesliga are covered live on the Internet. At the particular date of the matches you can get access to the games via the website of the Schachbundesliga.

8th round: Saturday, 6th of February 2010, 2 pm

Playing venue Munich
Bayern München – Hamburger SK
Erfurter SK – Werder Bremen

Playing venue Mülheim
SV Mülheim Nord – SV Wattenscheid
SF Katernberg – SK Turm Emsdetten

Playing venue Berlin
SK König Tegel – SK Heidelberg-Handschuhsheim

 	SF Berlin	 	- OSG Baden-Baden
1	Jan Markos	(2565)	- Etienne Bacrot		(2709)
2	Arnd Lauber	(2517)	- Sergei Movsesian		(2711)
3	Rainer Polzin	(2491)	- Michael Adams			(2682)
4	Martin Krämer	(2482)	- Arkadij Naiditsch		(2685)
5	Ilja Schneider	(2500)	- Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu	(2664)
6	Stephan Berndt	(2442)	- Fabiano Caruana		(2662)
7	Mikail Agopov	(2452)	- Jan Gustafsson		(2622)
8	Lars Thiede	(2450)	- Philipp Schlosser		(2555)

Playing venue Remagen
SC Remagen – SC Eppingen
SG Solingen – SG Trier

9th round: Sunday, 7th of February 2010, 10 am

Playing venue Munich
Hamburger SK – Erfurter SK
Werder Bremen – Bayern München

Playing venue Mülheim
SV Wattenscheid – SF Katernberg
SK Turm Emsdetten – SV Mülheim Nord

Playing venue Berlin
OSG Baden-Baden – SK König Tegel
SK Heidelberg-Handschuhsheim – SF Berlin

Playing venue Remagen
SC Eppingen – SG Solingen
SG Trier – SC Remagen

Matches of the 7th round: Friday, 5th of February 2010

Playing venue Mülheim
SV Mülheim Nord – SF Katernberg (4pm)

Playing venue Berlin
SF Berlin – SK König Tegel (4pm)

Playing venue Remagen
SC Remagen – SG Solingen (5pm)

Teams

Other interesting stuff from this issue’s more than 100 pages:
— Carlsen on his win against Kramnik
— Chess at 40 degrees below zero
— “Rien ne va plus”: Roulette Chess, by Jennifer Sahade
— David Howell’s nightmare: playing the King’s Gambit against Carlsen
— Alexander Grischuk has done it again
— Alexander Alekhine’s Paris years
— Jan Timman on 13 year old Ilya Nyshnyk: the new Magnus?
— Robert J. Fischer talks to Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam!
— Judit Polgar annotates her win against Gelfand
— and much more.

Please have a look at the latest issue of our flagship publication.

Photo © Zeljka Malobabic

The 2010 Gibtelecom International Chess Festival takes place January 26-February 4 at the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar. The rate of play in this 10-round Swiss is 40 moves in 100 minutes plus 20 moves in 50 minutes plus 15 minutes for all remaining moves with 30 seconds per move added from the start. Draws by mutual agreement in under 30 moves are not allowed, but genuine draws by repetition or stalemate are acceptable.

Rounds 9-10 & Play-off

In round 9, tournament leader Jan Gustafsson drew quickly with White against Etienne Bacrot, allowing Adams, Movsesian and Vallejo to reach 7/9 as well. At this point the ‘Gibraltar rules’ kicked in: boards where one or both of the players could finish in a tie for first were required to start their games at 10:00 (GMT+1) on 4 February in order to allow time for a rapidplay play-off at 15:00 should it be necessary.

This meant that boards 1-5 and 7 started at 10:00, namely Gustafsson vs Movsesian, Vallejo Pons vs Adams, Bacrot vs Cramling, Bindrich vs Kamsky, Zhukova vs Fressinet and Javakhishvili vs Sandipan. All other Masters games started at 15:00 (GMT+1) as normal. Stuart Conquest’s commentary also started at 10:00 (GMT+1, 09:00 UK time), which you can still watch here.

The games between the leaders were all drawn this morning which meant play-offs would be played. The four players with the best TPRs went forward to play off for the first prize. They were (as drawn by lottery): Jan Gustafsson (GER) vs Michael Adams (ENG) and (in the other semi-final) Paco Vallejo Pons (ESP) vs Chanda Sandipan (IND). The two-game semi-finals were being played at a time control of 10 minutes with 10 second increments and an Armageddon game if necessary.

Paco Vallejo won the first semi-final game and miraculously drew a rook ending against Sandipan to reach the final. Gustafsson defeated Adams with White convincingly in game one and was close to a draw in game 2 but then blundered a piece and lost anyway. Adams also had White in the Armaggeddon and so Gustafsson was in the same situation: a draw with Black would enough. He didn’t manage and so the final in Gibraltar saw a Spaniard against an Englishman.

In this final, Adams dominated. He Vallejo smoothly in game 1 and was winning in game 2, but accepted a draw. With his victory the Englishman earned 15,000 pounds while the Spaniard went home with 10,000.

Update Feb 5:
The tournament website doesn’t report about it yet, but it looks like Natalia Zhukova won the women’s prize of 8,000 pounds. She ended on 7/10, just like Humpy Konery, but Zhukova’s performance rating of 2686 beats Humpy’s 2663. The full final standings table is available below now too, as well as the games.

Selection of games

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Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC

When I was just starting out as a chess player, I noticed my opponents often shifted in their chairs as they sat thinking behind the board. I sometimes imagined I could read their thoughts as they bended over the board or leaned backwards with their hands behind their head. Now he’s thinking about e4-e5, no doubt about it. Ah, now he sees the trick I’ve planned after that … oh wait he played it anyway! I never figured out a system to make it work. But new research suggests there may yet be a thing or two to be discovered.

I suppose many chess players find the notion that the way you sit behind the board can reveal clues as to what you’re thinking of, decidedly silly. Behaviour behind the board looks completely random and decided by circumstantial factors. But when you think about it, it’s not so stupid at all. After all, we’re primates communicating not only through words, but with gestures as well. It may be an urban legend that 93% of human communication is body language and only 7% is speech-related, but the fact is that body language is vastly important in communication, and gesticulating predated language by millions of years in human evolution, as can still be seen clearly with monkeys and apes.

According to many popular science books, body language is even the best way to learn about human psychology: there are several well-known body-signals such as crossing one’s arms across the chest (putting a barrier between the speaker and listener), making eye contact (seeking positive confirmation or showing interest) or averting one’s eyes (a sign of, among other things, disbelieve, shame or fear).

This week, The New York Times featured an article about how the body takes abstract thoughts literally in surprising ways:

Researchers at the University of Aberdeen found that when people were asked to engage in a bit of mental time travel, and to recall past events or imagine future ones, participants’ bodies subliminally acted out the metaphors embedded in how we commonly conceptualized the flow of time. As they thought about years gone by, participants leaned slightly backward, while in fantasizing about the future, they listed to the fore.

In the studies described in the article, people found heavy books more important than lighter ones, and they could improve their mathematical skills by making specific gestures and rotating their hands:

Among students who have difficulty with equations like 4 + 5 + 3 = __ + 3, for example, performance improves markedly if they are taught the right gestures: grouping together the unique left-side numbers with a two-fingered V, and then pointing the index finger at the blank space on the right. To learn how to rotate an object mentally, first try a pantomime. ‘If you encourage kinds to do the rotation movement with their hands, that helps them subsequently do it in their heads’, says Susan Goldin-Meadow of the University of Chicago.

What about chess? After all, mathematics, music and chess are linked in special ways – Glenn Gould showed us how music can move the body in unconscious ways – so, while not exactly arithmetics, I suppose calculating variations in chess is still somewhat similar to calculating sums. This opens up all sorts of fascinating possibilities.

Anish Giri in his game against David Howell at the 2010 Corus Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee

Do you see your opponent moving his fingers in a specific way? Perhaps he’s calculating a long forced line! See him moving his head or moving his hands underneath the table? He may be thinking about some long term positional stuff like gaining space or how to improve his piece coordination! On an even more abstract level, an opponent leaning forward means he’s thinking about his next move while an opponent leaning backwards indicates he’s evaluating your last move.

Tal’s body language in the picture is less easy to read. At first, the pointed thumb would suggest calculating stuff, but then the thumb is not moving whereas we know Tal was constantly calculating sacrifices in his head! In other words, his pose was a way of confusing his opponents – and I suddenly understand how he could become world champion! Perhaps the secret all strong chess players share is not that they know chess better than the rest of us, but that they can, in a manner of speaking, read our thoughts and anticipate on it?

Wouldn’t that be a huge consolation to us patzers? It’s not our fault – our bodies give us away! In the same fashion, some people use popular psychology to excuse their behaviour – hey, I’m from Mars and you’re from Venus, so we really shouldn’t even try to understand each other. Well, we chess players know better, of course. Still, next time you’re playing a game, think about how you and your opponent are sitting behind the board for a minute.

Do you see any relation with the position on the board or the stuff you’re thinking about? Then perhaps it’s time to become a little more self-conscious. Stop thinking about the position, put your thumb under your chin, look straight in your opponent’s eyes and brilliant sacrifices will enter your head before you know it.

Photo © John Saunders

The 2010 Gibtelecom International Chess Festival takes place January 26-February 4 at the Caleta Hotel in Gibraltar. The rate of play in this 10-round Swiss is 40 moves in 100 minutes plus 20 moves in 50 minutes plus 15 minutes for all remaining moves with 30 seconds per move added from the start. Draws by mutual agreement in under 30 moves are not allowed, but genuine draws by repetition or stalemate are acceptable.

Round 8 report by John Saunders

The presence of a chess legend has added an extra frisson to life at the Gibtelecom Chess Festival. One day I was waiting for the lift when I noticed a white-haired gentleman in his seventies move swiftly past me and put me to shame by using the stairs. Another day I was about to step into what I thought was an unoccupied lift only to notice at the last minute that it was occupied by the same man, who blinked at me in surprise as my rotundity briefly threatened to collide with his rather more svelte figure.

Yesterday I had my closest encounter yet with said gentleman, whom I’m sure you will already have guessed is the tenth World Chess Champion, Boris Spassky. I noticed him sitting in the bar with Stewart Reuben and Ruben Felgaer. At the time I was having difficulty finding somewhere to sit down and enjoy my chicken baguette and I was quite pleased to see them get up and depart, giving me an ideal place to sit down and have lunch.

About 20 minutes later a slightly perplexed Spassky returned to the same place. To my surprise, he bore down on me and asked “have you seen my glasses? I was sitting here before”. I was galvanised into action. Lifting the cushion on the chair, I caught sight of the great man’s spectacles on the floor under the chair. I fished them out and handed them to him. A trivial enough thing to do, of course, but Boris’s reaction was as if I had just given him a fully-worked, cast-iron refutation of the Benoni. Lifting his arms to the skies for added effect, he exclaimed: “This is a miracle! How did you do it?”

Trifling though the favour was, it was extremely pleasurable to have been of service to one of the greatest players who has ever lived. My life is now complete and my epitaph will surely read “here lies the man who once helped Boris Spassky find his specs”.

Now to business: 30-year-old German grandmaster Jan ‘Gusty’ Gustafsson moved into the sole lead in round eight of the Gibtelecom Masters, blowing away Natalia Zhukova with some ease though he has thirteen players still breathing down his neck as the tournament reaches its penultimate round. (I’ve been racking my brains for some more meteorological metaphors but I think I’ll call it a day at three. I don’t want a reputation as a windbag.)

Natalia Zhukova had so far been the surprise package of this year’s festival but her streak came to an end when she faced the Hamburg-born grandmaster. Despite having the white pieces, she soon found herself in a passive position and Gustafsson found a powerful tactical coup to end the game on move 33.

Other games between the eleven overnight leaders started brightly but gradually subsided into draws. Kamsky-Adams was a heavyweight encounter and promised a good struggle but after a number of exchanges the game reduced to a level endgame.

Five players in the next score group took the opportunity to move close to the leading score. Top seed Etienne Bacrot moved back into contention by defeating Alex Lenderman of the USA in a long, fluctuating struggle. Georgian International Master Lela Javakhishvili became one of two women players to reach the group in second equal place when she won impressively against Spanish grandmaster Josep Manuel Lopez Martinez.

The game of the day was almost certainly the one between Argentinian grandmaster Damian Lemos and French International Master Clovis Vernay. The Frenchman, playing Black, attempted to extract himself from difficulties with a remarkable tactical combination involving an eye-catching queen sacrifice. Many a player would have succumbed to such a dangerous attack but the Argentinian found an equally astonishing defence to neutralise the Black counterattack and convert the material advantage into victory. Great credit must go to both players for providing this feast of chess.

Leaders after Round 8: 1st Jan Gustafsson (Germany) 6½ points out of 8; 2nd= Etienne Bacrot (France), Sergei Movsesian (Slovakia), Paco Vallejo Pons (Spain), Michael Adams (England), Gata Kamsky (USA), Laurent Fressinet (France), Chand Sandipan (India), Humpy Koneru (India), Stelios Halkias (Greece), Damian Lemos (Argentina), Alexander Naumann (Germany), Lela Javakhishvili (Georgia), Drasko Boskovic (Serbia) 6 points.

Selection of games, let’s start with Lemos-Vernay

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Photos © John Saunders, more here

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC