I am of course speaking about my latest acquisition from a junk shop.
Two Chess Coasters 20p each.
Mrs GP will be pleased as I’m always leaving rings on the furniture around
the house. Previously the thought of using coasters to me seemed snobby.
Infact anything BUT a coaster was coaster and as I’m always surrounded
by chess books all my books have coffee rings on them.
Not anymore. I am now a coaster man.
Speaking of chess books, I found nesting between two chess books a November
1975 British Chess Magazine. I can build a whole blog around this mag.
It’s quite topical.
A lot of people were complaining about the draws in the Anand - Gelfand match.
At the 1975 Alexander Memorial Tournament, Ritson Morry wrote that the
spectators were actually booing and jeering at the GM’s for their draws.
This is the results for round 5 .
He then adds this as a warning to the GM draw habit:
“Unfortunately for the chess world it’s fans are remarkably orderly and peace loving
souls and it’s organisers are dedicated people willing to do a lot of hard work for
nothing to raise cash for appearance fess, prizes money and hotel bills.
If, one day, the organisers got together and decided not to finance any more tournaments
chess masters would doubtless feel that they have been badly treated and wrongly
deprived of their livelihoods.
They would do well to remember that even geese who lay golden eggs can
suddenly become inexplicably barren.”
Topical point two.
On RHP we often read in the forums about players complaining because
they won’t resign in totally lost positions.
This one would have produced a ‘Why Did He Resign’ thread.
This position from the same tournament as above appeared.
It is Smyslov v Bronstein. Black has just played 19…Bd3!
One of the draws? No. Smyslov resigned!
You have to pity the spectators at this event.
Loads of GM draws and now suddenly a resignation that had to be explained to them.
It is a deep resignation but it is genuine. Two forcing lines.
A lot of us have been watching the Anand - Gelfand match getting the moves
from Moscow as they happen. In this super tech age we can get the games from
practically any tournament in the world within a few hours of them being played.
No excuse then for a professional player walking into a TN played a few weeks
or months before.
Not so in 1975.
If you never had the tournament bulletin (and not all tournaments produced them)
then the top dogs had to wait six months for the relevant Informator to come out
and then lock yourself away to catch up on what was being played.
But first you had to get one, They were pretty expensive. Failing that borrow one.
My mate Mark Condie reminded me the other day about a players called
Anand knocking on his hotel door to borrow Mark’s Informator.
Mark beat Anand in their encounter. The game is in Rampant Chess…
(No more plugs for that book….Russ.)
…it’s on page 30 with notes by Keith Ruxton.
So what was reported in the Nov ’75 BCM was not all that uncommon.
Gligoric - Smejkal, Milan 1975
Gligoric had picked up a tournament bulletin from the 1975 Russian Zonals
and he followed Balashov - Tukmakov game played just a few weeks previously.
Smejkal never knew of the game. This is what happened.
(again note the topical theme - this is a Grunfeld at the time of writing
there have been three Grunfeld’s in the Anand - Gelfand match).
I’m going to hand you to Ernie for a minute.
Hi greenpawn has given me a 1975 BCM and said I have to show this
study that is in it because it has good practical endgame ideas.
Georgiv 1936. White to play and win.
To complete this piece on double Knight pawns in Rook endings
we have to see this idea.
An RHP player missed the above stalemate pattern.
CryptoKey - Luck RHP 2007 - White to play.
Without thinking White played 53.b8=Q and that was stalemate.
He should have taken a Rook.
Hi, greenpawn gave me a 1975 BCM to look at but it’s cwap.
(cwap?…what kind of a word is cwap?….greenpawn)
Cwap. Cwap…….I’m a duck.
Weaker players till their experience builds up relay on principles
and rules of thumb rather than calculation.
Game four of the Anand - Gelfand match threw up a perfect example where
I could see a weaker player possibly being lured into a mistake.
Black (Anand) to played 27...h5. The Queens were swapped and the
game was drawn 7 moves later.
A weaker player doing surface analysis may just stumble into
27...Nxg4 28.Qxd8 Rxd8 29.hxg4 Rd2.
The principles our weaker player followed, and there are three of them.
(often just one is needed to induce a blunder.)
* Swapping a Knight for a Bishop.
* Doubling a pawn.
* Getting a Rook to the 7th.
The first two are very common for triggering off tactical and positional blunders.
Our lad has totally missed after 27....Nxg4 28 Re8+ wins the Black Queen.
Weaker players who spotted the 28.Re8+ shot may be at that very dodgy stage where
their looking deeper skills have not yet fully developed and may still go for 27...Nxg4
because the Knight covers h2 and the White Rook is off the back rank.
So having this pattern in their mind.
They play 27...Nxg4 confident of getting a back rank mate.
When the position appears in front of them…
…they rub their eyes in disbelief and resign.
We close with 3 positions from gregsflat - nonkel RHP Ch 2012
We join the game with White ready to crown his attack with a win.
White missed it and a few moves later we arrived here with Black to play.
See anything? (answer at bottom.)
Next here is a Queen and Rook using the Weave Pattern to mate a King.
We are still in the gregsflat - nonkel game. Black to play missed this.
So remember this? Black to play.
Black missed 29 Nb5!
Amazingly the White Queen is trapped. She has no free squares.
The thread accompanying this blog is Thread 146752
fell to bits. I picked another in a 2nd hand shop about 10 years ago.
Simply playing over the games and the notes gives you examples
of every tactical trick on the chessboard. (at the same time as
picking up the theory) But the important thing it gave me was all
those ideas which of course can be used in any opening/middle game.
All part of the plan to lure players into a false sense of security.
Some opening books are OK. The majority are awful.
The Two Knights is a classic. The Bb5 has lost it's surprise value.
Granted, they do look like they've been used as coasters more than they've been read 🙂