He who laughs last

The European Teams Championship finished earlier today with an interesting, and surprising winner. Having followed the tournament through both the traditional chess media, and Google News, I picked up a number of interesting side stories.
For example, the coverage of the Round 7 match between Armenia and Azerbaijan seemed to carry a little extra venom, due to the recent enmity between the two countries. With the match ending in a 2.5-1.5 win for Armenia, the Aysor (Armenia) news outlet couldn't resist a dig at the losing team with a headline that read "Azerbaijani chess players slaped(sic) in the face of their own media"
I don't know how much that article stung the Azerbaijani players but of course they had the last laugh, finishing as the winners of the ETC. Going into the final round tied with Russia, the picked up the 2 points with a win over The Netherlands (2.5-1.5), while Russia was held to a 2-2 draw by Spain.
Russia went one better in the Womens championship, finishing first on tie break, over Georgia.
Click for the results of the Championship and the Womens Championship.

Mobilization

To (some) non chessplayers, chess is simply a war game, without any shooting. You don't "take", you "kill", you pieces don't move, they "march". On the other hand, for most chessplayers, such direct terms can sound strange.
But I still see military terms used, although mainly in books from a previous age. Nimzowich in "My System" talks of getting your army to the frontier (ie the line across the middle of the board). And Isaac Lipnitsky's much acclaimed "Questions of Modern Chess Theory" there is a chapter titled "Mobilizing the Pieces". In Lipnitsky's case he may have chosen this term over the more pacific "Developing the Pieces" due to his military background (he was a Major in the Soviet Army during WWII).
Here is a game from the aforementioned book, with the usual moral that if you fall behind in development, you will get crushed. Of course I never seem to win like this in my own games, but maybe I need to read a few more chapters in his book (or find moves like 12.d5!)

Tolush - Alatortsev,V [C31]
Championchip Soviet Union, 1948

1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.Nc3 Qe6 5.fxe5 Qxe5+ 6.Be2 Bg4 7.d4 Qe6 8.Qd3 c6 9.Bf4 Nf6 10.0-0-0 Bxe2 11.Ngxe2 Bd6 (D)
12.d5! Nxd5 13.Nxd5 cxd5 14.Qg3 Bxf4+ 15.Nxf4 Qh6 16.Rhe1+ Kf8 17.Qa3+ Kg8 18.Re8# 1-0

Chess as a sport

"Chess as a sport", not "Chess is a sport", which is another topic entirely.
The Asian Indoor Games is starting tomorrow in Vietnam, and Chess is one of the medal sports, alongside Track-and-Field, Fin swimming and Snooker (plus many others). More importantly, Chess is also a medal sport in the South-East Asian Games, which is a full sporting contest for South-East Asian Countries.
Why is this important? Simply because it avoids the semantic arguments about whether chess is a sport. One of the important aspects of the recent tournament in the Solomon Islands were discussions with the Solomon Islands government about support for chess through their sports commission. To this end, both myself and Oceania Zone President Gary Bekker stressed the importance of getting chess into the Pacific Games. This suggestion was met favourably by the SI Government btw.
Now to be honest, I can't see chess being a medal sports at the Olympics (unless they take up my suggestion of holding an Indoor Olympics + plus an Extreme Sports Olympics to fill the gaps between the winter and summer games), but getting it into regional games (Asia, the Pacific and Africa) can't hurt the development of chess in those regions.

Never let a chance go by

I'm not a great swindler. Once my position starts to sink, I'm usually the one drilling extra holes in the bottom of the boat. And when I do claw my way back from a lost position it is normally due to my opponents poor play, rather than my skill.
But there are exceptions, as this evenings game from the chess club shows. We join the action after I dropped a couple of pawns by simply failing to count the captures, although I do have tricks. My best hope was to clear a path for the pawn on c6 to promote, although with the bishop planted on d8, at best I was winning a piece. Of course to achieve even this I had to jettison all my pawns.

37.f4 exf4 38.e5 dxe5 39.d6 cxd6 40.Nxd6 e4 41.c7 Bxc7 So I've won the piece, but my opponent now has 5 pawns for it! But with my Rook heading for the 7th rank, and my knight close by, I spot a chance to set up a draw by perpetual. 42.Rxc7 e3 43.Ne8 Heading for f6. 43. ... Ra1+ 44.Kg2 e2 45.Nf6+ Kf8 46.Rd7 The key move. The rook has to be 5 files from the edge, so when the knight checks on f6 it also protects the rook on d7. 46. ... Rg1+?? So tempting, but so wrong. Instead planting the rook on h1 straight away stopped any tricks. 47.Kf3 Black missed this move. 47. ... Rh1 48.Kxe2 ½-½
Now before you ask, the perpetual has indeed disappeared, as the Black king can head to h8 (and not get mated). But with Black king confined to the back rank, my rook and knight can pick up enough black pawns to secure the draw.

Chessbomb

Every day or two I do a quick patrol of the sites on my blog roll (look to your left). While visiting the Chessdom site, I noticed they had added a new live coverage tool, which was developed by, and named after, Chessbomb. I've had a play with it and it looks really good. The site combines broadcast, computer analysis (from Rybka) and user comments into one interface.
For the moment they are only covering the European Teams Championship, and the time difference works against us here in Australia, but it is still worth visiting during the day, as the overnight broadcasts are archived. For example, two games worth looking at from Round 5 are the Sutovsky v Svidler game, and the Bacrot v Aronian matchup. Due to the magic of colour coded moves (and Rybka) you can see where the players went wrong at crucial junctures during the game.

Chock full o' nuts

The "Obama wins world chess championship" satirical article has popped up on a number of blogs, although to me it lacks two important ingredients of good satire, in that is is neither clever nor funny. But it did provoke an unintentionally hilarious response from Stan Vaughn, who I previously chronicled here. I present the entire letter Stan wrote to the Tampa Tribune, completely unedited. Nonetheless it would be delinquent of me not to point out that the claims made in this letter are demonstrably false.

Dear Mr. barton Hinkle,

Please be advised that the World Chess Federation, Inc considers your story in October 24th Tampa Tribune that it has declared Obama as WCF World Chess Champion to be inaccurate. Further, FIDE is the International Chess Federation and does not have any rights to the World Chess Federation tradenames and trademarks as World Chess Federation, Inc, a Nevada corporation, holds worldwide rights to the tradenames and trademarks for World Chess Federation. Further Fischer did not sign the 2002 Prague Agreement and further Anand turned down the opportunity in 2000 to play for the WCF World Chess Champion title so therefore any claim is not undisputed as further in 1992 FIDE Campomanes signed over legal rights to title of The World Chess Champion to Bobby Fischer. now deceased. Further should Obama wish to play in the upcoming WCF The World Chess Championship Qualifying Tournament in Las Vegas Dec 2-13 at Riviera he may only do so not representing USA as Kenya recently provided a certified copy of his Kenya Birth certificate and after his later Indonesian citizenship he never became a naturalized US citizen. You may have also heard that the US military is now revoking orders to go to Afghanistan for all military personnel who are filing court challenges to deployment orders in light that Obama is not eligible to be President nor commander in chief . Attached is a certified copy of his Kenyan birth certificate as provided by Kenya and further the so called certificate of live birth Obama provided allegedly from Hawaii has been certified a fake now as had photoshopped borders of different year than copy and experts proved had black and white pixels not green behind wording that had replaced earlier different text.

Now Mr Vaughn is also the organiser of the 'World Championship' match in Las Vegas later this year. Not that I was planning to attend mind you, but if I want to be exposed to this kind of craziness, I can save the air fare by instead watching the nutbags on Fox News from the comfort of my living room.

3 queens in 5 moves

Even though Street Chess is a serious tournament (with prizes and rating points at stake), I still like play in the 'coffee house' style, especially just after I've lost a game. For those unfamiliar with the term 'coffee house', it is a style of chess based on speculative attacks, sacrificing material, and trying to win by bluffing your opponent that your attack is much stronger than it really is.
Yesterday I played a good example of all of the above, with the added bonus that the banter between myself and my opponent attracted the interest of a large number of spectators. I was black and my opponent opened with an interesting variant of the Colle, in which he develops his knight to g3, in part to support the thematic e4 break. I decided to go after this knight with my h pawn. By move 10 he had committed the cardinal error of moving some pieces twice in the opening, while others he hadn't moved at all. With my lead in development it was a question of where I was going to crash through, which he then answered for me by castling. I picked up a couple of central pawns while he decided to commit further sins by sending off his queen on a pawn hunting mission. I offered a piece soon after, which he declined, so I sacrificed it 2 moves later. In true coffee house style my 19th move (Qg5) looked quite strong, but actually wasn't. He firstly played a diversionary capture with 20.Nxc5 and after I replied 20. ... Bxg3 he thought for a while and then loudly exclaimed "But it's check!" 21.Qxd7+ Kf8 was quickly played, and then with a flourish he blocked any discovered attacks with 22.Qg4 This turned out to be a losing move as I now recycled my queen, not once but twice, all in the space of 5 moves. When the smoke had cleared I had a forced mate, and he was congratulating me on my 'lucky' win!

1.d4 d5 2.e3 Nf6 3.Bd3 e6 4.Ne2 c5 5.Ng3 Nc6 6.c3 h5 7.f3 h4 8.Ne2 Bd6 9.Nd2 Qe7 10.Bb5 e5 11.Bxc6+ bxc6 12.Qa4 Bd7 13.0-0 exd4 14.Nb3 dxe3 15.Qa6 h3 16.g3 Ne4 17.Qb7 Rb8 18.Qxa7 Nxg3 19.Nxg3 Qg5 20.Nxc5 Bxg3 21.Qxd7+ Kf8 22.Qg4 Qxg4 23.fxg4 e2 24.hxg3 h2+ 25.Kg2 exf1Q+ 26.Kxf1 h1Q+ 27.Kf2 Rh2+ 28.Ke3 Re8+ 29.Kf4 Rf2+ 30.Kg5 Qh6#