Is the tide turning for the Berlin?

In terms of opening re-inventions over the last 25 years, the rise of the Berlin Defence to the Ruy Lopez probably runs second only the Kasparov's use of the Evans Gambit in the mid 1990's. And since Kramnik turned it into a solid system for Black, it has been a regular feature of the Super GM events. However I've recently seen a few games at least which shows that White still has a chance to breach the Berlin Wall.
In the current Norway event, Carlsen scores a reasonably direct win over Lev Aronian, after the later went wrong in a Berlin middlegame. Aronian probably underestimated Whites space advantage (with the pawn on d5), and only made it worse by exchanging dark squared bishops. As a result he had very little counterplay, and after being forced to shuffle his pieces, eventually made a fatal blunder.
As a result Carlsen leads the event with 2 wins and a draw, while everyone else has either drawn, or in the case of Caruana and Aronian, lost to Carlsen.


Carlsen,Magnus (2843) - Aronian,Levon (2764) [C67]
6th Norway Chess 2018 Stavanger NOR (3.1), 30.05.2018

The Bh6, h4 hack

The kingside hack against fianchettoed bishop is a bit of a double edged sword. On the surface it looks appealing, but it can back fire. I had the chance to successfully play it last night, but when looking up the theory on it, the position after White's 9th move only scores around 40%. In my game I was certainly helped by 9... Qa5 but if my opponent had chosen something like 9...Bxh6 instead, then I would have had a lot more work to do.


Press,Shaun - Hosking,Ian [B26]
Autumn Leaves, 29.05.2018

Old chess software

Accessing old chess programs, and indeed any old games, without payment is a bit of a grey area. 'Abandonware' is the term used for software no longer being sold or supported, and there are a number of sites on the net that allow you to download or run these programs. I suspect that the copyright on these programs is still in effect, but on the other hand, how can you pay for such programs if there is no one to pay.
Having got that out of the way, I did come across a site that had a number of old, and historic pieces of chess software. https://www.myabandonware.com/browse/theme/chess-d/ has around 75 chess (or chess type) programs listed, and can either be downloaded, or played inside a browser. Various versions of Battlechess are there, as are early copies of Chessmaster. Of course these games are the MS-DOS versions of everything, so the graphics (and strength) aren't that great. The earliest program listed was MicroChess (1978) which ran on the Apple II (so you'll need an Apple II emulator to play it). The earliest DOS program listed was simply called Chess (1981), but you can play that in a web browser (NB on the easiest level I checkmated on move 5)
If you do a bit of extra searching you can probably find more programs that weren't tagged correctly, as well as non-chess games you probably never thought you'd play again!

And the assist goes to the goalie

When I was very young, I spent a season of soccer playing goalie. I kind of fell into it, as no one else was keen to take on the role, although it took me a while to work out why. As far as I can remember I was pretty good at it, especially when diving at the feet of over eager centre forwards trying to go round me. However in the final game of the Port Moresby Under 10's I did concede the vital goal that gave the title to Korobosea Primary, instead of my team. After that I gave up goalkeeping (mainly due to a move to a new team in Australia), and for the next few seasons scored goals rather than conceding them.
Of course accidents happen, even to seasoned professionals. The Champions League Final between Real Madrid and Liverpool is the current example, with Liverpool goalkeeper Loris Karius, having a bit of a shocker. But even seasoned GM's can get it wrong at the board, especially if they miscount captures. GM Deep Sengupta did exactly that in the Kolkatta Open, when he assumed that recaptures would only happen one way. Instead he realised at move 10 that his opponent could capture in a different way (11. cxd7+ Nxd7!) and whatever happened next, he was dropping a piece.


Sengupta,Deep - Narayanan,Srinath [D00]
Kolkatta, 05.2018

In praise of trash

I've never got out of my habit of playing 'coffee house' openings, especially when I'm actually playing in a 'coffee house' type event. And so it was today, where I played a couple of terrible games, interspersed with a few 'coffee house' wins. And in true coffee house style, I was helped by my opponent getting somewhat confused with what I was doing. Here is Exhibit A


Press,Shaun - Dude, A [C21]
Pub Chess, May 2018

And the bottom seed is ... Anand!

I've just had a look at the upcoming Altibox tournament in Norway, and noticed that the *bottom* seed in this 10 player event is Viswanathan Anand. He is in good company though, as the 9th seed is Lev Aronian a mere 4 rating points ahead of him.
At the other end of the event, Carlsen, Caruana, and Mamedyarov are the 2800+ players, with the rest of the field squeezed in between them. The first round of play is on Monday 28th May, although there are other events leading into, including a simul by Wesley So.
Also interesting is the format for the open event running alongside the main event. Although it is a 7 round event, the first 3 rounds are rapidplay games (15m+10s), played on the Friday evening. Saturday and Sunday see four 90m+30s (2 on each day), to round out the event. The entry fees are quite pricey, at what would be $150 Australian, although pretty much everything in Norway is pricey!
With such a strong field lined up, it is very difficult to pick a winner. I generally do well at this by picking Carlsen in whichever event he is playing in, but I'd love to see Anand win, as it isn't every day that the bottom seed wins a high level RR.

Making my life easier

I spent today running a small interschool competition in Canberra. As the field wasn't very large, the rounds tended to finish quite quickly. To make sure we stuck to some sort of sensible schedule, I used the time in between rounds to do a bit of coaching.
The first lesson I gave was on the 'Electric Fence' checkmate (Mate with Q+R or R+R). Fortunately for me the players were quite attentive, as it seemed that the lesson sunk in. Over the next few rounds, this became the 'go to' method of winning the game, especially by players who had never checkmated this way before. As a result, there were very few games that were dragged out by kings being unsuccessfully chased around the board. This meant the rounds finished even quicker(!), giving me more time to do even more coaching.
So if you are running a school event, showing a few basic checkmating ideas (Electric Fence, K+Q v K) might make the event run a little more smoothly.