They certainly knew their stuff

Over the last few days I've been flicking through a couple of old Russian endgame books by Averbakh et al. The books (which were published in English by Batsford) were part of a project to write an endgame manual for soviet chess players. It turned out the task was too big for one book (or one author) and so it is divided up into different types of endings.

One of the things I looked at was the accuracy of the answers in the book, seeing if they would stand up to modern tablebase analysis. I took a selection of interesting position and put them into the http://www.k4it.de/index.php?topic=egtb&lang=en tablebase page and checked the answers. So far I haven't found any significant errors (just the odd alternative move deep into the solution), and no instances of the wrong assessment being given.

One position I looked at was this study by Grigoriev from 1931 (White to play and draw). The answer involves the two kings dancing up and down the board, making sure that the capture of one pawn is met by a capture of the corresponding pawn. There are a number of 'only' moves needed to solve this position, and this is confirmed by the tablebase. I also fed the position into Stockfish, hoping to trick the computer engine, and for about 1.2 seconds it thought that Black was winning. The it hit a search depth of 31 ply and concluded the position was drawn

btw the bare bones solution is 1.Kg3 c5 2.Kf3 Kf1 3.Ke4 Kf2 4.Ke5 Kf3 5.Ke6 Kf4 6.Ke7 Ke5 7.Kd7 Kf4 8.Ke6 Kf3 9.Ke5 Kf2 10.Ke4 Kf1 11.Kf3 Ke1 12.Ke3 Kd1 13.Ke4 Kd2 14.Kd5 Kxd3 15.Kxc5 Ke4 16.Kd6 =

How to start an online brawl

With the world top 4 usually containing Anand, Carlsen, Aronian and Kramnik (is various orders), Susan Polgars website has posed the question about who will be the next young gun to break into the world's top 5. The choices are Caruana, Giri, So, Liem or 'someone else'. At this stage So holds a slight lead over Giri with Liem in third place.
Now I must say I'm a little surprised that So is in the lead, although reading the comments on the poll (click on the view results link to see the 30 posts so far) did possibly explain why. Based on the cheer leading for So in the comments section I'm assuming that national pride has a part to play, with his Filipino fans 'getting out the vote'. The Giri supporters, who are almost as numerous, have added their voices to the debate, with a bit of back and forth name calling the result.
Now I voted for Giri (before I saw any of the comments or results) as I felt that being based in Europe is a big advantage in terms of invites, strong competition etc However natural talent also counts for something, which is why my son was adamant that Liem will be the best of the lot.
But as the poll question asks who will make the top 5 in the next 3 years, it may well be 'no one' is the right answer, with the current top 4 plus Ivanchuk/ Nakamura or even a resurgent Topalov keeping them at bay.

What is the most popular trap?

Finding what is the most popular opening trap (in terms of games played) turns out to be quite tricky. In part his is due to the difficulty in searching for numbers, but it also depends upon what is a 'trap'. Is it the clear win of material (or mate), or is something more subtle, like a simple positional advantage?
In Muller and Knaak's "222 Opening Traps after 1.e4" they report that the "O'Kelly Trap" has been played 2,325 times in Megabase 2005. However this really is a positional trap as after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 a6 3.d4?! cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 Black is thought to better as Nb5 is ruled out. However this runs perilously close to Larsen's observation that the Sicilian is a positional swindle, as White exchanges a central pawn for a wing pawn.
Even a line like 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 6.f4 Be7?! 7.Bb5+ Bd7 8.e5 with the hope of 8 ... Nd5? 9.Nxd5 exd5 10.e6! (played 385 times) only leads to a slight advantage if Black plays correctly (ie 8. ... dxe5 etc).
Of course if you counted every game of chess ever played (not just rated/published games) I would be pretty sure that Scholars Mate would take the crown as the most popular trap ever. Indeed it may well be the case that 90% of all chess players (ok I'm guessing here) may have played at least 1 game using this trap (either setting it, or falling for it!)

2011 Bermuda Open

Once again I missed out on the Bermuda Open, although I would regard Rotorua as an adequate, if not as exotic, replacement. Those that did go once again enjoyed themselves immensely , with both the chess, and the social activities, first rate.
Although I don't have all the results to hand, I do know GM Larry Christiansen won the tournament (and a free return trip) after surviving a 5 player blitz playoff after he, GM Alexander Ivanov, GM Pascal Charbonneau, GM Nick de Firmian and IM Dmitry Schneider all tied for first place. FM Rupert Jones, who combined FIDE Development Commission work with the tournament, played Christiansen in the first round (and lost) but went on to win the Under 2000 section.
For further reports on the tournament you can read A two hour trip to paradise or Polly Wright's Castling Queenside blog.

A better rating method?

The contest to find a better method of rating chess players (see my earlier post) has come to an end. It was won by Yannis Sismanis, who utilised a method called stochastic gradient descent. The winner has published a short paper giving the technical details of his method.
Does this mean he has developed a better ratings 'system'? Based on my reading of the paper, I would say not. Simply because the conditions of the contest involved utilising a large set of training data which was then tested against a smaller set of test data. However the training data covered a number of rating periods (ie not just results from the previous rating period), while most ratings system simply use the results from tournaments played in the previous 2,3 or 4 months. (In fact his method had a discounting factor for older games in the data set).
However it does indicate possible improvements in how ratings are calculated. In fact there is now a follow up contest to look at this is issue, once again run by Kaggle. The conditions are slightly more restricted than the previous one, but the winner picks up $10,000 and a trip to Athens to present their system to FIDE.

2011 ANU Masters - Round 3

The shape of the 2011 ANU Masters is becoming a little clearer, with Andrew Brown continuing to lead with 3 wins from 3 games. With the draw seeing the top 3 players meeting in the first 4 rounds, Brown's win over second seed Andrey Bliznyuk improves his chances of winning the event. Next week he plays top seed Junta Ikeda, who was held to a draw by Jeremy Reading in this round. Peter Pullicino scored his first points of the tournament, after Adrian De Noskowski pushed the wrong pawn in the ending and had to surrender a piece. Miles Patterson moved to +1 after he won a couple of pawns against Ian Rout.

Bliznyuk,Andrey (2196) - Brown,Andrew (2175) [B33]

2011 ANU Masters (3), 23.02.2011

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Nd5 Nxd5 8.exd5 Nb8 9.a4 Be7 10.Be2 0-0 11.0-0 f5 12.f4 Bf6 13.Be3 a6 14.fxe5 Bxe5 15.Nd4 Qe7 16.Bf2 a5 17.Re1 Na6 18.Bxa6 Rxa6 19.c4 Qf6 20.Rc1 Qh6 21.Nf3 Bxb2 22.Rc2 Ba3 23.Re7 f4 24.Rce2 Bc5 25.Qe1 Qg6 26.Nh4 Qf6 27.Kh1 Rb6 28.Bxc5 dxc5 29.Rc7 f3 30.gxf3 Bf5 31.Qf2 Bd3 32.Re1 Bxc4 (D)

33.Ree7 Rb1+ 34.Kg2 Bf1+ 35.Qxf1 Rxf1 36.Rxg7+ Qxg7+ 37.Rxg7+ Kxg7 38.Kxf1 Rf4 39.Ng2 Rxa4 0-1

Gus Korda

One of the more distinctive characters of the Canberra chess scene, Gus Korda, passed away on Sunday evening (20 February 2011). Gus was an almost continuous fixture at the Saturday Street Chess events over the last 20 years, and played his last event the day before his passing (He scored a respectable 4/7). He was very passionate about his chess, would have easily clocked up 6,000+ rapidplay games at Street Chess alone. Sometimes this passion overflowed and it would be fair to say that Gus could sometimes be a handful for any arbiter. However he seemed to mellow with age, and while he would still strongly argue his point of view if he felt he had suffered an injustice, I suspect this was more for show than anything else.
Surprisingly for someone who argued with officialdom so much, he did have a track record as an organiser. He brought the 1974 Australian Championship to Cooma, and was instrumental in the Doeberl Cup's move to the Italo-Australian Club. He also secured sponsorship for Street Chess from a couple of local Canberra businesses, through his friendships with the owners.
While poor health affected his strength in recent years he was strong enough to play in the 1971 Australian Championships, and in the 2000-2001 Australian Open managed to draw his game with Egyptian IM Mohamed Ezat.

Ezat,Mohamed (2348) - Korda,Agustin [D36]
Australian op Canberra (1), 28.12.2000

1.d4 e6 2.c4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5 c6 6.Qc2 Be7 7.e3 Bg4 8.Bd3 Nbd7 9.f3 Bh5 10.Nge2 Bg6 11.0-0 Bxd3 12.Qxd3 0-0 13.Rad1 Ne8 14.Bxe7 Qxe7 15.e4 Nc7 16.e5 f6 17.f4 fxe5 18.dxe5 Ne6 19.Qe3 g6 20.g4 Ng7 21.Nd4 Rae8 22.g5 Nc5 23.a3 Nce6 24.Nde2 b6 25.b4 Nf5 26.Qf2 Nfg7 27.b5 Nxg5 28.Qg2 Ne4 29.Nxe4 dxe4 30.Qxe4 Qc5+ 31.Kh1 Qxb5 32.Nd4 Qd5 33.Qxd5+ cxd5 34.Nb5 Nf5 35.Rfe1 Ne7 36.Nc7 Rc8 37.Nxd5 Nxd5 38.Rxd5 Rxf4 39.e6 Re8 40.Rd7 Rf6 41.e7 Kf7 42.Rxa7 h5 43.Rb7 g5 44.Re5 Kg6 45.Kg2 g4 46.h3 gxh3+ 47.Kxh3 Rf3+ 48.Kh4 Rf4+ 49.Kg3 Rf7 50.a4 Rf6 51.Rb5 h4+ 52.Kg2 Re6 53.R7xb6 R8xe7 54.a5 Kf7 55.Rxe6 Rxe6 56.Rb7+ Ke8 57.Kh3 Kd8 58.Kxh4 Re4+ 59.Kg3 Ra4 60.Rb5 Kc7 61.Kf3 Kc6 62.Rh5 Kb7 63.Ke3 Ka6 64.Kd3 ½-½