19.01.2010 – Edgar Colle (18971932) was a Belgian chess who scored excellent results
in world-class tournaments. He died tragically at the age of 34, and is mainly remembered
for the Colle Opening System 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.e3. This, as Dennis Monokroussos
relates in this week's ,
was not what he was able to play in a beautiful game against Ernst Grünfeld.
Be there at 9 p.m. EST.
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Playchess training with FM Dennis Monokroussos
The Belgian master Edgar Colle is best known for the eponymous Colle System,
a placid-looking opening he turned into a dangerous attacking system. As is
often the case with the openings named for players, most of us probably know
a lot more about the opening than we do about the man who developed it into
something poisonous.
Edgar Colle (1897–1932) was a Belgian chess master who scored
excellent results in major international tournaments, including first
at Amsterdam 1926, ahead of Savielly Tartakower and future world champion
Max Euwe; first at Meran 1926, ahead of Esteban Canal; and first at Scarborough
1930, ahead of Maroczy and Rubinstein). His playing career was hampered
by ill health. He survived three difficult operations for a gastric ulcer
and died after a fourth at the age of 34. Colle is remembered today primarily
for his introduction of the chess opening now known as the Colle System:
1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.e3. In the picture we see Edgar Colle (second
from right) standing next to Salo Landau during a game Rubinstein vs Tartakower.
So let's fix that. In our ChessBase show this week we'll have a few things
to say about the man and see him in action against an even more notable name,
Ernst Grünfeld. Colle tried to play the Colle, but Grünfeld avoided
the main line and went for a Queen's Indian setup. It didn't matter: Colle showed
that he was more than a one-trick pony, and gave us a game of value. First of
all, he demonstrates how White can build an attack against a Queen's Indian
approach; second, he shows us what to do once the pieces are in place! Colle
won in beautiful style – but you'll have to join me Wednesday night at
9 p.m. ET (3 a.m. Thursday morning, CET) for the details.
To watch, just log on to the Playchess server at the given time, go to the
Broadcast room, and then find and select Colle-Grünfeld under the Games
tab. Hope to see you there!
Dennis Monokroussos'
lectures begin on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. EST, which translates to 02:00h GMT,
03:00 Paris/Berlin, 13:00h Sydney (on Thursday). You can find the times for
different locations in the world at World
Time and Date, with exact times for most larger cities .
And you can watch older lectures by Dennis Monokroussos offline in
the Chess Media System room of Playchess:
Enter the above archive room and click on "Games" to see the lectures.
Monokroussos in Mexico: World Championship 2007
Dennis Monokroussos is 43, lives in South Bend, IN, where
he teaches chess and has worked as an adjunct professor of philosophy at the
University of Notre Dame and Indiana University-South Bend.
At one time he was one of the strongest juniors in the U.S. and has reached
a peak rating of 2434 USCF, but several long breaks from tournament play have
made him rusty. He is now resuming tournament chess in earnest, hoping to reach
new heights.
Dennis has been working as a chess teacher for ten years now, giving lessons
to adults and kids both in person and on the internet, worked for a number of
years for New York’s Chess In The Schools program, where he was one of
the coaches of the 1997-8 US K-8 championship team from the Bronx, and was very
active in working with many of CITS’s most talented juniors.
When Dennis Monokroussos presents a game, there are usually two main areas
of focus: the opening-to-middlegame transition and the key moments of the middlegame
(or endgame, when applicable). With respect to the latter, he attempts to present
some serious analysis culled from his best sources (both text and database),
which he has checked with his own efforts and then double-checked with his chess
software.
Playchess Training with IM Merijn van Delft
Everyone is invited to join this weekly training hour on Wednesday evening.
Together we will have a look at the most recent grandmaster games. Recurring
themes during our analyses and discussions are the latest opening developments
and how to work on your own chess.
A word about myself: I was born (March 13, 1979) and raised in Apeldoorn, The
Netherlands. In 1995 I won the Dutch U16 Championship and played the European
Championship in Poland and the World Championship in Brasil. In 1998 I moved
to Amsterdam to study psychology and had a great time there. In 2003 I met my
wife Evi Zickelbein and ever since we've been living together in Hamburg, Germany.
In 2004 I made both master titles: one at the university and one in chess. Since
2005 I've been working fulltime in the chess world: training, coaching, writing,
organizing and still actively playing myself. By now I have about fifteen years
of experience as a chess trainer. Together with my dad I wrote a book
about chess training (Schaaktalent Ontwikkelen), of which the Dutch
version is already available and the English
version will follow April 2010.
IM Merijn van Delft's lecture starts at 20:00h Central European Time (Berlin,
Paris, Rome), which translates to 19:00h London. You can find the times for
different locations in the world at World
Time and Date. Exact times for most larger cities are .
The lecture is in the "Broadcast" room of Playchess. It is free for
Premium Playchess members (50 Ducats for others).
Links
The lectures are broadcast live on the chess server .
If you are not a member you can download the free PGN reader ChessBase
Light, which gives you immediate access. You can also use the program
to read, replay and analyse PGN games. New and enhanced: CB Light 2009!
06.01.2010 – The 2009-10 Hastings Masters ended in a fourway tie for first place, between Mark Hebden of England, British Champion David Howell, Andrei Istratescu of Roumania, and Romain Edouard of France. In the final round Hebden and Istratescu halved out in 11 moves, but Howell had to fight for a black victory. Our report on the last two rounds includes a big pictorial of lesser-known players.
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Reports by Steve Giddins
Round eight: De pilo pendet
I wandered into the Congress Office yesterday around mid-morning, and stood
chatting briefly with Pam Thomas, the Congress Publicity Officer, when suddenly,
from the next room, there emerged the dulcet East Ham tones of IM Andrew Martin.
I found him surrounded by a couple of boxes full of booklets, each of which
he was signing. I mentioned in my first round report that Andrew plays very
little tournament chess these days, concentrating instead on his career as a
writer and trainer. He is certainly one of the country's busiest junior trainers,
and has been heavily involved in the ECF's "Chess Sets for Schools"
project. This is a project, which started some 18 months ago, when a company
called Holloid Plastics approached the ECF, with a proposal to manufacture and
distribute up to 250,000 free chess sets, to be allocated amongst every school
in the country. Such a massive boost in school chess activity represents a unique
opportunity for English chess.
Andrew Martin
Unfortunately, the management of the project has not exactly been a model of
efficiency or effectiveness, and it has attracted a great deal of criticism.
However, it now appears that things are finally on the move. With a newly-constituted
ECF Management Board firmly behind the project, many thousands of sets are currently
in the process of being delivered to the approximately 9,000 schools which have
applied for them. Alongside the delivery of sets themselves, the ECF has developed
a Certificate of Merit scheme, which involves a multi-level online test, which
pupils can take, to improve their chess skill. Andrew has been heavily involved
in developing material for this scheme, and the booklets he was signing are
part of it. They complement an excellent DVD, which has been produced by Andrew,
in cooperation with Chessbase, the world's leading supplier of chess software.
Together, the materials add up to a first-rate beginners' course, and it is
hoped that as many pupils as possible will sign up to the Certificate of Merit
scheme. Ex nihilo, nihil fit, as they say – by working now to
develop a whole generation of children, who are familiar with the game, and
enjoy playing it, we can build a foundation for Britain's chess future, as well
as transforming the ailing finances of the ECF itself.
IM Jack Rudd, modelling the latest in ECF-approved chess education literature
But now ad rem. Yesterday's penultimate round of the 2009/10 Hastings
Masters saw two of the leading group win, and thereby assure themselves a half
point lead over the field, going into today's final round. Mark Hebden won the
longest game of the day against Christophe Philipe of France, whilst Andrei
Istratescu beat Simon Ansell in a model positional game. The latter's Kalashnikov
Sicilian soon led to a galloping case of what Hans Kmoch, in his classic book Pawn Power in Chess, described as "leucopenia" (that's what
you and I call "weak white squares"), after which the Roumanian GM
sucked the blood from Black's position, with an efficiency that would have done
credit to his mythical Transylvanian countryman:
Meanwhile, those following the live broadcasts had the unaccustomed experience
of seeing a novelty on move 2 of the Sicilian! Well, maybe it is not technically
a novelty, but I for one have not seen the move 2.Be2 played in a master game
before. Despite its exceptionally modest appearance, it yielded Greet a decent
position, but he had used too much time on the clock and lost the thread of
the position completely between moves 19-25:
Bates and Hawkins both had dubious-looking positions from the opening, but
survived and eventually made draws (in Hawkins' case, after pressing for the
win). Martin Mitchell has had a great tournament, and virtually wrapped up an
IM norm, by winning an extraordinary game against John Anderson, in which the
black king was chased from pillar to post, but somehow escaped the mates, and
eventually decided the game by helping himself to a whole rook in broad daylight:
Another untitled player who has had an excellent tournament is Bob Eames, and
he served up a game which will warm the cockles of every King's Gambiteer's
heart. Whatever the objective risks of the opening, there is no doubt that when
it works, it really works. The young Icelander, Gudmundur Kjartansson, has shown
repeatedly over the past couple of years that he is a very strong player indeed,
but he was caught out with his theory yesterday, and the result was brutal:
So Tuesday's final round sees the following leading pairings:
Hebden (6.5) – Istratescu (6.5)
Gormally (6) – Drozdovskij (6)
Hracek (6) – Howell (6)
Ansell (5.5) – Edouard (6)
Logic would suggest that the players on boards 2-4 need to play for a win,
so hopefully some fighting chess should be guaranteed. My message to the players
is: come on lads, remember what the Romans used to say – sic itur
ad astra!
Round nine: Nunc est bibendum
The 2009-10 Hastings Masters ended in a fourway tie for first place, between
Mark Hebden of England, British Champion David Howell, Andrei Istratescu of
Roumania, and Romain Edouard of France.
To nobody's great surprise, the two leaders, Hebden and Istratescu, halved
out in 11 moves. This left them safely ensconced in the clubhouse on 7 points,
from which they could observe the attempts of the various 6-pointers to catch
them up. Gormally-Drozdovskij never looked like ending in anything other than
a draw, but Romain Edouard defeated Simon Ansell with Black, to join the leaders.
Finally, in the last few minutes up to the first time-control, they were joined
by David Howell, whose opponent lost the thread in the time-scramble:
Jonathan Hawkins won his last-round game, to secure his third IM norm and the
title, on which we offer our heartiest congratulations. Sadly, Bob Eames missed
out, after losing a must-win game against Natalia Zdebskaja, whose 3.5/4 finish
lifted her to a share of 5-8th places. Martin Mitchell also missed a norm, when
he lost to Andrew Martin, as did Elias Demac of Norway, who went down to Andrew
Greet. Lower down, young Peter Williams, who has been one of the stars of this
past week, capped an excellent performance, by beating the highly experienced
Petr Marusenko, after a dramatic struggle.
The £100 Horntye Park best game prize goes to Simon Williams, who produced
a stunningly imaginative queen sacrifice, to beat Andrew Green in the final
round. In all honesty, I (the judge of the prize) have had no time in which
to establish whether it is fully sound, but my reasoning is that if it is, it
certainly deserves the prize, and arguably it does so, even if not!
16.Qxd4?! [Fritz 12 gives this 4.80 in favour of Black, Rybka
3 thinks Black is better by 4.0] 16...cxd4 17.Nxf6+ Kh8 18.Ne8 Rf5 19.g4
exd5? [19...Qd8 or 19...Rxf1 were definitely preferable] 20.gxf5
Bxf5 21.Bf3 dxc4 22.Bxb7 Qb5 23.Nd6 Qb6 24.Rae1 d3+ 25.Kh1 Nd7 26.Bxa8 Nf6 27.Nxf5
gxf5 28.Rxf5 1-0. [Click to
replay]
Thus, another Hastings comes to an end, in many ways one of the most enjoyable
I ever remember. Many thanks to everyone involved in sponsoring and running
the event, and to all the players, for making it such a great 9 days of chess.
And now, as monk-copyists used to write at the end of manuscripts, Nunc
scripto totum pro Christo ta mihi potum – now that I have written
so much for Christ, give me a drink! In my case, it is Caissa rather than Christ,
but the sentiment remains the same! Ultimum vale.
Zbynek Hracek – try pronouncing that after having a couple of
pints at Hastings' Pig in Paradise pub ... or even before
Zbrynek Hracek versus Bob Eames – White won a pawn but Black put up a
gutsy defence to hold the draw
Natalia Zdebskaja is a 23-year-old WGM from Ukraine. She is married to the
tournament top seed, Yuri Drozdovskij. They got married in July 2009. Natalia
was a member of the silver-medal winning Ukraine women's team at the 2008 Dresden
Olympiad.
French GM Romain Edouard wearing a very shiny shirt for his Hastings debut
Nicolai Getz made a name for himself (and a couple of thousand pounds) in Gibraltar
last year when beating the (literally) underrated Russian IM Oleg Kozlov in
the Challengers competition
Andreas Stripunski of Germany ... not to be confused with GM Alexander Stripunsky
of USA.
Jude Lenier, 14, is one of England's best young players at the moment
Young French player Hugo Devoille gets close and personal with his pieces.
But they didn't respond favourably, I'm afraid. Hugo was not a Victor.
Tarun Malhotra is the 2009 British Under-11 Champion and is a member of Richmond
Junior Chess Club. He beat a very experienced 2000+ rated player in the recent
London Festival Open at Olympia.
Ten-year-old Aryan Tari from Norway could be hot on the heels of another prodigy
from his country. He is already rated 1932 and could soon be A Tari 2000 (Atari
2000 – geddit? Oh, please yourselves)...
”Beam me up, Scottie!“ It's unclear if Ezra Kirk is a relative of
Star Trek's Captain Kirk.
Given that he is French, he is more likely to be related to Captain Picard...
Amy Hoare, from Sussex, is only 13 but did well to draw with...
James Jackson (2067) an opponent rated 270 points higher than Amy.
The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the
chess server .
If you are not a member you can download the free PGN reader ChessBase
Light, which gives you immediate access. You can also use the program
to read, replay and analyse PGN games. New and enhanced: CB Light 2009!
02.01.2010 – Lucidity is the hallmark of good chess instruction, but what happens if the
teacher has no conception of intelligibility? The Editor of Chess
Notes dips into the wordy world of the grand left oblique aligned en appui
with major crochet, where designations for posting disparity are
u lead and (u) lag. Recommended for code-breaking practice...
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Chess Explorations (34)
By Edward Winter
In any discussion of obscure chess instruction one author’s name stands
out: Franklin Knowles Young (1857-1931). Three sample pages from his books are
given below:
Above: page 264 of The Grand Tactics of Chess (Boston, 1905).
Above: page 97 of The Major Tactics of Chess (Boston, 1909).
Above: page 97 of Field Book of Chess Generalship (New York and London,
1923).
We reproduce his obituary on page 10 of the January 1932 American Chess
Bulletin:
One of Young’s few supporters was Charles W. Warburton, whose book My
Chess Adventures (Chicago, 1980) contained much material in defence of Young,
‘that most maligned of American chess writers’ (page 42). An overview
of Young’s chess books was provided in an article ‘The Evolution
of Chess Science (?)’ by John Barr on pages 325-328 of the August 1983 BCM.
A seldom-seen volume by a kind of Young the Younger is Chess Logic For Beginner
and Master by B. Koppin, a 45-page booklet which appeared in the United
States in 1949. C.N. 2613 (see page 391 of A Chess Omnibus) noted that
C.J.S. Purdy was in cracking form when discussing (i.e. demolishing) it on page
43 of Chess World, 1 February 1950. He concluded with the observation:
‘It is well printed. But why was it printed?’
To illustrate what Koppin offered beginners and masters, three pages are shown
below, without further comment or sneering:
Chess Notes is well known for its historical research, and anyone browsing
in its
will find a wealth of unknown games, accounts of historical mysteries, quotes
and quips, and other material of every kind imaginable. Correspondents from
around the world contribute items, and they include not only "ordinary readers"
but also some eminent historians and, indeed, some eminent masters. Chess
Notes is located at the Chess
History Center.Signed copies of Edward Winter's publications are
.
26.10.2009
– The Editor of Chess
Notes investigates a further batch of discrepancies arising from game-scores. Three of them involve Capablanca (against S. Coleman, F.J. Marshall and T.H. Tylor), and two concern Alekhine
(against [...]
Edward