Chess Go Spinny

Every so often, someone comes up with a really cool depiction of something, and this Youtube video illustrating the top chess players through history is well worth a look:  So naturally one of the things I did was look at it to see how it meshed with my understanding of chess history. Most of the names that had made it to #1 were very familiar to me, with a few exceptions; I knew very little of Kolisch, von der Lasa, Alexandre and this article's subject, Alexander Petrov (1794-1867).  So who was he? His Wikipedia article gives little detail, and nor does his collection of games on Chessbase - it's the same problem I had with Philidor, where very few of his games are preserved, and those that are were not against the other leading players of his day. (In Petrov's case, this was probably an issue of travelling distance - the main centres of chess activity were clearly in Western Europe - most of the other top players were British, French or German - and in those days, travel...

Title-norm all-play-alls are coming thick and fast. Following the Muswell Hill International earlier this month, we now have one organized by Lawrence Cooper in his home town of Stafford. (It was called the Wood Green International, despite taking place nowhere near Wood Green, because the players were mostly members of the Wood Green club.) This was a somewhat stronger event, with GM norms available; the field was such that the GM norm score was 7 for all players and the IM norm score was 5. Going into the final day's play, there were three live norm chances, and two of them came in; Ravi Haria wrapped up a GM norm and Marcus Harvey an IM norm with a round to spare. Jonah Willow's norm chances ended in round 8, when he lost to Jonathan Blackburn needing 2/2. This is Marcus's final norm, and he is well over the 2400 threshold, so that should be the IM title in the bag. Ravi needs one more norm and to get his rating over 2500; the 37 rating points he has gained here and at...

 News has come to the chess world of the death of Evgeny Sveshnikov (1950-2021). While I didn't know him myself, many people on the English Chess Forum did, and their tributes to him paint the picture of a friendly and gentlemanly player. While never quite at the same level as the best Soviet players of his day ( Chessmetrics lists his peak world ranking at #20, and most of the players above him were his fellow-countrymen), he was strong enough to qualify for eight USSR championships, with his best result being equal fifth at Tbilisi 1978 . After the breakup of the USSR, he represented both Latvia and Russia at various points, in particular playing for the former in four Olympiads , and then later winning gold medals with the latter in the World Senior Team Championships . But what he is primarily remembered for is the opening that bears his name; 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 was a rather obscure sideline that was mostly avoided because of the weakness on d5; ...

 In the latest sign of normality possibly beginning to return to the chess world, a title-norm all-play-all has just taken place in Muswell Hill, London. Many congratulations to Adam Raoof on being able to organize it, and to the tournament's joint winners, Maciej Czopor and Conor Murphy, on not only winning the tournament but also clearing the IM norm requirements by half a point. Conor Murphy also won the brilliancy prize for his round 8 win against Alexander Cherniaev (among the annotated games below). This is Conor Murphy's third norm, and he has already achieved the 2400 rating, so he should soon be granted the IM title. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Total 1 FM Czopor Maciej 2376 Poland * ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 1 ½ 1 1 7 2 FM Murphy Conor E 2382 Ireland ½ * ½ ½ 1 ...

One of the things that will immediately strike you, if you go to any large chess tournament in the UK (and probably most other countries), is that there is a sizeable gender imbalance; even tournaments that consciously make an effort to invite women players tend to have many more men than women. There have, nevertheless, been many women chess players who were at least competitive in top-level play, and the subject of today's post is one of them. Vera Menchik (1906-1944) was not only the first women's world champion (a title which she first won in 1927, successfully defended six times, and was still the holder of till her death), but she was also a regular competitor in tournaments against the top male players of her day, albeit usually finishing near the bottom. How strong a player was she overall? The good people of ChessMetrics suggest that she peaked at a world ranking of 52 in May 1929, 270 rating points behind then world champion Alekhine. (By way of comparison, there ar...

 Jan-Krzysztof Duda was not a name on every chess player's lips before this week, but he's certainly made headlines now: after holding Carlsen to a 1-1 draw in standardplay games, he then won the second playoff game to reach the World Cup final and the Candidates. Meanwhile, Karjakin beat Fedoseev 1½-½ to become the other finalist and Candidate. The final then also went Duda's way; he drew quickly with black before winning a nice game with white to wrap the event up. Carlsen, meanwhile, won the third-place playoff 2-0 with two crushing wins against Fedoseev. The two finalists have rather contrasting histories when it comes to the Candidates: Karjakin has played in the event three times before, and won it once, getting into the 2016 match against Carlsen. Duda, on the other hand, is not only making his debut, he is making history as the first Poland-registered player to play in the event, Miguel Najdorf having  already transferred to Argentina when he made his Candidates deb...

In three of the four quarter-finals, the higher-seeded player got through fairly comfortably: Carlsen won both his games against Bacrot, while Duda and Fedoseev both drew with black and then won in the endgame with white (although the latter only won thanks to a late blunder by Tabatabaei).  The real drama of the round, however, came in the fourth match: Shankland twice took the lead against Karjakin only for the latter to equalize, and so it came down to the fast rapid games. Karjakin won both of these to book his place in the semi-final.  That gives us these semi-final pairings:  Magnus Carlsen v Jan-Krzysztof Duda  Vladimir Fedoseev v Sergey Karjakin  If Duda wins, he and the winner of Fedoseev-Karjakin will get to the candidates. If he loses, the winner of Fedoseev-Karjakin and the winner of the third-place playoff will get to the Candidates. The unlucky one of the three will have to make do with the consolation of a place in the Grand Prix, as will Bacrot, ...