11/29/99 - Grand reopening
I didn't do a name the site contest a la MIG, but here is my "new" and "improved" site: Shakmaty Bereolos. Seems like I picked a good day for it, this has been one of the most active days in terms of hits for this page. In an effort to become "full serve", I've added links to a search engine and sports scores at the bottom of the page. I'll add stock quotes, etc. as soon as I figure out how to place them on the page in a little better structure.
I've added two games to the GMs section. The first was my very first game against a GM in 1985 versus Dimitry Gurevich. Looking back, I didn't play too badly, it is hard to pinpoint exactly where White went wrong. The second is a massacre by GM Sergey Kudrin. I also "translated" the game against GM Ivanov back into English.
11/28/99 - An endgame site
If you are interested in the endgame or problem solving or both, I recommend the Practical Chess Ending site. This site features a weekly endgame puzzle. The problems seem to alternate from week to week between positions from actual play and studies. However, like the name of the site says, the studies are practical positions, often undistiguishable from actual game positions. The site features a solving ladder so you can see how you stack up against others and solving competitions with prizes! Check it out.
11/27/99 - Woke last knight to the sound of thunder
"Knight on the rim is dim," the old saying goes. In some openings, however, development of the knight to the edge of the board is common. ...Na5 is thematic in many Ruy Lopez lines, while ...Nh5 is traditional in the Kings Indian. Duncan Suttles pioneered ...Nh6 in the Modern/Rat, while ...Na6 has been the rage in many Kings Indian games in the 1990s.
At the King's Island Open, I was involved with or witnessed 4 cases of Black played a knight to the edge of the board before castling. The results were not entirely discouraging: 3 wins and a loss. In the first round Bereolos-Kingrey saw. 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. cxd5 cxd5 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. Bf4 Nh5 which is not altogether unreasonable. The board next to us saw Geist-Tate with the more bizzare. 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Na5. Apparently the point is to try for a quick queenside expansion with ...a6 ...b5 and ...Bb7. White reacted with 4. c3. It seems like 4. d4 aiming for an open Sicilian where Black's ...Na5 might not be useful is also possible. Another interesting idea is 4.b4!? a la the Wing Gambit. In the 4th round game Bereolos-Wohl (the ending of which was discussed on 11/18/99) the knight to the edge theme was taken to the extreme with 1. d4 Na6. This seems to be a specialty of IM Wohl. I found several games of his with this and other offbeat openings in my database. In the last round I finally got into the act, although my knight to the rim was all theory. 19th century theory to be exact!
Smith, Bryan
Bereolos, Peter
Kings Island Open, 1999
Round 5 Board 12
1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.h4 g4 5.Ne5 Nf6 6.Bc4 d5 7.exd5 Bd6 8.d4 Nh5 Also possible is 8...0-0 9. 0-0 Nh5
9.Bb5+ White tries to take advantage of Black's delayed castling. More usual is 9. 0-0 Qxh4 10. Qe1 Qxe1 11. Rxe1 with a complicated ending. 9...Kf8 More active is the sacrificial 9...c6 as played by Anderssen and Morphy. My opponent intended to answer this with 10.dxc6 bxc6 11. Bc4 when White has an open line for his bishop. However after 11...0-0 with the threat of ...Ng3 Black should have a fine game. After 12.0-0 Qxh4 13.Qe1 Black is not obliged to exchange queens as in the main line. My opponent regarded 9...Kf8 as practically losing, but I don't agree with that assessment. He now goes a little overboard trying to prove that opinion. 10.Nc3 A point of 9...Kf8 is again revealed in the line 10. 0-0 Qxh4 11. Qe1 when, as in the earlier note, Black can keep queens on the board. (Stienitz once won a short game with 11. Bxf4, but Black's defense was very poor.) 10...Ng3 11.Bxf4 Nxh1 12.Ne4? This move throws a pawn away and lets Black extract his knight. Better is 12. Bg5 12...Qxh4+ 13.Kd2 Nf2 14.Qe2 g3 15.Qf3 Bg4 16.Qe3 Bxe5 17.Bxe5 Nxe4+ 18.Qxe4 Rg8 19.Rf1 Qg5+? Based on a hallucination. After 19...Nd7! 20. Bxd7 Qg5+ Black is winning since 21. Bf4 Qg6 forces the queens off. 20.Bf4 Qg6 I forgot that 20...Qe7 could be met with 21. Bh6+ winning. 21.Qe3 [21.Qe8+ Kg7 22.Qe5+ {22. Be5+ seems only to lead to a draw} Kf8 23.Qxc7 with a clear advantage to White] 21...Nd7 22.Bh6+ I thought 22. Qa3+ was a more dangerous try. Now Black has no problems. 22...Rg7 23.Bd3 f5 24.Qe6 Re8 25.Bxf5 Rxe6 26.Bxg6+ Rf6 Black will emerge a full piece ahead 0:1
11/21/99 - US Open Team Championship
I was in St. Louis yesterday for the US Open Team Championships. My team, Oversights (there was no best team name prize, so not much effort was put into the name) was composed of master Todd Andrews of Nashville on Board 1, myself on Board 2, Nashville master Jerry Wheeler on Board 3, and David Gilchrist, an A player from St. Louis who brought us all together. We had a respectable result, 3rd overall, and 1st expert team. We were in the running for 1st overall all the way until the end. Even after my sacrificial attack against IM Enrico Sevillano ran out of steam in the last round, Todd was still hanging tough against GM Sergey Kudrin on the top board. This tournament had a weighted scoring system whereby Board 1 counted 4 pts, Board 2 3 pts, etc. So if Todd could pull off the upset it would have been an 8 point swing and we would have taken the title by half a point. The following position arose after Kudrin played Qg4.
Here, with both players down to about 5 minutes sudden death, Todd uncorked the howler 1...e3?? and resigned after 2. Nh5+. Instead, after 1...Kh8 both sides would have chances and who knows what could have happened in the time scramble. The black d-pawn can become dangerous in many lines.
I must also comment on the organization of the event. I appreciate the generally thankless job the TD's and organizers do, but there are certain minimum conditions one expects. The playing room was very poorly lit. This is possibly partially the hotel's fault since a set of spotlights was never turned on. Still, the organizer should work out these details ahead of time. Also, while there was room for double the amount of teams, they were all bunched into the center section of the playing room. After the first round when it was apparent that there would be a smaller turnout things should have been spread out more. There was a wall chart for the team standings, but although I saw an individual wall chart being worked on, I never saw it posted. I still don't know the rating of my second round opponent. Every round was late as the pairings were done by hand. This may have been unavaoidable since teams were paired according to their weighted points. While there was strong media coverage by both television and newsprint, (and now me via electronic media 8-) there was no formal prizegiving or awarding of plaques. Finally, and this I can't forgive: SOME TEAMS DID NOT GET PAID THEIR PRIZES. Organizers, if you are going to guarantee prizes, you must not rely on entry fees! This money should be banked well ahead of the tournament especially for a national championship. As much as I bash Thad Rogers for his based on prizes in Atlanta, I will say that I've never heard about anyone not getting paid. Fortunately, my team managed to collect at the site. The organizer promised prizes to the other teams within a month.
It was expressed to me by several players that they had had problems with the organizer/TD, Bill Moushey, in the past. My teammates, Jerry and Todd, apparently got into an arguement with him before I even arrived. Moushey did issue them a public apology before the 1st round along with an apology to another player. Before the 3rd round he perhaps unintentionally insulted us by saying that if the #2 team doesn't at least nick the GM team for half a point he didn't see anything stopping them from going 40-0. I think it was also before the 3rd round that he announced that some teams would not get paid because he only got 30 teams instead of the 44 he needed to break even. He's crying to the wrong crowd on that one. We were the people who actually came to the tournament! Several people, myself included, had travelled a good distance to be there; so I particualarly didn't want to be lectured about the poor turnout.
11/18/99 - Kings Island Open
I was part of a large Knoxville contingent at the Kings Island Open along with Doug Hyatt, Nick Barber, Eric Vaughan, Haresh Mirani, and Jack Geibig. While we all had decent results, no one brought home a prize. I finished 3-2, which was a little disappointing, the same score I had last year in this tournament. I had some interesting games though. I'll discuss the finish to my 4th round game with IM Alex Wohl here. After a long uphill struggle, it looked like I was finally reaching a draw after 53. Nxh7
It appears that Black must now stop White's pawn from queening with 53... Kh5 when 54.Nf6+ Kxg5 55.Ne4+ Kf4 56.Nc5 a3 57.Kc2 and White will soon be able to sac his knight for the 2 pawns. Instead 53...b3! 54.g6 b2 55.Kc2 a3 56.g7 [56.Ng5 Nc3 57.Nf3+ Kh5 58.Nd2 b1=Q+!] 56...Nc3 57.g8=Q b1=Q+ 58.Kxc3 Qb2+! Forcing the King to the poor square d3. In general in Q+P vs Q endings the defending king should stick to the edges and corners when possible in order to minimize the chance that a check can be blocked with a counter check or a pin forcing a queen trade. 59.Kd3 Qb5+? Black should play the immediate a2. The text allows White to improve his King position. 60.Kc2 Qe2+ 61.Kc3? Throwing away the chance Wohl gave me. Either Kc1 or Kb3 should hold the draw. I went the "practical" route looking for a repetition of position. 61...Qb2+! Repeating the position from the 58th move, but this time Black is ready. 62.Kd3 a2! 63.Qg5+ Kh3 64.Qe3+ Kg2 The immediate Kh2 is better. Black's idea is to bring his king to g1 at a time when White cannot check on the first rank. Then, Black can block checks with his queen bringing it to g2 or f2. From these squares the black queen has access to the key squares f1, f3, and g3 to force a queen trade. 65.Qe4+ Kg1 66.Qe1+ Kg2 67.Qe4+ Kg3 68.Qe3+ Kh2 This time Black gets it right. 69.Qf4+ Kg1 Phase 1 complete. White cannot check on the first rank. 70.Qg4+ Qg2 71.Qd4+ Qf2 72.Qg4+?! If White can draw it must be with 72. Qg7+ Kh2 73. Qa1 when White may have some hope of making use of his Nh7 72...Kh2 73.Qd1 [73.Qh5+ Kg2 when Qd5+ is met by Qf3+ and Qg5+ by Qg3+] 73...Qf5+ 74.Kc4 Qe4+ 75.Kc3 Allowing a pretty finish, but 75. Kb3 Qb1+ or 75. Kc5(b5) Qe5+ and 76...a1Q were also hopeless. 75...a1=Q+ 0:1
11/9/99 - Back to English
I figured out how to print games out of CA with regular notation instead of figurine, so now I can print some games with some more meat to them. I added a game against Dlugy (a great illustration of a bad bishop) and fixed the Palatnik game that had been in figurine/Russian notation. I still need to fix the Ivanov game, but you can probably figure out the translation.
11/8/99 - More GM games
I added a couple of more games, against Ivanov and Palatnik, mostly as a test of how I extract notes from Chess Assistant. Please let me know if the figurine algebraic notation is coming out on the web page. It looks OK to me, but of course I have the CA fonts installed. Otherwise it may be jibberish. My problem is that when I print a game out of CA in pgn, I don't get any of my notes, and if I print it as an rtf file, I get my notes, but everything is in figurine algebraic with the CA fonts. Does anyone know a solution to this problem?
11/7/99 - Housekeeping
I've archived October 1999 and have added a link to my games versus GMs at the top of the page. I'm planning on annotating all of these, but for the time being am only going to activate the link once I have at least light annotations. So far the only thing I have handy in electronic form is my game versus Palatnik in 1996 that I annotated for the TCA newletter. More coming soon.
11/5/99 - November Rain
I'm back from the chess wasteland that is Idaho Falls. I'm
going to be playing more and writing less this month, but that
should mean more games. However, my trip to Idaho was not for
chess and the only thing chess related I saw was a commercial
during the Lakers-Jazz game starring none other than Gary
Kasparov. In it, The Boss is breezing around a simul, almost
running. Finally, he get's to one board and stops, studies, pulls
up a chair, studies some more... Of course the spectators start
gathering around to see what's happening. Then, it flashes to his
opponent and up pops an AltaVista
dialog box in which get's typed something like "How do I
beat Kasparov's Evans Gambit?" Maybe these guys should have
tried that:
[Event "Tal Memorial Tournament"]
[Site "Riga LAT"]
[Date "1995.??.??"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Kasparov Gary"]
[Black "Anand Viswanathan"]
[Result "1-0"]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4 Bxb4 5.c3 Be7 6.d4 Na5 7.Be2 exd4
8.Qxd4 Nf6 9.e5 Nc6 10.Qh4 Nd5 11.Qg3 g6 12.O-O Nb6 13.c4 d6 14.Rd1
Nd7 15.Bh6 Ncxe5 16.Nxe5 Nxe5 17.Nc3 f6 18.c5 Nf7 19.cxd6 cxd6 20.Qe3
Nxh6 21.Qxh6 Bf8 22.Qe3+ Kf7 23.Nd5 Be6 24.Nf4 Qe7 25.Re1 1-0
[Event "VSB Euwe Memorial Tournament"]
[Site "Amsterdam NED"]
[Date "1995.??.??"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Kasparov Gary"]
[Black "Piket Jeroen"]
[Result "1-0"]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4 Bb6 5.a4 a5 6.b5 Nd4 7.Nxd4 Bxd4
8.c3 Bb6 9.d4 exd4 10.O-O Ne7 11.Bg5 h6 12.Bxe7 Qxe7 13.cxd4 Qd6
14.Nc3 Bxd4 15.Nd5 Bxa1 16.Qxa1 O-O 17.e5 Qc5 18.Rc1 c6 19.Ba2 Qa3
20.Nb6 d5 21.Nxa8 Kh8 22.Nb6 Be6 23.h3 Rd8 24.bxc6 bxc6 25.Rc3 Qb4
26.Rxc6 Rb8 27.Nxd5 Qxa4 28.Rc1 Qa3 29.Bc4 1-0