Swiss gambit

Even in tournaments with a modest prize-fund we see today more and more grandmasters participating. This was also the case in the Open of Gent this summer in which 7 grandmasters played for 5 full days despite only 2 serious prizes, see info about the prizes. I can't remember an earlier edition in which 7 or more grandmasters participated. As indicated in my blogarticle shooting a mosquito with a canon it is also crisis for professional chess and players can't be too choosy when selecting tournaments. Worldwide we count already more than 1000 grandmasters so the internal competition is very tough. Besides we can't deny that the title of grandmaster doesn't have the same importance as before so without doubt the commercial value has decreased. Therefore within Fide some people would prefer to create a new title like super-grandmaster or elite-grandmaster. Personally I don't think this is a bad idea as with a strong marketing-strategy it could make chess again more popular with the mainstream-media. 

I wrote already quite some articles of the past Open Gent, see gambits , sportsmanship , green moves , a Dutch gambit part 2 , chessintuition part 2 , which games to analyze , iccf , revolution in the millennium but I didn't mention yet how the tournament ended for me. Well for the first time I scored 7/9, twice my score of 20 years ago when I participated for the first time. This also meant that I received a prize which after the abolishing of the prizes for the best Belgium players had been a while. However as 2 players achieved 7,5/9 and 10 players obtained 7/9, it was only a very modest sum (if I remember well then it was 105 euro). 5 grandmasters also had to be satisfied with such remuneration after 5 days 'working' so once again it is clear that  chess is not an easy choice as profession today. 

Maybe even more remarkable is the fact that I didn't meet in any of the 9 rounds a grandmaster or even a higher rated player than myself. After an unexpected defeat in round 3 which I discussed in detail in my blogarticle chessintuition part 2, I was thrown back in the pack which caused me avoiding all the stronger players. In the last round I had some luck as I was again paired to the bottom, received white and on top was able to use my limited preparation. Due to the early starting-hour (11 am) and the playing hall on a distance of an hour driving from home, it was important to use my limited time optimal for the preparation. First I checked the repertoire of my opponent and afterwards I made a choice about which variant was most likely to pop up on the board. At last I searched with that specific variant some recently played games by strong grandmasters in the databases (mainly twics) as explained in to analyse with the computer.

[Event "2nd Polugaevsky Mem"] [Site "Samara RUS"] [Date "2012.07.08"] [Round "4.2"] [White "Smirnov, P."] [Black "Geller, J."] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B85"] [WhiteElo "2592"] [BlackElo "2555"] [PlyCount "85"] [EventDate "2012.07.05"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nc3 Qc7 6. Be2 a6 7. O-O Nf6 8. Be3 Be7 9. f4 d6 10. Qe1 O-O 11. Qg3 Nxd4 12. Bxd4 b5 13. a3 Bb7 14. Rae1 Rad8 15. Kh1 Rd7 16. Bd3 Re8 17. Re2 Qd8 18. Qh3 Bf8 19. a4 e5 20. Bf2 b4 21. Nd5 Nxd5 22. exd5 g6 23. Bh4 Be7 24. Bxe7 Rexe7 25. f5 Bxd5 26. Bxa6 Bc6 27. Qh4 Bxa4 28. Re3 e4 29. Rh3 h5 30. fxg6 fxg6 31. Qg5 Re5 32. Bc4 Kg7 33. Rf7 Rxf7 34. Qxd8 Rd5 35. g4 Rd1 36. Kg2 Rd2 37. Kg3 d5 38. Qg5 Rd1 39. Qe5 Kh7 40. Be2 Re1 41. Qxd5 Be8 42. Qxe4 Kh6 43. Qe3 1-0" />

Afterwards my opponent Johan Goormachtigh told me that he didn't have time to prepare. So on one side it is understandable that he chose something of which he had experience. On the other hand if you just like my opponent of round 7, see revolution in the millennium are not aware about the latest theoretical developments then this is looking for troubles.

[Event "Open Gent 9de ronde"] [Date "2013"] [White "Brabo"] [Black "Goormachtigh, J."] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B85"] [WhiteElo "2344"] [BlackElo "2208"] [PlyCount "55"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nc3 Qc7 6. Be2 a6 7. O-O Nf6 8. Be3 Be7 9. f4 d6 {(In 2012 Open Leuven I encountered the weird 0-0.)} 10. Qe1 {(After a4 black can transpose to my recent interclubgame against Negi which I wanted to avoid. )} O-O 11. Qg3 Nxd4 12. Bxd4 b5 13. a3 Bb7 14. Kh1 Rad8 15. Rae1 Rd7 16. Bd3 Re8 17. Re2 {(I played this move rather quickly as it is still part of my preparation. The concept is rather new and scores pretty good in practice. )} Nh5 $6 {(The critical continuation is without doubt Qd8.)} (17... Rdd8 $6 18. Re3 Nh5 (18... g6 19. Ree1 $1 Qd7 $5 20. f5 e5 $5 21. Be3 Rc8 $5 22. Bh6 Nh5 23. Qe3 $1 $14) 19. Qg4 $1 $146 {(A novelty on the correspondence game Ayrosa,Paulo Ferraz - Tosi Francesco played in 2007.)} Nf6 20. Qg5 h6 21. Qg3 Nh5 22. Qh3 $1 Bf6 23. e5 dxe5 24. Bxe5 Bxe5 25. fxe5 g6 26. Kg1 Ng7 27. Qxh6 $14 {(Here we see why white wanted to provoke h6.)}) ( 17... Qd8 $1 18. Qh3 Bf8 (18... h6 19. Re3 $146 Bf8 20. Rg3 Kh8 21. a4 bxa4 22. Nxa4 e5 23. Bb6 Qc8 $13) 19. a4 e5 20. Bf2 bxa4 $146 21. Nxa4 exf4 22. Qf5 Re6 $5 $13) 18. Qh3 g6 19. f5 Bg5 20. Qg4 Qd8 21. fxe6 Rxe6 $2 {(Necessary was fxe6 as now black has too many weaknesses on the white squares. )} 22. Ref2 Re8 23. a4 bxa4 { (After the game I indicated that I would have answered b4 also with Bc4 with a winning attack. )} 24. Bc4 Rf8 25. Nd5 Bxd5 26. Bxd5 Bh6 27. Bb6 Qe7 28. Rxf7 1-0" />

This surely doesn't mean that I have now a fitting answer for my defeat against Negi, see shooting a mosquito with a canon but I am glad to win once again against the Scheveningen. Besides with Rxf7 I also show with reference to my blogarticle  my most beautiful move, that playing such moves isn't a matter of knowing the patterns but rather of calculating correctly which is of course not very difficult in the case above. 

Despite I played some good chess since the third round, I won't deny this is also the merit of the pairings. I mean scoring 7/9 via the help of the Swiss gambit isn't the same as obtaining the same score with playing continuously on the topboards. By using the tie-brake system based on progression scores, fortunately some distinction is made in the final standings. Hereby I also want to mention that it is good to notice that the organisation has abandoned Bucholts as tie-brake in favor of progression scores because of the unavoidable dropouts in the last rounds (this change I recommended in my blogaticle result in open gent agreed or not in advance).

Nevertheless I still see despite the chosen tie-brake, players choosing for a Swiss gambit as they consider money more important than a little meaning honorary place. It seems to me no bad tournament-strategy to link prizes to the tie-brake system. Personally I find the easy Hort System a fair choice in which half of the money is divided between the players with the same score and half linked to the tie-brake system.

As we had to wait for the prize-givings, it probably would be a good idea to use a program for the calculations. I triggered Ruben Decrop whom recently founded chessdevil. The program seems to me an nice add-on of the tournament-program but it is not clear if it is also commercially viable. In any case if amateur-programmers are willing to help for a more smooth prize-givings, then this will certainly be welcomed by the tournament-organisations.

Brabo

Revolution in the millennium

The only book of Kasparov about Modern Chess which I didn't read, is Garry Kasparov on modern chess, Part 1: Revolution in the 70's for the simple reason that I prefer to study recent openings. A nice bookreview of this book can be found on the site of the torrewachters. Recently the question was raised on chesspub if we can also speak of a sort of revolution in the new millennium. Very soon the remark was made that there has been in the last decade an explosion (and still ongoing) of new systems and variations in such magnitude that likely a book of the 70's would only be a chapter today. This is one of the main reasons why we have today much more repertoire-books as e.g. Playing 1.d4 Indian defences van Lars Schandorff instead of opening-manuals as e.g. The complete Albin counter gambit van Luc Henris.

Without a doubt the computer has hereby played an important role. Previously players were admiring the tactical wizardness of players like Mikhail Tal or Rashid Nezhmetdinov. Today every player backed up with some good home-analysis can show some fancy tactics which was illustrated in my blogarticle iccf. Players aren't afraid anymore to play hyper-sharp variations because they know that their engines have shown in advance it is fully playable. Besides tactics, we also see a remarkable raise of gambits in which material is invested for dynamical characteristics. The Marshallgambit is likely one of the most known systems which became very popular last decade even in such magnitude that a lot of white-players have given up the traditional Spanish setup and exchanged it for the slower d3 concept. On my blog I presented an example in my blogarticle eindspelen met ongelijke lopers deel 2. For the Marshallgambit we can mainly speak about expanding the theory but last years we have also seen many new fully playable gambits. I remember e.g. the astonishing Gajewski 2.0 gambits which caused a wave of attention in the chessworld as it concerned an extremely popular opening.

Finally I also see a 3rd kind of tendency in evaluating positional disadvantages compared with dynamics. An opening like the Berlin was regarded a few decades ago as nonsense but today most topplayers have it in their repertoire with white and black. In fact is it pretty absurd what black is doing. He let himself volunteerly lose the castlingrights, destroy the pawnstructure (double c-pawns) and on top white gets a few extra tempo. Despite all that a computer doesn't succeed in forcing an advantage, at contrary as black often has good counterchances if white plays a bit inaccurate.

Recently I met by coincidence a similar concept in the Rauzer in which black via serious positional concessions, tries to get very dynamic play. I mean the system with g6 in which black permits to destroy completely his pawnstructure often intending to sacrifice a pawn.

Nevertheless we see recently several strong grandmasters willing to play with the black pieces. I am thinking of 2012 Junior Worldchampion Alexander Ipatov, 2011 European champion Vladimir Potkin and +2600 Evgeniy Najer. A fantastic game however lost by black but not in the opening, was played beginning of this year in Wijk aan Zee between the Swedish grandmaster Nils Grandelius and the earlier mentioned Alexander Ipatov.

[Event "75th Tata Steel GpB"] [Site "Wijk aan Zee NED"] [Date "2013.01.17"] [Round "5.3"] [White "Grandelius, N."] [Black "Ipatov, Alexander"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B60"] [WhiteElo "2572"] [BlackElo "2587"] [PlyCount "73"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Bg5 g6 7. Bxf6 exf6 8. Bc4 Bg7 9. Ndb5 O-O 10. Qxd6 f5 11. O-O-O Qb6 12. f4 fxe4 13. Nd5 Qa5 14. Nf6 Kh8 15. Nc7 Be6 16. Bxe6 fxe6 {(My personal analysis continue with Rad8 and black has good counterplay.)} 17. Nxa8 Qxa2 18. Nc7 Qa1 19. Kd2 Qxb2 20. Nce8 Nd4 21. Nxg7 Rc8 $2 {(Hereafter black is lost. With Kxg7 black could have stayed in the game.)} 22. Ke3 Qc3 23. Rd3 exd3 24. Qxd4 Qxc2 25. Re1 d2 26. Qxd2 Qb3 27. Ke4 Rc4 28. Ke5 Rc5 29. Kd6 Qb6 30. Ke7 Rc7 31. Nd7 Kxg7 32. Rxe6 Qc5 33. Qd6 Qc4 34. Qe5 Kg8 35. Kf6 Rc6 36. Qb8 Rc8 37. Re8 1-0'/>

In the last New in Chess Yearbook 107 there is a complete chapter covering this system which I by coincidence discovered thanks to a review in Checkpoint, a monthly column by Hansen on Chesscafe (readers having this book and willing to share the knowledge of the chapter so I can verify my personal analysis, will certainly do me a favor). So we can expect in the nearby future that more players will pick up the system. Myself I didn't have to wait long before encountering the system on the board as in July in round 7 of Open Gent, a young promising Belgium player Yasseen De Herdt was willing to test me with it. During my preparation I discovered thanks to the latest twics and downloading the games of the just ended Belgium championship that Yasseen had won 4 recent games with the system so I was warned and didn't consider the opening lightly. I plugged the whole morning to find some sort of advantage which wasn't easy with 2 small children hanging around me begging for attention. The longer I was investigating the variations, the more I was surprised about the vitality of the system. Finally I anyway found something new of which I supposed (there was insufficient time to check everything in detail) that it could be an amelioration.

[Event "Open Gent 7de ronde"] [Date "2013"] [White "Brabo"] [Black "De Herdt, Y."] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B60"] [WhiteElo "2344"] [BlackElo "2170"] [PlyCount "53"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Nf6 4. Nc3 cxd4 5. Nxd4 Nc6 6. Bg5 g6 {(A side-system which gained in recent years popularity. I had not yet encountered it in a serious game but thanks to a few hours plugging during the preparation, I was anyway able to achieve some small advantage.)} 7. Bxf6 exf6 8. Bb5 Bd7 9. Qd2 Bg7 10. O-O-O O-O 11. Nb3 {(A novelty introduced last year in the game Naiditsch - Najer.)} f5 $146 {(Najer continued with a6 on which I had planned Bxc6, deviating from Naiditsch play with a small plus for white. I missed the gamecontintuation in my preparation but I did have a look at Be6 and Qb6 which became handy as via transposition we later returned to the game-preparation.)} ( 11... Be6 $5 12. Qxd6 Qb6 13. Qc5 f5 {(Via transposition we are back in the game.)}) 12. Qxd6 Qb6 13. Qc5 $5 {(Thanks to the special move-order, white has an extra interesting option.)} (13. Qxd7 $5 Rfd8 14. Bxc6 Rxd7 15. Bxd7 Qxf2 $1 16. exf5 Qxg2 17. Kb1 $14 {(The 3 pieces must be more important than the black queen but it remains unclear if white really has better winning chances than in the game.)}) 13... Be6 14. Nd5 $5 { (The alternative exf5 is also good for some small advantage.)} (14. exf5 $5 Bxb3 15. Qxb6 axb6 16. axb3 Ra5 17. Bxc6 bxc6 18. f4 Rxf5 19. g3 Ra8 $14 ) 14... Qxc5 15. Nxc5 Bxd5 $5 {(The critical test is without doubt Nd4.)} (15... Nd4 $5 16. Nxe6 fxe6 17. Nc7 Rac8 $1 {(Now white must make a difficult choice as in both variations whites advantage is small.)} 18. Nxe6 (18. Rxd4 Rxc7 19. Rd7 Be5 20. Rxc7 Bxc7 21. Bc4 fxe4 22. Bxe6 Kg7 23. Bd5 Rxf2 24. Bxe4 b5 25. a3 $1 a5 $14) 18... Nxe6 19. Bd7 Nd4 $1 20. Bxc8 Rxc8 21. c3 fxe4 22. Rhe1 Ne6 23. Rxe4 Nc5 24. Ree1 Kf7 25. Rd5 $1 Rc7 26. Kc2 $14) 16. exd5 Nd4 17. Bd3 Rac8 $6 {(More precise is Rfc8 with better compensation.)} (17... Rfc8 18. Nxb7 Rab8 19. Nd6 Rd8 {(First Bh6 will normally transpose. )} 20. Nc4 Bh6 21. Kb1 Nb5 22. Ka1 Rxd5 23. a4 $14 ) 18. Nxb7 Rc7 19. Na5 Rb8 20. Nb3 Nxb3 21. axb3 Rxb3 $6 {(A5 was the last chance to stay i the game. Now white can force quickly the victory with pushing up the d-pawn.)} 22. d6 Rc6 23. d7 Bf6 24. Rhe1 Kg7 25. Re8 Bxb2 26. Kd2 Bc3 27. Ke2 1-0'/>

So white won pretty easily whereby Stefan Docx interpreted my victory as something fully linked to the very weak openingchoice of black. However I believe this is incorrect as black can easily improve his play in the game. Fully equality I can't find against the setup for which I chose but even with the small disadvantage it doesn't mean that black needs to lose. Maybe a grandmaster will manage to defend successfully the disadvantage but I have to admit that I wouldn't volunteerly play such position. For a player, liking gambits (so I don't belong in that category) it is certainly a good surprise-weapon but to play it every time seems risky, specially if the opponent can/ will prepare himself.

If we may speak about a revolution in the millennium then I guess we realize today that much more positions are playable as we imagined previously. Personally I find this a refreshing thought in comparison with pessimists, thinking the computer will be the end of modern chess.

Brabo

ICCF

We all know that knowledge is important to score points. It is therefore not surprising that a lot of ambitious players are very eager to collect databases. In an earlier mentioned youtubemovie on this blog, see chessintuition part 2 Anand tells us that today he has a database of about 20 million games. The author of the book Grandmaster repertoire 10 The Tarrasch Defense, Nikos Ntirilis assumed initially that these were all quality games but on Quality chess blog I already indicated that this can impossibly be correct. We may assume that the reigning worldchampion only will speak about quality games when one of the players is at least top 100 and if the game is played on a standard timecontrol. If we take an optimistic 100 games per year for each of the top 100 players then not considering duplications, we achieve only 10.000 games per year in total. This means we need 2000 years to collect 20 million quality games.

It is clear that a worldchampion collects much more that just quality games. Of course i don't know the exact content of Anand's database but i am pretty sure that it is built around a Chessbase product (Mega or Big database) so also a lot of games with a limited quality are included. Now one can ask himself if it wouldn't be wise to throw out the less interesting games. Well I believe there is in every serious played game something interesting to learn. This I already discussed extensively in my previous blogarticle which games to analyze.
We also know that databases are a good source to find information about opponents. Most worldclassplayers don't play exclusively against their peers (simuls, open tournaments,...) We should also not forget that some young players will later become much stronger players. Finally storing a big database is very cheap and we possess today about tools which permit to search through such database very fast the information in which we are interested. Hereby I also want to remark that it is better to use chessbase format as database as I experienced serious lags when using pgn format.

Now even if we collect all these games with limited quality, still 20 million is an astronomical figure. The most recent commercial Mega Database counts 5,4 million games. I have around 7 million games of which I made a detailed summary in a comment under my blogarticle green moves. Recently I added thanks to a hint of hypekiller5000 another nice collection of quality games which were played between engines, see computerchess. Openingkillers you won't find but such enginedatabases are a handy tool to define in a fast and accurate way the evalution of today's existing openingsvariations. In openingmaster you can find today with paying some fee, 8,7 million games. I doubt you will find more on the internet as a standard chessplayers so Anand clearly has access to some exclusive channels. Mark Uniacke claims on  the Hiarcs website that Anand uses their engine so probably also has access to additional enginedatabases. It is also generally known that Anand is close friends with Frederic Friedel and therefore likely has access to the games played on the webportal playchess. Today on the counter of playchess we see 660 million games so it must be easy to select the 10 million better games out of it by using criteria like rating and tempo.

Besides a continue search for quantity, an equal search for quality happens. A few decades ago, quality was only linked to games played between worldclassplayers. Today these games are obviously still important but today most players have also discovered that iccf possess a real treasure of high quality games. In quite some recent otb-games we see the novelty originating from the correspondenceworld. Sometimes this creates weird and wild games when both players are using the same information. On chessvibes I found the game Vachier-Lagrave Gelfand in which both players followed a iccf-game from 2012. Maxime deviated on move 18 with a continuation of which I assume (considering the fact that little time was used for the whole game) he knew in advance that black with correct play could draw. Boris however had made his homework too as in lightning speed they liquidated with some fantastic tactics to a perpetual check. The example clearly shows how extensive these players prepare their openings and not only are aware about the keygames but also look critically to all sort of alternatives. Below you can replay both games.

[Event "WS/MN/083"] [Site "ICCF"] [Date "2012.05.02"] [White "Kloster, Josef"] [Black "Gromark, Per-Olof"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [WhiteElo "2326"] [BlackElo "2324"] [PlyCount "49"] 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Bc4 c5 8. Ne2 Nc6 9. Be3 O-O 10. O-O b6 11. dxc5 Qc7 12. Nd4 Ne5 13. Nb5 Qb8 14. Bd5 Ng4 15. g3 Nxe3 16. fxe3 a6 17. Bxf7 Kh8 18. Bd5 Rxf1 19. Qxf1 axb5 20. Bxa8 Qxa8 21. cxb6 h5 22. Qxb5 Qxe4 23. Qe8 Kh7 24. Qxc8 Qxe3 25. Kg2 1/2-1/2'/>

The otb-game was played in the recently finished worldcup which was won by Kramnik.

[Event "World Cup"] [Site "Tromso NOR"] [Date "2013.08.20"] [Round "27.7"] [White "Maxime Vachier-Lagrave"] [Black "Boris Gelfand"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ECO "D87"] [PlyCount "54"] [EventDate "2013.08.11"] 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Bc4 c5 8. Ne2 O-O 9. O-O Nc6 10. Be3 b6 11. dxc5 Qc7 12. Nd4 Ne5 13. Nb5 Qb8 14. Bd5 Ng4 15. g3 Nxe3 16. fxe3 a6 {(An otb-novelty which is already known from the correspondence world.)} 17. Bxf7 Kh8 18. Nd4 {(The correspondencegame continued with Bd5. Nd4 is a nice try to pull blacks leg. In the final part of the game Gelfand shows with lightning speed that he also made his homework.)} bxc5 19. Bd5 Rxf1 20. Qxf1 cxd4 21. Rb1 Qa7 22. Qf7 Be6 23. Qxe6 dxc3 24. Bxa8 Qxe3 25. Kg2 Qe2 26. Kh3 Qh5 27. Kg2 Qe2 1/2-1/2'/>

I also experienced a similar case a few months ago. Contrary to the previous example this time it is less clear who was first as the story already started in 2010. On chesspub I published my self-made analyses on the Stautongames with Qe2 on account of my game against Pieter Saligo. In 2011 a correspondencegame was played with exactly the mainline which I had recommended.

[Event "GER-NED"] [Site "ICCF"] [Date "2011.11.07"] [White "Tazelaar, H. J. A. (Louk)"] [Black "Betker, Jörg"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [WhiteElo "2410"] [BlackElo "2443"] [PlyCount "39"] [EventDate "2011.??.??"] [WhiteTeam "Netherlands"] [BlackTeam "Germany"] [WhiteTeamCountry "NED"] [BlackTeamCountry "GER"] 1. d4 f5 2. e4 fxe4 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Nc6 5. d5 Ne5 6. Qe2 c6 7. O-O-O Nxd5 8. Nxd5 Nf7 9. Nf4 Nxg5 10. Qh5 Nf7 11. Bc4 g6 12. Bxf7 Kxf7 13. Nxg6 hxg6 14. Qxh8 Qa5 15. Nh3 Bg7 16. Qh4 Qxa2 17. Ng5 Kf8 18. c3 d6 19. Rhe1 Qa1 20. Kc2 1/2-1/2'/>

Of course it can be a coincidence but as a lot of correspondence players are active on chesspub, it wouldn't surprise me that 1 or both players were aware of my earlier published analyses. On my turn I was aware about the correspondence game thanks to a website on the Stautongambit. Besides if you are an adept of gambits then you certainly should spend some time on  Ian Simpson's Chess Site. Initially i only took notion of the game and it was only after Stefan Docx told me (in Open Leuven 2012?) that black in the final position also can make a draw with the spectacular Bxc3 that I did the effort to check some variations on a computer.

[Event "Open Gent 6de ronde"] [Date "2013"] [White "Bezemer, A."] [Black "Brabo"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ECO "A83"] [WhiteElo "2290"] [BlackElo "2344"] [PlyCount "44"] 1. d4 f5 2. e4 fxe4 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Nc6 5. d5 Ne5 6. Qe2 c6 {(In the hour preparation I had remarked that Arno already had played this variation a few times so obviously I refreshed my memory on the analysis made of this variation. In 2010 against Pieter Saligo I played the cautious d6 in this position.)} 7. O-O-O Nxd5 8. Nxd5 Nf7 9. Nf4 {(Arno played this move immediately. Afterwards he told me that he had a look at it just before the game with the computer. Nf4 is a novelty for otb but it was already known to me since 2010 from my analysis.)} Nxg5 10. Qh5 Nf7 11. Bc4 g6 12. Bxf7 Kxf7 13. Nxg6 hxg6 14. Qxh8 {(We both were out of book after this move. Well technically this is not fully correct as I had revised the positon in 2011 at the cause of a correspondence game but on the board I could not remember the exact moves.)} Qa5 15. Nh3 Bg7 16. Qh4 Qxa2 17. Ng5 Kf8 18. c3 d6 19. Rhe1 Bxc3 {(Only here I deviate from the earlier mentioned correspondencegame. In that game an immediate perpetual check was given with Qa1-Kc2-Qa4-Kc1. Besides there is still a special story to Bxc3. After the game Stefan Docx told me that everything was already played in a correspondence game. Now I remember that he already told me this once and even indicated that black had different options to make a draw of which Bxc3 is one of the most spectacular ones. It again shows how much work lately Stefan spent at chess and that his progress did not arrive by coincidence. During the game I remembered this piece of information and therefore I was already looking for some moves to Bxc3. When white played Rhe1, I immediately saw the move worked.)} (19... Qa1 $5 20. Kc2 Qa4 21. Kb1 $4 {(White accepted the draw in correspondence as this fails.)} Bf5 22. g4 e3 23. gxf5 Qxh4 $19 {(A nice pointe.)}) (19... Bf5 $5 20. g4 $5 {(Re3 is also possible and black can best respond with d5 or c5.)} Qa1 21. Kc2 Qa4 22. Kd2 {(Kb1 transposes to the first variation. Now black has some interesting continuations like e3 and Bxg4 but the evaluation remains equal looking to the engines.)}) 20. bxc3 (20. Nh7 Kg8 21. bxc3 Qa3 22. Kd2 Qb2 23. Ke3 Qxc3 24. Kxe4 $4 { (Kf4 en Ke2 zijn correct.)} Qb4 25. Rd4 Qxe1 {(A trick we both noticed during the game.)}) 20... Qa1 21. Kc2 Qa2 22. Kc1 Qa1 1/2-1/2'/>

Several months later it popped up on the board during the 6th round of Open Gent. In the hour preparation on Arno Bezemer I had only revised my original analysis of the Stautongambit with Qe2 so during the game I couldn't remember the exact moves anymore of the correspondence game. Nevertheless thanks to logic play we anyway achieved the final position and at that moment I got a déjà-vue as I saw immediately the sacrifice on c3 and its consequences.

Obviously the game attracted quite some crowd, curious of what exactly happened. Only after I and Stefan Docx explained that everything was known, people withdrew quietly. Just like in my blogarticle de wetenschappelijke aanpak reactions were very diversified from astonishment to disgustment.

I don't want to start up a discussion if these kind of otb-games are a good or bad thing for otb. Fact is that you as a titleholder are more or less obliged to be aware of these correspondencegames to level the opening. Iccf also started to realise that and came to the conclusion to hide their databases for non-members. Since end of last year (see ICCF Congress 2012) the database is hidden, something which I only discovered in july as I only then tried to download the most recent games as preparation for Open Gent. My tries on chesspub to circumvent these blockade didn't work so readers willing to help me, will certainly do me a favor. I expect some otb-players will still have access via exclusive channels to the iccf-database and obviously I would like to be part of that group of otb-players. On chessvibes I already noticed that no more references are made to recent correspondencegames played in 2012. It is a sad evolution which I earlier already discussed in my blogarticle partijpublicaties.

That iccf prefers to distantiate themselves from otb, was recently confirmed in an important change of their statutes. In the ICCF Congress 2013 was decided not to follow anymore the basic laws of otb so fide. Now I don't expect that iccf will change the movement of the pieces like knight or bishop but the emphasis will be much more on the correspondence so the analysis. A remarkable decision was to introduce ratings for Chess 960. Another remarkable decision is to abolish the 50 moves-rule (article 9.3) if a tablebase is reached in a correspondence game. Players can now with a tablebase claim a draw or a win at the tournamentdirector. The big advantage is that one isn't obliged anymore to wait many months for the result which everybody already knew. The disadvantage is that we can have for the same tablebase a different result for otb compared with a correspondence game. What exactly this means and why iccf has made this decision, will be explained with a position which I already touched in my blogarticle chessintuition part 2.

The upper screeshot shows finalgen giving the output that black wins in 85 moves. I also showed the mainline so that we see the 50 moves-rule doesn't kick in. This means if both follow the topline then black would win in otb and correspondence chess. However the story isn't finished yet. If I select on moves 49 and 50 a quicker losing move on first sight then we get another verdict.

Black now wins in 48+1+22 = 72 moves but now the 50 moves-rule does kick in (only at move 55 a pawn is moved). In otb this would mean a draw but in correspondence with the new rules, black can still claim the win. The inverse we can now do for black. We search for a less quicker win but avoid the 50 moves-rule to kick in. This proces can be repeated many times for white and black. I believe there are positions where millions of iterations will be necessary to define if the position can be won or not, considering the 50 moves-rule. Manually this is impossible. Tablesbases including the 50 moves-rule are much less available than the type of tablesbases which I discussed in my blogarticle tablebases. The only website which I know having a selection of tablebases including the 50 moves-rule (or DTZ50 called) is chess.jaet.org/endings/. In the computation status you can notice that we only have a modest coverage of the existing tablebases.

Of course one can ask oneself if such conflictsituations aren't very rare. In otb we may assume that nobody will be able to play 50 or more consecutive best moves like the tablebases so it is anyway something only relevant for correspondence chess or from analytical point of view. On chesspub the reference was made by Vass to a fantastic article in which 24 examples are worked out where the 50 moves-rule is important (in Russian but with googletranslate this shouldn't be a problem). 24 examples is still not much but it does indicate that a certain boarder has been crossed by iccf. Iccf chose to maximize the usage of tablebases irrespective of the 50 moves-rule. Besides we shouldn't forget that the 50 moves-rule is something arbitrary (something which i already explained in my blogarticle sportiviteit) and therefore can be considered as a tool to stop the game when the players aren't able to technically win the game. In correspondence the technique is much more refined so it is logical to disregard the 50 moves-rule and the human limitations in otb.

So i understand the iccf-steps but as a theoretician I regret this evolution. To make databases exclusive for a select group, applying different rules,... hardens my task to do proper research. Also it further desintegrates the chessworld. Maybe we indeed have to specialize to protect the future but I have my doubts as often bundling the forces is a better strategy.

Brabo