The annual Hastings International Chess Congress is under way and with a welcome injection of sponsorship from Tradewise Insurance, thirteen GMs have been tempted to enter the Masters Tournament. After four rounds the leader is the Polish GM Aleksander Mista (below), last year’s joint runner-up and the only one this time with a 100% score to date. His Round 4 win against Danny Gormally yesterday caught the eye, Black’s excellent endgame technique making your correspondent realise why these chaps are grandmasters and we are not.
White: Daniel Gormally (2506) Black: Aleksander Mista (2567)
Tradewise Hastings Masters 2015/16
White resigns
Once again, however, Hastings is overshadowed by the Tata Steel Tournament which begins on January 15th and has attracted the usual stellar cast of players. Five of the top ten players in the world are taking part and of the fourteen in the Masters Tournament, ten are in the world’s top twenty. As with last year, only the highest-graded Hastings entrant would have scraped into the Tata Steel Masters and that would only be at the expense of the local hero and regular participant, Dutch GM Loek Van Wely, who may be 132 in the world but still has an ELO grade of 2636. Naturally, we shall be following closely the fortunes of Wei Yi, who is also taking part, although he will be hoping he is in better form than he was at the Qatar Masters recently. Despite being seeded 12th, he finished in 69th position with a mere 4½/9. Magnus Carlsen was the winner but only after an admittedly easy play-off with another rising star of Chinese chess, Yu Yangyi, who won last year’s tournament. In order to force a play-off, Yu had to beat Wesley So in the final round which he did most impressively in the game featured below. Sadly, Yu will not be at the Tata Steel Masters but as well as Wei Yi there is his compatriot and world number 9, Ding Liren. Chess in China is clearly already a force to be reckoned with.
White: Yu Yangyi (2736) Black: Wesley So (2775)
Qatar Masters 2015
Black resigns
The wait is over – here are the answers to this year’s fiendishly difficult Christmas Quiz:
- Where was the 1972 World Chess Championship between Fischer and Spassky played? Reykjavik
- Who comes next in this sequence: Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca…….? Alekhine
- Which journalist is the current President of the English Chess Federation? Dominic Lawson
- The musical ‘Chess’ was the result of an unlikely but successful partnership between which three men? Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Tim Rice
- The recently-completed London Chess Classic was the third and final stage in the Chess Grand Tour. Where were the first two events held? Stavanger and St Louis
- Which former British chess champion has more recently been seen offering his views on television programmes in Gogglebox? Bill Hartston
- Who was the FIDE President who famously stopped the Karpov-Kasparov World Championship in 1984? Florencio Campomanes
- What German word is used to describe a situation where whatever move a player makes will by force weaken his position? zugzwang
- The Erasmus High School, Brooklyn included among its pupils at one point in the 1950s a future World Chess Champion and a future Oscar-winning actress and singer. Name them. Bobby Fischer and Barbra Streisand
- Which former world chess champion played 86 games unbeaten between July 15 1972 and April 26 1973? Mikhail Tal
What do you mean, you got them all right but forgot to send in your answers?
Happy New Year to all our visitors from Taiwan to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. For those closer to home, the club re-opens on Monday January 4th.
Following a distinct shortage of correct answers to last year’s quiz, it has been decided to make this year’s a little easier. In fact, it is so easy that if you feel too embarrassed to have a go yourself, pass it on to the nearest two year old and if it’s too easy for him or her, give it to the dog. The questions are designed so that everyone with the most basic knowledge of the game can score eight or nine out of ten but can you get all ten correct?
- Where was the 1972 World Chess Championship between Fischer and Spassky played?
- Who comes next in this sequence: Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca…….?
- Which journalist is the current President of the English Chess Federation?
- The musical ‘Chess’ was the result of an unlikely but successful partnership between which three men?
- The recently-completed London Chess Classic was the third and final stage in the Chess Grand Tour. Where were the first two events held?
- Which former British chess champion has more recently been seen offering his views on television programmes in Gogglebox?
- Who was the FIDE President who famously stopped the Karpov-Kasparov World Championship in 1984?
- What German word is used to describe a situation where whatever move a player makes will by force weaken his position?
- Here are a couple of tantalising questions to finish off with….The Erasmus High School, Brooklyn included among its pupils at one point in the 1950s a future World Chess Champion and a future Oscar-winning actress and singer. Name them.
- Which former world chess champion played 86 games unbeaten between July 15 1972 and April 26 1973?
Good luck and Happy Christmas to all our visitors. Answers in the New Year.
The London Chess Classic, the third and final leg of the Chess Grand Tour 2015, began on Friday 4th December and continues until Sunday 13th and what a stellar line-up there is:
Carlsen Caruana Nakamura Topalov Grischuk
Anand Giri Aronian Adams Vachier-Lagrave
Each tournament in the Grand Chess Tour has a prize fund of $300,000 and there is a bonus pool of $150,000 for the top three finishers in the Grand Tour based on their overall performance to make a total prize fund of over 1 million dollars. Round 3 begins this afternoon (Sunday) and after two rounds there has only been one victory. Here it is.
White: Veselin Topalov (2803) Black: Anish Giri (2784)
London Chess Classic 2015 Rd 1
41.Kd3 Qd2+ 42.Kc4 Rc8+ and mate next move.
White: Larry Evans Black: Sammy Reshevsky
US Championships 1964
Spoil alert! If you have not read the previous article, the ‘Swindle of the Century (part 1)’, it is recommended that you do so before reading this one which gives the game away. The challenge was to work out the result of the game which did not – contrary to all all appearances – end in a win for Black. If you read the article and resisted the urge to Google the answer, here it is.
The game ended in a draw! 1….Qxg3 may have seemed the obvious move but how often has the obvious move proved to be the wrong one? The correct move was 1….Qf6! If 2. gxf4 then 2….Qxh4 wins. Instead, this is what happened:
1….Qxg3? 2. Qg8!!
Larry Evans describes what happened next:
“Reshevsky still had no inkling of the plot. He actually thought I was reaching out to shake his hand, which is a customary gesture when resigning.”
2…..Kxg8
3. Rxg7+!! Draw agreed
Black must either capture the rook (stalemate) or face perpetual check. Larry Evans describes his opponent’s reaction:
“Reshevsky’s face turned a delicate shade of scarlet. He laughed wryly at his own stupidity….” It wasn’t long afterwards that the the result was dubbed ‘The Swindle of the Century’.