FINDING THE TRUTH

Hari Raya
Hari Raya…in between lemangs, nasi himpit, rendangs and other normal Aidil Fitri routines (and chaos too…after all Aidil Fitri is always about controlling domestic chaos affair…and queeing to take shower… and quarrelling on where is butang baju melayu…and taking pictures…and asking for forgiveness…), I picked up Seirawan’s Winning Chess Brilliancies (published in 1995) and went through Seirawan’s comments on 1991 Ivanchuk vs Yusupov FIDE semifinals candidate match. Game played in Brussels yet at Moscow, there was a political coup to oust Gorbachev. Both players are worried about the fate of their family back home.

The Game
Below is the full game.
W:Ivanchuk
B:Yusupov


Black won the game.

The position
The interesting part of the game reached after black’s played 24. … Qh4.


Which side is better?

White is a piece up and controlling the center while black ( a piece down) got the attack against white’s king.

Seirawan is the eyewitness to this game and he together with his friend (Larry Christiansen, William Watson and John Nunn no less) analysing the position and they just unable to determine which side is better though Seirawan believed that white should be winning.
Some line discussed
25. Nce7 Kh8
26. Nf5 Qh2
27. Kf1 Be5!!
28. Be5 Re5
29.de5 Rg8 threatening a queen sac 30... Qh1 31. Bh1 Nh2 32. Ke1 Rg1 checkmate!

The position haunted Seirawan and he visit and re-visit the position several times before finally he found a defense for white.
25. Nce7 Kh8
26. Nf5 Qh2
27. Kf1 Be5!!
28. de5 Rg8
29. Nde3 fe3
30. e6!

All in all Seirawan devoted 4 pages analysing above position.

Still I wondered, is his analysis accurate? Is white really winning in this game?

Now the position haunted me.

Revisit
Two weeks after Hari Raya …still in between lemangs, nasi himpit, rendangs of open houses and somewhat less chaotic environment, I consulted my ELO 3000 professor…Mr Fritz agreed that from above position white is winning (eval of 6.3) and gave below convincing line

25. Nce7 Re7
26. Ne7 Kh8
27. Nf4 Qh2
28. Kf1 Rg8
29. Ne3 Bd4
30. Rd4 Ne3
31. Ke1 safe! What a convincing line.

Case closed! Haunt me no more! What Seirawan achieved in few days, i achieved it in few minutes.

The Contemplation
Makes me think how lucky I am today. I have with me, Mr Chess Engine, arguably stronger than even Super GM, that is always ready 24/7 to give me advices , access to millions of games , access to live games, access to thousands and thousands of players all over the world for a quick game between human or some discussion about Caissa, access to maybe million hours of chess videos and training materials, access to tablebase …bet Kasparov and Karpov of early 80's is willing to pay million dollar (or maybe million Ruble) to enjoy what i am enjoying now... what a waste if i did not fully utilized it.

MAS IN CRISIS?

1. No, i am not referring to Malaysian Airline System in crisis, though it is not wrong to say so (with MAS shares is now at only RM1.53, not so good financial results, many senior management resignation etc). I am referring to our IM Mas, who seems to be in crisis of sort, scoring only a point from 6 games.

2. If my memory served me right, the last time Mas was in crisis is at 2009 Bangkok Open when he just losing game after game to opponents not really of his strength, trying extremely hard to win even when the position did not warrant it...legend has it that GM Ian Rogers, his coach, then advice Mas via e-mail saying that result in chess, other than win or lost, there is a draw (or something to that effect). Mas got the message, regrouped and starts winning again.

3.Maybe we demand too much from Mas. We are not used to see Mas at his current state. Over the last 20 years, we are just being pampered with Mas' fine tournament result (beating Korchnoi, Ulibin, drawing Michael Adam etc) till we always unreasonably demand Mas to perform excellently, all the time and at all the place. We questioned his human error in letting his phone rang in the middle of the game, questioned his decision to take a draw against super GM, questioned his fighting spirit, questioned his decision this...questioned his decision that And this maybe, just maybe put unnecessary pressure on him.

4.Mas honestly did not need all this crap from us. What he needs is support from all of us. Continued support in his best of times and worst of times...

5. We forgot that how much sacrificed (money, time, other opportunity, etc...) Mas has done on his mission to put Malaysia on chess map. Without Mas, Malaysia can easily ranked number 100 in Chess Country Ranking, without Mas we may not even have such a strong junior line up (who find inspiration from him or strength by sparring with him). We forgot even Ivanchuk or Shirov also sometimes performed below their true strength. We take Mas for granted...

6.Then again who am i to give my comment on Mas. One blogger recently questioned whether a 2200 player qualified to comment a game of someone rated 2400. Now i am 1900 something player, let alone comment, that put me not even in the position to whisper about his performance. So i guess i better stop now.

7. To IM Mas. A poem...Don't Quit!

CHESS INSTINCT

Instinct…

We, human, came to this world pre install with this ability. Though unfortunately it came without any instruction or manual on how to use it. Somehow, we just know when danger is around the corner …and instinctively position ourselves either to fight or flight.

We, chess player too, came to any chess games also pre install with this ability. We know when our opponent tried to crush us positionally… We know when we should shelter our king from danger… we know when we should rush our pawns and king in endgame. We hardly think…we just ‘know’ what to do. It is as if some mysterious forces guide us what to do.

But the big question is how accurate and reliable is our chess instinct? To what extent we can trust this basic instinct of ours (I am referring here to chess basic instinct, not Sharon Stone’s Basic Instinct)? Which one is stronger, our mysterious, hard to explain instinct or brute force logic a.k.a calculation?

Honestly, I don’t know…

The Study
Anyway I do know that for below study compose by F. Sackmann 1912, to solve it you cannot rely on your normal instinct. Hope you enjoyed (and understand) this study as much as I do.



White, one pawn down in pawn ending (normally is a death sentence), is to play and win.

Solution
1. Kf5!! Kb6
2. Kf6 Kb7
3. Kf7 Kb8
4. Ke6 Ka7
5. Ke7 Ka6
6. Kd8! Kb7
7. Kd7 Kb6
8. Kc8 and white wins.

What I like about this study is the fact that to win both black’s c pawns, first thing that white needs to do is move AWAY from it. Immediate 1.Kd6 Kb6 draw or 1.Ke6 Ka6 also draw. To explain this beautiful concept to those who don’t know how to play chess…it is equivalent to inform that first step in getting a degree, first brilliant thing to do is NOT to enter university. Or to explain this to our hamsap (Casanova, Don Juan, Romeo whatever) non chess player friend, key to win a girl's heart is by avoiding her! Confusing!

Note
Of course to any chess master , above concept is nothing strange. It is called Distant Opposition. A battle between two kings to conquer key square,that happen at least 3 files (or ranks) between them. Some distant opposition battle even happen 5 files away!

In Malaysian political kingdom, maybe there are one or two opposition, but in political kingdom of chess (and in the state of pawn ending alone) there exist at least 4 oppositions (normal opposition, distant opposition, diagonal opposition and virtual opposition). Who said chess is dull?

Opps!, guess i have already strayed away from 'CHESS INSTINCT' topic...instinctively i know i have to stop now.

FIELD OF DREAMS...DATMO 2011 EDITION

Intro
In 1989 film Field of Dream, starring Kevin Coastner, there is this dialogue between John Kinsella and Ray Kinsella...

John Kinsella: Is this heaven?
Ray Kinsella: It's Iowa.
John Kinsella: Iowa? I could have sworn this was heaven.
[John starts to walk away]
Ray Kinsella: Is there a heaven?
John Kinsella: Oh yeah. It's the place where dreams come true.
[Ray looks around, seeing his wife playing with their daughter on the porch]
Ray Kinsella: Maybe this is heaven...

DATMO 2011 Edition
Well, for me this year DATMO is simply a heaven. It got something for everyone.

For politician (and we are all politician in our own little way), possible to see Nelson M and Suharto discussing their strategy to defeat their opponent...under the watchful eye of Najib of course.

And since we are all definitely a chess player,at DATMO 2011 this is the only place, one place in this universe, where Nakamura could play a game of chess with Fischer to decide who is a better player among them...

Or how about seeing Darwin discussing about evolution theory of this mating game...

For businessman, there are many GMs here (though maybe they are not interested in your novel business idea...they are only interested in your chess novelty-should you have one because GM here is not General Manager...:) )

Don’t believe? Just go to 2011 DATMO! You could see above and maybe more...

Again, a quote taken from Field of Dreams.

The Voice: If you build it, he will come.

DATMO is our ‘field’ and if we continue to built it...they (interesting chess player, our brother and sister all) will come.

HOLDING OUT FOR A GM

Malaysia for sure really don't lack it in junior talent's department...

Some of the success (...and where their rivals are now)

1992 World Junior under 14.

	ONCE UPON A TIME		NOW
	Name		Title	Rating
1	Tihonov Jurij		GM	2460
2	Benoit lepelletier		IM	2445
3	Tzoumbas Anastasios		FM	2338
4	Peter Leko		GM	2717
5	Ooi Chern Ee		FM	2349
6	Vescovi Giovanni		GM	2644
7	Dao Thien Hai		GM	2492
8	Avrukh Boris		GM	2600
9	Baklan Vladimir		GM	2620
10	Leitao Rafael		GM	2622

Asian Junior 1999

	ONCE UPON A TIME		NOW
	Name		Title	Rating
1	IM Krishnan Sasikiran	2536	GM	2681
2	Laylo Darwin	2502	GM	2528
3	IM Mas Hafizulhelmi	2426	IM	2416
4	IM Tejas Bakre	2361	GM	2522
5	IM Chong Liang	2412	GM	2497
6	FM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami	2373	GM	2588
7	IM Aziz Ahmad	2327	Na	na
8	Thai Binh Nguyen	2295	-	2273
9	FM Enamul Hossain	2325	GM	2481
10	FM Irwin Irnandi	2235	FM	2240

Legend has it that Mas and Sasikiran are both leading the tournament (with Mas having a better tie break) but Mas overpressed in his last game against Ghaem, position is draw, while Sasi won his and the rest is history.

But still, all is not bleak and dim since we now actually have a junior who is ahead of his peers

World under 8

	ONCE UPON A TIME		NOW
	Name		Title	Rating
1	Konstantin Savenkov			2019
2	Qasimov Chingiz			1732
3	Maxim Sinyanskiy			1810
4	Yeoh Li Tian			2121
5	Zajic Milan			2074
6	Jonathan Chiang			2000

Sorry guys, i am now in musical mood...:)


..

Where have all the good players gone
And where are all the talents?
Where's the street-wise chess players
To fight the rising odds?
Isn't there a white knight shining in junior tourney?
Late at night I toss and turn and dream
of what I need

[Chorus]

I need a GM
I'm holding out for a GM 'til the end of the time
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a GM
I'm holding out for a GM 'til the end of the time
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life...

THE YOUNG ONES (DEDICATED TO THE FIGHTING ZHUO REN)

Based From: The Young Ones (Cliff Richard)

The young ones,
Zhuo Ren you're the young ones,
And young ones shouldn't be afraid.

To play, win
While the flame is strong,
for you may not be the young ones very long.

Tomorrow,
why wait till tomorrow,
Tomorrow sometimes never comes.
Check, mate,
there's a game to be won
And the best time is to win it while you're young.

Once in every lifetime
comes a tourney like this.
Malaysia need you and you need Malaysia.
Oh Lim Zhuo Ren can't you see.

Young dreams
Should be dreamed together,
Young hearts shouldn't be afraid.
And some day when the years have flown
Zhuo Ren, you will teach the young ones of Malaysian.