HemmersChess

Yearbook 94 has just arrived!

“All serious chess players should read these outstanding books”, is what Carsten Hansen wrote about The Chess Player’s Guide to Opening News on ChessCafe

Please, have a look at the full contents.

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Having read mostly chess improvement books and opening manuals lately, I was delighted to see a new publication in the best tradition of chess writing: a serious tournament book. Strangely, it’s a tradition that seems rather unpopular these days – a very unfortunate development indeed.

The tournament book tradition has given us many classics, e.g. Bronstein on Zürich 1953, Alekhine on Nottingham 1936 and, more recently, Jan Timman on Curacao 1962. Nowadays, tournament books are a rare guest among the countless opening guides, chess tutorials and personal game collections. Still, a serious tournament report has many advantages over these other genres.

If a single game is like a newspaper column, and a game collection is like a short story, a collection of all games from one tournament is, in my view, like a full-grown novel, with different story-lines and intricate plots, small personal dramas and highlights, seemingly trivial details and an intricate plot leading up to a satisfying or thought-provoking finish. I would like you to see Mihail Marin and Yuri Garrett’s Reggio Emilia 2007/2008, published by Quality Chess, as an intriguing and well-written novel, rather than ‘just another’ chess book on the market.

On of the characteristics of a good tournament book is that all games are seriously analysed. As Garrett, the tournament’s technical director, writes in the introduction, in the current book, 25 out of the total of 45 games are analysed by at least one of the combatants, 3 of them present the views of both players and the remaining 20 have been annotated by GM Mihail Marin.

One of the very nice things is of this is that quick, ‘boring’ draws are also seriously analysed. This is something you don’t see in regular game collections or in New in Chess magazine, but I’ve always found it very instructive to see how the big guys make these draws, especially with such an outstanding explicator as Marin commenting them:

Korchnoi-Almasi
Reggio Emilia (2) 2007

How realistic are White’s chances of retaining even a tiny edge? In the absence of knights, there is no way to take advantage of the relative weakness of the d6-square. Speaking about “ifs”, under certain circumstances a knight jump to f6 would have been devastating. The way it is, I see only one (highly unrealistic) possibility: exchange all the rooks in order to avoid any form of counterplay, install the queen on e4 to dominate both wings, and advance (by some miracle) the b-pawn to b5, in order to put the black pawns placed on dark squares in potential danger. Admittedly, there is no way all this could happen.

16.Bxb7 Maybe Korchnoi’s initial intention was to keep control of the long diagonal with 16.Qf3. However, in this case he would have lost control of another important avenue, the d-file, after 16…Bxe4 17.Qxe4 Rad8 18.Rad1 Rd7! followed by …Rfd8. This would also have led to plain equality.

16…Qxb7 17.Qe2 Rfd8 18.Rad1 Qc6 19.f4 g6 20.Qg2 This is the only way to try to activate his position, but the almost complete simplifications that follow lead to a dead draw.

20…Qxg2+ 21.Kxg2 h5 22.Kf3 Kf8 23.Ke4 Rxd1 24.Rxd1 Rd8 25.Rxd8+ Bxd8 26.h3 Ke8 27.g4 hxg4 28.hxg4 Kd7 When this position was reached, Korchnoi said in a loud voice, “What can I do?” A draw was agreed.

Of course, the tournament not only consisted of solid draws, but also of some very spectacular and beautiful chess. And again, Marin takes us by the hand towards a crystal-clear understanding of the games.

Almasi-Marin
Reggio Emilia (5), 2008

28.e6! White sacrifices his central pawn to clear the e5-square for his knight and make the e-file available for his rook. Black’s contorted piece coordination, which was quite functional in the closed position before Almasi’s breakthrough, will soon lead me to defeat. (…

28….Qxe6 29.Ne5 c6 To tell the truth, I was still optimistic at this point, especially since, judging from his physical reaction, I knew Almasi had overlooked this defensive resource. My pleasant state of mind was not altered by his next strong move.

30.Bd2!! I would have enjoyed playing one of my favourite type of defensive positions – an exchange down – after 30.Nxg6 hxg6. Then Black has practically no weaknesses and his structure is much better than White’s. Moreover, if the black knight reaches the e4-square, White would be in trouble.

In this fragment, we see Marin at his best. He honestly describes his emotions yet manages to stay objective all the time, enabling him to explain the technical details without ever becoming boring or repetitive. He also shows a constant concern for the reader trying to make assessments of the arising positions. Marin even comes to the rescue in annotations by the other participants, when they have not been explicit enough to Marin’s satisfaction. The very first game of the book is a good example: Zoltan Almasi analyses his victory over Pentala Harikrishna in a solid, but rather clinical fashion, so Marin jumps in at several points in the analysis to add useful comments like “It may seem that Black has regrouped his forces harmoniously and his kingside counterplay is developing without problems. However, White’s space advantage in the centre and on the queenside should not be underestimated.”

Reggio Emilia 2007/2008 (it started on December 29, 2007) was in many ways perfect for a tournament book. Not only were there a number of world-class players such as Vugar Gashimov and David Navara, but also the legendary Viktor Korchnoi was present, as well as two rising stars from Asia (Pentala Harakrishna and Ni Hua), and of course Mihail Marin himself. As is good practice in a literary review, I won’t give away the ending of the ‘novel’, nor any other spoilers. In the end, however, it’s the moves and the games that tell the story of this tournament, not the results.

I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself into this tournament (even though I had never seen a single game from it before), identifying with the players and the problems they were facing during the games, and I suddenly felt it as a real loss that such books are hardly ever written anymore these days. I think a tournament book is the closest a chessplayer can come to identifying with fictional characters, and it’s a true pleasure to be able to enjoy the excitement of chess for once without having to think about improving my own game or updating my opening or endgame knowledge. This is simply top level chess entertainment.

Apart from the tournament itself (the heart of the book) there are numerous interesting extras in Reggio Emilia 2007/2008, such as excellent interviews with the players, a history of the Reggio Emilia tournament (including some memorable games from past editions) and a sympathetic description by Garrett of how this particular tournament was organised. Garrett is a keep observer who not only loves to watch the games but also the players themselves:

It was also interesting to witness the cultural differences between the players, ranging from Almasi’s assertive comments to the hesitant and modest ones by the Chinese warrior, Ni Hua (…. Gashimov whispered his fascinating comments, which were charcterized by a wildly tactical approach (albeit with that raw touch so typical of the young player who has yet to fully exploit his potential).

I hope readers will consider buying this very charming book; perhaps it will energize publishers to publish more serious tournament reports. It’s too beautiful a tradition to be written off already.

Links

• Get yourself a copy of Reggio Emilia 2007/2008
• Read more book reviews

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Naiditsch, Vallejo, Jobava, Pelletier, Timofeev, Martinovic, Skoberne, Krasenkow, Inarkiev, Nisipeanu, Efimenko, Maiorov and Nepomniachtchi are the names of the thirteen players who are still on 100% in Rijeka. Three rounds at the European Individual Championship have been played.

The 11th European Individual Men and Women’s Chess Championship is held from 5th to 19th of March 2010 in Rijeka, in new Zamet Centre sports hall. The event is organized by chess club “Rijeka”, in agreement with the Croatian Chess Federation under the auspices of the City of Rijeka and the European Chess Union. It is open to all players representing the chess federations which comprise the European Chess Union (FIDE zones 1.1 to 1.9) regardless of their title or rating. There is also no limit of participants per federation.

The championship is based on Swiss system in accordance with the ECU Tournament Rules and FIDE Rules of Chess. The rate of play is 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one. As always, the European Championship is a qualification event for the next World Cup. According to FIDE regulations and the decision of the ECU Board, 22 players will qualify.

Rounds 1-3

Top seed Zoltan Almasi started with a draw with Black against Italian GM Lexy Ortega. In this first round, played on Saturday, Russian top GMs Alexander Motylev and Evgeny Tomashevsky, the reigning European Champion, also started with draws. The biggest upsets were IM Artem Smirnov beating GM Evgeniy Najer, IM Pavel Potapov beating Viktor Laznicka, FM Burak Firat beating GM Konstantin Sakaev and FM Danny Raznikov beating GM Zaven Andriasian. On one of the lowest boards, Dutch GM Friso Nijboer was held to a draw by Denis Kadric (2171).

The second round saw two draws on the top boards, in Stefansson-Bacrot and Movsesian-Ragger. Moldav top GM Viktor Bologan lost to Bulgarian GM Valentin Iotov and GM Avetik Grigoryan defeated GM Kiril Georgiev. Ivan Cheparinov, long-time team member of Veselin Topalov, lost to Spanish GM Josep Manuel Lopez Martinez, but another Bulgarian of the same generation did better: IM Momchil Nikolov defeated GM Boris Savchenko. FM Hamitevici Vladimir managed to beat GM Mateusz Bartel in this round.

Round 3 was played on International Women’s Day, and all the women playing in the tournament received a rose “as a small sign of appreciation to all women players and all the ladies participating in the organization of this big sporting event”.

In the women’s section there are four leaders with a perfect score after three rounds: Tatiana Kosintseva (RUS), who is the only survivor from the ten best rated players, Monica Socko (POL), Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant (SCO) and Irina Chelushkina (SRB).

Back to the men. After three rounds there are still 13 players with a 100% score. Among them are the two young international masters Sasa Martinovic (CRO) and Jure Skoberne (SLO) who in round 3 defeated GMs Vorobiov and Howell respectively. David Navara, these days boasting a 2708 rating, lost to Yannick Pelletier yesterday. Cheparinov went down again, this time against IM Artem Smirnov. IM Pavel Povatov and FM Burak Firat had more successes: the former defeated GM Tomi Nyback, the latter beat GM Gregorz Gajewski.

Today’s round will see some interesting encounters: Vallejo Pons-Timofeev, Krasenkow-Jobava, Naiditsch-Efimenko, Pelletier-Inarkiev, Skoberne-Nisipeanu, Nepomniashtchi-Maiorov and Adams-Martinovic. In the women’s section there are two clashes at the top: Arakhamia-T.Kosintseva and Socko-Chelushkina.

European Championship 2010 | Round 3 Standings (top 40)

Full standings here

A nice curiosity about the European Individual Men and Women’s Chess Championship in Rijeka

For the first time, there will be a ‘priest’ to represent – unofficially – the State of Vaticano. Unofficially because Vaticano is not (yet) affiliated to FIDE.

The name of the priest who will partecipate to the European Championship is Don Valerio Piro, from Neapolis; he got the formal authorization from Cardinal Sepe (note that Cardinal is more than Bishop; the Cardinal reports directly to the Pope).

Don Valerio is candidate-master for the Italian Chess Federation. Officially he is registered as Italy, but he will play with the flag of Vaticano. This is the first partecipation of a representative of the little State that is not afffiliated to FIDE. But only for the moment, as there are many priest that are good chessplayer.

Historically, the first (important) was Ruy Lopez – the inventor of the famous opening. The last one is William Lombardy, assistant of Bobby Fischer.

There is the idea to organize a championship for ‘ecclesiastics’ (priests, friars, monks, nuns), then there will be the possibility to create a Chess Federation of the state of Vaticano. So may be that it will be possible to see a team fom Vaticano also in the Olympiads.

The news had a good interest in the Italian newspapers and press agency. Please find enclosed the links (sorry, but the articles are in Italian!). Please note that the most important ‘catholic’ newspaper, Avvenire, dedicated a complete page to the news.

• http://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/regioni/campania/2010/02/28/visualizza_new.html_1709041681.html
• http://napoli.repubblica.it/dettaglio/scacchi-parroco-di-boscotrecase-primo-sacerdote-agli-europei/1875352
• http://www.ilvesuvio.it/index.php?page=0&news=8711
• http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Regioni/Campania/Prete-ai-Campionati-europei-di-scacchi-Al-mio-rientro-lezioni-in-parrocchia_70956501.html
• http://www.libero-news.it/regioneespanso.jsp?id=360194

Thanks and best regards!
Adolivio Capece

Selection of games rounds 1-3

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Photos courtesy of the official website, more here

Links

• Official website
• All details and statistics
• Games in PGN: Men | Women via TWIC

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On March 3 Chessbase published a press release in which it was announced that Magnus Carlsen and Garry Kasparov won’t continue their training sessions.

With those achievements a major target has been met in the cooperation between these two chess players, even earlier than anticipated. Therefore it has been decided that their cooperation should take a different direction this year. Magnus will be responsible for all career decisions, without constant guidance, as this is the natural next stage in his chess development. For the time being there are no plans for chess camps or regular coaching during events. Garry Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen have agreed to remain in contact, and Carlsen will still have the opportunity to confer regularly with Kasparov.

© 2010, José Diaz

Links

• Interview with José Diaz
• José Diaz Official Website

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Alexander Morozevich has withdrawn from the Amber tournament, which starts in six days from now in Nice, France. The Russian is replaced by his compatriot Alexander Grischuk. To get you a bit in the mood already, today we present a video with footage from 2008 and 2009.

The 19th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament takes place at the Palais de la Mediterranée in Nice, France, from March 12 to 25, 2010. The event is organized by the Association Max Euwe of chess maecenas Joop van Oosterom, which is based in Monaco. The total prize-fund is ? 216,000.

The world’s number one player, Magnus Carlsen, is the top-seed in Nice. Also present are Levon Aronian, the winner of the past two Amber tournaments, and Vladimir Kramnik, who won the Amber tournament a record six times.

The following twelve grandmasters will take part (between brackets their country and their rating in the March 1, 2010 world rankings): Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2813), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2790), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2782), Alexander Grischuk (Russia, 2756), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2750), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2748), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan, 2740), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2737), Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2725), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba, 2713) and Jan Smeets (The Netherlands, 2651).

Every day four sessions will be played, two blindfold sessions and two rapid sessions. The first session starts at 14.30 CET. The fourth session finishes around 20.00 CET. The final round on March 25 starts at 12.30 CET. March 17 and 22 are rest days. The rate of play is 25 minutes per game per player. With every move made in the blindfold games 20 seconds is added to the clock, with every move made in the rapid games 10 seconds is added.

Below you’ll find an appetizer video. Like in previous years, many more will be posted on the official website during the tournament. Besides, you can expect something new this year: live chess with audio commentary, streaming footage from the playing hall and live commentary sessions with the top GMs!

Video

Link

• Official website

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Every week we present you an endgame study selected by IM Yochanan Afek: player, trainer, endgame study composer and writer. A week later the solution is published. Good luck solving!

S. Didukh
2003

White to play and win

Next week the solution.

---

Solution last week

I. Aliev
2008

Game viewer by ChessTempo

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Today the first round of the European Individual Men and Women’s Chess Championship will be played. In Rijeka (Croatia), Almasi, Bacrot and Movsesian are the top seeds. In the women’s section the favourites are Antoaneta Stefanova, Nadezhda Kosintseva and Anna Muzychuk.

The 11th European Individual Men and Women’s Chess Championship will be held from 5th to 19th of March 2010 in Rijeka, in new sports hall ?Center Zamet?.

The event is organized by chess club “Rijeka”, in agreement with the Croatian Chess Federation under the auspices of the City of Rijeka and the European Chess Union. It is open to all players representing the chess federations which comprise the European Chess Union (FIDE zones 1.1 to 1.9) regardless of their title or rating. There is also no limit of participants per federation.

The championship will be based on Swiss system in accordance with the ECU Tournament Rules and FIDE Rules of Chess. The playing time will be 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one. As always, the European Championship is a qualification event for the next World Cup. According to FIDE regulations and the decision of the ECU Board, 22 players will qualify.

Yesterday the opening ceremony was held at the Sports Centre Zamet in Rijeka. From the organizers’ press release:

The Championship was officially opened with the symbolic first move by Rijeka’s Mayor Vojko Obersnel who pointed out that the City of Rijeka, the neighbouring City of Opatija and the entire Region shall live the next two weeks in the rhythm of this Championship. He also said that the hosts can not wait to show their hospitality to all the chess enthusiasts. Obersnel wished good luck and a lot of success to all the players, wishing that this event will be unforgettable for them.

A warm welcome was also offered by the Executive Committee President Damir Vrhovnik who said that it is a special pleasure to host 590 chess players coming from 41 different European countries, among whom there are 246 grandmasters, and that this confirms that this Championship in Rijeka is the strongest male and female chess championship ever held in the organization of the European Chess Union. ?I believe that this chess spectacle, along with invested efforts and our wish for its best possible organization will position Rijeka and Croatia on the European chess map?, Vrhovnik concluded.

Representing Croatian Chess Federation, its president Stjepan ?urlan greeted the guests and pointed out how this Championship is a great honour for Rijeka, as well as for the Federation, which is proud of its rich tradition and organization of chess competitions.

The President of European Chess Federation, Boris Kutin, pointed out that there is no need to be a chess expert to understand that in this moment Rijeka is the capital of the chess world. ?I wish everyone a pleasant stay, good luck and success, but also to enjoy the competition?, Kutin said.

A musical introduction to the typical local atmospehere of the city and the region that hosts this competition was given by a fenale capella group singers Klapa Luka, and at the end, the ceremony was closed by the dance group Flash Dance Unit.

Today the 1st round starts at 15.30 PM. Live games here.

Links

• Official website
• All details and statistics

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Now available: The Moscow & Anti-Moscow Variations.

Alexey Dreev has been playing both variations against the world’s top players for many years. His analyses and calculations during the games have laid the foundation of this book. Packed with theoretical novelties and recommendations.

This is your chance to get an insider’s view!

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Chess players love wooden chess sets for their massive, easy-playing pieces, their obvious superiority over cheap plastic stuff and their distinguished classical look. But what about their sustainability?

I got interested in this question after seeing an advertisement for a truly magnificent chess set called the ‘Endangered Parrots of the World Chess Set’. Created by Grant Dawson Collections in the United States, it is “hand made from certified sustainable North American hardwoods (walnut and maple), food safe natural finishes with recycled glass ball feet, and features 32 lead-free pewter playing pieces finished in 24k gold or sterling silver.”

The set is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, but it’s not exactly cheap: if you’re interested, you can buy it here for the nice sum of $5000. It’ll buy you this:

That’s much more expensive, for instance, than the slightly less serious Freshwater vs. Saltwater Fish Chess Set or the various Animal Chess Sets that are sold on the internet. (”Endangered species will live on, healthy and free, in your own controlled temperature living room. Beware if you lose a piece or you could be in trouble with the Feds.”

This is all good fun, of course (in fact, I can’t help mentioning a marvellous – if not really environmentally ‘correct’ – Through the Looking-Glass chess set, with pieces vanishing as soon as they are captured!) – but what about regular, Staunton-style chess sets?

I personally became interested in deforestation and sustainability issues after a visit a few years ago to Easter Island (which was completely deforested by its original people) and after reading Jared Diamond’s influential book Collapse (2005) about the collapse of great civilizations in the past and present, which deals about deforestation in great detail. As Diamond writes:

More than half of the world’s original area of forest has already been converted to other uses, and at present conversion rates one-quarter of the forests that remain will become converted within the next half-century. Those losses of forests represent losses for us humans, especially because forests provide us with timber and other raw materials, and because they provide us with so-called ecosystem services such as protecting our watersheds, protecting soil against erosion, constituting essential steps in the water cycle that generates much of our rainfall, and providing habitat for most terrestial plant and animal species. Deforestation was a or the major factor in all the collapses of past societies described in this book.

I tried searching for the word ’sustainable’ on a couple of well-known chess vendor sites such as The House of Staunton and the online shop of the London Chess Centre, but got a No products matched your search criteria in all cases. (One of the very few hits I got at all on Google was for a recyced chess set on Cool Gadgets.com. Pretty cool indeed, but hardly useful for even the smallest-sized chess tournament.)

I looked for more information online on the type of wood that’s used in chess sets. Again, it’s not easy finding out about this. On one site, I learned that “rosewood is a very popular type of wood used for chess men.” This would be bad news, since rosewood is in fact a tropical hardwood which is hugely overexploited. Still, a quick look at some retailer’s sites show that this is indeed one of the most commonly used wood for chess sets. According to the BBC,

The most reliable way to choose environmentally friendly timber and wooden products is to look out for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) logo. The FSC is a charity which certifies wood, paper and other tree products that have come from sustainability managed forests. (… Wood from trees native to Europe, such as pine, oak, beech and birch, pose lower environment risks than those from tropical and subtropical trees such as mahogany, teak, rosewood and ebony.

The widely-used Digital DGT wooden boards are made of rosewood. On the website of the USCF Shop, too, most chess sets (both pieces and boards, and both ‘tournament’ and ‘luxury’ sets) seem to be made from rosewood, ebony or mahogany. And on this site, too, the word ’sustainable’ doesn’t return any pages. (There are ecologically sustainable types of rosewood, such as Santos Palisander, but again it is unclear (at best) whether this palisander type is used for the chess boards advertised on these websites.) In fact, one of the very few websites that explicity features ’sustainable chess sets’ is the English ShopWiki, which links the so-called Negiel Decorative Staunton Wooden Chess Set:

Folding wooden chess set by Negiel, comprising of an ornate stained wooden chess board and traditional Staunton style weighted chess pieces. Quality product made in Europe from carefully selected high quality sustainable wood.

It’s also quite cheap (certainly compared to the Endangered Parrots one!): £44.99, and it will be in stock from April this year on. But again, on the above-mentioned online shops, you’ll search in vain for the Negiel chess set, as far as I can tell.

I phoned Joris van Vuure of Chess and Go Shop Het Paard in Amsterdam, one of the largest chess equipment sellers in The Netherlands, to ask him what, if anything, he knew about sustainable chess sets. “Well, to be honest I’ve never thought about it,” Joris van Vuure told me. “Our customers – including the Dutch Chess Federation – simply never ask for it. They are obviously interested in the price and quality of the chess sets, but not their sustainability. Our top-selling chess sets are mostly made of mahogany, palissander or boxwood. Boxwood pieces are usually painted, which you can easily recognize because the black pieces are really black, whereas the others have a natural dark wood colour. I personally thought boxwood is sustainable, but I’m not sure.”

In fact, the sustainability of boxwood (or buxus as it says on the chess sets) is questionable. It’s an extremely hard type of wood which makes it very suitable for many things, including chess pieces, but it’s often overexploited and its sustainability really depends on where the plant was cultivated. Even if some boxwood would deserve to get the benefit of the doubt (Het Paard sells a lot of them, which is a good thing!), rosewood, mahogany and other tropical hardwoods wouldn’t.

Van Vuure says their shop would be interested in marketing explicitly sustainable chess sets, possibly even with an FSC logo, but he doubts whether customers would want to pay more for them. “In fact, many of our customers explicitly say they want nice wooden products rather than plastic ones, which obviously look cheap and actually have a bad image environmentally speaking. It’s a complicated issue, but if we could market it in a good way, without confusing customers, why not?”

Exactly how bad is it that we chess players mostly use unsustainable wooden chess sets, and what can be done about it? To quickly answer the first question: I have no idea – but it certainly doesn’t help. As often with these things, it’s clearly better in any case to be part of the solution, instead of the problem. Besides, I’m pretty sure more chess sets are being sold each day than expensive musical instruments made of the same materials, so there’s another clue. Finally, while unsustainble furniture at least looks really nice, I really wouldn’t be able to spot the difference between a maple chess set and a boxwood one. Nor would I much care: as long are the pieces are heavy (which can be achieved in other ways as well) and they don’t look too distracting, it’s all perfectly fine by me.

The second question seems tougher. I can advice you to buy a sustainable chess set next time, and you can tell your chess-playing friends, but even if you’d be willing to follow my advice, when will that be? And how effective will that be in the grand scheme of things anyway? It’ll also look decidedly pedantic to complain with your local club staff about the nice sets they just bought to please their club members: gee, thanks for the support!

This is an example of what marine scientist Jennifer Jacquet, who studies the overfishing problem, calls horizontal agitation:

Horizontal agitation is peer pressure combined with a pejorative element of what is socially or environmentally unacceptable. One friend lambasts me if she sees me with a disposable coffee cup. Another one does when I drive instead of walk. A British colleague in fisheries told me he could no longer bear dinner with his “middle-class friends” because they would pester him about the hypocrisy of his seafood consumption.

Although horizontal agitation can be beneficial, as studies have shown, Jacquet thinks there’s a better way: vertical agitation.

Choosing a MSC-certified fish over another is not going to relieve overfishing — not when one trawler today can remove 60 tonnes of fish from the ocean in a single haul. The way to get big changes quickly and maximize the effect of our scrutiny is with vertical agitation.

Vertical agitation means working higher in the demand chain. Rather than consumers hassling consumers, vertical agitation implies consumers hassle mega-consumers (chefs, managers, retailers, universities) or government. Today’s conservation movement, like the industries it seeks to revolutionize, must make big changes quickly. It can do this best with vertical agitation. (… [A] colleague, Claire Nouvian, managed to arrange a meeting with President Sarkozy and vertically agitated him into supporting a CITES listing of bluefin tuna.

In terms of chess sets, the problem is obviously not as big as, say, slavery or the extinction of the bluefish tuna. Nor will buying sustainable chess sets alone save the world’s rainforests. But, as Joris van Vuure says, why not give it a try? At least unsustainable chess sets are not subsidized by FIDE! Chess organizers and federations could use nicely made plastic chess sets only (there are nice plastic sets, I’ve seen them myself!) or they could ask retailers about sustainable wooden sets. They might even be subsidized because of it!

Retailers, especially small ones already offering that little ’something extra’ to customers, should in my view seriously consider importing (and marketing) more sustainable wooden chess sets made of, for instance, oak or beech, even if perhaps they don’t always look as posh as some of the tropical of subtropical hardwood products. After all, in no-nonsense tournament chess, nobody ever really looks at the pieces for their beauty, do they? As long as they’re not distracting, surely it’s the chess that matters, not the board and pieces?

Finally, FIDE (Gens una sumus) itself should also be listening closely. Since they seem to have a liking for introducing weird new rules, here’s a suggestion for them: order all FIDE-rated tournaments to play with plastic or sustainable wooden chess sets. And they shouldn’t just do it because they like new rules, either. Like most ’sustainability’ initiatives, it could actually save them real money in the long run. What with all the financial troubles of our dear World Chess Federation, might this not be music to their ears?

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Today is the 75th birthday of the legendary Bent Larsen, the strongest Danish grandmaster in history and together with Bobby Fischer the “Best of the West”, before this title went to Jan Timman. We’re congratulating with unique photos from the past and present.

Photo: Peter Heine Nielsen

His full name is Jørgen Bent Larsen. He was born March 4, 1935 in Thisted, Denmark. Larsen has been a six-time Danish champion, and a Candidate for the World Chess Championship on four occasions: 1965, 1968, 1971, and 1977. He won three Interzonal tournaments: Amsterdam 1964, Sousse 1967, and Biel 1976.

Larsen is considered to be the strongest chess player ever born in Denmark, and strongest in Scandinavia at least until the emergence of Magnus Carlsen. Larsen won several dozen major international tournaments during his career, and was awarded the first Chess Oscar in 1967. Since the early 1970s, he has lived for part of the year in Las Palmas and in Buenos Aires, with his Argentinian-born wife.

Larsen became an International Grandmaster in 1956 with his gold-medal performance on board one at the Moscow Olympiad. He scored his first major individual international success by winning Mar del Plata 1958 with 12/15.

In the early 60s Larsen diversified his style, switching over to risky and unusual openings in some of his games, to try to throw his opponents off balance; this led to the recovery of his form and further development of his chess.

He experimented with e.g. Bird’s Opening (1. f4) and 1.b3, which is called the Larsen Opening or the Nimzo-Larsen Attack. Next Saturday a big rapid tournament will be held in the center of Copenhagen, with amongst others GM Lars Bo Hansen, GM Jonny Hector and GM Sune Berg Hansen. All games in the first round must start with 1.b3.

Larsen reached his top rank in the Elo rating system at the start of 1971, equal third in the world (with Korchnoi, behind Fischer and Spassky) with a rating of 2660. In the same year he famously lost the Candidates semi-final match in Denver 0-6 to Fischer, who went on to win the title.

Larsen later claimed in a Kasparov.com interview (1998) that his one-sided loss to Fischer was due in part to his condition during the match: “The organizers chose the wrong time for this match. I was languid with the heat and Fischer was better prepared for such exceptional circumstances… I saw chess pieces through a mist and, thus, my level of playing was not good.”

Together with Fischer, Larsen was clearly the strongest tournament player from the West in the years 1965-1973. Victories include Le Havre 1966, Havana 1967, Winnipeg 1967, Palma de Mallorca 1967, Monte Carlo 1968, Palma de Mallorca 1969, Lugano 1970 and Teesside 1972. In the USSR vs Rest of the World match at Belgrade 1970, he played first board for the World side, ahead of Fischer, and scored 2.5/4 against Spassky and Leonid Stein.

Larsen has continued to play occasionally in tournaments to the present day. In 1999 he finished 7th of 10 in the Danish Championship, but in the 2000 event he was forced to withdraw when he became seriously ill with an edema, requiring brain surgery. He has played in only a few tournaments in Buenos Aires since then. In 2008 he playes his first tournament in four years, and avoiding theory in every game, the famous Dane only played very exotic openings and scored? 0 out of 9. It inspired us to ask the organizer of the Chess960 tournament in Mainz to invite Larsen.

For this article we used Wikipedia which has a large entry with much more details on Bent Larsen.

In 1950 Skakbladet had an annotation competition, and the winning game had the honour of being annotated game no. 2,500 in the magazine since its inception in 1904. The winner was Bent Larsen, and the editor with great political correctness told how, by a strange coincidence game no. 2,500 was won by an ordinary, totally unknown representative of the ordinary Danish club players. The winner was Bent Larsen – and the editor was never allowed to forget!

Ahead of the World Junior Championship in Copenhagen 1953, arguably the strongest ever, IM Jens Enevoldsen suggested a training match of six games between him and Larsen. He told me later that his plan was that it should end as a 3-3 draw so you historically you could say, that the old master passed the scepter to the future.

Enevoldsen was in fact very lucky that the match was still equal ahead of the last game which was a seasaw game with the players alternately better. Larsen went wrong in a better position, and disaster threatened Enevoldsen – he had a clear win, but if he won, who would ever remember the match.

So, he offered a draw that Larsen of course accepted though he didn’t understand a thing. Explanation followed when Enevoldsom immediately demonstrated the forced win, and even if a well behaved Larsen never said anything, Enevoldsen knew that he was furious, – and I never think that he forgave me!

I have had many experiences with Larsen, and I published his tournament book about the great victory in Manila 1973 on my small hobby publishing firm. It is but a very small part of a fantastic production of books and articles that still continues. Imagine what it means to a small country to have had authors like Niemzowitsch, Enevoldsen, and Bent Larsen ….!

Larsen emigrated from Denmark after a controversy with tax people and a growing dissatisfaction with the way the Danish state moved politically but he never quit his good relations to the ordinary Danish chess players – or his bad relations to the Danish Chess Federation that probably has never treated him like the world star he has been and is until these latest years.

There are lots of other memories but I would like to share one of his lesser known openings with you, played as white against Miguel Quinteros in Orense 1975. Never move you pawns too often in the opening. You know that but what do you think about…

1.c4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.e4 d6 4.Nc3 Nc6 5.Be3 e5 6.d5 Nce7 7.g4 Nf6 8.f3 h5? 9.g5 Nh7 10.Qd2 f5 11.h4 Nf8 12.c5 a6 13.b4 Nd7 14.a4 O-O 15.a5

White won from this position as a matter of simple tecnique.

Svend Novrup,
President of Association Internationale de la Presse Echiquenne

To celebrate Larsen’s 75th birthday, the Danish Chess Federation has dedicated a special edition of Skakbladet to the great master. The magazine can be downloaded at http://www.dsu.dk/skakblad/sb2010/larsen.pdf (in Danish only).

Tonight Larsen will be celebrated both in Copenhagen, Aarhus and in Koege in various arrangements. We already mentioned the rapid tournament next Saturday. In connection with the strongest chess tournament in Denmark, the Politiken Cup, GM Peter Svidler (Russia) and the leading Danish player, GM Peter Heine Nielsen, will play a combined rapid and blitz match in honour of Bent Larsen. The match takes place in Elsinore August 2-5. From October 11 till 22, ten Grandmasters will play Bent Larsen?s 75th year birthday tournament in Koege. The players are still to be announced.

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