Summer Chess Season

It feels a bit funny talking about the summer chess season as I'm sitting in the middle of  an Australian winter. But I've become used to being on the periphery of the chess world. Australian chess has improved hugely since I've arrived inasmuch as there are more higher quality tournaments around the country, and the general quality of chess at the top level has risen. When I first arrived in 2005, Australia was ranked about 60th in the FIDE countries list, while now we sit in 44th position. This has been  achieved by a talented group of youngish players, as Australia's top 10 has only 2 players born before 1990. We are all hoping that our team can put in a good performance at the upcoming Olympiad in September.

The Olympiad will come after what appears to be a great summer season. I'll be posting more games from classic books, and analysis of events here in Victoria, but I'll also be following some international events as their are some that really excite me.

- The 2018 US Junior Championships start in a few hours and both the boys and girls tournaments will be great with plenty of fighting chess.

- Dortmund and Biel are the traditional summer festivals in Europe, and both tournaments have top 10 players and some talented lower rated players (not much lower rated!). I have to admit that I've been left a bit cold by the the elite chess series of tournaments we've had, as the same players keep coming up against each other. It is good to see some new faces challenging the elite.

- Danzhou might just be the most exciting tournament of the summer, especially for us in Australia as the time zone means that we'll be able to see quite a bit live. A stunning young field led by 24 year old Yu Yangyi, the current number 14 in the World while the new, 20 year old, Polish number 1, Duda coming up against 19 year old Chinese sensation Wei Yi. Even the oldest player in the field, Bu Xiangzhi, is interesting as he is the man who knocked World Champion, Magnus Carlsen out of the World Cup last year!

- The British Chess Championship is a tournament I always follow as I knew many players involved. Sadly, I personally know more players in the over 50 tournament than the Championship nowadays, so I'll be watching the results of some of the other events at the tournament. This year the Championship is being held in Hull which is where I went to university, so it has even more meaning to me.

- Sinquefield Cup dominates the second half of August, and it has absolute elite fields competing in sections for blitz, rapid and classical chess time controls. It will be probably the last chance to see a Carlsen-Caruana clash before their World Championship clash. While this is the most elite event of the summer, it isn't the most exciting for me. Saying that, I'll be following it much like many chess fans throughout the world.

It's great to follow elite tournaments, and easier to do so than ever before with websites such as chess24, chess bomb, TWIC, etc. Of course, watching isn't a substitute for playing, but analysing the games of others is an impsrtant skill to learn, and trying to analyse games in progress is a great exercise, like a 'guess the move' type of thing, but in real time.

You'll probably be hearing some more about these events on this blog over the next couple of months!

Endgame of the Week

I haven't been playing much chess, or studying much chess recently for one reason or another. So when I do look at things, they tend to be about things I enjoy. And I must admit that as I get older, I become more interested in endgames. Downloading TWIC each week and then sorting the file according to number of moves lets one see which endgames are being played.

This week's longer games included a pawnless rook vs bishop ending which finished in a draw. The defender knew the technique of heading the king to the corner not controlled by the bishop. There was a knight and bishop checkmate, and some interesting queen and pawn and rook and pawn endings, including R + e and f pawns vs R which ended in a draw. I must admit, I don't know the theory of these endings, but roughly know that f and h pawns are mostly draws, and a and h pawns are mostly draws. It is something worth looking at to build my technique.

I was most interested in the following position, not least because a GM was getting bashed by someone 300 rating points lower.

I would imagine time was a factor here as white is about to play his 61st move. White will definitely lose their a-pawn, but can win material on the king side, which should be enough for victory. The best first move is 61.Ng7, when black's f-pawn falls. However, white played 61.Nd4+ and black traded on d4 going into a lost king and pawn endgame. 61..Bxd4 62.exd4 (to be fair, keeping the minor pieces on didn't hold out much hope either).

However, this game ended in a draw after both sides promoted.  From the diagram the game continued 62..Kb5 63.Ke2 Kxa5 64.Ke3 Kb5 65.Kf4 Kc6 when we get to the key position.

White now played the natural 66.Kxf5? missing the finesse 66.Ke5! when black's king will be forced away from d5 meaning that white will be able to capture both f and e pawns (and g and h if he wants). After the text move black promotes  the b-pawn in 8 while white promotes  the g-pawn in 7, but it is black to move so they promote at the same time. This leaves a dreaded queen and pawn ending which are notoriously difficult to win.

So once again, a natural looking move, a capture, turns out to be not the best move. A simple finesse of the king would have led to victory for white against a player 300 points higher rated. Still, a draw was not a bad result for the white player.

The Longest Game of the Week TWIC 1114

The longest game of the week from TWIC 1114 was a 158 move marathon from the HD open in Vietnam. The game reached an ending which is most player's nightmare, a queen and pawn endgame. The ideas in these endgames are usually fairly simple, but implementing those ideas is usually tough because of the amount of queen moves that have to be taken into account.

This was the position after 101 moves. Here are a few general observations first.

- I like IM Robert Jamieson's summing up of queen endings: put your queen on a central square and see what happens. White's queen takes up a dominant spot in this endgame.

- white is trying to win this, and even though the position may be theoretically level (though it may not!), white runs no risk of continuing in this position, and hoping that black makes an error.

- black needs to avoid an exchange of queens unless black's king can get to e6 with the opposition.

This is a draw with white to move, but white can still try here, hoping that black is not aware of how to draw. 1.Kf3 Kf5? [1..Ke7 would draw. Black just needs to be ready to move to e6 if white ever plays Ke4] 2.Ke3 Ke6 3.Ke4 and we reach the position above is reached with black to move. That is a win for white as after 3..Kd6 4.f5 gxf5 5.Kxf5 Ke7 6.g6

Now white wins after 6..Ke8!? [Hoping for 7.Kf6? Kf8=] 7.Ke6! Kf8 8.Kf6 Kg8 9.g7 and the pawn will promote.

- the defending side needs to be aware of all possible drawing possibilities, including repetition of positions and the 50 move rule. A few weeks ago I showed a blitz game where the 50 move rule was exceeded but the draw wasn't claimed. This is understandable in a blitz game where a record isn't being kept. In a standard rated game it is unforgivable. Here's the position from the longest game of the week after 151 moves.

Clearly, there have been no captures since the original position, nor have there been any pawn moves. In this position, black should have claimed a draw according to the 50 move rule. Instead the game continued, and black resigned 7 moves later!

- endgames are often decided by fatigue rather than ability. Black was clearly tired in this game, missing the 50 move draw, and then blundering soon after.

From the above position, white would ideally like to force an exchange of queens, so all the time the white queen is looking to block checks from black's queen and at the same time pinning black's queen to the black king. The game continued 152.Qe5 Qd3+ 153.Ke7 Qa3+ 154.Qd6 Qa7+

Black's queen has plenty of space to keep checking white's king and white cannot avoid the checks but white skilfully heads towards f6 with the king. White's queen has a dominating position covering a number of squares, and threatening black's king. Black continued to hassle the white king. 155.Qd7 Qc5+ 156.Kf6

This is a critical position. White has made great progress, threatening mate on g7, and the pawn on g6. A black check on the 6th rank will be blocked by white's Qe6+ forcing an exchange of queens, so black has nothing left. The game finished 156..Qc3+ 157.Kxg6 [No more 50 move draw claim] 157..Qc2+ 158.f5 and black resigned ahead of the imminent mate.

The Longest Game of the Week

Last week I looked at the longest game from the latest issue of the weekly magazine TWIC. I enjoyed it so much that I intend to keep doing it. This week the longest game from TWIC 1112 was bizarrely a blitz game! However, seeing blitz players get an increment, and as endgames can be difficult enough to play when you have loads of time, it makes sense that players will carry on to the death in a blitz game.

In the Mind sports women's blitz event, the longest game of the week was the heavyweight encounter between Dzaganidze and Ushenina, both GM strength players. They played a 172 move marathon which featured some pretty interesting types of position. The game wasn't played perfectly, but it was blitz, and endgame novices like myself can still learn things from looking at the game. The first thing to mention is how determined and resourceful both players proved to be, white in her defence, and black in her attempts to win.

The starting position for the endgame was

Endgames with rook and minor piece are very common, and so they are worth looking at from both a theoretical and practical view point. This position sees black a pawn up, but in check. The opposite coloured bishops make the position drawish on the one hand, as it is difficult to advance pawns, but allow for attacks on the other hand, especially on the colour complex which the opponent's bishop doesn't control. For a good example of this, the game West-Rujevic from this week's MCC Championship is worth a look.

After trading pawns, which is usually a good thing for the defender, both players moved around until the following position was reached.

White has 2 choices of retreat for her bishop: f5 defends the h3 pawn, while d3 blocks the third rank. She chose the wrong one! 61.Bd3? e4! black exploits the fact that white's bishop is pinned and it cannot take on e4 or it will get forked by Re3+. I suppose in general terms this can be explained by the fact that we want to keep our pieces active in an endgame, and self pinning a bishop is not an active way of using it. Specifically, pawn advances need to be considered at all times, so white should be aware of black's pawn advance e5-e4 at all times.

Anyway, black won white's h-pawn, but then inexplicably managed to lose her own e-pawn leaving this position.

With only one pawn left, and the corner square not controlled by black's bishop, the endgame is seemingly more drawn than before. White comes up with a simple defence. Place the bishop on the h3-c8 diagonal, sacrifice it when black's pawn eventually advances, and hold on in the pawnless endgame. This is a great resource, and one that all players should learn some knowledge of as it can save so many games.

I want to fast forward about 55 moves now. Black still hadn't moved her pawn, so technically the game was drawn under the 50 move rule. However, in blitz how can a player keep count, and claim the drawn result? But the game continued and the pawn moved, where white immediately sacrificed her bishop brining about the following position.

This position is theoretically drawn, but from a practical point of view it is worth playing on as their are winning chances. I'll show a couple of typical drawn positions and then the tragic blunder that cost white the game, after her excellent defence.

This is Cochrane's Defence. Although the defending king is cut off on the edge of the board, black can make no progress as the king is tied to defending its bishop, while the bishop is pinned.

This is called the 'Second Rank Defence'. The defender places their pieces with one square in between them on the second rank (or one file in from the side), with the defending pieces on the opposite coloured square to the bishop. Again, there is way for the attacking side to make progress without regrouping.

In our game of the week, both of these defences were used, as white's king did its best to hang on. But after 169 moves white finally cracked which goes to show that playing on in 'drawn' positions is worth it as sometimes the defender will blunder through a lack of knowledge, a lack of energy, or a simple oversight.

White's king is looking decidedly cornered, and black has the plan of playing Re5-e1 mate. This can be countered by another defence though. When Black's rook goes to the e-file, white's rook should go to the d-file preparing itself to block mate on d1. Perhaps this is what white thought when she played 170.Rh7? But from what we've already found out, just in this blog, restricting the enemy pieces is of key importance, so retaining a pin on black's bishop was the best move 170.Rb8!. This would have led to a level position, and probably hundreds of more moves unless someone was counting.

After 170.Rh7? It's mate in 2, which white executed. 170..Ba3+ 171.Kb1 Rd1 #

An amazing endgame, played in blitz time control, and one worth the time to study.

The Longest Game of the Week

A while ago I used to run an endgame group at the Melbourne Chess Club. This group proved quite popular and had a number of regulars attending. I lead this group for about 2 years and in this time I learned a lot about endgames, and about players abilities and appreciation of this phase of the game.

The Melbourne Chess Cub Endgame Group was taken over by FM Bill Jordan after work commitments meant I could no longer run it, but I think Bill will not be running it this year, and I'm not sure if this means that the Endgame Group has stopped. If it has it will be a shame, as all club players would greatly benefit from regular endgame study. Putting an hour or 2 towards endgame study each week does such a lot for your chess:

- improves confidence
- builds technical skills
- increases resilience and resourcefulness
- develops planning skills, and prepares for transition from middle games
- builds awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of each piece
- helps with calculation skills

Add to this that virtually no club players are looking regularly at endgames, and it is easy to see that becoming any where near proficient at this part of the game will reap benefits, where players can maximise their results, winning games that should be won, holding difficult positions, and even turning around positions from lost, to level, to won.

One of the things I used to do was look at the longest game of the week in The Week in Chess (TWIC) magazine. TWIC is a chess news website which publishes a pgn of the games played that week. Using a database to sort and view the games, it is possible to keep up to date with all games played, and published, each week. I would sort the games by number of moves, and look at the longest, or at least the final part of the longest. Each week there are games played in interesting and important endgame positions to understand. Regularly there would be massive games that ended in pawnless endgames, or queen and pawn endgames. Take into account that the players may be tired from already having exerted 4-6 hours worth of effort into the game, and players can be forgiven for not playing perfectly. But it means the student of endgames has great material to learn from, if they're willing to put the effort in.

For example, the latest TWIC was issue 1111 published just yesterday (it is published every Monday in the UK, or Tuesday morning here in Australia). When sorting by number of moves, I find the longest was a 147 epic between 2 sub 2000 players from an open tournament in Italy. The player who was white won a piece early on, then some trades happen, and the leading side had some trouble because of opposite coloured bishops. Finally, the following position arose after 93 moves.

Black tried his best practical chance and played 93..Bxd6 forcing white to prove that he could win the dreaded KNB v K endgame. It was certainly worth a try, and black was probably heading towards this endgame for the past 30 moves. I've even used this myself, testing players to finish you off, when they are tired, and maybe only have 30 seconds per move to work things out. A couple of wrong turns by white here, and the game is a 50 move draw!

So that is something already learned. It's a good idea to work out which endings give you good chances of success, or some chances of survival, etc. Looking at endgames without pawns can be a great exercise, and even better if you have someone to play through them.

In the above game, after about 17 moves the black king had been forced to the edge of the board.

Now perhaps this drive could have been achieved quicker, but never mind, there are about 33 moves left to win. The first thing to understand is that black has wisely chosen to send his king to a corner that white's bishop doesn't control. White cannot checkmate by force in the a1 corner, the black king must be driven to the h1 corner, or the a8 corner. White understood this, but still couldn't manage to do it! From the diagram above play continued 111..Kc1 112 Ba2! black's king is driven across the board 112..Kd1

Now white started the correct procedure called the 'W' manouvre. White's knight moves in a W formation from c2-d4-e2-f4-g2, each time it hits the second rank, it aims at squares of the opposite colour to the bishop on the back rank helping with the drive of the enemy king. 113.Nf4! Ke1 This is not what you would necessarily expect. Normally, the king will try to sneak back to the safe corner, not voluntarily march towards the dangerous corner! However, by doing something unexpected white wasn't sure what to do, and floundered around for a while and after 124 moves, the same position as above was reached again! Obviously flustered and under pressure to complete the mate in the required move (and probably with an audience watching) the game continued 126.Nf4 Ke1 127.Kd3! Learning to use pieces in cooperation is a major strength of working on endgames. Here, white has to use all 3 pieces to achieve the win. 127..Kd1 128.Ne2!

White is now half way through the W manouvre  and as can be seen, the black king is being forced across towards h1.  After the moves 128..Ke1 129.Bd5 [129. Ke3 was better] 129..Kd1 130.Bb3+ Ke1 131.Ke3 Kf1, the following position was reached.

Unfortunately, this is where white's technique ran out. Following the W manouvre by moving the knight to f4 was mate in 9 with perfect play, and would have gained a victory within the allotted 50 moves. The technique is 132.Nf4! Ke1 133 Ng2+ [Completing the W manouvre] 133..Kf1 134.Kf3

Black's king is now stuck in the mating corner. 134..Kg1 135.Kg3 Kf1 136.Bc4+ [Shutting the door on escape] 136..Kg1

Ok, here's where a knowledge of the checkmate pattern comes in handy. Imagine white could put his knight anywhere on the board. The square he would choose is h3 with check, the king would have to move to the corner, and then the white bishop would checkmate on the long diagonal. So the way to achieve that is: 137.Nf4 [heading to h3] 137.Kh1 Bd3 [losing a move along the diagonal which controls black's f1 escape square, forcing the black king back to move to g1] 138.Kg1 Nh3+ 139.Kh1 140.Be4#

Here's the checkmate pattern, and white's bishop could be anywhere along the long diagonal from f3-a8.

Unfortunately, the player in the game went astray and didn't get back on track. The fact is that it isn't an easy technique without practice, and if the technique is learned and then not used for a long while, then it may be that the practical application of the technique is forgotten, or half remembered, or remembered but miscalculated or misinterpreted on the board.

I don't think it would do club players any harm to practice this endgame a few times until they have it off comfortably. Perhaps set up the initial position in this post, and play it a few times, even against a computer. Try to defend as well as win, and you will learn from your opponent. Once you think you can do it, give yourself 30 seconds per move to do it and see how it goes! Once that is not a challenge, you have probably mastered this endgame, and can be confident of converting it if you have to play it in a rated game. And don't forget to set your opponent's the challenge of converting this endgame. Perhaps they won't know how to do it, and you'll save a half point!

Philidor's Defence

I have to admit, I've had a pretty good run with the Philidor Opening since I started playing it late last year. I prepared the opening for the Australian Masters in December, scoring a loss to FM Bill Jordan, but a win against FM Greg Canfell. At Glen Eira Chess Club I've scored a draw against FM Domagoj Dragicevic while at the MCC club Championship I managed a win against FM Jack Puccini.So 2.5/4 against titled players as black in the past 6 months. I guess most players would be happy with that, and as I've always struggled with black, I have been very pleased.

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and it is probably time for me to move on from the Philidor before people start preparing against me. I'll still play it every once in a while, but there are too many openings out there to be always playing the same thing.

It's a funny opening, the Philidor. It has this reputation of being solid but after my game with Jack Puccini I heard people saying they were surprised that such sharp positions could arise so early from the Philidor. The solid line has traditionally been the Hanham variation which is now more often than not being entered by the Pirc move order: 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.d4 e5 4.Nf3 Nbd7.

White's obvious choice is 5.Bc4, though there are some other options. One of these is a Shirov speciality, 5.g4!? The game Shirov-Azmaiparashvili from the European Teams Championship 2003 was a volatile game that ended in a draw.

After 5.g4, the variation 5..Nxg4 6.Rg1 is undoubtedly the most popular line and white scores an impressive 59% in my database with 347 games. In the latest Informator, number 123, there is an amazing game played by Swedish GM Pontus Carlsson. The game shows a typical piece sacrifice by white to open the position and activate his pieces while black's king sits in the centre.

White has control of the g-file and has doubled on the d-file. With black's king in the centre, and lack of development, white is fully justified with the move 11.Bxb5! In this particular game, black was mated 10 moves later!

Funnily enough, when I downloaded TWIC this week, the first games I looked at were those under the ECO code (C41) for the Philidor. And whose name should I see playing a game, but none other than Pontus Carlsson. So my thought was, I wonder if he played that crazy 5.g4 move again? I wasn't disappointed. Have a look at this position:

Carlsson as white followed up his Bxb5 sacrifice in the last game, with another sacrifice here. 16.Nbd5!, another justified sacrifice against an uncastled king and an under developed position.

These games show that the Philidor is anything but a solid option. Of course there are solid lines, but in the hands of certain players, the Philidor can transform into an exciting opening and middlegame. And Pontus Carlsson is just one such exciting player, who has had an interesting life. His story is a great read.

The Longest Win of the Week

It's time to get back into looking at some endgames, and the best way to start is to download The Week in Chess  (TWIC) and sort the games according to how many moves were played in descending order. The latest TWIC is number 1038 and Mark Crowther has been running the site for over 20 years now, an amazing achievement and a great service to chess.

Anyway, once downloaded I like to look through some of the longest games, and see if there are any endgames which interest me. In the latest edition, I saw a game between A. Bergougnoux(1895)-J. Hebert (IM 2378) which reached the following position:

Like most club players, I'm guessing my knowledge of rook endings is pretty patchy. This game ended in a win for black, and my first thought was why isn't this is a draw? So I went to Averbakh's "Comprehensive Rook Endings" and looked at the section on where a rook fights against rook and doubled pawns. Here's what the Russian Grand Master and endgame expert has to say about these types of positions:

"Compared with the other forms of pawn structure, doubled pawns are less dangerous. We will first consider examples where the defenders king stands in the way of the pawns. In this case the result is normally a draw"

Ok, that is pretty much the same for rook and pawn versus rook endings, and it describes the position above. Averbakh then goes on to say that a passive rook, or when the defending king isn't in front of the pawn can affect the result. The examples he uses are excellent!

In this position, the defender has to use the same procedure as if the d4 pawn wasn't there. That is, wait till the pawn reaches the 6th rank, and then move behind the enemy king to start checking. 1.Rb7 Rg6 [Cutting off the white king] 2.Rb6

 2..Rg4!! [This is important. Heading for the back rank now is premature: 2..Rg1 3.Kc6! when either check fails] 3.d6 [3.Kc6 Rxd4 doesn't help white 4.Rb8+ Ke7 is a theoretical draw as the defending rook is behind the pawn and the king isn't cut off] 3..Rg1! [Now the rook heads for the back rank when there is no useful shelter for white's king]

White can make no progress. 4.Kc6 Rc1+ forces the king to retreat, while 4.Kd5 doesn't require any special treatment, so black could play 4..Rh1 gaining checking distance and waiting for white's king to try to advance. Now, if you look at the position in the first diagram, you'll see a position not unlike this one, a cast iron draw!

Sometimes, the draw is not so easy:

Here, for example, white has advanced the pawn to the brink of promotion, and the threat is Re8+, so black must seek drastic measures. 1.Rh2+ Kg6, and now that the black king is stalemated, 2.Re2!! and black's rook will keep diving in front of its white counterpart!

If the defensive rook is passive, things aren't easy, and maybe even impossible.

Black's rook is passive and white's king has penetrated the 6th rank. 1.Rd6 [Taking control of the 6th rank] 1..Rf8!? [A last attempt]

2.g5! [2.g7? Rf6+!! another stalemate possibility] 2..Ra8 3.g7 Rb8

White has a very simple plan. Rf6-f8, leading to a won pawn ending. 4.Rf6 Ra8 5.Rf8+ Rxf8 6.gxf8=Q+ Kxf8 7.Kh7 and white will promote on 3 moves.

Finally, take a look at this amazing technique!

Black's king is cut off, but the win isn't as straightforward as you'd think. Without the b6 pawn, white would build a bridge on the 5th rank, but that is now not possible. 1.Rd2+ [Driving white's king further from the action] 1..Ke7

[2.Rd5 fails to work after 2..Ra1 3.Kc7 Rc1 and white's king must go back to b8!] 2.Rd6!! [An unbelievable technique!] 2..Rc3 [Taking the rook doesn't help 2..Kxd6 3.Kc8 Rc2 4.Kd8 Rh2 threatening mate, but white promotes with check! 5.b8=Q+]

So what now? 3.Rc6!! [Building a bridge! If the rook isn't taken, then white's king will escape to c7] 3..Rxc6 4.Ka7, and black has no checks and cannot stop promotion!

So that's the theory, what about the example we started with?

I guess we've all been in this sort of position where we're struggling to draw against a much higher rated opponent, who just keeps playing and playing. Hebert changes the structure to try to upset his opponent. 1..f2. White still manages to keep playing solid moves. 2.Ra7 Kg5 3.Rg7+ Kf4 [A repetition is a good sign for the defender] 4.Ra7 Kg4

[My first reaction when I saw this position was to play 5.Ra3 cutting off black's king. 5..f4 and now throw the rook up the board 6.Ra8 when I don't see how black will progress. White played differently, but still good enough to draw] 5.Ra8 [According to Nalimov Tablebase, this position is drawn] 5..f4 6.Ra7 [Again, I like 6.Ra3 cutting off the black king. If 6..f3, white has the stalemate try 7.Rxf3!] 6..Kg3

In this position, after an heroic defence, the game ended. I'm not sure if white ran out of time, but I hope white didn't resign. According to Tablebases there is a move to draw, but only one. 6..Ra3+! [6..Rg7+ 7.Kf3 is hopeless for white] 7.f3 [Retreating the king back to g4 is no winning attempt] 

7..Rxf3+ with the same stalemate  theme! 8.Kxf3 stalemate!

A Practical Repertoire

So I was just looking through my Twitter feed when I saw a chess book that sounded interesting: "A Practical White Repertoire with 1.d4 and 2.c4". There's always a snag when it comes to learning openings and this one is the addition of the words "Volume 3" after the main title. I mean, it may be a great book but why try to sell something as practical that takes 3 volumes (at least) to present the material. I wonder how much of it the average reader is supposed to remember, and over how long a period of time? I seem to remember when I was a teenager that someone said that a decent white repertoire takes 5 years to develop, with both theory and practice, while you are developing the rest of your game.

Who really gives a cat's arse about serious chess books?

Personally, I've never been one for a lot of opening theory. I mean, I do know bits and pieces, and some positions I think I have a decent understanding of, but generally my work has been on the later stages of the game. And seeing I have had to invest in a new laptop as the old one decided it had had enough, I have installed my database program without an analysis engine so I now have to analyse using my own brain. I'll see how long I can do without one. Quite a while I would imagine, as I get thoroughly annoyed by people commenting on games using computer assistance. In fact, this annoys me so much that I tend to watch games on non interactive sites like TWIC.

Yesterday I said I was working through an old Informator, and I had a look at some more today. I just randomly opened a page and looked at a diagram. The position I saw was this one:

This comes from the game Sigurjonsson-Ogaard Esbjerg 1978, a tournament that was won by the great Danish player, Larsen. However, the Icelandic Grand Master Gudmunder Sigurjonsson came second and showed great tactical flare during the event. In the above position as white, Sigurjonsson came up with the line closing 28.d6! [Threatening 29.Qf5 with a mating attack] 28..Rxd6 [There are 2 other nice variations from this position. a) 28..Bxd6 29.Qf5 g6 30.Rxg6+! winning; b) 28..Qg5 29.Rxf7! Rxf7 {29..Qxg5 30.Rxf8#; 29..Bxd6 Qe6!} 30.Qc8+ winning] 29.Qf5 Qxd3 [29..g6 30.Qxg6+!! fxg6 31.Rxf8+ Kg7 32.R1f7#] 30.Qxd3 Rxf6 31.Rxf6 gxf6 [Black has rook, bishop and pawn for the queen, but his position is hopeless and Sigurjonsson quickly makes use of black's poorly placed pieces]

32.Qg3+ Kh8 33.Qc7 1-0 Black's bishop is trapped and the continuation 33..Re8 34.g4 Re5 will just end up with white's queen taking lots of black's pawns.

Sigurjonsson was a fairly regular competitor in the late 1970's and early 80's, and played a number of times in UK, though I never met him. I shall ask my Icelandic friend Smari Teitsson about him. Smari is a strong player and chess teacher who came to Australia last year, and hopefully will come back. Check out his website, Restless Knights :)