Link to Chess Notes

"Edward Winter's Chess Notes is the most amazing website on Chess history."

This sentence can be found on the SCID sourceforge homepage, and I think it is true.
I spent a great deal of time on it already, and found it to be amazingly fascinating with a wealth of pictures, articles, questions and the likes.

Kramnik on Kings Indian

Via chess24.com:

Vladimir Kramnik speaks frankly at the end of this video about the Kings Indian, its benefits and problems.

Queen or mate in 5, and winning a rook.

From today's standard FICS game:

An easy one - my opponent played

28: Re1??

And I replied politely 28. ...., Nd5??

But actually, black can win the queen or give mate in 5.

A little later there was another opportunity I missed, this time a little more difficult:

White played 36 Qb4??

and black should have won a rook - and not play 36. ..., Qxd5??


(Nice to be able to just "capture current board" in SCID, save it and upload it to this blog - couldn't be much easier.)

The Damiano Variation

It is a bit surprising to see that a unsound opening idea can have such a nice name: The Damiano Variation (1. e4, e5 2. Nf3, Nf6  3. Nxe5, Nxe4?).

I played my first "standard" game on FICS, expecting a higher level of play than in "blitz", but my opponent played the above mentioned "Damiano Variation" and even got to the infamous Queen loss:

4. Qe2, d5  5. d3, Nc5?? 6. Nc6

My opponent decided to ignore this and play on, so I could just relax and have a nice game.

But it makes one wonder about who Damiano was.
The English wikipedia has a good answer to that, and the German article is even more extensive.

TL:DR He was a Portuguese, who was the second person to write a book on modern chess, published in 1512.  He thought that 2. ..., Nc6 was a better move than 2. .., Nf6.

The front picture of Damiano's book of 1512.
Source wikipedia

Chesstempo

I just joined joined chesstempo.com as Schuivert and I am looking forward to exploring the possibilities. I did a few tactics and that worked out fine -so far I like the "standard" mode where I can take my time to solve the problems.

The endgame trainer is new for me, and the few attempts I made were interesting. It does look like a good way to learn.

What about this one for example:

How much of an effort do you have to make to mate in the minimum of 10 moves?

(Ah.. btw... don't leave the page on chesstempo.com before ending the session (solving the last problem) -because that will be considered as a failed attempt.)

Kd2 in spanish

@MarkTWIC my favourite commentator reaction to blunderfest yesterday https://t.co/7DjXCVhhlW
— GnaeusJuliusAgricola (@agricola4093) November 16, 2014

"Relax Magnus! This mistake was bigger!"

"Relax Magnus! This mistake was bigger!"

This Norwegian article from the Norwegian Television company NRK points out that there was a series of mistakes in the wc-game nr 16 between Aljechin and Euwe in 1937, and the Norwegian television expert refers to Chigorin- Steinitz 1892.
This to comfort Magnus'ses chess fans after today's Kd2?

Slapp av, Magnus! Denne tabben var større 

OSLO/SOTSJI (NRK): Magnus Carlsen og Vishy Anand kan trøste seg med at det har blitt gjort større tabbesekvenser i VM-historien. Men vi må helt tilbake til 1937 … 

Les mer: http://www.nrk.no/sport/1.12046211

Eduard Gufeld Chess strategy

"In this video Gufeld shares with you the secrets he has taught to many of the world's best players as he presents his brilliancy prize-winning games: Mestel-Gufeld, Hastings 1986/87; and Gufeld-Ivanovic, Sochi 1979."

This is a rather entertaining, but also absolutely informative and valid, video of the - I shamefully have to admit - to me unknown chessplayer Eduard Gufeld.

His clear way of thinking is very easy to understand, which is a great achievement in itself.

( Found a link to this video in the lichess.org forum)

Preparing for the WC match - in Norwegian

In a tweet from the  active chess norwegian chessreporter @tarjeiJS there is a mention about a television show on a norwegian televisionchannel with a preview program about the coming world championship match:

36 min #CarlsenAnand show by #vgsjakk, with Agdestein, @HansOlavLahlum & @EllisivReppen. http://t.co/xT0zBdQ53c pic.twitter.com/QQAU7Wgr5T
— Tarjei J. Svensen (@TarjeiJS) November 5, 2014

Since I speak Danish i have no trouble understanding Norwegian, and I am therefore happy to find out that this video is available outside Norway.

From a purely chess point of view I don't think it has anything important to say, it is perhaps merely warming up and introducing the commentators. GM Simen Agdestein  (2626) is (outside Norway anyway) the best known chessplayer among them.