Rare Bird Tracking

After posting Rare Bird Sightings, with its mention of three recent chess960 events, I set off looking for game scores. Although I came up empty handed, I found a few relevant blog posts on those same events.

The USCF's USchess.org has a post by GM Larry Kaufman, co-winner of the U.S. Open chess960 side event, GM Kaufman on Fischer Random & The Irvine Grind, where he described the method of selecting the start positions.

In this event the method used was to have the youngest child present point to one square after another while the TD drew pieces (other than Rooks and King) at random from a bag. It's not a purely random method as the child could in theory use strategy to try to get positions he liked, but it wasn't a problem in practice.

Since this method could easily end with two Bishops starting on the same color square, I assume a tweak is needed. The Kaufman post links to a long USchess forum response by Gene_M (Gene Milener, author of 'Play Stronger Chess by Examining Chess960'): USCF Forums > Chess Life Articles > GM Kaufman on Fischer Random. He writes,

For masters a completely unfamiliar setup is too complex for them to play strong chess during the opening phase. Chess960 must be narrowed to exactly one non-traditional setup, for at least a decade. From studying the annual FRC-chess960 Rapid tournaments in Mainz... We have learned that we have already learned all we are ever going to learn from Fischer's version of chess960. A change is needed. Schmidt [sic, 'Hans-Walter Schmitt'] and the ChessTigers.de organization should announce one non-traditional setup that shall be the only setup to be used in cooperative chess960 tournaments for the next decade (until at least 2020).

It escapes me why Milener undermines the main reason to buy his book, but he is in good company. Garry Kasparov is on record for having said similar; see Kasparov's Chess960 Proposal. Worth noting is that the two co-winners at the U.S. Open event were the two top players. Is the statement that masters can't play unfamiliar positions perhaps not accurate?

GM Alexandra Kosteniuk posted a piece about the Mainz simul on her Chessqueen.com blog: Kosteniuk Chess960 Simul. One of the photos is a screen shot of the final results. The last two columns identify the start positions for each of the 20 games (translating from the German): SP222 NQRKNRBB, SP444 RBNNQKBR, SP666 RNKNBQRB, & SP888 RBQKBRNN. For some reason, this list doesn't match my records for the same SPs, which are 223, 444, 555, & 888, respectively. The fifth and sixth columns on the same chart show some kind of rating, where we see that many of GM Kosteniuk's opponents were rated above 2000. Whatever start positions were really used, the final result of +16-0=4 again contradicts Milener's hypothesis about unfamiliar positions.

Rare Bird Sightings

Continuing with Chess960 Tournaments Are Rare Birds, the results from the side event at the 111th United States Open Chess Championship are here: 2010 US Open Championship 'Fisher Random' (oops!). The 14-player event was won by GM Lawrence Kaufman and William Duckworth. Kaufman earned the GM title by winning the 2008 World Senior Championship.

A rare bird I overlooked was CZECH OPEN 2010 "eBRANA OPEN" - turnaj M (= Fischerandom chess event). The 40-player event was won by GM Sergei Movsesian of Slovakia. Official site: Open Championship of the Czech Republic of Fischerandom chess.

Yesterday, GM Alexandra Kosteniuk played a 20-board simul in a much reduced Chess Classic Mainz; see (Almost) No Chess960 @ CCM10 for the first announcement. At the opening ceremony, Chess Classic Mainz 2010, she said,

I am happy that I can play the Chess960 simul and I have to say that I love Chess960! I like to be creative and I really enjoy the Chess960 events in Mainz. For me, Mainz has always been a good starting point: in 2008 I won the Chess960 world championship and after “Mainz” I won the chess world championship and I scored other good results. I hope that the 2010 edition will become a new starting point for a successful chess year again.

In Chess Classic Mainz 2010 Day 1 - Press Conference,
Chessdom.com reported,

Alexandra Kosteniuk played a Chess960 simul on 20 boards. Just 20? Yes, but with 20 different starting positions! Her final score was 18-2: +16=4-0. She needed 3 hours and 13 minutes to complete her simul.

A PDF on the Chess Tigers chess960 site, Simultan mit Alexandra Kosteniuk, reports that she played four different positions, each on five boards. If I discover PGN game scores for any of these events, I'll pass them along.

Central vs. Flank Expansion

After studying the two Nakamura vs. Movsesian games in Banska Stiavnica 2010 I decided that the second game, with Movsesian playing White, was more instructive. The first diagram, showing the position after four moves, reveals the start position: SP954 RKRNBBNQ. Movsesian has chosen to start playing immediately on the Kingside (h-side for the purists), while Nakamura has paid more attention to the center. I discussed this choice some time ago in a post titled Attention to the Chess960 Center.

The second diagram shows the position some moves later. Both players have continued to follow their initial opening strategy, expanding in different parts of the board. Now they decided it was the right time to castle -- 14.O-O-O Bd7 15.Kb1 O-O-O -- and the resulting position could have easily arisen from the traditional start position (SP518 RNBQKBNR). After a few more moves, Nakamura grabbed the h-Pawn with ...gxh5, used it as a decoy to draw White's pieces, then launched a winning attack on the White King. For the full game score, see the link above to Banska Stiavnica 2010.

Banska Stiavnica 2010

A couple of weeks ago, in Chess960 Tournaments Are Rare Birds, I mentioned a Nakamura - Movsesian chess960 exhibition match in Slovakia. TWIC had more info in no.820:

18) Nakamura vs Movsesian Blitz, Chess960 and Living Chess • Hikaru Nakamura was in Banska Stiavnica on the 16th July 2010 to play a one day series of games against Sergei Movsesian which took place alongside the International Championship of Slovakia covered last week. Nakamura won both Chess960 games and a Blitz game before drawing a game of Living Chess where both sides were playing blindfold which was drawn. • Official site: www.livechess.sk/en/

Here's a photo from the official site taken just before the start of the first game.

Movsesian (playing Black) & Nakamura

And here are PGN game scores that I transcribed from the moves of the 'live games' on the same site.

[Event "Chess960 Blitz (10')"]
[Site "Banska Stiavnica SVK"]
[Date "2010.07.16"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Nakamura, Hikaru"]
[Black "Movsesian, Sergej"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Annotator "SP066"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "bnnrkbqr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/BNNRKBQR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.g3 b6 2.Bg2 Bxg2 3.Qxg2 Nc6 4.d4 e6 5.O-O h5 6.c4 Qh7 7.Nc3 Nd6 8. b3 h4 9.d5 Ne5 10.Nd3 Nxd3 11.Rxd3 hxg3 12.hxg3 Be7 13.e4 Bf6 14.Re1 e5 15.Bb2 a6 16.Bc1 g5 17.g4 Ke7 18.Ba3 Qg6 19.Ne2 Rh7 20.Ng3 Rdh8 21.Bxd6+ cxd6 22.Nf5+ Kf8 23.b4 Bd8 24.a4 Qf6 25.Ree3 Qg6 26.Rh3 Be7 27.Rb3 Ke8 28.Kf1 Kd8 29.Ke2 Bf8 30.Rxh7 Qxh7 31.a5 Kc7 32.Qf3 Qh1 33.Qe3 Kc8 34.axb6 Qa1 35.Qc3 Qa2+ 36.Rb2 Qa4 37.c5 dxc5 38.Qxe5 Qb5+ 39.Kd2 Qxb6 40.bxc5 Qa5+ 41.Ke2 1-0

[Event "Chess960 Blitz (10')"]
[Site "Banska Stiavnica SVK"]
[Date "2010.07.16"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Movsesian, Sergej"]
[Black "Nakamura, Hikaru"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Annotator "SP954"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rkrnbbnq/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RKRNBBNQ w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.g4 e5 2.Nc3 c6 3.Nf3 g6 4.h4 d5 5.d3 Bd6 6.h5 Qg7 7.e4 d4 8.Ne2 c5 9.g5 Bd7 10.c3 Ne6 11.cxd4 cxd4 12.Rxc8+ Bxc8 13.Bh3 Ne7 14.O-O-O Bd7 15.Kb1 O-O-O 16.Bd2 Kb8 17.Qe1 Nc5 18.Ba5 Rc8 19.Bxd7 Nxd7 20.Bb4 Bxb4 21.Qxb4 Rc5 22.Rc1 Nc6 23.Qb3 Rxc1+ 24.Nxc1 gxh5 25.Qd5 Kc7 26. Ne2 f6 27.Ng3 fxg5 28.Nf5 Qf6 29.Qg8 h6 30.Qh7 Nb4 31.Ne1 h4 32.a3 h3 33.Nf3 Nxd3 34.Nh2 Qb6 35.b4 Qe6 36.Kc2 Qc4+ 37.Kd2 Qc3+ 38.Ke2 Nf4+ 39.Kd1 Qd3+ 40.Kc1 Ne2+ 41.Kb2 Qc3+ 42.Ka2 Qc2+ 43.Ka1 Nc3 0-1

After I take a closer look at the games, I'll examine one in a future post.

Symmetry Misjudged

In Castling Misjudged, I showed how an error in judgement led to a loss in one game of SchemingMind.com's 2009 Chess960 Dropout Tournament. The other game I lost, which was enough to eliminate me from the event, was also due to an error in judgement, although of a different kind.

Note the symmetry in the diagrammed position. It was even more striking before Black's last move, 16...Rcd8, when the move 16...Bb7 would have achieved perfect symmetry.

SP419 BRNQNKRB

After 16...Rc8-d8

The primary tactical consideration for both sides is the sequence starting Nxd5 (or ...Nxd4 for Black), followed by advancing the e-Pawn two squares after the capture. I decided that 17.Nxd5 was premature and played 17.Rfd1 instead, judging that 17...Nxd4 was also premature. My opponent decided otherwise, played that move, and ended up with a long-lasting initiative that eventually netted a Pawn. Here's the full game score, courtesy SchemingMind.com.

[Event "2009 Chess960 Dropout Tournament, Round 5"]
[Site "SchemingMind.com"]
[Date "2010.03.06"]
[Round "5"]
[White "bemweeks"]
[Black "wilfried"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Variant "fischerandom"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "brnqnkrb/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/BRNQNKRB w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.d4 d5 2.Ncd3 O-O 3.Nf3 b6 4.b3 Ncd6 5.O-O g6 6.g3 Ne4 7.Nfe5 N8d6 8.f3 Ng5 9.Bg2 Ne6 10.Qd2 f6 11.Ng4 Bg7 12.Bh3 Ng5 13.Bg2 Qd7 14.Rbc1 Nf5 15.Bb2 Rbc8 16.Nf4 Rcd8 17.Rfd1 Nxd4 18.Bxd4 e5 19.h4 Nf7 20.h5 g5 21.Bh3 Qd6 22.Ne3 Nh6 23.Ne6 exd4 24.Qxd4 Rde8 25.Nxf8 Qxg3+ 26.Bg2 f5 27.Qd3 Bxf8 28.Nxf5 Nxf5 29.Qxf5 Rxe2 30.Qh3 Qf4 31.Qg4 Qe3+ 32.Kh1 Bd6 33.h6 d4 34.Qc8+ Kf7 35.Qf5+ Ke8 36.Qd3 Qxd3 37.Rxd3 Bf4 38.Rcd1 Be3 39.Rxd4 Bxd4 40.Rxd4 Ke7 41.Rc4 c5 42.a3 Bd5 43.Rc3 Re6 44.Kg1 Rxh6 45.f4 Bxg2 46.Kxg2 g4 47.a4 Re6 48.Kg3 h5 49.a5 Re2 0-1

How could the better developed side end up tactically worse in a symmetrical position? That is a question for which I have no answer.

Castling Misjudged

It seems like ages ago when, in Pyramids and Dropouts, I described the format of SchemingMind.com's Dropout Tournaments. Whether you call it a dropout or a knockout, the end result is the same. You get zero points for a win, one point for a draw, and three points for a loss. Once you've amassed six points, you're out. The format of two games per round means you can be eliminated with two losses in the same round. Even if you go the distance of six rounds, a score of six wins and six draws (+6-0=6) means you just barely survived.

In my first SchemingMind dropout, I survived until the fifth round. I managed to get through the first four rounds with three draws (+5-0=3), but then crashed and burned in both fifth round games. Here's one of those two losses.

As Black in the diagrammed position I was feeling comfortable with my game. Although by playing ...g5 and ...g4, I had forgone the possibility of castling ...O-O, I was happy to play 12...O-O-O. I reasoned: (1) that my King was better on the Queenside than White's King would be on that side, and (2) that White's castling O-O would leave the Queen out of play on h1 with the King exposed to a Pawn thrust.

SP082 BNNRKBRQ

After 12.d2-d4

When White played 13.O-O, I realized that my reasoning was faulty. If the castled position gets too hot, the King can move to h2, releasing the Queen for action along the first rank. The Pawns on g3 and h4 will provide adequate shelter while White plays against the loose position of the Black King. I continued 13...f5, but was unable to work up any real threats against the White King. Meanwhile my own King fell under the crossfire of White's pieces. Here's the full game score.

[Event "2009 Chess960 Dropout Tournament, Round 5"]
[Site "SchemingMind.com"]
[Date "2010.03.06"]
[Round "5"]
[White "Tyler"]
[Black "bemweeks"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Variant "fischerandom"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "bnnrkbrq/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/BNNRKBRQ w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.g3 d5 2.Nc3 e6 3.e4 d4 4.Nb5 Na6 5.Nb3 g5 6.c3 dxc3 7.bxc3 c6 8.N5d4 Nc7 9.Nc2 b6 10.Bg2 Ne7 11.h4 g4 12.d4 O-O-O 13.O-O f5 14.exf5 exf5 15.c4 Rg6 16.Rfe1 Qg8 17.d5 f4 18.gxf4 cxd5 19.Be5 Nf5 20.Ne3 Nxe3 21.Rxe3 Bd6 22.cxd5 Qf7 23.Nd4 Nxd5 24.f5 Rh6 25.Red3 Bxe5 26.Ne6 Qxf5 27.Nxd8 Rf6 28.R1d2 Nb4 29.Bb7+ Kc7 30.Rd7+ Qxd7 31.Rxd7+ Kxd7 32.Bxa8 Kxd8 33.a3 Na6 34.Qd5+ Bd6 35.Qg5 Be7 36.Qg8+ Rf8 37.Qd5+ Kc7 38.Qb7+ Kd6 39.Qc6+ Ke5 40.Qd5+ Kf6 41.Qd4+ Kf7 42.Bd5+ 1-0

Even after losing material I continued to play, hoping to find a defense based on the opposite colored Bishops. I finally had to admit that it was a mirage and resigned.

Chess960 Tournaments Are Rare Birds

While writing yesterday's post on Special Chess960 Dice, which were used for a side event of the 2010 Canadian Open at Toronto (for more about the event see the press release for the Canadian Open Chess Championship), I noted that the Shabalov simul was the only chess960 event taking place during the Open. In 2010, chess960 tournaments are rare birds and it's worth mentioning a few others I've discovered.

• Although the Chess Tigers have scaled back chess960 at Mainz this year -- (Almost) No Chess960 @ CCM10 -- they organize other chess960 events. If you don't understand German you'll need to have their page Chess Tigers: Chess960 translated to find out more about their events.
  
  
• This weekend the Swiss Chess960 Championship was held as part of the Biel Chess Festival. The winner was the current women's chess960 champion at Mainz: Kosteniuk is Chess960 Swiss Champion.
  
  
• In June, Chessdom.com reported that Ram S Krishnan wins 1st Chess960 title at Chennai, India: '118 players participated in this nine round Swiss event, and prizes were awarded in open, boys & girls category'.
  
  
• Chessdom later reported, in International Chess Championship of Slovakia, that chess960 would be played as a side event during the Slovakian Championship this week: 'Exhibition events will include two-games match between GM Hikaru Nakamura (World champion in Chess960) and GM Sergei Movsesian (3rd place in Chess960 World championship) in Fischer Random Chess'.

If you know of game scores for these events, or if you know about other chess960 events that I've overlooked, add a comment or send me an email at the address listed under my profile. And thanks!