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Contents

Editorial................................................................................................................ 4 Malcolm Pein on the latest developments 60 Seconds with... ......................................................................................... 7 The world of acclaimed author IM John Cox Judit Polgar’s Busy Life ................................................................................ 8 Janis Nisii catches up with her hero in London Carlsen Edges Out Kramnik.......................................................................10 All the action from an exciting London Chess Classic Kramnik on the Classic, Candidates and Retirement.....................28 A revealing interview with the world no.2 Melkhumyan & Van Kampen Top the London Open .......................31 A round-up of all the other events from Olympia Find the Winning Moves .............................................................................36 Test your tactical eye Gawain Jones Bounces Back at Hastings.............................................40 A report on the norovirus-blighted 88th Congress How Good is Your Chess? .........................................................................46 Danny King links the Najdorf to the Ruy Lopez Readers’ Letters & Calendar.....................................................................49 What have you been saying and where will you be playing? Basic Instinct: Part 1....................................................................................50 Peter Lalic’s latest advice for the club player Sir Patrick Moore...........................................................................................53 Carl Portman pays homage to the chessplaying astronomer Chess in the Eighties ....................................................................................54 John Saunders’ on a period of success for Rugby Home News.......................................................................................................58 All the latest congress results Overseas News ...............................................................................................60 Jim Plaskett triumphs in the Roquetas de Mar Open Opening Trends ..............................................................................................62 Featuring some club player favourites Solutions............................................................................................................63 All the answers to Find the Winning Moves New Books and Software...........................................................................64 The latest reviews and arrivals at Chess & Bridge Saunders on Chess ........................................................................................66 Front cover: At Olympia as part of the Chess in Schools & Communities project, Lily (L) and Abbie (R) from Blaise Primary School in Bristol look almost as happy as Magnus Carlsen. Photo credits: Ray Morris-Hill (pp.1, 8-12, 15, 18, 20, 23, 25, 27-28, 30, 32-33, 35, 58-59), Carl Portman (p.53), John Saunders (pp.55, 61), John Upham (pp.40, 42, 44).

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Chess Editorial

By Executive Editor, IM Malcolm Pein Follow me on Twitter: @TelegraphChess

Although it’s the February issue, this is the first magazine of 2013 so a Happy New Year to all our readers. This issue is a 68 page London Chess Classic special. The tournament ended with the traditional din-ner at Simpsons where the players take it in turns to give a simul. The event also raised a considerable sum for Chess in Schools and Communities which should ensure we are able to reach our target of starting chess lessons in 200 schools by the end of this academic year.

There were some funny games and, once again, the players proved to be much weaker collectively than individually as the guests won by a large margin. I’ll spare the players’ blushes and won’t mention the final score. One great scrap is given at the end of our report on the Classic, another was the following effort. Last year the ICAP/Blue Crest Capital table played a great game and

they did so again. Watch out for Carlsen’s stunning move, played just when it was looking grim for the GMs.

LCC GMs-ICAP/Blue Crest

Simpson’s simul Sicilian Defence

1 Ìf3 c5 2 e4 Ìc6 3 a3 A relatively recent addition to opening

theory and a little like the Wing Gambit 1 e4 c5 2 b4. White plans to exchange his b-pawn for the black c-pawn and establish a pawn duo in the centre. Larsen once said the Open Sicilian with 2 Ìf3 and 3 d4 was a positional error as it gives up a centre pawn. 3...g6 4 b4 Íg7 5 c3 Ìf6

5...cxb4 6 axb4 Ìxb4 7 d4 gives White exactly what he wants. 6 e5 Ìg4 7 d4 cxd4 8 cxd4 d6!

Black’s extra development ensures he has sufficient counterplay and the ICAP/Blue Crest Capital table soon gets the edge. 9 h3 Ìh6 10 b5 Ìb8 11 Íe2 dxe5 12 Ìxe5

12 dxe5 Ëxd1+ 13 Íxd1 Ìd7 14 Íb2 Ìc5 15 Íe2 Ìb3 is rather annoying. 12...Ìf5 13 Íb2 Ìd7 14 Ìf3 Ìf6 15 Ìc3 Ìd5 16 Íc4 Ìxc3 17 Íxc3 Ëc7 18 Ëb3 Ìd6

No peace for the GMs and as 19 Íd3 Íe6! would only makes matters worse, a pawn is soon jettisoned.

19 d5 Íxc3+ 20 Ëxc3 0-0 21 Îc1 Íd7 22 Íb3 Ëxc3+ 23 Îxc3 Ìxb5

23...Íxb5! would prevent castling. 24 Îe3 Ìxa3 25 0-0

Finally! 25...Ìb5

The Classic Grandmasters struggled at times at the Simpson's closing dinner and simul, but Magnus Carlsen still found time to shine.

4 February 2013

Black has to take care, if 25...Îfe8 26 Ìe5 Íf5 27 d6!. 26 Îxe7 Îad8 27 Ìe5 Íc8 28 Îc1! Ìd4

At this point the guests were feeling pretty confident until... 29 Îcc7!!

...was flashed out by Carlsen. Now if 29..Ìxb3 30 Ìxf7 threatens mate in two moves and after 30...Îxf7 31 Îxf7 White is playing for a win. 29...Îde8 30 d6 Ìxb3 31 Ìxf7 Êg7!!

31...Îxf7 32 Îxf7 Íe6 33 d7 wins for White, but this saves the day. 32 Îxe8

32 Ìg5+ Îxe7 33 dxe7 Îe8 34 Ìe4 Íe6 35 Ìd6 Íf7 should also be drawn. 32 Îxe8 33 Ìd8+ Êf6 34 Îxc8 Ìc5

35 Îxc5 Îxd8 36 Îc7 Êe6 37 Îxb7 Îd7! ½-½

White cannot exchange rooks and the rook and pawn endgame is drawn.

Carlsen broke the all-time rating record

at the London Chess Classic, surpassing Garry Kasparov’s record of 2851 by ten points, but as I write he has gone up even more and his score at Wijk aan Zee after five rounds is 3.5 which has taken him to 2863.2.

The Candidates in London Inside you will find an advertisement for the Candidates Tournament. Details were re-cently announced and the great news is that tickets will be on sale. The hastily organised

FIDE London Grand Prix was a closed event, but the Candidates promises to be a real treat. Eight of the elite including Carlsen, who sat out of the last cycle, will come to London and fight for the right to challenge Vishy Anand for the world title in November. There is also the small matter of €510,000 in prize money.

The double round all-play-all will have 14 rounds, lasts for three weeks and begins on March 14. FIDE’s commercial partner Agon have been working on lots of innova-tive ideas, including an updated design for the pieces based on Howard Staunton’s original. However, it’s the new presentation for television I am excited about. The re-nowned production company Sunset and Vine have been engaged to produce regular television programs which will initially air on the UK satellite channel Sky Arts.

Your correspondent visited the Agon offices in London for a brief demonstration of the new ‘Chesscasting’ which will feature innovative ways of illustrating the game. It promises to enhance the viewing experience online and particularly at the venue, where each spectator will be given a tablet com-puter to help them unlock the mysteries of the position in real time. I am sworn to se-crecy on some of it, but there was a team of developers working on all sorts of fascinat-ing ideas. I particularly liked the gizmo that followed the eyes of a player as he scanned the board and represented his movement as a dot on a screen. You can clearly discern the different ways a master surveys the position from the eye movement of a casual player. Imagine being able to follow Kram-nik’s eyes in real time... So it should be a real treat and I would book your tickets early. The line-up is:

Levon Aronian (Armenia) Magnus Carlsen (Norway) Boris Gelfand (Israel) Alexander Grischuk (Russia) Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine) Vladimir Kramnik (Russia) Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan) Peter Svidler (Russia)

Hastings Congratulations to Gawain Jones on a mag-nificent victory at Hastings where he had to overcome the opposition and a terrible vi-rus. The key win was in round 9, a superbly played rook and pawn endgame that showed Gawain’s huge determination. Ga-wain’s wife Sue Maroroa scored 50% and crucially organised the necessary medication to get the British Champion to the board in some kind of state to play. Gawain’s next challenge is Gibraltar which promises to be a great event as well with Vasily Ivanchuk returning. Michael Adams and Nigel Short will also play.

Eight of the world's elite face off in London next month for the right to challenge World Champion Anand (pictured) for his title.

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Chess was always cool, wasn’t it ? But it just seemed to become even cooler in 2012. It was everywhere, from the cinema to Vogue to Twitter and in adverts, books and on television.

The documentary Brooklyn Castle be-came very mainstream in the USA, winning awards and receiving critical acclaim. It tells the story of IS 318, a Brooklyn school in a poor area of the city that has won more than 20 national championships. The pupils are more often than not from poor immi-grant families. Through hard work and the dedication of their coach Elizabeth Vicary, they achieve wonderful things. Elizabeth hails from the UK and her father Robin runs Barnet junior chess in north London. She is an inspirational teacher and the documen-tary tells the story of the children’s struggle against adversaries over the board and budget cuts. It’s inspirational stuff, a won-derful example of what chess can achieve in school. Unfortunately it has not found a UK or European distributor, but I am trying to get it screened here.

In the pop world the teenage heart throb Carly Rae Jepson, whose song ‘Call Me Maybe’ was one of the biggest hits of last

year, said in an interview that she loves chess. We look forward to her next chart-topping single ‘Play Me Maybe’. She said she was taught the game by her stepfather so she could impress a boy at the school chess club that she had a crush on. Nowadays she struggles to find an opponent apparently – any volunteers?

The August 2012 issue of Vogue in-cluded a photographic spread featuring for-mer women’s world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk (right), who has done a lot of modelling, but this was a high point. She was described as “challeng-ing stereotypes at 28”, and as Jennifer Shahade said in Chess Life:

“The article’s one line description of chess’s changing image is the best PR sentence I’ve ever seen written about our game.”

Once the province of nerds in Coke-

bottle glasses, chess has evolved into a glamorous, coolly cerebral sport played by boys and girls.

Beat that. Then the Prada models got in on the act

with a promotional video all based around the young ladies playing chess.

Followers of American politics will be familiar with Nate Silver who writes the hugely influential ‘FiveThirtyEight’ column for The New York Times. I say hugely influ-ential, because he was the only pundit to correctly predict the exact margin of vic-tory for President Barack Obama. In his best-selling book The Signal and the Noise, Silver references chess, specifically the 1997 match between Kasparov and Deep Blue in his discussion on how to make better predictions.

In 2013 there have already been two books based around chess, including White Death by CHESS reader Boris Starling who writes under the pseudonym Daniel Blake. Also The Chess Men by Peter May, the third in the Lewis trilogy has just been published.

And, finally, I was amazed to see an edi-tion of the UK drama series ‘Midsomer Mur-ders’ entitled ‘Sicilian Defence’ on ITV. It may still be available on the ITV player if you live in the UK. I won’t give too much away except to say there is a Sicilian Defence; it’s a Najdorf and based around the game Un-zicker 0-1 Fischer from the 1962 Varna Olympiad. It also features the chess mum from hell; after five minutes I wanted to hit her.

Carly Rae Jepson, chess lover

6 February 2013

We are all Masters of our own Lives

Janis Nisii meets Vladimir Kramnik

I caught up with Vladimir Kramnik at the end of the London Chess Classic where he fin-ished in second place, behind the ‘usual’ Carl-sen, with four wins and four draws from the eight games; a performance that last year was enough for him to win the tournament. This excellent result allowed him to finish 2012 ahead of Aronian and climb to second place in the world rankings (a position he has not held since April 2008).

Big Vlad, as he is called due to his height, is personable and friendly with journalists, especially of course when he’s satisfied with his performance. He’s a very interesting and well-rounded individual, so it’s always a

pleasure to get his comments on the tourna-ment and on some of the more general as-pects of life. How do you rate your performance in this tournament? I’m very happy with my play, especially with the final result. I think I’ve played almost at my optimum level, and showed a very high performance. It’s a pity it wasn’t enough to be clear first, as happened last year, but Magnus had an incredible tournament. How-ever, I think it’s very important that I’ve shown I’m in good form. If I can manage to keep it up to the Candidates, and maybe

improve in some respects – I’ll have to hold for 14 rounds! – I think I could have a good chance.

I think I’ve played almost at my optimum level, and showed a very high performance. It’s a pity it wasn’t enough to be clear first, as happened last year, but Magnus had an incredible tournament.

Have you prepared a lot for this event? In general I train the whole year round. My main goal is the Candidates tournament, and I guess this is the case for every top player. Of course I did some special preparation for this tournament as well. Are you training the normal way or have you been trying something special? I did many new things in my preparation. I paid a lot of attention to my diet and my physical fitness, because it hasn’t been so great lately. I was making quite a few bad blunders this year, which actually cost me a lot in terms of final results. That’s why I’ve decided to work hard on my physical fitness. Also chess-wise I’ve trained differently and added many new elements, but I obviously can’t go into details. I’m glad I’ve obtained what I wanted to achieve when I started training right after the Olympiad. Here in London I wasn’t tired after four or five hours of play, as has happened before. I’ve also managed to keep my play at a good level until the end of the tournament, while before I would be playing well during the first two-thirds of the event, but would then collapse in the last two rounds. This reassures me that I am on the right track with my training. Besides opening preparation, do you do other things like solve chess studies? When you work with the computer, your mind gets a bit lazy. So, sometimes I set up the board, with no computer, and give myself ten minutes to solve a problem. I always put a time limit because during the game you have to find solutions with minutes on your clock. But I don’t do that every day, because it

28 February 2013

would be too draining and I don’t think I need it so much. However, about a week before a tournament I train in this way. Do you have special weapons that you haven’t had the chance to use here and which could be useful in March at the Candidates? Definitely! I think all of us are not using eve-rything before the Candidates. I hope to give quite a few surprises to my opponents at the Candidates, and cause a few headaches too. What do you think of the World Champi-onship cycle? Do you like this format? I have no complaints. I think it’s close to per-fect the way it is. You have high hopes of reaching the final match, don’t you? Well, of course, otherwise it wouldn’t make sense [to participate]. This is not the kind of tournament where you can be satisfied with second place like here at the Classic. At the Candidates, if you make +7 and you’re sec-ond it will count for nothing. Of course I un-derstand that maybe Magnus is the favourite, but I think I have my chances and I will try to do my best, which, I guess, is what all the other players will be doing. Many believe that Magnus is dominating the chess world, but I understand that you are not so convinced of this. For the Candidates, I think that I would bet a little bit more on him than any other, but I think there’s absolutely no guarantee that he’s going to win. Of course he’s terribly strong. In recent years, in all the tourna-ments, he has always managed to grab an extra point here and there. He doesn’t really have huge gaps, he’s just more stable than others. He’s also a little better than the oth-ers, but over just one tournament like the Candidates, there’s absolutely no certainty that he will prevail. His main strengths seem to be his self-confidence and his consistency. It’s true. For example, Aronian and I are very erratic, while he’s incredibly stable, he doesn’t blunder. He’s very fit and chess-wise very strong, but I think it’s possible to fight against him. For the moment I have a positive score against him and we always had very equal games. I never had the impression that he was better than me in our direct encounters. He maybe has a bit more energy and a bit more flexibility in his openings, and he man-ages to get this extra half-point most of the time, but he’s not unbeatable. We will see. Do you think that his consistency also depends on the fact that he focuses pri-marily on chess? Yes, definitely. Give him my circumstances, a child, a family, and we will see! When I was young it was much easier to show better

results. We shouldn’t underestimate his strength, but he’s in his golden age. He’s not married, his whole life revolves around chess; he has a team, he has managers who take care of everything and he just needs to play chess. I cannot. I have to spend a lot of my time on other things. But you’re happy to do it. I am and I certainly don’t complain. What I mean is that maybe this is also the reason why he earns that extra half-point in every tournament. In any case, I’m convinced that if I played a match with him tomorrow, it would be pretty balanced. Maybe I’m overestimat-ing myself, but this is my assessment. Apart from him, are there other top players you particularly fear? I played my match with Kasparov when he was at his peak with a rating of 2851, and I managed to win. Having experienced the maximum possible voltage (Kramnik laughs), how could I be afraid of anyone? Every top player could be dangerous. Levon is very strong and there are many good young play-ers. I like to play the top players and I’m very self-confident. When I’m at my best, well, I can fight with anyone, that’s for sure. The only thing is that, through the years, it be-comes increasingly difficult to be at my best (which is said with a smile). Do you feel at ease in London? It seems that all the players are happy here. Yes, but I don’t think it’s only the city. I think it’s also the very special atmosphere of this tournament. It’s one of those tournaments where you feel like coming back home every year. People are nice, warm and friendly. Also, in general, I have been quite successful here in London. I believe it also depends on the fact that the people here show a lot of passion for the game; the organisers, the commen-tators and the general public alike. Yeah, this is also true. There are so many positive things! I don’t know if the atmos-phere is so important for everyone, but for me it’s essential. Of course I like the city; London is quite beautiful. I also like the fact that they speak a ‘normal’ language and not some strange and fancy language that I don’t understand. What do you think of the format for which each player has a bye and joins the commentators? Actually I like it. Not that I prefer to be a commentator over getting a rest day, but it’s a great idea for the public. You might not particularly like to com-mentate, but you did very well and you put in a lot of yourself. I don’t know if I was good, but I try to do my best in everything that I do; I try to put some

soul into it. We top players are quite privi-leged, we play all these nice tournaments, we have very good prizes; I think it’s only fair to give something back. You know, quite often in sports you see press conferences in which the protagonists do not say anything mean-ingful, they just give stock answers. I don’t like it. I just stop watching them when they do that. I want to avoid doing the same, be-cause I believe that this behaviour is disre-spectful to the organisers and the public. I always want to experiment, to entertain; to say something that I really feel, something original that maybe people will remember, not something like: “It was a good game and I’m very happy.”

I played my match with Kasparov when he was at his peak with a rating of 2851, and I managed to win. Having experienced the maximum possible voltage, how could I be afraid of anyone?

Talking of the games at the Classic, which one made you proudest? I’m pleased with most of my games. The only game where I didn’t play so well was the one with Anand, because I was a bit better and I ended up being a bit worse. I was pressing quite seriously against both Magnus and Levon and they barely managed to escape with draws. I won four games and, even if I haven’t checked them with the computer yet, I think they are all of a good standard. Perhaps the most entertaining was against McShane, as there were some sacrifices, but I’m also happy with the one against Naka-mura, because I managed to outplay him very slowly in a positional manner with Black, which is quite difficult against such a strong player. From this point of view maybe this was the most valuable game. Maybe also because there are still people who argue that Kramnik “only wins with White and draws with Black”? If I could manage to win all my games with White and draw all the ones with Black I would be quite delighted! Your game of late seems more adventur-ous? Maybe a little bit, but it also depends very much on the opposition. In general, I do try with Black, but, you know, I have the feeling that quite often players have some respect towards me and they play very cautiously. It is very difficult to try and win when a top player plays solidly. Also, my opening reper-toire is not as wide as others. Do you really think your opening reper-toire is not wide enough? I meant with Black, it’s quite narrow. But,

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from another point of view, as long as it serves me well – I mean, as long as my oppo-nents don’t get any advantage out of the opening – why should I change it? For exam-ple, here in London I had four games with Black and I never had even the smallest of problems and they were very strong players: Aronian, Anand, Adams and Nakamura. They should just force me to change it, they have to get me into trouble (Kramnik laughs). As White I’m quite aggressive, my repertoire is wider and I can play different things. In gen-eral I’m more a classical player, I like to play in style and I prefer White. I’m really pressing with White and it was like this throughout my career. As Black I don’t play defensively, I rather have a kind of classically solid opening style. I let my opponents come to me and if they open themselves I’m ready to bite. But it’s okay for the moment if I would make +4 out of eight games in every top tournament; I wouldn’t complain for sure. What do you think about scholastic chess? Here they have this big project Chess in Schools and Communities. Do you think that chess can improve pupils’ abilities and skills? I do support it. I’m absolutely convinced chess is very useful for children. It’s also very logi-cal; this is not advertising or mysticism: play-ing chess trains your brain, just like sports train your muscles. For example, when I don’t work with chess – which, I must admit, hap-pens quite rarely – I look at some mathe-matical studies and try to solve them, just to keep my brain active. This is especially impor-tant when you are a kid, because your mind and your brain patterns are still building. Of course chess is not the only solution, but it’s a good method, because it develops other qualities, such as taking responsibility for the moves you play, which are also quite impor-tant in life. In chess there aren’t other vari-

ables, there isn’t a jury that gives you marks, it all depends on your moves. If you lose or win, it’s your responsibility. Your daughter Daria is almost four, can she play chess? It’s too early now, but between four and five is a good age to start. I will teach her, but of course I wouldn’t force her, especially to become a professional chess player, if she doesn’t want to. We badly need another Polgar... There is no difference between boys and girls, it’s exactly the same, because it’s about the same patterns and the same ideas.

I’m absolutely convinced chess is very useful for children. It’s also very logical; this is not ad-vertising or mysticism: playing chess trains your brain, just like sports train your muscles.

Still, there is only one woman in the top 100 and only 16 women in the world are rated above 2500... This happens in professional chess, and it’s a different story. Chess is very useful for the development of children. Parents often bring their children to swimming or athletics, so that they can develop well physically. This is considered normal and all parents do it, if they can. Chess is the same, just for the brain, and brain development in my opinion is at least as important. As a parent, I feel equally responsible for both the physical and the mental development of my daughter. She already goes to the ballet school, because she loves it, and soon it will be time to start some mental activity with chess, so that she will be a balanced individual.

Do you think you lead a full life? I think everything in my life is absolutely wonderful. Everything can be better, but I’m happy. We all are masters of our own lives. If things are going well and you’re happy, you think it’s your own achievement, but we should think the same when things go wrong: it’s your own problem, it’s you, it’s your mind, most of the time at least. Sometimes things happen which are beyond our control, but over time I’ve learnt that if something is wrong in my life or in my game, this is my problem, it means I’m doing something wrong, it’s my fault. Usually when something goes wrong in our lives, we tend to blame others or life itself, but rarely ourselves. I think the wisest people understand this very well. Maybe they blame others openly, but deep inside the ones who achieved some-thing – and I know some of them – they all understand very well that the problem is theirs and that they must work on it. Did you lose a little of the fun and the pleasure of playing over the years? No, for the moment not. But it could, of course, happen one day. Doesn’t this scare you at all? Don’t you fear that one day you might wake up and find that chess is not as meaningful to you as it used to be? No. I’m actually pretty sure that I’m going to quit in a few years, four or five, more proba-bly three. I decided long time ago that I was going to play more or less until 40. I don’t think much about it, because as long as I en-joy chess and can play well, why should I quit? But I’m not at all afraid to quit chess. It’s interesting to change in life. Any idea on what you would do?

Yes, I have some ideas, but nothing definite yet. But, I’m absolutely ready to com-pletely stop playing chess at any time. For me it would be like closing a chapter of my life and starting a new one. So you don’t want to see your game decline? I don’t see any sense in it. I highly doubt that I would still enjoy playing chess when I am no longer in the top ten, but I’d happily switch to something else. I’m very positive that there are many other interesting things to do in life. For the moment, I really enjoy playing chess tournaments, but I’m sure that I would also like to do something else in the future.

Mickey Adams looks on while Kramnik offers his opinions to Stephen Gordon at the London Classic.

30 February 2013