W dniach 2-10 lutego odbył się „Moscow Open”. W turnieju „G” – Arcymistrzowskim Studenckim Kobiecym Turnieju Kołowym uczestniczyła nasza szachistka Karina Szczepkowska-Horowska.

Skład turnieju

1 Girya, Olga WGM Rosja 2467
2 Szczepkowska-Horowska, Karina WGM Polska 2378
3 Vasilevich, Irina IM Rosja 2370
4 Ziaziulkina, Nastassia WGM Białoruś 2367
5 Savina, Anastasia IM Rosja 2323
6 Saduakassova, Dinara WGM Kazachstan 2312
7 Drozdova, Dina Rosja 2286
8 Saulina, Varvara WF Rosja 2272
9 Pustovoitova, Daria FM Rosja 2257
10 Enkhtuul, Altanulzii WIM Mongolia 2153

Niestety nasza arcymistrzyni zawiodła nas wszystkich!

Końcowe wyniki

Strona turnieju

Wyniki

ChessBase News 1 (wersja niemiecka)
ChessBase News 2 (wersja niemiecka)

ChessBase News 1 (wersja angielska)

Wreszcie doczekaliśmy się krótkiego podsumowania występu naszych reprezentantów na turnieju w Gibraltarze. W najnowszym newsletterze PZSzach-u Link szef wyszkolenia Piotr Murdzia napisał, iż „Chcielibyśmy cieszyć się sukcesami polskich szachistów regularnie, jednak sport rządzi się swoimi prawami, raz jest z górki, a raz pod górkę. Podczas ostatniego występu Polaków w Gibraltarze, ale i nie tylko tam, przekonaliśmy się, że forma naszych asów nie jest stabilna. To powoduje straty rankingowe. Radosław Wojtaszek po nieudanych występach w Indiach i na Półwyspie Iberyjskim spadł na liście rankingowej niemal na 50 pozycję. Niedobry to sygnał, bo o zaproszenia do elitarnych turniejów będzie teraz trudniej, choć i tak dopiero przynależność do klubu TOP 10 gwarantuje cokolwiek. Radkowi życzymy szybkiego powrotu na salony, bo ktoś powinien pociągnąć za sobą „tłumy”. A może wkrótce taką osobą będzie Dariusz Świercz? Czas pokaże”.

Pozwolę sobie zabrać głos w kilku kwestiach poruszonych przez szefa wyszkolenia. Każdy chce się cieszyć sukcesami polskich sportowców, ale niestety w przypadku naszych czołowych szachistów powyższy cytat obrazuje typowe „wishful thinking”. Forma sportowa naszej kadry daleka jest od zadowalającej, czego kolejnym dowodem jest nieudany dla nas turniej w Gibraltarze. Nic dziwnego, że przez dłuższy czas oficjele związkowi powstrzymywali się od jakiegokolwiek komentarza na ten temat, nie publikując na stronie PZSzach-u żadnego sprawozdania z przebiegu turnieju. Dziwne, że dla Piotra Murdzi największą bolączką są straty rankingowe naszych zawodników. Akurat tego można było się spodziewać. Czołowi polscy szachiści dbają o swój wysoki ranking, zapewniając go sobie podczas występów na średniej jakości turniejach. To pozwala im utrzymać status quo w kraju, ale za to podlegają brutalnej weryfikacji podczas silnych światowych imprez szachowych. Takie turnieje sprawdzają ich przygotowania szachowe oraz sportowe, po raz kolejny ukazując, delikatnie mówiąc, niezbyt różową rzeczywistość. Niestety nasz czołowy arcymistrz Radosław Wojtaszek, jest smutnym obrazem tej dziwnej rankingowej polityki. Punkty zdobyte podczas słabych turniejów ulatują z niego jak z przekłutego balonu w trakcie poważniejszych spotkań z solidnymi przeciwnikami.

Kolejną kwestią są zaproszenia na elitarne turnieje. Dziwne, że szef wyszkolenia ciągle lansuje tezę, jakoby sam ranking otwierał wszystkie drzwi. Owszem, otworzy te pośledniejsze, natomiast  nie jest właściwym kluczem do drzwi superturniejów. Aby je przekroczyć trzeba posiadać „to coś” szachowego, czy też legitymować się interesującą osobowością sportową. Tego Radkowi na razie brakuje. „Kulą w płot” jest stwierdzenie Piotra Murdzi o szybkim powrocie Radka na salony. O ile same życzenia tego powrotu zawsze są czymś miłym, to powiedzmy sobie szczerze, niestety Radek nigdy na salonach nie był. Mówiąc wprost, stał jedynie w przedpokoju. A gdzie są te tłumy o których wspomina nasz szef wyszkolenia? Czy chodzi o te wszystkie zlikwidowane kluby szachowe? Czy może o pokaźną ilość dobrych szachistów, którzy rokowali wielkie nadzieje dziesięć lat temu, po czym przepadli „w tłumie” przeciętniaków, albo po prostu zarzucili profesjonalne podejście do gry z braku perspektyw?

Nie wydaje mi się, aby nasi starzy mistrzowie (zapewne Piotrowi Murdzi chodzi o kadrę narodową) musieli się aż tak bardzo obawiać się o zagrożenie ze strony młodych zawodników. Wszak „starzy” zadbali o takie skonstruowanie regulaminu powołań do kadry, aby zapewniło im to ciepłe, nietykalne miejsce w niej. Póki co, Dariusz Świercz jest dobrym kandydatem na silnego światowego szachistę, i niewątpliwie takim jest w swojej kategorii wiekowej w kraju. Ale nadszedł czas, aby zadbano o spełnienie się naszych marzeń o zrobieniu z niego zawodnika klasy światowej. Szef wyszkolenia narzeka na stan naszych szachów kobiecych. Wydaje mi się, że polskie zawodniczki mają jednak silniejszy potencjał szachowo-sportowy i większe ambicje, niż skostniała część męskiej kadry narodowej, bez większych perspektyw na sukcesy. Proponuję dokonać przeglądu metod szkolenia juniorów i przygotować program naprawczy tej ważnej dla nas dziedziny sportu szachowego. Bez grających dzieci i młodzieży, nasze polskie szachy wymrą za kilkanaście lat.

Na zakończenie wstępu do newslettera Piotr Murdzia wyraził opinię,  że „stara gwardia grać jeszcze potrafi, a tylko czasem brakuje jej należytej motywacji”. W szczególności zgadzam się z drugą częścią zacytowanego stanowiska szefa wyszkolenia. Ale skoro naszym kadrowiczom nie chce się grać bo nie mają motywacji, to przecież są odpowiednie metody aby to zmienić. Albo motywację, albo skład kadry.

Krzysztof Kledzik

Dear chess friends,

Below you can find the official Round 3 Report on the GRENKE Chess Classic in Baden-Baden. Please feel free to use this report and the accompanying photos on your own websites, but please link to the official website (http://www.grenkechessclassic.com) and credit Georgios Souleidis for the photos and myself (Colin McGourty) for the text.

If you’d prefer not to receive press releases from the GRENKE Chess Classic please reply to this mail with „UNSUBSCRIBE” as the subject.

Best wishes,

Colin McGourty, GRENKE Chess Classic press team

—-

Note: the full version of this report including diagrams will shortly appear on the official website

Round 3: Bloodshed and violence

For the second day in a row Arkadij Naiditsch lit up the stage of the GRENKE Chess Classic, but on this occasion it was his opponent Fabiano Caruana who was the last man standing after a brutal time scramble. Elsewhere Viswanathan Anand failed to make headway against Georg Meier and Michael Adams’ long grind brought no dividends against Daniel Fridman, though it did at least prove his painful loss in round two hadn’t lessened his appetite for chess.

Meier began the press conference of his game against the World Champion by reusing Fridman’s line from the day before: “You didn’t fall asleep during my game?” It was the World Champion Anand who did most of the talking, however, and it was evident he was frustrated with his failure to get any sort of real play against an opponent he outrated by 140 points. It wasn’t for a lack of trying – Vishy explained he wanted unbalanced play and went for a “slightly unpredictable opening” where Black makes concessions in the centre to post a strong knight on b4. Meier in turn was dreaming of pushing his f-pawn to generate play on the kingside and leave the b4-knight far from the action. Neither plan materialised. Among all the subtleties discussed in the press conference it was the position after 20…Nd7 that provoked the strongest emotions.

Georg Meier played 21.Bf1, but Anand described 21.e4!? as “very complicated” and “the only way we could have got anything. I don’t know if White’s better but it seemed like the move to play”. A possible line would be 21…exd4 22. Nxe4 e5 23.Nd6 exd4 24.Re7 and suddenly both sides have chances. Vishy’s less technical description of the positions after 21.e4 was “a mess”, but instead we got a tidy and bloodless draw.

That was a plus for the GRENKE Chess Classic’s live broadcast, however, as the players were happy to comment on the state of play in the other games. They assessed Adams – Fridman as comfortable for White, with Vishy noting that “maybe 26.f5 was allowed too easily”. Meier, a Catalan expert himself, added that what was nice for White was that “you don’t need to think too much”. Nevertheless, it seemed Fridman had everything under control until he nearly became another victim to fall into Adams’ quietly woven webs: “The problem was I thought it was a completely equal rook ending. Then I relaxed for a while and played some inaccurate move and the position became quite unpleasant in time trouble.” In the end he escaped with a slight scare and a much-delayed dinner.

Saturday’s real action, however, came in the showdown between the early leaders, Fabiano Caruana and Arkadij Naiditsch. Caruana has made a habit of surprising his opponents with deep opening preparation in Baden-Baden, but in Round 3 the shoe was on the other foot. Naiditsch’s 8th move took him out of book, and 10…a5 provoked Caruana into 11.Kb1?, a move Naiditsch described as a “big positional mistake”. The problem was 11…a4! 12.Nc1 a3! and White’s king was open to the elements.

Naiditsch summed it up: “the bishop pair, the dark squares, you can’t get more in the Najdorf!” Chess is seldom easy, however, and from the press conference you got the impression that it was a question of what would triumph – Naiditsch’s optimism and belief in his position or Caruana’s objectivity? A case in point was the discussion of 17…Nd4, which Caruana apparently rightly flagged as an inaccuracy. Naiditsch’s response: “I thought I’m just winning!” Another view on the situation was provided by the World Champion, who liked White: “My hand is itching to take on d4, and it’s just very pleasant for White. Black’s pieces look uncoordinated and he has a very bad bishop on h6”. Anand would already have played the exchange sacrifice on move 19, but it was even better when Caruana played it on move 22.

That was only the prelude to the drama, and Caruana and eventually Naiditsch were left with perilously little time to navigate the hair-raising position that arose. They’d been there before, and Caruana told the press team afterwards that he’d drawn some comfort from the fact that Naiditsch had failed to win a similarly wild game in their last meeting in Dortmund. Back then Houdini assessed Naiditsch’s edge as over -7 while here his edge “only” reached -2, but Georg Meier, who was a fine co-commentator for IM Lawrence Trent, explained that you shouldn’t pay too much attention to the computer: “The problem is Black’s position is so close to strategically lost he needs to make the correct move every time”. Sure enough, Naiditsch faltered with 32…Qg2? instead of 32…Qxg3! and collapsed after 36.Ne7.

Meier greeted Naiditsch’s resignation after 36…g5? 37.fxg5 Bf8 38.Nf4! with: “It’s over. That’s why I came – to see some bloodshed and violence!” Trying to keep hold of the material with 38…Qf3 fails to the simple 39.Qxf3 Bxf3 40.Neg6+. „Blunder” perhaps isn’t the correct word for 36.g5?, however, as neither player had much faith in Black’s chances of survival after the only move, 36…g6! Again, computer evaluations are of little help when you’re on the stage with your clock’s flag about to fall.

That dramatic reversal of fortune put Fabiano Caruana back in the world Top 10 and leaves him in the driving seat of the inaugural GRENKE Chess Classic on 2.5/3. Anand, Naiditsch and Fridman are a point behind on 1.5, while Adams and Meier have 1 point each.

Round 4 pairings:

Fridman – Anand
Naiditsch – Meier
Adams – Caruana

The game of the day on paper will be Adams – Caruana. Can the multiple English Champion hold back the rising Italian star? Find out by following the live coverage on the GRENKE Chess website from 15:00 CET: http://live.grenkechessclassic.com

Report: Colin McGourty Photos: Georgios Souleidis

Źródło

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4
Link 5
Link 6
Link 7

Dear chess friends,

Below you can find the official Round 2 Report on the GRENKE Chess Classic in Baden-Baden. Please feel free to use this report and the accompanying photos on your own websites, but please link to the official website (http://www.grenkechessclassic.com) and credit Georgios Souleidis for the photos and myself (Colin McGourty) for the text.

If you’d prefer not to receive press releases from the GRENKE Chess Classic please reply to this mail with „UNSUBSCRIBE” as the subject.

Best wishes,

Colin McGourty, GRENKE Chess Classic press team

—-

Note: the full version of this report including diagrams will later appear on the official website

Round 2: Naiditsch beats Adams after epic battle

Arkadij Naiditsch emerged victorious after a rollercoaster 7-hour game that saw the German no. 1 and Mickey Adams jockey for the initiative. That game overshadowed the sharp contest between Viswanathan Anand and Fabiano Caruana, where the young apprentice unleashed some more deep preparation to hold the champion at bay.

The game of the round sparked into life on move 26, when Adams attacked Naiditsch’s queen. The German responded with the spectacular 27.Rxd5! which Adams admitted he’d simply blundered. The minor problem is that taking the queen sees Black mated: 27…Rxf4?? 28.Rd8+ Kh7 29.Ng5+ Kh6 30.exf4!. However, the position was surprisingly still balanced, and after a passage of play in which both players rejected a draw by repetition it was Black who emerged with an extra pawn.

Adams confessed afterwards (for the second day in a row!), “I had no idea what was going on”. At first it seemed as though Naiditsch, angry at letting his earlier edge slip, was making the classic mistake of pushing too hard for a win, but towards the second time control Adams found himself in a tough situation. He thought it was already tough for a human to hold and considered himself practically lost after 50…fxe5. That explained his decided to jettison the exchange on move 56.

It was still all to play for, but Adams now had to tread a tightrope while Naiditsch was scenting blood. Exhaustion and time pressure finally had their way, and Mickey offered his hand on move 79. The players somehow found the energy to appear for a post-game press conference with IM Lawrence Trent hours after the other games had finished drawn.

Fabiano Caruana’s difficulties in last month’s Wijk aan Zee started with an early loss with the black pieces against Vishy Anand. Although that could of course happen to anyone, things soon went from bad to worse. When the dust had settled the young Italian had lost five games and almost 25 rating points, dropping not only out of the world Top 5 but also the Top 10. Caruana told the GRENKE Chess Classic press team that his performance there was the result of a whole combination of factors. One was that he was unwell for most of the event, but he was also without his coach Vladimir Chuchelov, who was focussing on one of his other students, Anish Giri.

Here in Baden-Baden Vladimir is accompanying Fabiano, and a repetition of the Wijk aan Zee scenario doesn’t seem to be on the cards. For the second day in a row Caruana demonstrated deep preparation and surprised the World Champion with 20…a5!?, a move Vladimir had recommended the night before instead of the previous grandmaster choice of 20…Nxg4. Vishy at first continued to play relatively quickly, but he lived to regret it – lamenting his “careless” 22.Ne3, which allowed Caruana to equalise with 23…d5! (Anand in the press conference: “I should have at least thought about this”) In the play that followed Caruana emphasised that both sides had a lot of options and he’d barely looked at Anand’s 25.Qb1. He thought his 26…Rad8 “maybe wasn’t the best” but after the crucial 28…e4! he was visibly confident in his position as he left the stage.

For a while it seemed as though the Italian might have a strong initiative against the white king, but the champion used all his experience to bring the game to a rock-solid draw. Anand joked about the near-symmetrical final position, “I thought here I was pushing him back, but it’s not up to much”.

The second game to finish was the 26-move draw between German grandmasters Daniel Fridman and Georg Meier. Fridman is a very funny man, and greeted IM Lawrence Trent in the press conference with, “you didn’t fall asleep?” True, it wasn’t spectacular chess to watch, but what emerged from the press conference was an insight into the subtleties that decide matters in the higher echelons of world chess. Meier revealed that “a lot happened in the early moves”, as Fridman managed to use a move-order trick to play a line of the Nimzo-Indian that Meier had successfully avoided in last year’s Dortmund tournament. Meier was left struggling to remember the analysis he’d done as a junior, while Fridman… claimed he hadn’t expected to succeed and also couldn’t remember the line!

The turning point in the game perhaps came on move 14. Fridman wasn’t yet low on time, but he explained his reasoning for playing 14.Bb4 instead of potentially more promising moves: “In some ways I just believed him. If I started to calculate all the variations I might play the same Bb4 but without time on the clock.” After that there was a lively tactical sequence featuring the nice zwischenzug 15.Qd4, but the game never left the bounds of equality and finished in a logical repetition of moves. Georg Meier is off the mark in Baden-Baden.

The highlight of Saturday’s Round 3 looks set to be Caruana – Naiditsch. Will Naiditsch’s satisfaction at winning be enough to overcome the exhaustion of today’s game? In the same fixture in Dortmund last year the Italian only escaped by the skin of his teeth. Full pairings:

Adams – Fridman
Caruana – Naiditsch
Meier – Anand

The games can be watched live with video commentary by IM Lawrence Trent on the GRENKE Chess website from 15:00 CET: http://live.grenkechessclassic.com

Report: Colin McGourty Photos: Georgios Souleidis

Źródło: Polska Wikipedia

Rafał Marszałek napisał: Zbyszek Doda przegrał dwuletnią walkę z nowotworem gardła. Odszedł we śnie.

Cześć Jego pamięci!

Szachista i dysydent Janusz Szpotański – Link 1 jest często wspominaną postacią na tym blogu, np. w artykule: Link 2 oraz w tamtejszych odnośnikach. Problemy które stały się udziałem m.in. „Szpota” oraz „Kisiela” czyli Stefana Kisielewskiego: Link 3 noszą nazwę „wydarzeń marcowych”, i są dobrze scharakteryzowane na różnych stronach internetowych, np.: Link 4, Link 5 oraz Link 6. 

Poniżej przedstawiam czytelnikom niniejszego blogu wyjątki z zapisu przemówienia towarzysza Władysława Gomułki, wygłoszone przez niego na spotkaniu z warszawskim aktywem partyjnym w pamiętnym marcu 1968 roku. Za pomocą obwódki zaznaczyłem fragmenty dotyczące „Kisiela” i „Szpota”. Jakość zamieszczonych obrazów nie jest najlepsza, gdyż są to skany z kserokopii.

Krzysztof Kledzik

Dear chess friends,

Below you can find the official Round 1 Report on the GRENKE Chess Classic in Baden-Baden. Please feel free to use this report and the accompanying photos on your own websites, but please link to the official website (http://www.grenkechessclassic.com) and credit Georgios Souleidis for the photos and myself (Colin McGourty) for the text.

If you’d prefer not to receive press releases from the GRENKE Chess Classic please reply to this mail with „UNSUBSCRIBE” in the title.

Best wishes,

Colin McGourty, GRENKE Chess Classic press team

—-

note: the full version of this report including diagrams can be found here: Link

Round 1: Caruana off to a flying start

When Baden-Baden hosted arguably the world’s first supertournament back in 1870 it began in mid-July. 143 years later February snow was falling on the German spa town as tournament director Sven Noppes welcomed the players onto the stage. Things soon warmed up, however – Adams and Anand threw caution to the wind, Naiditsch and Fridman engaged in a fierce struggle, but it was Caruana who claimed the day’s only win. The Italian trapped Georg Meier’s king in the centre before ruthlessly applying the finishing touches.

Chess players have a reputation for iron logic, but in their press conference after a dazzling game both World Champion Viswanathan Anand and England’s no. 1 Michael Adams revealed that logic only takes you so far. When commentator IM Lawrence Trent started by asking the players how they were Adams replied, “Good… confused by the game”. The confusion started on move 16.

Adams explained his first thought was, “16.Nd2 is a draw, but such is life – move on”. He’d dismissed 16.f4, but then thought, “Black has so many options that one of them must be good, but which one? Let’s see what happens!” Suddenly Vishy was also faced with a dilemma – all kinds of exchange sacs on e4 are possible and the rook can also simply retreat to e8, but the World Champion claimed his decision was also impulsive: “For some reason I started to like the idea of 16…Rh5, so I decided it was worth a punt”. The rest of the game was perhaps best summed up by Adams: “I was very suspicious of Rh5 – I was completely unable to refute it in any way, but it looked a very funny move.” After 17.e5 Nd7 18.Qe2 Rh4 19.e6 things looked dicey for Anand, but 19…Nc5! showed he had the situation under control, even if he still felt Black needed to be very accurate in the play that followed.

Both players were in good spirits afterwards. In the position following 27…Qd7 Adams regretted playing a3. They discussed alternatives, but Vishy brought the discussion to a close by joking, “it would have been a reasonable bluff just to play Rad1 and see if I have the guts to take on a2!”

The hero of the round was the Italian/American prodigy Fabiano Caruana. He started 2013 with a disastrous tournament in Wijk aan Zee, no doubt a shock to the system after a phenomenally successful 2012. In Baden-Baden he bounced straight back, winning a fine game against Georg Meier. Fabiano blitzed out his first 19 moves, featuring two pawn sacs to keep Meier’s king in the centre, while his German opponent was soon struggling over the board. Although Caruana stopped for a long think before playing 20.Qd3 he revealed afterwards that he simply couldn’t remember all the details of his preparation and suddenly worried that Black’s position would be hard to break down after about 20…Kc8. Meier instead played 20…Nd7 and after 21.b4 Bb6 22.a4 a6 (Meier: “after this I’m just lost”) 23.a5 Ba7 (this is definitely the last nail in the coffin) Caruana’s next move left Black almost in zugzwang: 24.Bf4!

Suddenly the king is caught in a lethal trap. Meier had seen this move in advance, but pinned his hopes on 24…g5 25.Bg3 g4 only to now realise his opponent had 26.Qe2! and mate can only be avoided with heavy loss of material. Meier instead played 24…Nb8, which Caruana described as “losing on the spot”. In what followed both on the board and on Meier’s lips in the press conference the dominant word was “desperate” as the young German tried to set up traps. Caruana felt he could have been more clinical, but he had no trouble with the mopping up operation.

The last game to finish was the all-German (or even all-Latvian-German) battle between Arkadij Naiditsch and Daniel Fridman. It bore a strong resemblance to Wang Hao – Anand from the final round of Wijk aan Zee, where the Chinese grandmaster somewhat spoilt Anand’s fine tournament with an impressive win. In that game Wang Hao traded off the dark-squared bishops, but Naiditsch instead “maintained the tension” by keeping the bishops on the board with 16.Be3 (a move he criticised after the game). The critical moment perhaps came after 19…Qe5.

IM Lawrence Trent explained for the internet audience that White has no discovered attacks on the black queen as the d4-knight would fall, and that when Black plays Bb4-d6 next move the white king will be in real danger. As it happened 20.Rd1 was followed by 20…Ne4, and the game fizzled out to a draw – though perhaps the process would better be described as a long, slow burn.

So Fabiano Caruana leads after the first round of the GRENKE Chess Classic, but he faces a real test in Thursday’s round two. He has Black against the tournament’s co-favourite, Viswanathan Anand. Don’t miss our live coverage starting at 15:00 CET.

Fridman – Meier
Anand – Caruana
Naiditsch – Adams

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Partie I rundy