Chess Chats

First, this is the 100th reply – so hooray for hitting that milestone! I’ll try to make it an interesting post.

Side note here: I’m reminded of French and “un match” is a game, but in the USA, it’s generally a best-of-5 match or whatever. False cognates are tricky…

Thanks everyone for the notes on Fischer-Myagmarsuren. I still have a bit to fix. But thinking of how Myagmarsuren is best known for that loss to Fischer, for better or worse, I recalled two more games.

First, Tal versus Miller. After this game, Miller was all smiles even though he lost. Why? Because he knew he was on the other end of a very special Tal combination! Tal’s play wasn’t perfect, and in fact a small mistake let Miller back in the game, but so what? (Perhaps Tal sort of let Miller back in the game to make it exciting!)

The Greatest Simul Game Of All Time? Tal vs. Miller, 1988 - Chess.com has a full analysis of the game. But here is the position at 21. Black’s …Qe5 has a nasty threat! But White has a move I wouldn’t have guessed. The follow-up left me scratching my head at first, too.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 d6 5.dxe5 Nxe4 6.Bxf7+ Kxf7
7.Qd5+ Be6 8.Qxe4 Be7 9.O-O d5 10.Qd3 Qd7 11.Re1 Raf8 12.Nc3
Ke8 13.Ng5 Bc5 14.Nxe6 Bxf2+ 15.Kh1 Bxe1 16.Nxf8 Rxf8 17.Bg5 Nb4 18.Qe2 Nxc2
19.e6 Qd6 20.Nb5 Qe5 21.h4 Qg3 22.Rd1 Rf2 23.Qxf2 Bxf2 24.Rxd5 Qxh4+
25.Bxh4 Bxh4 26.Nxc7+ Kf8 27.Rf5+ Bf6 28.Rd5 a5 29.Rd7 Nb4 30.Rf7+ Kg8
31.Rxf6 Nc6 32.Rf7 g6 33.e7 1-0

The other game is Gudmundsson versus Fischer. As a kid I remember this from Fischer’s 60 most memorable games. The end is amusing–Gudmundsson probably thought, gee, 16. e4 looks good, and I don’t see why not! So let’s try it. And Fischer showed a really clever plan. See if you can find the win after Rb1.

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 d5 3. e3 g6 4. c4 Bg7 5. Nc3 O-O 6. Qb3 e6
7. Be2 Nc6 8. Qc2 dxc4 9. Bxc4 e5 10. dxe5 Ng4 11. O-O Ncxe5 12. Nxe5 Nxe5
13. Be2 c6 14. f4 Ng4 15. h3 Bf5 16. e4 Qd4+ 17. Kh1 Nf2+ 18. Rxf2 Qxf2
19. exf5 Bxc3 20. bxc3 Rae8 21. Bd3 Re1+ 22. Kh2 Qg1+ 23. Kg3 Rfe8 24. Rb1 gxf5
25. Bd2 Rxb1 26. Qxb1 Qxb1 27. Bxb1 Re2 0-1

Computers give 24. Kh4 as the only way to survive, which sort of boggles my mind. Fischer’s bind after …Qxd4! is very instructive. Computers take a while to see it does not give white an edge.

But the thing that most touches me about this game is the comments here: Gudmundsson himself made an appearance, years later: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044002

I went looking for a picture of him and Arinbjorn Gudmundsson turned up nothing conclusive. It wasn’t until I went with the Icelandic version that it did. Even then it was a picture of him with Fridrik Olafsson, over a picture of Olafsson, so I used logical deduction!

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Everyone here has ever played Japanese (Shogi) or Chinese chess? Or Indian (Chaturanga)?

I tried but all it did to me was making me loving the “normal” chess even more. Indian and Chinese seems to complicated to me (personal opinion only). And I refuse to learn the Japanese letters for Shogi.

I have played Shogi for quite a few years. I love the dynamics of it! Draws are quite rare for example, it is very much a win/lose thing. Also, the fact that all pieces stay in play (whatever the enemy captures off you, can be used against you), so you have to be mindful of trades you make and gaps in your position. The board is also slightly bigger (9x9 if you play the standard game), allowing for simultaneous attacks going on, and then the player who is faster / more efficient usually wins. Tempo is very important.

What I also really liked about Shogi is its extensive handicap system, which allowed me to play 1-on-1 against top professional players, and still have a chance to win. In this handicap system the stronger player will remove some of his stronger pieces, and the game will still be balanced due to the difference in player strength (efficiency of handling the pieces etc.) I cannot really imagine a good handicap system for International chess (what? take away a pawn?)

I have also played Xiangqi (Chinese chess), and although it does have interesting tactics (pieces are not near as powerful, pieces can often block each other, and then there is the Cannon, a rather unique piece which attacks using a piece in between, which can also be a piece of your opponent), I rather disliked the imbalance for the players. The player who begins (Red) generally wins 50%, the opponent (Black) around 25%, and 25% ends in a draw. Playing as Red has a definite advantage there.

I do have to agree that the Chinese characters used on these chess pieces may look daunting, but there are only a few to learn. Alternate versions do exist (with some symbolic diagrams or graphical representations of the usual chess pieces like King, Rook, Bishop, Knight, Pawn (the Queen was no doubt invented by the French and is only present in International chess), but I never used those sets.

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I think some people have already played handicap, for example removing one rook.

In Shogi players can reuse the opponent’s pieces? Do they flip them and one side is white and the other black?

The different chances to win in Chinese chess suck!

In Shogi, all pieces have the same color. But they have a pointed shape, and the pieces of a player point towards the enemy. Most pieces are flipped when they promote (when they make a move in enemy territory), giving them additional powers.

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That sounds cool. But the Japanese signs are hard to learn for me

Other versions include time odds, or even draw-odds e.g. white must win, or even black must win! The second gives an interesting dynamic at higher levels where you can try to steer the game to a draw.

Another possibility is having one side play a weak opening.

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As a 1500, I don’t calculate far enough to the ending, except under special circumstances.

This is White to Mate in 27 moves.

It can be faster, but not by premove. Think of it like correspondence chess, where you write all possible moves in advance.

Hint: it’s OK to write “push pawn to promotion, otherwise move (piece) to (square)”

I can easily mate by move 66 (currently on move 40).

Edit: There’s an alternative where I mate one move faster, by move 65.

Edit: Actually, I made a mistake. There’s an unnecessary move. So, it’s mate in 26, after all.

Oh, 27 moves…! I can’t solve this, but I think the black rook is placed very well, it defends the king and the pawn on its line. Quickly forced checkmate is not possible, but having two rooks should be the final advantage for White to win.

Edit: Maybe this: Move the rook from c8 to c4. And the king one field closer to the black king and pawn. Then checkmate. Problem: Black won’t be passive.

Sorry, but edit 2: Maybe do the rook exchange following 40. Rh8+. And then eat the a-pawn. Win???

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Rh8+, Rxh6+ is correct!

Edit:
An easy mate, assuming that you don’t have to premove is to capture the h pawn with the king, and walk the king over to f column around the rook for a KR mate. You can shuffle the rook between 1-2 rank, to get the necessary cadence for King Opposition.

The a pawn is covered by the b pawn, so you don’t have to worry about it.

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So the moves are:
Rh8+. Rxh6+. Kh3. Rg4. Rxh4+. Ra4? RxP? Ra4. Rc4.

The ones with question mark can be skipped if Black pushed the a pawn to a4. There may also be some sporadic checks.

Now there’s a branch: either the king is on top, rank 5-8, or bottom, rank 1-3.

If Black King is on top:
Move King to the bottom.
Kg2. Kf1. Ke1. Kd1.
Move Rook to King
Rc2
Push Pawn to Promotion.
b4 to b8=Q

So that’s step 2.

Step 3 would be QR mating combo:
Rc7. Qd8. Re7. Qf8. Rg8. Qh8#

And that’s it. Forced moves to mate.

If the Black King is on the bottom, White King goes to d8 and goes from there.

Kh4. Kg5. Kf6. Ke7. Kd8. Rc7. b4 to b8=Q.
Qb6. Rc5. Qb4. Rc3. Qb2. Rc1#

I gave up and yielded to temptation. I subscribe at Platinum level. I have been analyzing old games, February 2022, and I note that my Elo was pegged at 600! That’s pretty bad.

There’s that game where I resigned a mate in 2 position. Yikes! Kind of hard to notice that.

But I guess I’m much better now. I keep looking some of my recent games, and a lot of them are rather nice!

I wonder if I should collect the most interesting ones and put out a games book? It’d be nice if I can make money from this hobby!

I think it is generally a good idea. But I’m not sure if you will sell enough copies to make a profit. You could make it a “book on demand”. But book on demand are a bit more expensive (for the end costumer) than normal ones.

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Does anybody here knows a good way to copy diagram on paper without using a computer? Hopefully not by doing it the hard way (see pencil)

Here’s a reference of what I mean

TIA

Some more experiments. I think the checkerboard pattern is unnecessary since Shogi doesn’t use it and it seems fine. Either way, the white pieces will show the background color since it’s only an outline, after all.

The pieces are pretty much finalized. I also have a couple of sets that is symmetrical. Good if you want to actually draw these on cards as portable chess set.

When we were creating our Shogi magazine in The Netherlands, we originally used sheets with printed empty diagrams on it, and used piece stamps to add the pieces. Later I wrote a software program where you could fill in the pieces and print it out. But for manually writing down positions, creating a sheet with empty boards might still help? At least saves the trouble of manually drawing the board each and every time…

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I suppose nowadays it’s easy enough to take picture of travel chess set and print it on portable mini printer. But it’s useless when the goal is to put it on a journal such as Leuchtturm.

Rubber stamp correspondence chess set would be ideal, but they don’t make those anymore.

You could perhaps take a piece of paper cardboard (or just normal paper) and cut the outlines of the chess pieces. Then you have jigs or gauges or whatever is the correct English word.

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