Aronian - Karjakin: Rules are for Fools

True masters of their craft regularly ignore rules and recommendations that act as clutches for the rest of us. Consider the following position from a blitz game between Levon Aronian and Sergey Karjakin at the 2015 Zurich Chess Challenge after 19. ... Rb8

White (Aronian) to move after Karyakin's 19. ... Rb8

Aronian played 19. Kf2 and eventually won the game after both players put their kingside pawns in motion.

I'm wondering though... in the diagram above... Why didn't Aronian just take the bishop on b7? 

It's a well-known rule of thumb that in endgames with pawns on both wings, the bishop is superior to the knight. In the diagram above, there may even be the chance to lock Black's queenside pawns in place on light-colored squares, which would make White's bishop even stronger.  

Obviously, Aronian is aware of all this, so he must have had his reasons to keep his knight (and Karyakin's bishop) on the board.

Would this not be a textbook example of a position where the Bishop is stronger than the Knight?

Was he afraid that the afraid that the advantage wouldn't be enough to win the position?
Did he see "ghosts" or overlooked something? After all, this was a blitz game. Or is the evaluation of the diagram above different at a super-GM level compared to mere amateur play?

Aronian won the game regardless. However, Karyakin "helped" by pushing for a win himself. It seems to me that if Black chooses to play for a draw, the task is much easier in the first diagram than in the second.

The complete game can be found here:
Aronian - Karyakin, Zurich Chess Challenge Blitz, 2015

I really don't know. Which is why I was fascinated by this example and chose it for this blog.

Oh well... these guys are 2700 GMs for a reason, and I am not...

Different Kinds of Chess Sacrifices

I finally decided to resume writing this blog. I hope to write more regularly again from now on. Today what I want to write about are the 3 different kinds of chess sacrifices, and how each kind poses their own difficulties.

Basically there are 3 types of sacrifices in chess.

1. One kind of sacrifice leads to a pretty forced sequence of moves that gives both sides relatively few opportunities to deviate. A typical example would be the bishop sacrifice on h7. More often than not that sacrifice leads to a pretty much forced sequence of events where the outcome is clear even before the bishop is sacrificed.

2. Another kind of sacrifice is based on long-term strategic and positional objectives, for example the positional exchange sacrifice. 
I'm a very "greedy" player, and only when I get overwhelming positional compensation I'm ready to give up an exchange for it. I know that this is one of my weaknesses. I'd be a better player if I wasn't holding on to my material so much.
3. The third kind is somewhere in between the first two. One the one hand, the objective of the sacrifice is clear. On the other hand though the variations are less forced and somewhat fuzzy, which makes them much harder to calculate. Let's look at an example: The following position is from the game Liren Ding - Levon Aronian, Alekhine Memorial 2013. Ding is a Chinese grandmaster I was unaware of until recently. You can find the whole game here ("On a Ding and a Prayer"):

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1715380

In this position, White played 37. Bxg7!!

White sacrificed his Bishop on g7. 

White's plan is clear: activate the Rook on f1 for a mating attack

White's plan is pretty obvious in this position. Activate the Rook on f1. The plan is easy to see, but very hard to calculate all the way through because many of the variations are not as forced as say all the checks that follow after an h7-bishop sacrifice. 

In this game, I would have certainly thought hard about 37. Bxg7!!, but I don't think I would have gone for it because I could not have calculated the many variations with enough accuracy even though the underlying plan is very simple and straightforward. I probably would have also concluded - erroneously - that Black's Queen and Rook on the 7th rank would be enough "hardware" to defend the position. 

However, after a few more moves (not that many actually), the following position was reached, and Aronian resigned:

Black resigned. There is no sensible defence against Rh8

I'm sure GM Ding is very proud of this game. Not only did he beat Levon Aronian, one of the world's foremost chess grandmasters, but he did so in great style.

I often ask myself what skills chess grandmasters have that I lack. Among them is most definitely the ability and willingness to give up material for intangible compensation. That's one thing that I have always had great difficulty with. My style is rather positional, rock-solid, and borderline boring. Nothing wrong with that, but it does set a threshold that's hard to overcome, and it makes it difficult, to create tactically brilliant games such as the one above.  

That's why especially in blitz and bullet games I often force myself to sacrifice material - often in a very speculative manner - as a learning experience. The jury is still out on this approach...

Magnus Carlsen Wins 2013 Candidates Tournament

Magnus Carlsen after winning the 2013 Candidates Tournament

The 2013 Candidates Tournament is over. MagnusCarlsen won and is now the official challenger of Viswanathan Anand. I have been following international chess for almost 20 years now, and I can unequivocally say that this was one of the best tournaments I've ever seen. Many great games, unexpected results, and lots of drama till the very end. What more could chess fans have asked for?

Thanks to the internet and live streams it's also become much easier to share in the excitement of top level chess tournaments. I remember when I first got into chess and my parents bought me a one year subscription of a chess magazine, it just wasn't the same. Without the real-time experience, all the drama is lost. In fact I find watching chess tournaments online even more exciting than the seemingly more fast-paced Starcraft 2 events such as MLG.

I'm not surprised that Carlsen won the whole thing, but I certainly didn't expect it to come about the way it did. I thought I would see a neck-and-neck race between Carlsen and Kramnik all the way. Instead, the first half of the tournament saw Carlsen and Aronian pulling ahead of the field while Kramnik failed to convert his many promising positions into a single win.
And just when I thought Kramnik was out of the running for sure, he pulled a pretty impressive comeback while Aronian completely collapsed at the beginning of the second half of the tournament.

Many in the chess community seem relieved that there will not be a rematch of Anand - Kramnik 2008. I am not so sure. Leaving aside the fact that rematches are kind of fascinating in themselves, I do think that a second encounter between the two would have produced much more interesting chess simply because Kramnik was clearly out of form in 2008.  Foto by Fred Lucas.

Magnus Carlsen: I'm not surprised that he won the candidates tournament. I am surprised however that he managed to squeeze so many points out of drawn positions, especially in the first half of the tournament. It's really instructive to see how he so "effortlessly" keeps accumulating tiny advantages until he's got enough to convert the position into a win. I often have "dead drawn" positions just like he has, but of course I lack his superb positional skills. My play is just too inaccurate to capitalize on tiny positional imbalances the way Carlsen does.

Some commentators - rightfully in my opinion - pointed out Carlsen's comparatively weak opening repertoire. While his skill to win drawn positions is remarkable, it is equally remarkable to see that a player of his calibre more often than not fails to get any advantage out of the opening, especially when playing white. I know it is his strategy to deviate from well-known theoretical lines early in order to render his opponents' preparation useless and force them to start using up time early. On the other hand though this approach does allow his opponents to equalize without much effort.

Against a well-prepared Anand, Carlsen will most certainly have to show better opening preparation. At this tournament, Carlsen got most of his wins from the lower half of the field. In the match with Anand, there is no lower half.

Magnus Carlsen and Boris Gelfand at the 2012 Wijk "Super Tournament". Maybe Carlsen has really bad body odor. Or maybe Gelfand simply had a cold. Foto by Fred Lucas

Vladimir Kramnik: one of my personal favorites and the tragic hero of the tournament. He's been criticized for having lost his interest in chess after getting married and having two kids a few years ago. In fact similar things are being said about Anand. Kramnik however showed fantastic chess in London, and this tournament has been called "maybe his best performance ever" by Garry Kasparov. I think Kramnik is still a very serious contender for the world championship title, and might very well win the next candidates tournament, especially if Carlsen beats Anand later this year.

They also used a new chess set at the Candidates Tournament. I agree with the criticism voiced by some of the players that the pieces are a little too big for the board.

The 2013 Candidates Tournament in London

Magnus Carlsen during one of the early rounds of the 2013 Candidates tournament

We are almost at the half-way mark of the 2013 Candidates tournament in London. Most people seem to expect Carlsen to win the tournament.
Well... time is on Carlsen's side, therefore I would like to see Aronian or maybe even Kramnik win the chance to play a match with Anand. Carlsen will become world champion sooner or later anyway. In the meantime Aronian and Kramnik deserve a shot at the title. I like Aronian for his creative and tactical play style, and Kramnik is simply one of the most solid players around. His win rate isn't quite as impressive as it used to be, but he almost never loses a game, and considering the high caliber tournaments he's playing in that really is quite an achievement. However, with almost half the games played in London it is already pretty clear that Kramnik lost his chances to take first place. Right now it's a neck to neck race between Carlsen and Aronian. I hope Aronian comes out ahead, but I fear it'll be Carlsen. I have nothing against Carlsen, in fact I admire his seemingly effortless style of winning drawish positions. I just think success is coming a little too quick for him. If he has to work for the title just a few years more, he'll most certainly become a better player overall.

Vladimir Kramnik and Levon Aronian at the opening ceremony of the FIDE Candidates
Tournament in London

Garry Kasparov is on record saying that winning the candidates tournament is more difficult than beating Anand in the subsequent match. I'm inclined to agree.