CHESS #1361

CHESS #1361

Last week saw an enormous amount of chess activity. Nearly 9,000 games were added to databases from various events. The Riga Grand Prix had Shakhriyar Mamedyarov beating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in an epic final. Mamedyarov won in Armageddon after they were tied 4-4. MVL and “Shakh” both receive eight Grand Prix points. 

The Biel Festival combines rapid, blitz  and classical. It’s a strong field with eight strong GMs playing 28 games in round robins (7 classical, 7 rapid and 14 blitz). The weights are three points for a classical win, one for a draw; rapid two points win, one draw; blitz: one point win; ½ point draw. Tiebreaks involve Chess960!

Peter Leko took the rapid set with 10 points from a maximum 14. Vidit Gujrathi started the classical with two wins and a draw, to lead overall with 15 points and Leko (14) holds second spot with Sam Shankland (13) placed third.  

The self-taught AlphaZero burst on the scene with fantastic wins against the strongest engines. It won in a style no engine had ever possessed, with long-term sacrifices and slow-burning attacks. Those games have been studied in detail and the influences are showing up in top-class play. One special feature of “Zero’s” play is rook pawn pushes, and these thrusts are being seen more frequently.
 

More generally, Zero has an aggressive “human” style, with a consistent opening repertoire (and clear long-term plans, unlike most engines, which rely on deep calculation).

 So it’s possible for a human to adopt Zero’s style as a model. This may be happening with GMs re-evaluating 

the power of initiative and mobility versus material.

AlphaZero has now moved on to studying other things like protein-folding. But Leela, the crowd-sourced self-learning engine, is now the world champion (with AlphaZero not participating). Leela is naturally also being studied in detail.

The Diagram, White to play (White: Anand Vs Black: Ding, Armageddon, Altibox 2019) is an interesting example of sacrificing for the initiative. Both sides are well-developed. White has two dynamic advantages. One is the respective queen positions. The second is a target on h6. Is this enough to win?

White played 19. Bxh6! dxe4 ? Anand says this is an error and 19.—ed4 20 cd4 de4 21. Nxe4 Bxd4 22. Bg5 is a small edge for white. Play continued 20. Nxe4 Nxe4 21. Rxe4?! It seems 21. Bxe4 ed4 22. Qg5 is just winning. Black defended with 21. — Bd5 22. Rg4 e4 23. Nh4 ed3 24. Nf5! Be6 Here 24. — Re2 may actually defend.  

Now white has a super finish with 25. Bxg7 Bxf5 26 Qh6 Re6. Take a minute and try and find White’s next move. 27. Bh8!! (1-0). 

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player