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British Chess Magazine|November 2023A double Indian success at the Isle of Man Grand SwissIndians Vidit Santosh Gujrathi and Rameshbabu Vaishali claim victories in the Open and the Women’s section. Hikaru Nakamura and Tan Zhongyi won second place and secured to secure spots for the Candidates The Villa Marina in Douglas, Isle of Man, played host to the FIDE Grand Swiss and FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss 2023 from October 23rd to November 6th. Both tournaments served as pivotal qualifiers for the World Championship cycle, granting the top two players in each event spots in the upcoming Candidates Tournaments in 2024. A total of 164 players from across the globe participated in the Swiss System format, with 114 contenders in the Grand Swiss and 50 in the Women’s Grand Swiss. The impressive $600,000 prize fund was divided, offering $460,000 for the Grand Swiss and $140,000…8 min
British Chess Magazine|November 2023Kings among commoners in QatarKasparov told me many years ago not to play tournaments with amateur conditions, because then you will play amateur chess. Magnus Carlsen The devoted pupil religiously followed his teacher’s wise advice when reaching the summit of the chess world. Elite round-robins were the diet that he relied on, constantly playing the world’s best, without a single break such as a weaker opponent in an open tournament. This advice has been followed by every single prodigy who made it to the top. It’s excellent advice, if only everybody could follow it. A lot has been said about the elite playing each other, guarding their rating and their earnings. There are many reasons for this state of affairs, the main one being that it is in the mutual interest of both the…18 min
British Chess Magazine|November 2023A sporting all-rounder Sir George THOMASChess can be many things. An addiction, a sport, a passion. Players need to find a relationship with the game – somewhere between devotion and pastime. This matter must be resolved. The player needs to know what loss can mean. One can fail at this task. One can pretend that everything is just that – a game, and then mentally be destroyed by losses. The Englishman Sir George A. Thomas succeeded in constructing a unique and downright enchanting relationship with the royal game. Chess was his joy, his faithful companion, also a source of lifelong happiness. But the gentleman always kept a certain distance. He did not surrender himself to the game to the exclusion of all else. He also had other passions. And it was precisely this nonchalance that…13 min
British Chess Magazine|November 2023Problem World1 Leonid Lyubashevsky and Leonid Makaronez (Israel) Mate in 3 Original 2 Paul Michelet (London) Mate in 6 Original 3 Stanislav Hudak (Slovakia) Helpmate in 3 - 2 solutions Original 4 Yuri Bilokin (Ukraine) Helpmate in 6 Original Solutions to Problems This month’s problems Having last month concentrated on helpmates in three, this month we have mixture of direct mates and helpmates and a mixture of three-movers and six-movers! For once, the first problem is not an easy starter; indeed, it is I think much the most difficult to solve. As usual with our distinguished Israeli contributors, there is a lot of play (as you’d expect with both queens on the board, both with great freedom of movement), all of it very accurate. When you see the idea of the…4 min
British Chess Magazine|November 2023The Women’s Grand Prix: A DRAW FOR A VICTORYIn the women’s section, Rameshbabu Vaishali’s remarkable performance culminated in an unbeaten 8.5/11, earning her the first-place prize of $25,000 and a spot in the Candidates tournament. The sister of the Indian superstar GM Praggnanandhaa had a great tournament (as did her sibling). This was the first time that a sibling duo had participated in both Open and Women’s Candidates Tournaments! Remaining unbeaten throughout the event, Anna Muzychuk secured second place. With a record of five wins and six draws, she earned a prize of $17,500. Notably, Muzychuk had already solidified her place in the Women’s Candidates by securing a commendable third-place finish in the World Cup. The second Candidates spot was taken by GM Tan Zhongyi. Vaishali's final game, a draw against Batkhuyag Munguntuul, sealed her victory. Munguntuul had…2 min
British Chess Magazine|November 2023TIMING IT RIGHT: TICK-TOCK TACTICS AND WATCHFUL MOVESIn round two of the Qatar Masters Carlsen was blown off the board by Alisher Suleymenov, rated 2512. You can find the game analysed in detail elsewhere in this issue. If the sensation of the result wasn’t enough, Carlsen’s reaction on social media only added fuel to the fire. This is what he tweeted: 1/2 I was completely crushed in my game today. This is not to accuse my opponent of anything, who played an amazing game and deserved to win, but honestly, as soon as I saw my opponent was wearing a watch early in the game, I lost my ability to concentrate. 2/2 I obviously take responsibility for my inability to deal with those thoughts properly, but it’s also incredibly frustrating to see organisers still not taking anti-cheating…4 min
British Chess Magazine|November 2023WIELDING THE KATANAChess has a quality in common with Martial Arts, namely the ability of the one to simultaneously defeat the many The most astonishing examples I have seen occur in the films of Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa, whose films Yojimbo and Sanjuro feature Toshiro Mifune as the invincible Samurai warrior, capable of overcoming a multiplicity of foes at one and the same time. The theme has continued, for example in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill two-parter, where Uma Thurman wields her Katana (Samurai blade) with complete success against the Tokyo-based gangsters of the Crazy 88 martial arts team. During my chess career I faced 107 opponents simultaneously at Oxford in 1973; in Leon, Mexico, during the early years of this century, I confronted 19 opponents, without my having sight of the boards…6 min
British Chess Magazine|November 2023HENRY ERNEST ATKINS6241 Henry Ernest Atkins was the second BCF champion. He followed up a loss to Napier in the tied match of the 1904 event, with victory at Southport 1905. Victories in the next six championships established a record of seven consecutive wins that stands to this day. Atkins’s tournament record overall is impressive. He finished at least equal third in all but one of these events. He was tenth at London 1922, behind Capablanca, Alekhine, Vidmar and Rubinstein. The three games below are recent discoveries, the second of which, in particular, deserves to be more widely known. Henry Atkins - W. Withers Leicester CC 1895 1.e4 e5 2.♘f3 ♘c6 3.♙b5 ♘f6 4.d3 ♙c5 5.c3 ♕e7 5...d6 is playable. 6.0-0 0-0 7.d4 exd4? This is at odds with his previous play:…3 min
British Chess Magazine|November 2023A historic success and promise for British chess: England’s eight-year-old Bodhana Sivanandan is World Cadet ChampionChess history was made as eight-year-old Bodhana Sivanandan from England claimed victory, securing a perfect score of 10 out of 10 in the Girls Under 8 category at the World Cadet Championship held in Egypt. Sivanandan’s remarkable win not only marked England’s first triumph in a world youth championship in 25 years but also completed a rare and historic triple crown achievement. In June, she claimed two world championship titles in rapid and blitz in Batumi, Georgia, mirroring her 2022 victories. Her recent win in Egypt makes it a triple crown in the Girls Under 8 category, with an undefeated streak in all 32 games across the three events. The young prodigy’s dominance was evident throughout the tournament, securing the title with a round to spare, boasting a significant two-point…2 min
British Chess Magazine|November 2023A TRIO AT THE TOPThe Guernsey Open attracted three top players, Harry Grieve, Keith Arkell and Danny Gormally, who all finished with 6/7, having drawn their games against each other and won their games against other opponents. The top prizes were 1st £1200, 2nd £600, 3rd £300 and the prizes were shared so each won £700. The prizes were provided by Chessable. GM Keith Arkell has a solid style with strength in endgames and used the Bogo Indian in the following game on his way to joint 1st place. Alexander Hertog – Keith Arkell 47th Guernsey Open 2023 St James GCI (7.3) 1.d4 ♘f6 2.c4 e6 3.♙f3 ♙b4+ 4.♙d2 4...♙xd2+ 4...♕e7 is one of the alternatives here, protecting the bishop on b4; 4...a5 and 4..c5 are also good. 5.♙bxd2 5.♕xd2 d6 6.♙c3 0–0, with…18 min
British Chess Magazine|November 2023ARMSTRONG - THE AUSTRALIAN GRUENFELDIn Purdy’s old and great Chess World magazine, he had a high respect for the opening theory that D.M. Armstrong wrote about and played. In the October 1948 issue, Armstrong wrote a theory article with a game of his in a line that is played today by the very best. He reminded us that Capa and Lasker fought it out on this battlefield back in 1914. Now it’s Caruana and Carlsen and Nakamura and Mamedyarov. With all these chess geniuses producing these games, what is the average player supposed to understand about it all? The key is to take important ideas away. Sure, look at the variations for the best move order, but that won’t make you a better player if you don’t understand the importance of why you’re playing…6 min
British Chess Magazine|November 2023A MULTI-FACETED ART: A REVIEW OF “GRANDMASTER OF AVANT-GARDE: THE CHESS ART OF GALINA SATONINA”, COMPILED AND EDITED BY VLADIMIR KUDRYAVTSEV, ELK AND RUBY 2023The numerous links between art, especially painting, and chess have been a constant theme in pages of the BCM. What we have not done until now, however, is to focus on a female painter who devoted a major part of her work to persons and subjects strongly identified with chess. Still more intriguingly, the artist concerned had to navigate right through the Soviet period, with all the perils facing artistic expression in those 70 years. For Galina Satonina’s life spanned virtually the whole of the 20th century (b. 1905 – d.2000), she was a Kazak, part of her family perished in the bloody 1930s, and she was not afraid to produce works which showed individuals towards whom the Soviet system was not always well inclined. The book before us is…4 min
British Chess Magazine|November 2023Endgame Studies1 A. Wotawa Deutsche Schachblatter 1941 "Draw"(but see below) 2 A. Wotawa Osterreichische Schachzeitung 1952 draw 3 A. Wotawa Deutsche Schachzeitung 1970 win 4 A. Wotawa Deutsche Schachzeitung 1953 draw BUSTED! ’Busted’ means a study which is completely unsound: a draw study where Black can win, or a win study where White can’t win. In the September issue, I told you about test-solving, and shortly after I wrote that column, I had to test-solve eight studies for an online study-solving tourney. I tested our first study this month, the 1941 Wotawa. I successfully solved it, and sat back smugly, because I’d succeeded in solving a toughie, and quickly too. I then tested it using my laptop, which approved. However, I noticed that the diagram is a 7-man position, so, just…3 min
