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| Posted by crafty mailcafe.net 9/18/2005 14:01:54 Play online chess |  Subject: Calling all Benko Gambit Players!Message: | ||||||||||||||||||
| Posted by tag1153 mailcafe.net 9/18/2005 15:00:00 Play online chess | crafty....... Message: tag1153 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Posted by velvetvelour mailcafe.net 9/18/2005 23:08:51 Play online chess | Crash course vs. difficult d4 yahoos Message: In your shoes I would bide my time with ...g6 ...Bg7 ...d6, i.e. a King's Indian setup, waiting for white to play c4, and then commence with a delayed Benko, via ...c5 and ...b5. If your opponent plays a non c4 system such as the Stonewall Attack, Colle System, London System, or Torre Attack, adopting a faux-Grunfeld setup (g6, Bg7, d5, Nbd7, c5) will yield black a fine game. If they end up playing Nc3 before c4 at some point they should be pityed, in my opinion. Alternatively, you could immediatley challenge white's center anyway with ...c5, which is what I, a Benoni player, would most certainly do. Some Benoni Gambit players play ...c5 right off against 1) d4, which is sharp but perfectly sound approach, and usually yields the immediate "push" that black Benoni/Benko players expect. ——— Chess: The best form of defence — It may be a cliche, but in a tight spot attacking can be the best way forward. RB: Hands up those of you who plumped for 1 Rb1. There's no disgrace if you did. Peter Leko, rated 2743 when he played this game, opted for exactly that and went on to draw. It's the move I thought of when I first came across the game, in Drazen Marovic's Secrets of Positional Chess – but is it the best? After a series of miserable failures on my part, the boot's on the other foot this week – it's Dan's turn to solve the chess puzzle. DK: Black's rook has just swept down to c2 attacking the pawn on b2, and although that could be defended with 1 Rb1, my gut feeling tells me not to look at this too deeply ... Posted by crafty | mailcafe.net 9/21/2005 04:21:31 Play online chess BenkoMessage: ——— America Has a New Chess Grandmaster and Three New International Masters — United States chess has rarely, if ever, had a week like the one that ended Saturday. On Saturday, four Americans earned titles at the Berkeley International chess tournament. Samuel Shankland, 19, the reigning United States Junior Champion, became a grandmaster, while Keaton Kiewra, 23, Daniel Naroditsky, 15, and Conrad Holt, 17, all qualified as international masters. Kiewra actually earned a grandmaster norm — the first of three needed for the title — but he still must raise his international rating above 2,400 to satisfy the requirements for the international master title. That is often less difficult than achieving the norms. Tatev Abrahamyan, 22 (she will be 23 on Thursday), earned ... Posted by velvetvelour | mailcafe.net 9/21/2005 10:13:02 Play online chess Humid, Schmid!Message: ——— China Rises, and Checkmates — If there’s a human face on Rising China, it belongs not to some Politburo chief, not to an Internet tycoon, but to a quiet, mild-mannered teenage girl named Hou Yifan. Ms. Hou (whose name is pronounced Ho Ee-fahn) is an astonishing phenomenon: at 16, she is the new women’s world chess champion, the youngest person, male or female, ever to win a world chess championship. And she reflects the way China — by investing heavily in education and human capital, particularly in young women — is increasingly having an outsize impact on every aspect of the world. Napoleon is famously said to have declared, “When China wakes, it will shake the world.” That is becoming ... Posted by nottop | mailcafe.net 9/21/2005 21:54:25 Play online chess other Message: the lines after Nf3 are not hard and the suggestions posted are sound. But the main line is on its death throes. This is well documented in New in Chess and elsewhere. The lines where white plays 6.g3 and 10.Rb1 give black a difficult game. Look for a different opening. This one is done. ——— David Howell surprised at Hastings Masters by young Indians — The 2011 version of the world's longest-running annual chess tournament, kept alive and well by Hastings Borough Council, ended on Wednesday with a tense final round and an upset result. England's youngest chess grandmaster, David Howell, 20, won his first five games but then lost tamely to France's No1 seed, Romain Edouard, who became the sole leader. It seemed the European GMs would fight out first prize until the little-known young Indians surged to the front in the final two rounds in an impressive breakthrough. Deep Sengupta, 22, beat Edouard in what was voted the best game of the chess event and shared the £2,000 top award on 7/9 with Arghyadip Das, 25, while ... Posted by velvetvelour | mailcafe.net 9/21/2005 22:05:47 Play online chess Message: However, if your game plays out as a theory war with someone consulting a book or a database instead of their personal, falliable memory, I suppose the rules are different. ——— Gashimov Wins Reggio Emilia Chess Tournament — Vugar Gashimov of Azerbaijan won the 53rd Reggio Emilia chess tournament on Thursday, edging out Francisco Vallejo Pons of Spain on a tie-breaker. Gashimov and Vallejo Pons were tied for the lead before the last round and both easily drew their games to finish a point ahead of their nearest competitors with 6 points each. Gashimov was declared the winner based on superior Sonneborn-Berger points. Sergei Movsesian of Slovakia, Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and David Navara of the Czech Republic tied for third, each with 5 points. Ivanchuk and Navara respectively won their last round games against Alexander Morozevich of Russia and Nigel Short of England, while Movsesian drew with ... Posted by bonsai | mailcafe.net 9/21/2005 23:37:53 Play online chess Message: Posted by crafty | mailcafe.net 9/22/2005 02:46:19 Play online chess Amateur Chess is differentMessage: Posted by nottop | mailcafe.net 9/22/2005 16:01:06 Play online chess openingsMessage: I believe: 1: All openings require tremendous study. It is not necessary just to keep up with current theory (though it is necessary to keep up with current theory). Understanding of that opening, original analysis and a sceptical and testing view of recent games is also necessary. 2: This workload is best if it is with sound openings that can carry on as the player developes - not one sort of opening for playing against so-so players and then another whole set when one gets better. crafty - beware the smith-morra - the lines where black plays Nf6-d7 are hard to meet. Posted by velvetvelour | mailcafe.net 9/23/2005 10:03:47 Play online chess Reports of Benko's Death are Greatly ExaggeratedMessage: However, chess lends itself to different philosophies and styles of play (Romantic, Hypermodern, Dynamic), with different priorities, which include opening style. We've even had a Romantic/Dynamic world champion (Tal). If a player like Morozovich can break the top ten with as eccentric a repetoire as his (and he'll be competing in San Luis later this week for the World Championship Title) then there's plenty of doubt in the applying a unilateral "correct" paradigm about opening play/theory. That's a reason why the consultation game is mostly a thing of the past, because top players clash too often in individual plans and assessments of positions that arise, and they can't reach a consensus. Raymond Keene, Jeremy Silman, Lev Albert, and Nigel Davies all believe the Benko yields perfectly acceptable counterplay in the main line for black. And if the Benko is some "junk" opening to be discarded later on someone forget to tell Michael Adams, apparently. Reuben Fine even softened on his opinion of the Benko (from "refuted" in 1948 to "uncertain" later on when he was editing chess anthologies and writing books). The Benko Gambit isn't something like the Latvian Gambit or the Budapest, after all. It does boast thematic ideas, whereas those two are mostly trappy rope-a-dope stuff. When I searched through chessgames.com it seemed like the main line wasn't cropping up much, with things like 4) f3, 5) f3, 5) Bg5, 5) e3, and 5) b6 (my preferred line vs. Benko) all getting more milleage. Again, down to style and personal preference. Many players shun winning a pawn if it gives black thematic counterplay. Posted by jstack | mailcafe.net 9/25/2005 09:43:20 Play online chess Interesting QuoteMessage: |