THE WEEK IN CHESS 71 18/02/96 Mark Crowther --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) Introduction 2) The ACM Man Machine Challenge. 3) Zsuzsa Polgar on the verge of taking the Women's World Title 4) Belgrade 5) Keres Memorial Tournament by Mart Tarmak 6) Calcutta 1-10 February 7) Arnold Eikrem RIP 8) Hallsberg Correction 9) Florencio Campomanes sues Borjal by Bobby Ang 10) PCA 11) Linares 1996 12) Kasparov Simultaneous Exhibition in Rio de Janeiro 13) Rio de Janeiro-Brasil the "III Magistral Naval Club Chess tournament 14) Bern Chess Tournament by Jo Zahner GAMES SECTION ------------- 1) Introduction --------------- My thanks to Bosko Grove, Jo Zahner, Adriano Von Pfuhl Rodrigues, Jonathan Tisdall, Ian Rogers, Jason Luchan, Bobby Ang, Jon Speelman, Bob Wade, Mart Tarmak, TASC, Arthur J. Bieker and the IBM www site for the ACM Man Machine challenge. This was one of those issues where even another day would not have been enough to complete satisfactorily. So forgive some rather rough edges. I certainly wanted to spend longer on the The ACM Man Machine Challenge and much of the Bern material has had to be held over. Also I need more time on the Arnold Eikrem obituary, his passing will have a major effect on Scandinavian chess and the large number of regular visitors to his Gausdal Tournaments. Mark Crowther. 2) The ACM Man Machine Challenge. ------------------------------ Philadelphia USA (USA), II 1996. -------------------------------------------------------------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 -------------------------------------------------------------- Kasparov, Gary g RUS 2775 0 1 = = 1 1 4.0 Deep Blue ---- 1 0 = = 0 0 2.0 2650 -------------------------------------------------------------- Kasparov eventually asserts his authority against Deep Blue. ------------------------------------------------------------ "John Henry says to the Captin, A man ain't noth'en but a man, But before I let the steam drill beat me down, I will die with a hammer in my hand, (Lawd Lawd}... ." The "Story of John Henry" is a traditional American Ballad wherein John Henry dies after winning a contest against a steam drill. * Kasparov was quoted after game 4. "I'm tired from these games and if I was playing a normal human match my opponent would also be exhausted, but here I have something that is not exhausted and it's playing with the same strength." At this point it seemed almost cruel to allow Kasparov to go on! Kasparov was very complimentary of the strength of Deep Blue after winning the match. He was clearly struggling against it until game 5. His draw offer during game 5 seemed to suggest an over respect for the computer and perhaps tiredness on his part. It is hard to judge whether this is a major improvement in computing or not. Certainly Kasparov has had his critics who have suggested that his play was rather naive early in the match. "I think Garry Kasparov had a problem. He was playing Deep Blue as if he wanted to play normal chess. And in my opinion this was a big mistake." Nigel Short in the Observer 18/2/96 GM David Norwood (writing after just 3 games) was even more forthright. "My conclusion is that man machine matches are still something of a chirade. Computers are prepared for humans but we are not really ready for our artificial opponents. Once grandmasters start to know more about the way machines think, the pendulum should swing back in their favour." Yasser Seirawan was more upbeat: "I think it was a brilliant match. I think that DEEP BLUE was a very, very legitimate contender." Kasparov was also very complimentary: "I have no doubt that it's just the first match among many of them that will take place in the future. I strongly believe that competition man versus machine could be a crucial part not only for the world of chess but also for those that would like to see how the future relations between man and computer will develop. I would like first to congratulate IBM team for its outstanding achievement because it's a serious opponent. It's a really serious opponent. I won this match 4 to 2, but it was as tough as a world championship match and, believe me, I played very very seriously." From my point of view Kasparov's game 1 loss probably in the end favoured him. The event got a large quantity of publicity for IBM but perhaps even more it brought Kasparov's name further into the public's mind. This advertising will no doubt stand him in good stead over the next few years. The Contest ----------- It must have come as a tremendous relief to the programmers that Deep Blue functioned well in game 1. The Deep Blue project has been around since 1988, in 1989 an early version played an exhibition match against Kasparov and was soundly beaten. Technical gliches having a bad effect on game 1 of that earlier match. There were in fact technical problems during the match. In the second game Deep Blue lost contact with its opening repertoire a problem caused by a missing file. In game 3 the operator made a typo causing confusion for several minutes. Kasparov's mental processes were somewhat interupted by the system freezing. The games themselves saw Kasparov eventually provoke Deep Blue in the middlegame in game two and take advantage over 35 moves of his long range advantage. The two draws in games 3 and 4 saw Kasparov very much surprised be Deep Blue's decisions. Certainly the machine was better (but not winning) at the end of the forth game. Kasparov who was tiring badly after four games seemed to not be very confident. He offered a draw in game 5 but this was rejected. This seems entirely sensible as this is supposed to be a test of the machinary and the game wasn't completely dead. The Deep Blue program responded by playing very mysteriously indeed, in what was an open position it simply ran its position down over the next few moves. The programmers said afterwards that they would have to study the game at length to understand what went wrong. In a hopelessly lost position the human minders stepped in. The final game saw Kasparov beat the computer very soundly indeed. If he had been playing a human, Kasparov would undoubtably mentioned his draw offer in game 5 of this match as the decisive turning point. The ACM Congress ---------------- The sponsors of the match are "The Association for Computing" and the occasion is both their annual Congress and the 50th Anniversary of ENIAC being shown for the first time. This is the start of an 18 month long celebration of this anniversary which will include exhibitions, symposia by leading figures on the future of computing in a variety of fields and of course the Congress itself which coincided with the match. Deep Blue, Designers and Technical Specifications -------------------------------------------------- Programmers and developers of the program ----------------------------------------- Feng-Hsiung Hsu who has been a research staff member of the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center since 1989. He is the architect and principal designer of DEEP BLUE. Jerry Brody, A. Joseph Hoane, Jr. and Murray Campbell have also been working on Deep Blue project for at least five years. The manager of the project and seior manager of the Parallel System Platforms Department at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. He has been involved in technical and managerial activities in the areas of design automation, optimising compilers, and parallel processing. Deep Blue --------- Deep Blue itself only officially came into existence 3 days before the match commenced. Before that it was only known as Deep Blue prototype. The parallel processing techniques were tried on fewer than the 32 parallel proccessors used here. IBM officially call this system the RISC System/6000 Scalable POWER parallel Systems (SP) high-performance computer. Each node of the SP2 employs a single microchannel card containing 8 dedicated VLSI chess processors, for a total of 256 processors working in tandem. Deep Blue's programming code is developed in C and runs under the AIX operating system. The net result is a scalable, highly parallel system capable of calculating 50 to 100 billion moves within 3 minutes. The computer array used in this match is only 1/16th of the size of the largest commercial computer of this type shipped. Deep Blue is augmented by endgame tablebases of positions with limited material. For instance Kasparov would have been sure to practice the basic ending Queen and King vs Rook and King as it has been shown that Grandmasters struggle to win this ending against tablebases it used to be regarded as a regulation win. Deep Blue played in Hong Kong against a number of microcomputers and failed to win. The main reason for its failure was its opening repertoire. Chess experts try and construct an opening repertoire which avoid positions which are not handled well by the computer or which are known to be poor. Semi-open and Open positions are likely to be the best choice, it is clear that in some cases computers are massively superior to human's here. In addition Deep Blue never accepts a draw so there is also a Grandmaster Joel Benjamin who is there to help the programmers to decide whether to accept a draw or not. Rules ------ The most interesting regulations were those relating to the computer and its operators. In general they follow normal chess rules and the rate of play chosen was: 40 moves in 2 hours, 20 in 1, 30 minutes for the remaining moves. The exceptional rules for this match were: No postponements, if either side fails to show the game would be defaulted. The operator must behave in a non-distracting manner at all times especially when it is Kasparov's turn to move. The operator may be replaced whilst it is the computer's turn to move. Technical problems shall also be solved whilst it is the computer's turn to move. A real chess clock is to be used and that is to be pressed by the computer operator on the completion of the move. In the event of an error by the operator, in communicating the moves to Deep Blue or playing the moves on the board, the clocks will be reset back as close as possible to the original times and the game shall continue from the point of the mistake. In the event of a power failure then the clocks shall be stopped. This is a rough summary of the rules Kasparov and IBM have a detailed contract which it is suggested contains a full set of contingencies. The Prizemoney is $500,000. 80% to the winner, 20% to the loser. 50% each in the case of a draw. Media Coverage -------------- From Radio to Television, from the USA to England to Spain the Kasparov versus Deep Blue has caught the media's attention. On Monday and Tuesday (11th-12th Feb) there were large articles in all the mainstream press in the UK. All four of the broadsheet newspapers have carried large feature pieces, the Guardian using three quarters of the back (sports) page to do so. Whilst there has been a good degree of serious reporting, it is also the case that no opportunity for humour has been resisted. "It calculates 1 billion chess moves every second, but it's still not as bright as you" headlined William Hartston in the Independent on Tuesday, "Man draws level with Monster" countered the Guardian on the same day. The Times also used monster in its headlines and also highlighted the switching on of Eniac again on its 50th anniversary on Wednesday. It didn't managed to mention ACM the actual sponsors of the event though. The Guardian in common with a number of papers used the opportunity for a leader and it at least highlighted the ACM congress and the way the computer might impact on the future. Probably the mainstream (non-chess) media's major hook for the stories was a kind of techno-fear of computers taking over. Perhaps best typified by the cartoon in the Telegraph. Talking over the fence were two housewives. "My husband lost to the toaster at draughts [checkers] this morning". Radio and television reports really continued the theme, but TV footage of Kasparov`s shocked reaction to 20. Rcb1 in Game 3 will probably be my lasting impression. Kasparov got up from the board and looked confident. This confidence was severely shaken by the Rcb1 which was played in just one second. IBM seem to be grabbing the large share of the publicity for the event with an IBM engineer and Malcolm Pein doing a piece together on Radio 5 Live last night. There were a number of technical details there, especially from the rather humourless IBM official. He stressed the non-commercial nature of the program in response to questions about systems crashes and that it would have more bells and whistles if it were commercial. The level of coverage will have made registered with the general public and changed their perception of chess. My guess is that they will already think that computers are better at chess than humans. As mentioned last week the www coverage was excellent and I used it to find the technical facts for this coverage. Last weekend they had over 5 million hits to the site and were getting 1200 attempts to connect per second in order to find the moves live. They split the site so that the moves could be got from a variety of places, and certainly during the last game I had few problems. * Thanks to Arthur J. Bieker for quoting this on the chess-l. 3) Zsuzsa Polgar on the verge of taking the Women's World Title ------------------------------------------------------------ Jaen ESP (ESP), I-II 1996. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Polgar, Zsuzsa g HUN 2550 0 = = 1 1 = 1 1 = = 1 0 . . . . 7.5 2625 Xie Jun g CHN 2530 1 = = 0 0 = 0 0 = = 0 1 . . . . 4.5 2463 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Xie Jun is on the verge of losing her title to Zsuzsa Polgar. She won the title in 1991 when she beat long time Champion Maia Chiburdanidze. She defended it successfully against Nana Ioseliani in Monaco in 1993. In fact Ioseliani had been very much a surprise qualifier for that match as it was generally expected that Zsuzsa Polgar would beat her in the match that acted as qualifier. Now Zsuzsa Polgar who has been the best women's player competing for the title for some time only requires one point out of the remaining 4 games. Xie Jun's victory in game 12 will surely only restore some respectablity to the score. 4) Belgrade -------- Belgrade YUG (ISR), I-II 1996 cat XVI (2639) ---------------------------------------------------------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 ---------------------------------------------------------- 1 Bareev, Evgeny g RUS 2645 * = 1 = 1 1 4.0 2878 2 Salov, Valery g RUS 2670 = * = 1 = = 3.0 2705 3 Karpov, Anatoly g RUS 2770 0 = * = = 1 2.5 2613 4 Leko, Peter g HUN 2625 = 0 = * = 1 2.5 2642 5 Popovic, Petar g YUG 2570 0 = = = * = 2.0 2581 6 Ilincic, Zlatko g YUG 2555 0 = 0 0 = * 1.0 2416 ---------------------------------------------------------- The double round tournament in Belgrade was abandoned at the half way stage. Probably due to financial problems. Another Tournament was held at a different venue with almost the same players, again it was 5 rounds. Belgrade - Stara Pazova ------------------------ Karpov, Anatoly g RUS 2770 12 23.05.51 3.5 Salov, Valery g RUS 2670 11 26.05.64 2.5 Bareev, Evgeny g RUS 2645 9 21.11.66 2.5 Rajkovic, Dusan g YUG 2485 23 17.06.42 2.5 Ivkov, Borislav g YUG 2455 53 12.11.33 2.5 Ilincic, Zlatko g YUG 2555 41 10.05.68 1.5 5) Keres Memorial Tournament by Mart Tarmak ----------------------------------------- The Paul Keres memorial tournament was played in Parnu. My thanks to Mart Tarmak for his coverage and a complete collection of the games. Below are the tables and results from the three tournaments. Round 1 (1996.02.02) Short, Nigel D - Khalifman, Alexander 1/2 19 B40 Sicilian Oll, Lembit - Hracek, Zbynek 1-0 48 B65 Sicilian Sokolov, Ivan - Ehlvest, Jaan 1/2 31 E32 Nimzo indian Round 2 (1996.02.03) Short, Nigel D - Oll, Lembit 1-0 32 B01 Scandinavian Khalifman, Alexander - Ehlvest, Jaan 1/2 16 D43 Queen's gambit Hracek, Zbynek - Sokolov, Ivan 1-0 81 C88 Ruy Lopez Round 3 (1996.02.04) Ehlvest, Jaan - Hracek, Zbynek 1/2 13 A17 English; 1.c4 Oll, Lembit - Khalifman, Alexander 1/2 13 E15 Nimzo indian Sokolov, Ivan - Short, Nigel D 1/2 29 E11 Bogo indian Round 4 (1996.02.05) Ehlvest, Jaan - Oll, Lembit 1/2 16 D63 Queen's gambit Hracek, Zbynek - Short, Nigel D 0-1 62 B48 Sicilian Sokolov, Ivan - Khalifman, Alexander 1/2 44 A57 Wolga gambit Round 5 (1996.02.06) Short, Nigel D - Ehlvest, Jaan 1/2 17 C86 Ruy Lopez Khalifman, Alexander - Hracek, Zbynek 1-0 30 C80 Ruy Lopez Oll, Lembit - Sokolov, Ivan 1/2 16 D91 Gruenfeld indian Round 6 (1996.02.08) Khalifman, Alexander - Short, Nigel D 0-1 60 E12 Nimzo indian Ehlvest, Jaan - Sokolov, Ivan 1/2 41 C88 Ruy Lopez Hracek, Zbynek - Oll, Lembit 1-0 34 B81 Sicilian Round 7 (1996.02.09) Ehlvest, Jaan - Khalifman, Alexander 1/2 24 B12 Caro-Kann Oll, Lembit - Short, Nigel D 1/2 13 C01 French; Exchange Sokolov, Ivan - Hracek, Zbynek 0-1 36 E11 Bogo indian Round 8 (1996.02.10) Short, Nigel D - Sokolov, Ivan 1/2 17 C89 Ruy Lopez Khalifman, Alexander - Oll, Lembit 1/2 24 D85 Gruenfeld indian Hracek, Zbynek - Ehlvest, Jaan 0-1 40 C92 Ruy Lopez Round 9 (1996.02.11) Short, Nigel D - Hracek, Zbynek 0-1 102 B32 Sicilian Khalifman, Alexander - Sokolov, Ivan 1-0 44 E61 Kings indian Oll, Lembit - Ehlvest, Jaan 1/2 22 C92 Ruy Lopez Round 10 (1996.02.13) Ehlvest, Jaan - Short, Nigel D 0-1 40 B93 Sicilian; Najdorf Hracek, Zbynek - Khalifman, Alexander 1/2 11 C90 Ruy Lopez Sokolov, Ivan - Oll, Lembit 1-0 22 D00 Queen's pawn Parnu EST (EST), II 1996. cat. XVII (2655) --------------------------------------------------------------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 --------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Short, Nigel D g ENG 2665 ** =1 =1 10 1= == 6.5 2763 2 Khalifman, Alexander g RUS 2650 =0 ** == 1= == =1 5.5 2692 3 Ehlvest, Jaan g EST 2660 =0 == ** =1 == == 5.0 2654 4 Hracek, Zbynek g CZE 2650 01 0= =0 ** 01 11 5.0 2656 5 Oll, Lembit g EST 2640 0= == == 10 ** =0 4.0 2586 6 Sokolov, Ivan g BIH 2665 == =0 == 00 =1 ** 4.0 2581 --------------------------------------------------------------- Round 1 (1996.02.02) Kveinys, Aloyzas - Sepp, Olav 1/2 35 E68 Kings indian Kengis, Edvins - Westerinen, Heikki M J 1/2 41 A07 Reti (1.Pf3) Veingold, Aleksandr - Epishin, Vladimir 1/2 14 E05 Nimzo indian Liiva, Riho - Gyimesi, Zoltan 1-0 61 C28 1.e4 e5 Rytshagov, Mikhail - Kulaots, Kaido 1/2 29 B48 Sicilian Round 2 (1996.02.03) Kveinys, Aloyzas - Kengis, Edvins 1/2 9 B02 Alekhine defence Kulaots, Kaido - Veingold, Aleksandr 1/2 33 D01 Queen's pawn Sepp, Olav - Epishin, Vladimir 0-1 44 B92 Sicilian; Najdorf Gyimesi, Zoltan - Rytshagov, Mikhail 1/2 27 D82 Gruenfeld indian Westerinen, Heikki M J - Liiva, Riho 0-1 44 C30 Kings gambit Round 3 (1996.02.04) Epishin, Vladimir - Kulaots, Kaido 1-0 48 D26 Queen's gambit; Exchange Kengis, Edvins - Sepp, Olav 1-0 58 E62 Kings indian Veingold, Aleksandr - Gyimesi, Zoltan 1-0 24 D21 Queen's gambit; Exchange Liiva, Riho - Kveinys, Aloyzas 0-1 38 B43 Sicilian Rytshagov, Mikhail - Westerinen, Heikki M J 1/2 46 B01 Scandinavian Round 4 (1996.02.05) Kveinys, Aloyzas - Rytshagov, Mikhail 1/2 46 B81 Sicilian Kengis, Edvins - Liiva, Riho 1-0 73 D11 Slav defence Sepp, Olav - Kulaots, Kaido 0-1 69 B20 Sicilian Gyimesi, Zoltan - Epishin, Vladimir 1-0 45 E46 Nimzo indian Westerinen, Heikki M J - Veingold, Aleksandr 1/2 16 B22 Sicilian; Alapin (2.c3) Round 5 (1996.02.06) Epishin, Vladimir - Westerinen, Heikki M J 1-0 39 D20 Queen's gambit; Exchange Veingold, Aleksandr - Kveinys, Aloyzas 1/2 13 D63 Queen's gambit Kulaots, Kaido - Gyimesi, Zoltan 1/2 12 C45 Scottish Liiva, Riho - Sepp, Olav 1/2 46 C48 Four knights Rytshagov, Mikhail - Kengis, Edvins 1-0 39 B56 Sicilian Round 6 (1996.02.08) Kveinys, Aloyzas - Epishin, Vladimir 1/2 40 B12 Caro-Kann Kengis, Edvins - Veingold, Aleksandr 1/2 12 A05 Reti (1.Pf3) Liiva, Riho - Rytshagov, Mikhail 1/2 17 B52 Sicilian Sepp, Olav - Gyimesi, Zoltan 1-0 40 B50 Sicilian Westerinen, Heikki M J - Kulaots, Kaido 1/2 76 C36 Kings gambit Round 7 (1996.02.09) Epishin, Vladimir - Kengis, Edvins 1/2 34 E15 Nimzo indian Veingold, Aleksandr - Liiva, Riho 1/2 56 D52 QGD; Cambridge Springs Kulaots, Kaido - Kveinys, Aloyzas 1/2 28 B51 Sicilian Rytshagov, Mikhail - Sepp, Olav 1/2 41 C92 Ruy Lopez Gyimesi, Zoltan - Westerinen, Heikki M J 1/2 14 D02 Queen's pawn Round 8 (1996.02.10) Kveinys, Aloyzas - Gyimesi, Zoltan 1-0 37 C48 Four knights Kengis, Edvins - Kulaots, Kaido 1/2 30 A04 Reti (1.Pf3) Liiva, Riho - Epishin, Vladimir 1/2 34 B22 Sicilian; Alapin (2.c3) Rytshagov, Mikhail - Veingold, Aleksandr 1/2 17 B80 Sicilian Sepp, Olav - Westerinen, Heikki M J 1/2 62 A07 Reti (1.Pf3) Round 9 (1996.02.11) Epishin, Vladimir - Rytshagov, Mikhail 1-0 39 D85 Gruenfeld indian Veingold, Aleksandr - Sepp, Olav 1/2 19 E94 Kings indian; Classical Kulaots, Kaido - Liiva, Riho 1/2 12 C48 Four knights Gyimesi, Zoltan - Kengis, Edvins 1/2 9 E14 Nimzo indian Westerinen, Heikki M J - Kveinys, Aloyzas 0-1 27 B22 Sicilian; Alapin (2.c3) Parnu EST (EST), II 1996. cat. X (2486) --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Epishin, Vladimir g RUS 2645 * = = = 1 = 1 1 0 1 6.0 2592 2 Kveinys, Aloyzas g LTU 2500 = * = = = 1 = = 1 1 6.0 2608 3 Kengis, Edvins g LAT 2570 = = * = = 1 0 1 = = 5.0 2519 4 Veingold, Aleksandr m EST 2425 = = = * = = = = 1 = 5.0 2535 5 Kulaots, Kaido m EST 2400 0 = = = * = = 1 = = 4.5 2495 6 Liiva, Riho EST 2425 = 0 0 = = * = = 1 1 4.5 2492 7 Rytshagov, Mikhail m EST 2495 0 = 1 = = = * = = = 4.5 2484 8 Sepp, Olav m EST 2440 0 = 0 = 0 = = * 1 = 3.5 2410 9 Gyimesi, Zoltan m HUN 2545 1 0 = 0 = 0 = 0 * = 3.0 2353 10 Westerinen, Heikki M J g FIN 2410 0 0 = = = 0 = = = * 3.0 2368 --------------------------------------------------------------------- The C Tournament was won by Johanna Paasikangas of Finland ----------------------------------------------------------- Parnu EST (EST), II 1996. cat. II (2277) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Paasikangas, Johanna wm FIN 2200 * 1 0 0 1 1 = 1 0 1 5.5 2365 2 Eidelson, Rakhil wg BLR 2370 0 * = 1 = 0 = 1 1 = 5.0 2309 3 Kovalevskaya, Ekaterina wm RUS 2335 1 = * = 0 = = = = 1 5.0 2313 4 Laesson, Tuulikki wm EST 2245 1 0 = * = = = 1 = = 5.0 2323 5 Litinskaya, Marta I wg UKR 2355 0 = 1 = * = 1 = = = 5.0 2311 6 Tsiganova, Monika wm EST 2280 0 1 = = = * = = 1 = 5.0 2319 7 Piarnpuu, Leili wm EST 2245 = = = = 0 = * = 0 1 4.0 2237 8 Dubinka, Inna wm UKR 2235 0 0 = 0 = = = * 1 = 3.5 2201 9 Fomina, Tatyana wm EST 2305 1 0 = = = 0 1 0 * 0 3.5 2193 10 Stjazhkina, Olga wg RUS 2200 0 = 0 = = = 0 = 1 * 3.5 2205 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Calcutta 1-10 February ---------------------- My thanks to Jon Speelman and Bob Wade for news of this 11 round Swiss tournament in Calcutta. Sponsored by the Goodrich tea Company (which is part of the Duncan Lawrie Banking Group who have sponsored English Olympiad teams over a number of years) which operates in Darjeeling and Assam. Nenashev, Alexander g UZB 2595 64 25.08.62 8 /11 Novikov, Igor A g UKR 2590 62 23.05.62 8 Speelman, Jonathan S g ENG 2625 6 02.10.56 8 Sherbakov, Ruslan g RUS 2565 39 14.09.69 7.5 Slobodjan, Roman m GER 2525 33 01.01.75 7.5 Volzhin, Alexander m RUS 2485 29 02.02.71 7.5 Dolmatov, Sergey g RUS 2610 18 20.02.59 7.5 Ravi, Lanka m IND 2390 13 14.07.62 7.5 Howell, James C g ENG 2490 76 17.05.67 7 Norms achieved: Kunte, Abhijit IND 2345 28 03.03.77 IM NORM Sareen, Vishal IND 2300 9 01.01.73 IM NORM Shankar, Roy IND 2295 22 10.04.76 IM NORM 72 players 7) Arnold Eikrem RIP ------------------ Arnold Eikrem one of the great chess organisers in the World died on Sunday. Although his name is not well known to casual followers of the game he was the organiser of the Gausdal tournaments and other events in Scandinavia. He was respected Worldwide and his death is immensely sad and a massive loss to chess. If anyone has any memories of Arnold I know someone who is hoping to put together a tribute for him and if you could get in touch with me I will pass on your address. I will provide a fuller obituary in a later issue. 8) Hallsberg Correction -------------------- The tournament in Hallsberg, Sweden was the 31st in a series of junior events, which has expanded to include three GMs for title purposes. I erroneously placed it in Norway in the last issue of TWIC. 9) Florencio Campomanes sues Borjal by Bobby Ang --------------------------------------------- Last 07 February 1996, Florencio Campomanes filed a Fifty Million Peso lawsuit (this would be around US $1.9 Million) against Art Borjal for criminal libel. As evidence he attached the following to his complaint : 1. Xerox copies of 22 articles written by Borjal in his daily column ("The Jaywalker") which he described as "smear campaign, vituperative and brutal". In particular he singled out one article which referred to Campomanes as the "baton master and conductor" of the 300 Million Pesos (around US $11.5 million) financial scam that allegedly attended the 1992 Chess Olympiad in Manila. 2. A sworn statement from the sports editor of a popular daily newspaper detailing Borjal's so-called "smear campaign" against Campomanes via overseas call from Manila to Paris during the 66th FIDE Congress in Paris. 10) PCA ------- Jason Luchan who posted the initial report points out that the PCA tournament which will act as an eliminator. A new PCA Rating list has become available. It shows Kasparov as World number one still but the closeness between the top three is confirmed. PCA World Chess Rankings For all players rated 2500 and higher Results up to December 31 1995 Produced Vladimir Dvorkovich, Chess Union International with ChessBase GmbH Columns: rank, name, nationality, rating, variance. The last column, variance, gives the tendency of players to be solid or vary in their performance. The average variance for top players is 180. Higher numbers denote players who tend to vary more, lower numbers are players who are solid and reliable. 1. Kasparov,Gary RUS 2780 157 2. Kramnik,Vladimir RUS 2775 147 3. Karpov,Anatoly RUS 2770 147 4. Anand,Viswanathan IND 2766 160 5. Kamsky,Gata USA 2754 166 6. Ivanchuk,Vassily UKR 2740 158 7. Topalov,Veselin BUL 2700 186 8. Polgar,Judit (GM) HUN 2694 194 9. Ehlvest,Jaan EST 2683 138 10. Gelfand,Boris BLA 2675 181 11. Shirov,Alexei LAT 2662 169 12. Sokolov,Ivan BIH 2662 170 13. Khalifman,Alexander RUS 2661 137 14. Salov,Valery RUS 2650 181 15. Bareev,Evgeny RUS 2648 149 16. Almasi,Zoltan HUN 2647 172 17. Short,Nigel D ENG 2644 190 18. Svidler,Peter RUS 2642 170 19. Adams,Michael ENG 2641 195 20. Yusupov,Artur GER 2639 115 21. Morosevic,Alexander RUS 2634 209 22. Kosashvili,Yona ISR 2633 194 23. Korchnoi,Viktor SUI 2632 172 24. Illescas Cordoba,Miguel ESP 2628 178 25. Speelman,Jonathan S ENG 2627 157 26. Krasenkov,Mikhail RUS 2627 187 27. Kharlov,Andrei RUS 2626 158 28. Rublevsky,Sergei RUS 2623 171 29. Seirawan,Yasser USA 2623 188 30. Leko,Peter HUN 2621 150 31. Akopian,Vladimir ARM 2621 151 32. Dreev,Alexey RUS 2617 154 33. Nikolic,Predrag BIH 2616 198 34. Epishin,Vladimir RUS 2616 161 35. Lputian,Smbat G ARM 2615 202 36. Granda Zuniga,Julio E PER 2614 214 37. Vladimirov,Evgeny KAZ 2611 163 38. Timman,Jan H NED 2610 167 39. Huzman,Alexander UKR 2609 148 40. Oll,Lembit EST 2609 189 41. Georgiev,Kiril BUL 2609 182 42. Nunn,John D M ENG 2608 174 43. Hansen,Curt DEN 2607 180 44. Hracek,Zbynek TCH 2607 147 45. Christiansen,Larry M USA 2605 181 46. Yudasin,Leonid ISR 2605 149 47. Zvjaginsev,Vadim RUS 2604 144 48. Magerramov,Elmar RUS 2604 188 49. Tiviakov,Sergei RUS 2604 197 50. Glek,Igor V RUS 2603 168 51. Huebner,Robert GER 2602 157 52. Beliavsky,Alexander G UKR 2602 178 53. Andersson,Ulf SWE 2601 142 54. Filippov,Valerij RUS 2600 146 11) Linares 1996 ---------------- It is reported that Linares 1996 is almost certainly cancelled. 12) Kasparov Simultaneous Exhibition in Rio de Janeiro ------------------------------------------------------------------ by Adriano Von Pfuhl Rodrigues. Here are the games Kasparov 5 X 1 Brazilian team My considerations about the simultan games: Game #1 Kasparov, G 1/2-1/2 GM Milos 27 B 48 Kasparov dont want more complications in the final position and probaly black is slight better. Game #2 Lima,D 1/2-1/2 Kasparov,G 20 E 94 The game dont have emotion .Is not a saloom GM draw because Lima is not (yet) GM. Game #3 Kasparov,G 1-0 Vescovi, G 48 E 93 Vescovi play active but Kasparov controlled all and win easily. Game #4 Toth,C 0-1 Kasparov, G 43 D35 Toth play the game thinking in draw...Kasparov no!! Game #5 Kasparov 1-0 Gouveia,C 46 B 31 Gouveia dont lost in the middlegame but in the endgame with Kasparov better the result is Kasparov win! Game #6 Miranda,M 0-1 Kasparov,G A46 The WC play here! Playing against 6 strong players , Kasparov kill Miranda. 13) Rio de Janeiro-Brasil the "III Magistral Naval Club Chess tournament --------------------------------------------------------------------- It was held in Rio de Janeiro-Brasil the "III Magistral Naval Club Chess tournment" ,from February 3 to 10. Eduardo Limp won his third tournment on a row playing always against the best Brazilian players. The organization was impecable and IA Alfred Salomon and Francisco Figueiredo were the arbiters. Player Rating R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 Pts ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Limp,E 2320 +27 =18 +25 =2 +9 =8 +5 5,5 2 Rodrigues,A 2270 +14 =3 +11 =1 =5 +6 =8 5,0 3 Alvim,A 2175 +15 =2 =8 =7 +18 =9 +13 5,0 4 Prates,F 2240 =17 -25 +28 +26 =7 +18 +9 5,0 5 Loureiro,L 2370 =25 +17 +18 =9 =2 +10 -1 4,5 6 Guimaraes,W 2270 +16 +12 -9 =10 +25 -2 +15 4,5 7 Dumont,S 2305 +20 =11 =10 =3 =4 =13 +14 4,5 8 Rios,H 2345 -10 +28 =3 +20 +13 =1 =2 4,5 9 Metello,M 2205 +23 +13 +6 =5 -1 =3 -4 4,0 10 Teixeira,E unrated +8 =19 =7 =6 +12 -5 =11 4,0 11 Chaves,J 2205 +26 =7 -2 -25 +21 +16 =10 4,0 12 Ferreira,O 2165 +21 -6 +22 -13 -10 +24 +18 4,0 13 Souza,W 2285 +22 -9 +16 +12 -8 =7 -3 3,5 14 Cantarino,M unrated -2 +15 =27 -18 +26 +25 -7 3,5 15 Marcolino,A unrated -3 -14 +23 +27 =16 +21 -6 3,5 16 Carvalho,C unrated -6 +21 -13 +19 =15 -11 =22 3,0 17 Madeu,F unrated =4 -5 -20 -24 +23 =22 bye 3,0 18 Okamura,M 2250 +24 =1 -5 +14 -3 -4 -12 2,5 19 Azevedo,K 2230 =28 =10 N.E. -16 =22 =20 =23 2,5 20 Mercadante,R unrated -7 =26 +17 -8 -24 =19 =21 2,5 21 Susini,M unrated -12 -16 bye +22 -11 -15 =20 2,5 22 Borensztajn,D unrated -13 +23 -12 -21 =19 =17 =16 2,5 23 Lima,N unrated -9 -22 -15 +28 -17 bye =19 2,5 24 Campos,W unrated -18 =27 -26 +17 +20 -12 **** 2,5 25 Coutinho,R 2060 =5 +4 -1 +11 -6 -14 **** 2,5 26 Santos,A unrated -11 =20 +24 -4 -14 **** **** 1,5 27 Silva,D unrated -1 =24 =14 '-25 **** **** **** 1,0 28 Mello,P unrated =19 -8 -4 -23 **** **** **** 0,5 14) Bern Chess Tournament by Jo Zahner ---------------------------------- The Bern Chess Festival had numerous events including a match, rapidplay tournament and at least two strong Swiss system events. Bern SUI (SUI), II 1996. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Korchnoi, Viktor g SUI 2645 1 1 1 = = 1 5.0 2783 Brunner, Lucas g SUI 2510 0 0 0 = = 0 1.0 2372 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Viktor Korchnoi annihilated Lucas Brunner in a match. (I believe this was at the start of the festival but am just guessing. MC) I will cover the International Opens and Cups in nexts week's TWIC.