Mr Phil Makepeace

The following item refers to this:

Dear Mr Makepeace

I too regret that it has come to this. You say that you have repeatedly asked me to qualify my comments or apologise. In fact, prior to your open letter, your only request for an apology or retraction was made on 26 February, in which you demanded "an apology on your blog". Given that the original comments appeared on my Facebook ("FB") wall, not my blog, it seemed to me that the former was the appropriate place for any response to appear. I therefore replied to you the same evening, offering instead to publish something on my FB wall, where the orginal comments had appeared; you did not reply, and when pressed for an answer two days later, indicated solely that you would proceed with your open letter.

I continue to believe that the appropriate place for any response is FB, rather than here, but rather than go on disputing the point, I am writing here anyway. I wish to state the following:

1. I withdraw the comments concerned and apologise unreservedly for publishing them.
   
   
2. I regret that I cannot name my source without his permission, which is not forthcoming. The remarks were made to me in a private communication, and I clearly should never have repeated them, even anonymously, without first obtaining the source's agreement. However, he is fully aware of your rebuttal, and has made clear to me that he will not repeat his comments.

As you note, this is not the first occasion when you and I have published scathing comments about one another.  For my own part, I can guarantee that it will be the last. The principal lesson I draw from this incident is that it is far too easy for what starts out as satirical fun-poking to turn into something much more spiteful and embittered. That was never the intention when I started my blog, but reviewing the past 18 months' activity, it is clear to me that the tone of both the blog and related discussions has gradually changed and become much more unpleasant, on all sides. As a result, I am closing down the blog with immediate effect, and this posting will be the last.

Steve Giddins

Worthy tribute - the solution

White to play and win

David Gurgenidze, 1st Pr, Botvinnik 100 MT 2012

To win, White obviously needs to exploit the poor position of the enemy king.
1. Qa8+ Bg8 2. Qa1+ Kh7 3. Qb1+ The start of a typical "staircase"manoeuvre, which brings to the queen to d7. Kh8 4. Qb2+ Kh7 5. Qc2+ Kh8 6.Qc3+ Kh7 7. Qd3+ Kh8 8. Qd4+ Kh7 9. Qd7 

This initially looks decisive, but Black has a nice resource.
9...Bf7+! 10. exf7 (10. Kxg4? Bxe6+) 10... Qxd7 11.f8=N+ Kh8 12. Nxd7 g3 13. Kg6!
The final subtlety. There is a chance to go wrong here with 13.Ne5?, after which Black draws by 13...Kh7! eg. 14. Nf3 g2 15. Nxg5+ Kh8 16. Nf3 Kh7 and White can make no progress.
13... g2 14.Ne5 g1=Q 15. Nf7+ Kg8 16. h7+ Kf8 17. h8=Q+ Ke7 18. Qd8+ Ke6 19. Qd6#

A fine piece of work, with which The Patriarch would have been very pleased, I suspect!

Graffiti genius

Spotted this on Facebook yesterday and, in view of the chess connection, I thought it deserved wider publicity. Quite the wittiest piece of graffiti I have seen for years!

The only other truly witty piece of graffiti I have ever seen in a public convenience was in Luxembourg. There was a sign, reading "Please leave this toilet in the same state in which you find it". Somebody had crossed out the word "state" and replaced it with "Grand Duchy"...

Worthy tribute

Another delight that I dug up from the November issue of The Problemist is the following study. It took first prize for the 2012 tourney, held to mark the centenary of the birth of the great Patriarch of Soviet chess, Mikhail Botvinnik. Yes, I know Botvinnik was born in 1911 - the tourney was held that year, but the award only published in 2012!

The winning study was of a type that, to my mind, is all too rare these days - a small number of pieces and practically a single clear line of intelligible play, with no pages of analysis needed to explain why a plausible first move fails because of a computer-generated reciprocal zugzwang 23 moves later. The composer, David Gurgenidze, has long been acknowledged as one of the world's best study composers, but has not been so active in recent years. This comeback success shows he has lost none of his ability.

Solution next week.

White to play and win

David Gurgenidze, 1st Pr. Botvinnik 100, 2012

Proof of the pudding - the solution

I left you with this proof game in 8:

PG 8.0

Satoshi Hashimoto, StrataGems 2000

The key thing in solving such proof games is always to remember Chandler's Law, as expounded to me by Murray, over dinner at a 4NCL one evening! This states that in such problems, whenever there is one knight on b1 and one missing (or vice versa), as here, you can rest assured that the one on b1 actually started out on g1! The second step is to count the moves. Black has clearly made 8 moves - two with the e-pawn, two with the queen, three with the king and one with the f-pawn. He thus has no moves to spare. It is also immediately clear that he must have started by moving the e-pawn and the queen, before then moving the f-pawn and then the king. We can thus be sure that he started with 1...e5, played e4 and Qf6 (in some order or other) on moves two and three, and then 4...Qf3, 5...f5 and 6-8. Kf7-g6-h5. The only unanswered questions are the order of his second and third moves, and whether it was his king or queen which captured the missing white knight.

Turning to White, and applying Chandler's Law as a working hypothesis, it clearly takes at least five moves to get the knight from g1 to b1. That only leaves three moves to offload the other knight, so it follows that the knight must have been captured on f6, as that is the only square it could reach in time to be captured by the black queen or king. Since it takes three moves to get the knight to f6, it follows that Black's second move must have been 2...e4 and his third move 3...Qxf6.

Hence, we have the solution:


1. Nc3 e5 2. Nd5 e4 3. Nf6+ Qxf6 4. Nh3 Qf3 5. Nf4 f5 6. Nd5 Kf7 7. Nc3 Kg6 8.
Nb1 Kh5

"Simples", as that irritating furry little bugger on the TV says.

Proof of the pudding

Catching up last night on the November issue of The Problemist, I came across a nice, short proof game, which should appeal to OTB players. It was used at the annual World Congress of Chess Composition, which was held last autumn in Kobe, Japan. On arrival, each participant was presented with a welcome pack of goodies, which were in a canvas bag. This proof game problem was printed on the side of the bag. One member of the English delegation admits to looking for the solution on the reverse side of the bag, but it was not there, so he was forced to solve it for himself! Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to do the same.

PG 8.0

Satoshi Hashimoto, StrataGems 2000

This position arises after 8 moves by each side. What was the (unique) move sequence?

Solution over the weekend.

Andrew Law RIP

I awoke this morning to the very sad news that Andrew Law, stalwart of Wood Green chess club since the 1980s, died peacefully in his sleep yesterday, aged 62. I did not really know Andrew very well, but saw him many times at the Lloyds Bank Masters and, in later years, the 4NCL He was a talented player, with at least one IM norm to his name, and never an easy prospect as an opponent, even to strong GMs. From my observations, clock trouble was his biggest handicap, as he would take considerable amounts of time to find the absolutely best move, if he was convinced that his opponent's play deserved punishment. Away from the chessboard, I had the impression that he was a rather quiet, somewhat diffident and shy man, but highly intelligent and greatly loved by his friends.

Photo: Cathy Rogers / Chessbase

My condolences go to Andrew's friends and family.

To finish, a smart win against another strong English player of the day: