Kopec Winning the Won Game

Lessons from the Albert Brilliancy Prizes
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-84994-338-3
Verlag: Batsford
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 208 Seiten

Every chessplayer who aspires to achieve chess mastery must learn the techniques for winning a won game. It is the perennial problem which confronts players at all levels of play. This book will enable chessplayers to better recognize their positional advantages and the ways in which these can be used in order to bring them closer to victory. It also provides many instructive examples of using this knowledge to reach a faster and more spectacular victory.   Mr. Paul M. Albert, Jr. has been donating over $2000 per year to the most brilliantly played at both the Women's and Men's United States Championships for over 20 years. This book presents, describes and illustrates the most significant examples, with emphasis on what can be learned from them in terms of winning a won game.

Dr Danny Kopec is an International Master. He has also written Mastering The Sicilian (0713484829) for Batsford. Lives in Merrick, New York. His co-author is Grandmaster Lubomir Ftacnik who lives in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kopec, Danny

Leseproben

Foreword

It gives me great pleasure to introduce this highly instructive book by International Master Dr. Danny Kopec and Grandmaster Lubomir Ftacnik based on the games that have won the Paul M. Albert, Jr. Brilliancy Prizes at the U.S. Chess Championship. I have had the honor of providing these prizes that recognize outstanding, creative achievement for approximately 20 years and am pleased that the record of excellence that these games represent could also provide the basis for this book, which can both help chess players of many levels improve their own chess as well as promote a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the level of excellence of master level chess players in serious competition.

In order to understand the origins of the Brilliancy Prizes and this book, a little background about me and my interest in chess will be helpful. My introduction to chess was probably similar to that of many Americans, particularly since it was well before Bobby Fischer’s rise to the World Chess Championship stimulated some broader interest. I found a chess set in the closet and my parents, who knew little more than how to move the pieces, taught me what they knew. Fortunately, we had an with a good chapter on chess, so I was able to learn chess notation, some basic strategy and tactics, and to play over a master level game which just happened to be Paul Morphy’s brilliant win at the Paris Opera over Count Isouard and the Duke of Brunswick, so I had an immediate introduction to the queen sacrifice to achieve checkmate. I then read books on my own and learned about and subscribed to , but had no instruction from strong players. On that limited base, I became strong enough to win for example the Lehigh Valley, PA Junior Championship at 18, play with middling results in the Pennsylvania State Open Championship and U.S. Junior Open Championship, and then play on the team at Princeton University, but neither talent, nor knowledge, nor training enabled me to be more than a serious, but non-master, amateur player. Then military service, business school, an investment banking career, and family obligations relegated my chess activities to an occasional game and the following of world class chess in books and magazines, but no rated games in serious competition for over 40 years.

However, by happenstance, investment banking provided an opportunity for a new aspect of connection with chess. An Executive Vice President of one of our clients was named James Sherwin and when I became part of the team working on various projects for that company and met him, I learned with delight that it was in fact International Master Jimmy Sherwin who was also President and Trustee of the American Chess Foundation to which I had previously made contributions. When he learned of my serious interest in chess and willingness to provide financial support, he invited me to become a Trustee of the Foundation. This was in the late 70s and I served as a Trustee until 2003, giving me both an opportunity to support chess as well as to meet and to learn from many of the top players in the world.

I have always believed that excellence in any field should be both recognized and rewarded, and such certainly was not the case in American chess in that era, so I proposed to Jimmy Sherwin and ACF Executive Director Allen Kaufman that I would be willing to provide all the funds to the ACF to recognize brilliant games played at the U.S. Chess Championship, which also would have the effect of supplementing what was then a very meager prize fund. They concurred that my proposal was consistent with the broad ACF objectives of supporting American chess, would certainly be welcomed by the top level U.S. players whose opporunities for professional financial reward were limited, and importantly, because of my total financial coverage of the prize fund, would not draw on the ACF resources needed for its other chess activities. Accordingly, they also felt that naming the prizes after the donor was appropriate. Thus the groundwork was laid for the Paul M. Albert, Jr. Brilliancy Prizes and for the creative and instructive games in this book.

My principal role in the establishment of the Brilliancy Prizes was conceiving the idea and providing the funds. Not being a master, my involvement in setting the criteria or being involved in the judging was certainly inappropriate. Accordingly, administration of the necessary details was left in the capable and dedicated hands of long time ACF Executive Director Allen Kaufman, including the coordination with the United States Chess Federation who organized the championship tournaments and arrangement of a process for judging and awarding the prizes.

Exactly what is brilliant in chess can be misunderstood, particularly by non masters, and the selection of Grandmaster Arthur Bisguier, who was the judge for the preponderance of the prizes, was an important reason that the selected games are of such high quality and so worthy of being used for instructive purposes. In my discussions with Arthur on this topic, he has emphasized the need for creative and innovative ideas, but executed precisely against formidable opposition. Contrary to the impression of neophytes who tend to associate brilliancy primarily with sacrifices of material for quick and decisive wins, e.g., a queen sacrifice leading to a quick mate, this is not what my prizes or this book is about. Those kind of sacrifices are easy to calculate and certain to be seen at the master level, so it takes something much deeper to win brilliancy prizes, and it takes hard and thorough analysis of many candidate games by a very knowledgeable GM such as Arthur to select the ones that are the most worthy of a prize. In fact, only one of the winning games involved a queen sacrifice, but it was a long term one that enhanced the mobility and attacking power of a rook and a bishop, thus overcoming the material deficit created by giving up the queen.

The authors of this book also have discussed in more depth the concept of exactly what is a brilliancy in chess. One of the merits of using the games that have won my prizes over a 20 year period to illustrate the challenge of winning a so-called won game is that the are not limited to one theme. Consequently, the authors have been able to analyze and to discuss games which both highlight numerous creative aspects of chess as well as to illustrate the diverse challenges associated with turning an advantage into a win.

Arthur Bisguier’s dedication to objectivity in the judging is illustrated by the fact that he got the game scores for analysis without the players’ names so that he would not be influenced by his personal knowledge of individual player styles and also to avoid any suggestion of personal friendships being a factor. This rigorous and impartial approach resulted in one amusing situation. In 1995, Arthur submitted the games he had selected for the 1st and 2nd prizes for the Women’s Championship, not knowing that the top two games were both by the same player Anna Hahn. Being informed of this unusual situation, Arthur reasoned that the two best games should win, so Anna is the only player in the history of the prizes that won two prizes in the same year.

As a serious chess player, financial benefactor of chess, and a chess fan, I have derived much personal pleasure from being associated with the Brilliancy Prizes, particularly because I have gotten to meet and develop a degree of friendship with many of the winners and they have been generous in sharing their enormous chess knowledge with me, particularly sharing their analysis of winning games. Especially noteworthy are Joel Benjamin, Walter Browne, Larry Christiansen, Nick de Firmian, John Fedorowicz, Michael Rohde, and Yasser Seirawan, and also women’s prize winners Inna Izrailov Koren and Anna Hahn. From all I have learned much that has improved my understanding and appreciation of chess as it is played at the master level, and their introductions to their master colleagues has enabled me to meet, learn from, and enjoy the company of many other outstanding players.

I would like to share one anecdote which I think emphasizes the level of creativity and understanding of the players whose games are contained in this book. The one queen sacrifice game which I mentioned above was GM Michael Rohde’s brilliant win over Boris Kogan. Shortly after the announcement of the prize, I invited Michael to lunch and he was gracious enough to go over the game with me. During the course of the game analysis he commented to me that he was surprised that he had won the prize for that game, indicating that in his judgment any GM could see that the queen sacrifice was the only logical continuation to attempt to achieve a winning advantage from the position. Needless to say, it was not obvious to me, but Michael’s observation enhanced further my deep appreciation for his creative talent as well as all master level players of chess.

In 1996, a switch from full time investment banking to consulting and corporate directorships left me a little more time for my non-business interests including chess, and I started to become active again by playing in rated tournaments and getting more directly involved in the areas of chess to which I had been lending financial support such as attending and awarding the prizes at armed forces and army chess events and being a spectator at master level competitions.

In 2000, for the first time I was able to attend a U.S. Chess Championship and by getting more directly involved in some of the administrative aspects was able to assure that...