A REAL CHESS ADDICT

CHESS PIECE: JUST FOR FUN

[Bobby Ang]

Several years ago there circulated in the internet a list written by a Pinoy staying in the United States on how to recognize that the people you are with are Filipinos. It is a long list (more than 100 traits), most of which you already know, but let me share with you some of my favorites (and these are all funny and true!).

1. You have uncles and aunts named "Boy," "Girlie," or "Baby."
2. You have relatives whose nicknames consist of repeated syllables like "Jun-Jun," "Ling-Ling," and "Mon-Mon."
3. You decorate your dining room wall with a picture of the "Last Supper."
4. You have a Sto. Nino shrine in your living room.
5. You own a “barrel man” from Baguio
6. Your pantry is never without Spam, Vienna sausage, corned beef, and sardines.
7. You order a "soft drink" instead of soda. Also, you say "rubber shoes" instead of sneakers, "ball pen" instead of pen, “stockings" instead of pantyhose, "pampers" instead of diapers, "ref" or "pridjider" instead of refrigerator, "Colgate" instead of toothpaste, "canteen" instead of cafeteria, and "open" or "close" instead of turn on or turn off (as in the lights).
8. You ask for the bill at a restaurant by making a rectangle in the air.

The reason I mention this is that lately one of our readers sent me a huge excel file consisting of 9,900 lines which he calls his “ultimate chess collection.” It is a compilation over various internet sources of any interesting in the field of chess. Some of the lists cover chess tips, techniques to annoy your opponent, monickers of famous chessplayers, chess horoscope, chess quotations, and the classification system of the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings. Truly a labor of love!

For example, here are some tell-tale signs of a chess addict:

1. You call your girlfriend a “novelty”.
2. You deleted Windows from your PC to have enough space for your computer chess tablebases
3. You think the remark: “get a life” wasn’t directed at you.
4. You keep a chess book and chess set in the bathroom
5. You multiply 8x8 faster than 7x7.

This collection was put together by a chess lover by the name of Edmund “Toto” Beronio, a native of Sultan Kudarat currently employed as the Plant Manager of Rico Philippines Industrial Corporation, a carrageenan factory in Carmona, Cavite.

As he describes himself, his chess career was tainted with tragedy. When Toto was 8 years old, his proud father matched him against Dino, a veteran player in the barber shop. Not only was Edmund beaten but totally demolished. He could still remember the opponent’s statement to the red-faced father, “pare, spirit na lang natitira sa anak mo. Wala nang fighting!”

Many years later, right after Edmund graduated from the Mapua Institute of Technology with a degree in Industrial Engineering (batch 1989), he wnet home to the province. Early in the next morning he rushed to the barber shop which was situated at the back of their house to seek revenge. He almost fainted when he found out that Mang Dino had passed away several years earlier!

Good thing that being a chess lover is not measured in terms of won games. There is still so much to be done – writing, organizing, administering, composing, analyzing, studying, and in the case of Mr. Beronio, collecting.

He is now offering this “Ultimate Chess Collection” free to our BW readers. Anyone who is interested can either email Toto Beronio direct at his address: ewberonio@yahoo.com or email me at the address given below and we will see to it that you get the file. Take note that the worksheet size is 1.1 MB, so make sure you have enough space in your mailbox.

Here are some choice items from his trivia collection with my comments.

On Chess Hustling, he reveals that when Stanley Kubrick was only an aspiring film director in the 1950s, he helped fund his early short films by being a chess “hustler” in New York, playing games for money. Even earlier, in the 1930s, Humphrey Bogart, prior to becoming a movie star in Hollywood, hustled for a living in New York, taking on all comers for 50 cents up to $1 a game. In the 1940s Bogart became a director of both the United States Chess Federation and the Californian State Chess Association.

In the Philippines, everybody has heard of Heber Bartolome and his group “Banyuhay”. Yes, they used to perform at the Chess Center in Timog Avenue every Friday. Did any of you know that when he was a struggling musician in Olongapo he used to hustle in a street corner to help make ends meet?

On Chess Popularity, it has definitely seen better days. You know, the chap on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” (England) asked the audience to help him answer the questions, and 38% thought that ‘gambit’ is a word used in gardening. He believed them and this chess ignorance cost him $2,000.

US President Ford had the right idea to reactivate interest in this royal pastime. He declared the 9th of October 1976 as “National Chess Day” in the United States of America “...to give special recognition to a game that generates challenge, intellectual stimulation and enjoyment for citizens of all ages.”

That is really a great idea for the Philippines.

Now, let us talk about short losses.

Future world champion Tigran Petrosian started his chess career inauspiciously. In his first USSR Championship final in 1949 (Moscow), played when he was 20 years of age, he managed to lose in the first round to Alexander Kotov in 13 moves.

Kotov,Alexander - Petrosian,Tigran V [D36]
URS-ch17 Moscow, 1949
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5 Be7 6.e3 c6 7.Qc2 Ne4?
This is a well-known blunder. Well-known, of course, because of this game.
8.Bxe7 Qxe7 9.Nxd5 cxd5 10.Qxc8+ Qd8 11.Bb5+ Nc6 12.Bxc6+ bxc6 13.Qxc6+ 1–0
Petrosian made his reputation as the toughest man the beat. In fact, he played in 9 chess Olympiads, many of them on top board, between 1958 and 1974, he played 129 games total, out of which he won 78 games drew 50 and lost only 1 game. This was on time against German GM Robert Huebner at Skopje in 1972.

In fact, that loss was only by accident. The position on the board was a difficult rook and pawn endgame which was probably drawn. Anyway, all players are used to the BHB and Russian clocks which had a “flag” located at the top of the clock face which would drop when you exceed the time limit. The Olympiad being held in Skopje, for the first time they were using Yugoslav chess clocks which had a special “count-down” mode – when you reach the last 5 minutes of your allotted time the flag would move in the opposite direction, up, and then suddenly drop down all the way when you run out of time. When you go to a chess club and watch players blitzing away you will notice that the amateurs keep glancing at the clock, while the professionals don’t seem to look at it at all. That is because the professionals have developed the technique of squinting the clock through the corner of their eyes and they can tell by the relative position of the minute hand just how many minutes they still have.

So that was what happened. Petrosian thought that he still had a lot of time and was shocked to suddenly get forfeited for exceeding the time limit. Later that evening over dinner one of his teammates informed him that this loss was televised nationwide, causing him to remark that if he had known he would have forthwith smashed the clock.

Here is another curious short game:

Zapata,Alonso (2480) - Anand,Viswanathan (2555) [C42]
Biel (9), 1988
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Nc3
The usual move for Black now is to either exchange knights on c3, or retreat his knight to f6. Instead, Anand plays a howler:
5...Bf5? 6.Qe2 1-0
Winning a piece because of the pin along the e-file.
So what was that all about?
Apparently in the 1987 San Francisco International Tournament the GMs Tony Miles and Larry Christiansen wanted to take a break and agreed to a short draw in their game. When the time came the two players sat down at the board, blitzed out 20 insignificant moves, exchanged off most of the pieces, and then shook hands on the draw.

Miles,Anthony J (2585) - Christiansen,Larry Mark (2575) [C42]
San Francisco, 1987
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Nc3 Bf5 6.Nxe4 Bxe4 7.d3 Bg6 8.Bg5 Be7 9.Bxe7 Qxe7+ 10.Be2 Nc6 11.0–0 0–0 12.Re1 Rae8 13.Qd2 Ne5 14.d4 Nxf3+ 15.Bxf3 Qd7 16.c3 b6 17.Rxe8 Rxe8 18.Re1 Rxe1+ 19.Qxe1 Kf8 20.g3 ½–½

The Chess Informant (volume 44) picked this up and an editor unthinkingly put the comment “N” (meaning theoretical innovation) on Black’s 5th move.

Just before his game with Zapata Anand was scanning through the Informant and, not aware that Miles-Christiansen was a pre-arranged draw, decided to try out the novelty and the above 6-move loss was what happened.

Christiansen,Larry Mark (2620) - Karpov,Anatoly (2725) [E12]
Hoogovens Wijk aan Zee (2), 01.1993

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.a3 Ba6 5.Qc2 Bb7 6.Nc3 c5 7.e4 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Nc6 9.Nxc6 Bxc6 10.Bf4 Nh5 11.Be3 Bd6? 12.Qd1 1–0

Wijk aan Zee 1993 saw the introduction of knock-out matches instead of the usual round-robin tournament in a bid to make the tournament more exciting. They spared no expense to get Karpov to participate so as to increase the prestige of their experiment.

Karpov gave his sponsors a serious fright by losing his first game in a pitiful twelve moves and bring himself to the brink of elimination. Apparently this blunder steadied his hand as he recovered to beat Christiansen 3.5-2.5, then he defeated John Nunn 1.5-0.5, Valery Salov 1.5-0.5, and finally won the match-tournament with 2.5-1.5 against Miguel Illescas. So all’s well that ends well.

There is so much fascinating trivia to discuss. Let’s have another session on Monday.

"This article first appeared in Bobby Ang's column in Businessworld (Philippines) on 04 August 2006"