Google Earth

The Kenilworth Recreation Center
--home to the Kenilworth Chess Club.

I have been having fun lately with Google Earth, which allows you to view anywhere in the world from old satellite imagery. The images appear to be about 2-years-old or more on average (to judge from various missing additions to houses I know), probably because the CIA would not allow potential enemies access to current imagery. But it is a fantastic service and another coup from Google.

The image above shows the Kenilworth Chess Club from outer space. DG at the Boylestown Chess Club's Weblog links to "the world's largest chessboard" in Idaho. Below is the KCC in relation to Garden State Parkway exit 138. Pretty cool.

The Kenilworth CC in relation to
Garden State Parkway Exit 138.

Hat tip to The Chess Mind for mentioning it on his blog a while back.

Ivanchuk-Onischuk, World Team Championships 2005

White to play after 51...Kc2?

FM Steve Stoyko gives his next lecture on a Black 1.d4 d5 Repertoire focused around the Lasker Variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined (and related lines) at the Kenilworth Chess Club this Thursday from 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. I will have at least one question for Steve: where did Black go wrong in the recent high-level Lasker Defense game Ivanchuk-Onischuk, World Team Championships 2005?

Of course, maybe the answer is that he did not follow Steve's recommendation (from Lecture Two and mentioned again in Lecture Three) to break with ...c5 rather than ...e5 (as Onischuk chose). A second answer may be that White was Super-GM and world #4 Ivanchuk who simply played a marvelous game from beginning to end...

Ivanchuk has been on a roll this year, including a win at the Casino de Barcelona Masters in Spain. Lubomir Kavalek annotates a fascinating Dragon that he won against Felgaer at that tournament, and the game shows that Ivanchuk is in excellent form. As Kavalek and many other have said, he really should have been invited to the recent World Championship tournament in Argentina.

We'll see what Steve says Thursday.

Scott Massey K+P Endings Lecture

White to Play and Win (Botvinnik)

NM Scott Massey gave a wonderful lecture on King and Pawn endings on Thursday, November 3, 2005 at the Kenilworth Chess Club. He used a number of fascinating puzzles to illustrate basic themes and challenged audience members to solve them--playing through and usually refuting their winning tries before revealing or receiving the correct solution. The most difficult problem of the evening was a composition of Botvinnik's given above. What is so amazing is that White can actually win from this position! I have played through the problem with Fritz, however, and the silicon beast may have come up with a "cook." So if you want a truly impossible challenge: find the solution and the possible cook. An even bigger challenge may be to refute the cook, and I will have to pose that to Scott when we next meet.

Scott challenges us with puzzles.

I hope to post a file of all the problems he covered with solutions, but it will take quite a bit of work to put it together. I also have to figure out how to fix some of the issues you will observe in the "Problem" display in Java Applet form. If I find the time.... It's a busy semester and I may not get to it for a while.

Albin Counter Gambit with 5...Nge7!

I have put together a complete article of analysis devoted to the "Morozevich-Mengarini Variation" of the Albin Counter Gambit, which is basically 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 d4 4.Nf3 Nc6 and now 5...Nge7! against most White moves, including 5.Nbd2, 5.g3, and 5.a3 (all analyzed). I have appended the bibliography of sources that has appeared elsewhere on these pages. I think anyone interested in recent developments in the Albin will enjoy it and I welcome feedback and additional analysis here.

List of Articles Posted

I finally got around to updating the links to articles at the main Kenilworth Chess Club website. There you will find currently over 20 articles on opening themes, along with links to lectures, club tournaments, favorite chess books of our members, and the Kenilworth Chess Club Quarterly (which collects all annotated games from The Kenilworthian every three months--next issue due out around Thanksgiving). It's actually getting a bit crowded and I will have to think of a way to make it a little more user-friendly now. But if you want to see at a glance all the most useful articles published at our site or at our blog, this is the place to do it. Check it out.