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Date: 30 Aug 2007 01:41:16
From: help bot
Subject: game annotations
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Once again, in reading the August issue of Chess Life magazine
I have run across some bogus annotations. This time, the game
is from the 2007 Chicago Open and the annotator appears to be
Elizabeth Vicary, using Fritz, etc.
In the game between grandmasters Gagunashvili and Dmitry
Gurevich, the latter is hounded for his mistake in an earlier game
against GM Shabalov in another event. As far as I can see, the
negativity results -- as usual -- from the annotator knowing in
advance the eventual outcome of this game, for his position
throughout seems quite playable until a blunder at move 28.
While there are plenty of possible points in the game where an
improvement might be found, I want to focus on a comment made
at the 17th move, where annotator EV says that White has the
advantage. Clearly, in a complex position such as this, there is
no way to tell whether the blockade of the isolani at d4 is in
itself the dominant factor of the position, and I find this comment
to be further evidence of bias against the game's ultimate loser,
regardless of objective reality.
I am too tired to try and type in all the moves now, so I will
refer interested readers to the pages of CL magazine.
Following this misguided annotation, GM Gurevich
immediately sacrificed a Knight on h2 for a powerful attack,
and this is certainly not the only way to handle the position.
A bunch of defensive/attacking moves follow, whereupon the
annotator glides past a key position, where the attack might
have been nipped in the bud once and for all, at move 25.
(Apparently, Fritz was not given sufficient time or else EV
was not paying attention at that point.)
At move 25, White allowed Black to (temporarily) gain
CONNECTED PASSED PAWNS
...which generally speaking, is a very bad thing to do. Yet it
was quite unnecessary, as the move 25.Nd5! was not only
playable, it killed Black's attack dead: ...fe4, 26.Qxd4 Rd7
(forced, as mate was threatened), 27.Rxe4 Rxe4, 28.Qxe4
Bxd5, 29.Rxd5 Rxd5, 30.Qe6+! Kf8 (back-rank problems
abound), 31.Ba3+ Rc5, 32.Bxc5+ bxc5, and here White
has the upper-hand; he can greedily gobble a pawn, or try
to keep Black's pieces passive by staying centralized.
The logical place to search for an improvement in the
attack was at move 19, where Black redeployed his Knight
to e5 instead of going whole-hog with ...h5. He also might
have left off attacking the King altogether, and instead
centralized with 17. ...Ne4. In any case, it makes no
sense whatever to say that White stood better and then
watch in awe the carnage on White's hapless King. This
style of annotation-by-eventual-result is just plain bogus.
It's akin to writing: 1.e4 (a mistake, as we shall soon see)
...h6!! (taking it out of the books), etc.
-- help bot
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Date: 30 Aug 2007 20:43:38
From: help bot
Subject: Re: game annotations
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On Aug 30, 6:50 pm, help bot <[email protected] > wrote:
> At move 19, the annotator asks if R/a-d1 was not a better
> plan, to which GM Elvest responds with unintelligible
> gibberish -- all published in Chess Life as if nothing were
> amiss! We are told that White can't play 19.R/a-d1 and then
> 20.c5 because of the Bishop on e6, when White has no square
> for his Queen. But White's Queen is not under any attack; at
> move 17, White moved it to a3 -- a dark square, in fact; no
> dark-squared Bishop can ever attack a white square,
What I meant to say was that a light-squared Bishop,
like Black's QB, can never attack a dark square like a3,
where White's Queen was actually sitting.
> More of the same
> kind of gibberish appears at move 21, and it is at this point
> that I began wondering if the annotator was using Fritz, since
> once again, her suggestion matched up perfectly with the
> computer, but not at all with the grandmaster's printed
> answers. Junk.
After working my way to the finish, I am fairly certain that
the annotator was using Fritz/whatever, because so many of
her questions were about the computer's choice of moves,
as opposed to what happened in the game.
It seems to me that the answers made it plain that these
two GMs did not always know what was going on. In many
cases their comments simply missed the boat.
For instance, GM Shulman said he chose a particular move
to prevent White from playing p-c5 and B-c3, yet immediately
afterward his opponent did precisely that! But it was GM
Elvest who appeared most confused in his commentary; at
the very end of the game, quite irritated by his interviewer,
he stated that "of course" he saw the correct move, Rc1, but
he did not play it because it led to a draw (there was a
possible repetition after ...Ra2, Rc2 Ra1, Rc1). But far from
being a draw, the famous GM was simply busted after that
move, too. Earlier, GM Elvest made so many off-base
comments it would be difficult to list them all. The one thing
he got right was that he spotted a combination which won a
pawn (but even here he erred, according to Fritz).
My pet theory is that many, if not most, of the titled
players are mainly knowledgeable about openings, and as
we see when they play top computers, are quite fallible
once things become terra incognita.
-- help bot
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Date: 30 Aug 2007 16:50:41
From: help bot
Subject: Re: game annotations
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On to the next game, 2007 Chicago Open, GM Elvest vs.
GM Shulman, annotated by Elisabeth Vicary in Chess Life
magazine.
After some routine opening moves a comment is given by
GM Elvest, critiquing his own move order; in fact, several
times during the course of this game such a comment
appears, as if the GM thought his own choices were never
right. (I still don't know who won, as I am but part-way
though.)
After Black's 15th move, an excellent question appears
regarding the proper strategies, and in GM Elvest's reply
I notice that he pointed to his opponent's passive Bishop
on d7 (overlooking his own, about equally passive Bishop
on e2). When you combine all the rejections of his own
choices of moves and this sort of thing, I have to wonder
if this guy really has a clue or if he is just a bad-ass
tactical genius who muddles his way through, like a
computer!
After move 17 another good question is asked, but the reply
is ambiguous: either of two different Knights can fit the bill.
This is just allowed to slip by. But more important is the
fact that the move ...Nd7 there restrains the White pawns,
so it is not merely an attempt to attack c4 via ...Ne5.
At move 19, the annotator asks if R/a-d1 was not a better
plan, to which GM Elvest responds with unintelligible
gibberish -- all published in Chess Life as if nothing were
amiss! We are told that White can't play 19.R/a-d1 and then
20.c5 because of the Bishop on e6, when White has no square
for his Queen. But White's Queen is not under any attack; at
move 17, White moved it to a3 -- a dark square, in fact; no
dark-squared Bishop can ever attack a white square, as I seem
to recall. Junk annotations (in spite of the promising idea to try
R/a-d1, aligning the Rook with the enemy Queen).
As the White Queen later shifts back to b3, I am wondering
if the annotations were not jumbled into a mess, either by
the annotator herself or an incompetent editor; in any case,
they are junk. I am reminded of the game where John Watson
went on and on in some sub-variation, never returning to his
main line note, thus leaving it a complete wreck. One would
think that having a chess player for an editor would solve such
problems, but it's not at all clear just who the editor of game
annotations is, as many names are listed in Chess Life.
I won't even try to finish going over this game now, but
simply state that thus far, the only quality annotations I have
seen in this issue are the ones by Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong.
That game took up something like two full pages, which is a
bit much, but at least it was not a waste of space like some
of these other, poorly annotated games. More of the same
kind of gibberish appears at move 21, and it is at this point
that I began wondering if the annotator was using Fritz, since
once again, her suggestion matched up perfectly with the
computer, but not at all with the grandmaster's printed
answers. Junk.
-- help bot
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