'Coffee Break Chess' No. 24, 14^th May 2000

© 2000 by Alexander Baburin

Dear Friends!

My life seems to get busier and busier and this clearly reflects on the frequency, with which CBC comes out. Yet, there is much news to talk about, so I felt that I had to send out this issue before going to Sarajevo tomorrow. Hopefully in summer, life will become quieter and CBC will come back to its intended 1-issue-in-2 weeks frequency.

New developments on my site. Recently I added a few things to my Web site ( http://www.gmsquare.com/Baburin/): more questions were answered, more pictures posted (I have a pretty extensive GM gallery now!) and my student Sam Collins wrote his first book review. I enjoyed reviewing books for the Chess CafŽ, but found that extra deadline each month was hard for me to deal with. So, I hope to review books using a more relaxed frame my own Web site. Another curious feature of my site is an on-line poll, where most people (me too!) seem to be much against allowing computers into official tournaments. In a few days my Web-master Michael Dooley will start posting ‘Sarajevo Reports’, where I will share my impressions about that super-tournament. BTW, my fans should not get excited – I will be only kibitzing there! :-) Upon my return to Dublin I will host yet another chat on my site (the first one went very nicely) – on the 27th of May at 18-00 Dublin time (19-00 in Paris, 13-00 in New York, 10-00 in San Francisco). So, keep an eye on my site!

My 2^nd Internet chess auction. It will start in about 2 weeks time, but you can already view its preliminary list at http://www.gmsquare.com/chessauction. The auction will go on for one week, in the e-Bay style, when bids will be posted on the site daily. There are many very interesting items offered for sale already, but soon we will add a lot more, including a complete run of Deutsche Schachzeitung, book by Lolli (1763) and notebooks of Akiba Rubinstein. I am a partner in International Chess Auctions and our goal is make collecting chess items easier and more convenient for many chess fans. I believe that our auctions have bright future.

Chess training camps in Dublin. Ireland in general and Dublin in particular are very popular tourist spots nowadays, which gave me the idea to offer some tourist a special service. I am going to host chess workshops in Dublin this August and possibly September. The idea is simple: visitors can come for the weekend and combine some chess work (in the morning and afternoon) with sight-seeing and tasting Dublin’s rich social life (those famous Dublin pubs!). I will be able to help with information (list) on accommodation, etc. Training sessions will take place in a hotel and will involve lectures, training games and quizzes. It is possible to organise some blitz tournaments (for fun) as well. At this stage I am considering various formats for such chess camps – if you might like to take part in them, please share with me your thoughts, dropping me e-mail. Your feedback is very valuable to me - please contact me at ababurin@iol.ie.

CBC in Swedish. Recently Coffee Break Chess started to appear in Swedish – at http://www.schacknyheter.com. This is already the 7^th language of CBC - after English, Spanish, German, French, Dutch and Italian. Ironically, there is no Russian version... Anyway, CBC probably has already established some kind of a record, as I am not aware of any other chess periodical, which is translated into so many languages.

Chess Portals on the Web. There are a few sites, which can claim to be chess portals and which are worth watching. At The Chess CafŽ ( http://www.chesscafe.com) Hanon Russell recently wrote about how the site started 4 years ago; Alexander Khalifman’s GM-School ( http://www.gmchess.com) had a major re-design recently and looks very attractive now, while ‘Kasparov Chess’ (http://kasparovchess.com) keeps adding new articles. In one of them, at http://kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?p_docID=2869&p_docLang=EN GM Levitt tells how GM Norwood and IM Hennigan hit a jackpot recently. The TWIC ( http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic.html) is interesting as usual. Recently I tried their Web-TV channel and found it very good – you will need to install Real Player (often found on free CDs) and then you can see stuff like interview with Ivanchuk, etc. The quality obviously depends on your Internet connection, but it was quite reasonable in my case. Maybe when connection to the Net becomes much faster, we will have special chess programs or even dedicated channels on the Web.

GM Gipslis died. Recently Latvian Grandmaster Aivars Gipslis died in Germany. He was a strong GM with attacking style of play. I never got to play him, but I met him often - at Biel, Berlin, etc. Here is one of his games:

A. Gipslis – V. Savon, D42, USSR-ch29 Baku  1961

1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 exd5 cxd5 4 c4 Nf6 5 Nc3 e6 6 Nf3 Be7 7 cxd5 Nxd5 8 Bd3 Nc6 9 0-0 0-0 10 Re1 Nf6 11 Bg5 b6 12 Qe2 Bb7 [12 ..Nxd4 13 Nxd4 Qxd4 14 Rad1+- Qc5 15 Bxf6 Bxf6 16 Qe4] 13 Rad1 Nb4 14 Bb1 Rc8 15 Ne5 Qd6 16 Qe3!? Nfd5 17 Qh3 f5 18 Bd2 Nf6 19 a3 Nbd5 20 Nb5 Qb8 (D)

21 Ba2! Once Black blocks the b1-h7 diagonal with ...f5, White should relocate his light-squared bishop to the a2-g8 diagonal. 21...a6 22 Nc3 Rce8? Better was 22...Qd6. 23 Nf3! On e5 this knight acted as a shelter for the e6-pawn, while now this pawn comes under serious pressure. 23...Bd8?! 24 Ng5 Qc8 (D)

25 Rxe6! Rxe6 26 Nxd5 h6 27 Nxf6+ Kh8 28 Qxf5 Re1+ 29 Rxe1 Qxf5 30 Nf7+ 1-0

My recent tournaments and matches. After a very successful tour in USA in March, where I tied for 1^st both at US Masters in Chicago and at the National Open in Las Vegas ( http://www.64.com/natlopen), I scored 1.5 in my last BL weekend, playing against GMs Enders and Teske. My overall result in BL was quite good: +2-0=5, but could be even better, as I missed wins in 3 of the drawn games. My team – Delmenhorst – finished third in the league, but unfortunately we lost our sponsors and will not play in the top division next year. I really enjoyed the great team spirit, which our team had and will certainly miss it... I just hope that I will be equally lucky with my next club in Germany (I am looking for one!).

Two weeks ago British Team League finished in Birmingham. Alas, there I had one of my worst results in the entire career, losing all three games! Something went seriously wrong... Over the weekend I saw my rating dropping from its current height of 2610+ (which I gained during the season) to the more ‘normal’ 2590+ :-(

My team Wood Green finished only second due to unexpected loss in round 9. Anyway, I enjoyed playing on that team and hope that in the next season I can do much better than 6.5 out of 11. Hopefully I will have forgotten that last 4NCL weekend by then! For those who are follow BL and 4NCL, I can recommend the following site: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/John_Katrin_Sharp, which is quite informative. As for my tournaments, the next event is Politiken Cup in Copenhagen in July ( www.kbhsu.dk). I like Denmark and usually do reasonably well there.

 In the next issue of CBC I will talk about Sarajevo and show one of the games, which I lost recently - stay tuned!

Alexander Baburin, Dublin, http://www.gmsquare.com/Baburin/ & http://www.gmsquare.com/chessauction

Technical support. I am very grateful to Igor Yagolnitser for his help with this project. For assistance regarding CBC, please contact Igor at igor@yagolnitser.com

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