The Chess Mind Blog

John Donaldson and Nikolay Minev, The Life and Games of Akiva Rubinstein, Volume 2: The Later Years. (Russell Enterprises 2011.) 440 pp., $34.95. Reviewed by Dennis Monokroussos.

Akiva (Akiba) Rubinstein was one of the greatest players of the early 20th century, and one of the greatest players never to even have a shot at the world championship. His openings and his approach to the openings were ahead of their time, and he was an absolute genius when it came to the ending - rook endings in particular. Of course his middlegame play was at an elite level as well, and his tactical skill is on display in many games - most famously and flashily perhaps in the game with Rotlewi, but in many more besides.

Rubinstein, unlike his great (near) contemporaries Jose Raul Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine, never published a book of his best games, and for whatever reason there's a paucity of English-language literature on this great player. Fortunately IMs John Donaldson and Nikolay Minev have sought to repair this with their two-volume series on Rubinstein. Volume 2, "The Later Years", covers his career from late 1920 on to his retirement from tournament play in 1931, and presents some later battles including a number of training games with his son Sammy played in the mid-to-late 1940s.

In all there are 583 games, many of them annotated with notes going back to early or even original sources. (Examples include Hans Kmoch's book on Rubinstein, tournament books by Nimzowitsch and Alekhine, and on some rare occasions comments by the man himself.) Occasionally the authors (Donaldson and Minev) make some brief parenthetical comments, but theirs is a light touch.  As a rule, I think it's to an editor's credit to go light on correcting annotations made in a pre-computer era, but as this wasn't a reissue of Kmoch's Rubinstein's Chess Masterpieces but their own new, original work, it would have been nice to see them annotate some of his classics. They do offer some comments on occasion to some otherwise unannotated games, but more would have been nicer. With the benefit of a more modern understanding, as well as the opportunity to consult with older sources and chess engines, it would have been valuable to see what they could find re-examining Rubinstein's games. (Maybe they'll do that with a "best games" volume in the future? One can only hope.)

Along with the games are a large number of crosstables and photographs, not to mention a fair amount of historical information. The authors typically say a few words about the tournaments and Rubinstein's travels, often quoting reports from contemporary sources. They also offer quite a few mini-biographies and other bits of background on Rubinstein's opponents. About Rubinstein himself they offer 16 pages of biographical material at the start of the book, which is well-supplemented by the background info mentioned above.

All in all it's a treasure trove of information for Rubinstein's fans, who should be many, and for beginners to his oeuvre they offer on page 28 a "sampler" recommending 34 games that "represent some of the high points" of the second half of his career. My only regret - and this is really a request for another book and not a criticism of the one Donaldson and Minev have written - is that we don't have a satisfactory "best of" book on Rubinstein in the English language. Nonethless, I can recommend this book, especially to fans of chess history in general and Rubinstein in particular.

Here, in this Radiolab podcast, is an interesting reflection combining developmental psychology, chess, and the interplay between imaginative freedom and rules. There are some minor goofs (as is often the case when "civilians" discuss chess), but overall it's well done and something you can recommend to your non-chess friends.

A couple of days ago I reported being amazed by the heavyweight battle between Artur Yusupov (or "Jussupow", as his name is given in the databases) and Alexei Shirov from the just-completed open event in Gibraltar. Yusupov's opening repertoire often looks quiet and toothless, but that appearance is often entirely deceptive. He is able to find some remarkable attacking ideas, and he unleashed a furious attack against Shirov that shocked the Latvian GM and had him scrambling to stay alive in the opening. He rose to the occasion, and the result was an incredibly high-level battle that eventually finished in Shirov's favor.

It's a really beautiful and well-played game, and I hope my readers on this site will also be my viewers over on ChessVideos. It's a game worth seeing, and I do my best to show just how many shoals both sides, but especially Shirov, had to avoid along the way. This is great chess.

You can see my video of the game here. It's free as always (one-time only free registration is required), and it will be available on demand for the next month or so.

The Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival didn't quite finish with the full fairy tale ending, but it was pretty close. Hou Yifan entered the last round with a half-point lead over her closest pursuers, and her reward was a game with second-seed Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. They drew after a full and complicated fight, and that gave several other players the chance to catch up with 8/10.

The only one to succeed was Nigel Short, who defeated Krishnan Sasikiran with Black in a Modern Benoni. It was a gutsy choice that paid off (literally!), and after that it was on to a two game blitz (10 minutes + 5 seconds per move) tiebreak match. Short won the first game - convincingly - in a Grand Prix Attack, and he probably could have won the second game as well, but was content to allow Hou to draw by perpetual check.

So Short took first, but all the same it was an incredible performance by the 17-year-old women's world champion. She finished with a 2872 TPR, going +4 -1 =2 against 2700s (and beating everyone below that as well). Michael Adams, Mamedyarov, Viktor Bologan and Emil Sutovsky finished half a point behind, and then another 17 players (including Judit Polgar) finished with 7 points apiece.

Hou Yifan's performance at the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival has been nothing short of amazing. In round 9, the penultimate round, Hou defeated Alexey Shirov with Black in a Poisoned Pawn Najdorf, and in the process took a clear lead with 7.5/9. That was her fourth victory over a 2700-rated player in the event (previous victims were Zoltan Almasi, Judit Polgar and Le Quang Liem) and gives her a TPR of 2892!

Still, the job is not done. There are five players within half a point entering the last round: Michael Adams, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Nigel Short, Krishnan Sasikiran and Viktor Bologan; and although Hou will have White she's getting the second-seeded Mamedyarov as her final hurdle. A draw clinches a tie for first, and a win would give her clear first and possibly the greatest tournament performance by a female chess player ever; indeed, one of the all-time great performances in an open event, period.

After 8 of 10 rounds, Michael Adams and women's world champion Hou Yifan are tied for first in the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival. Hou managed to beat Le Quang Liem in a tactical slugfest, while Adams drew second-seed Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Hou and Adams are half a point ahead of 14 other players, including Alexei Shirov, the winner of a spectacular game against Artur Yusupov that may well be my ChessVideos show this week.

Their comments about Boris Spassky are fairly brief, but coming as they do from such legends of the game they are noteworthy nonetheless. (HT: Brian Karen)

The Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival is a strong open Swiss event featuring a number of 2700s including Peter Svidler, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and the sole leader after 7 rounds, Michael Adams. His 6 point total has him half a point ahead of ten other players including several 2700s (Nigel Short, Le Quang Liem, Mamedyarov, Krishnan Sasikiran, Zoltan Almasi and Sergei Movsesian). Leading the 2700s with the best tiebreak score, however, is Hou Yifan, who convincingly defeated Judit Polgar in round 7. In an earlier round, Polgar only drew with Humpy Koneru. Right now Koneru has five points, as does Zhu Chen, while Nana Dzagnidze is also in the group with 5.5 while Polgar has 4.5. (It's only one tournament and it isn't finished yet, but perhaps it's time for Polgar to find the women's world championship "interesting"?)

Round 8 is underway now, with Adams-Mamedyarov on board 1.

Apparently the interview was made back in September, but when Boris Spassky's health took a turn for the worse after a stroke its publication was delayed. Now it has been published and translated, and you can read it here. (HT: Brian Karen)

The former world champion is 75 years old today (January 30). For the past couple of decades he has primarily been an elder statesman and goodwill ambassador of the game, but for many years he was a tremendous player, often cited as a model of universality in his style. In his day he was the youngest grandmaster ever, won the World Junior championship, became a Candidate as a teenager (and back then the latter was not the result of the former), won every event in sight, played three world championship matches and all while being liked by everyone (except Viktor Korchnoi, for a time).

Among his many gifts, industry doesn't seem to have been one of them, and unfortunately for chess fans and for his reputation with generations that didn't see him play, he hasn't written a chess autobiography. (And it doesn't seem likely, given his current health, that it will ever happen.) It's a real pity that his best games are so unfamiliar to most of us, so do yourself a favor. Celebrate his birthday by looking up some of his best games online - they're worth seeing!