Oldest player to acchieve GM-title?

In this juvenile fixated ages there is a lot of focus on the very, very young players, in fact just kids. 14 years old Chinese girl Hou has just qualified for the GM-title as the youngest woman/girl ever. And now every bodies eyes are on 12 years old Nyznykh from Ukraine, who could happen to break Karjakins record of being the youngest GM ever (12 years and 8 months).
But I would, at least for a change, like to shift the focus:
Which player has at the OLDEST age qualified for the GM-title in a regular way? Meaning: NOT by being awarded a honorary title, NOT by winning the Senior-WCh, and NOT by getting some older results to count because of the newer, lesser rigid, if not to say too slack, rules.
This is not an easy matter to investigate into. At the Wikipedia they list about 1000 players with the GM-title in 2007, and from the recent FIDE-congress in Dresden you can add some 30 more.
Anyway, the Wikipedia-article lists both year of birth and year of achieving the title. From that your eyes fall upon Vladislav Vorotnikov, who got the title in 2005 at an age of 58. But I am not sure he did not get it on some older results. At least I know he made a GM-norm in Kislovodsk, 1982, where I participated myself.
Then there is my good old chess friend, Leif Øgaard from Norway, who is almost exactly my peer of age (and probably the strongest Norwegian player before Agdestein arrived). He got his title in 2007 at the age of 55. His final GM-norm was in the Norwegian team championship the preceding season. But...his former norms were achieved back in the early 80es. In fact the Norwegians claim that he could have been awarded the title some 25 years earlier, had the rules been less tight at the time.
Congratulations to Leif, I know his chess abilities and he certainly deserves the title. But I still do not think he holds the true record, for which the demands should be stipulated more precisely like this:
The player achieving the GM-title in a regular way, scoring his FIRST norm at the oldest age.
Who is that? I still do not know, but the searching goes on.
You know, this is a subject with also some very personal interest to me as an IM at 56, who believes he still has not peaked :). And if I want to take the record, I should not stage a comeback to soon, should I? And mind you: I have, so far, never scored a norm...

In the twilight zone of chess rules

White to mate i 2 - Composer unknown

I suppose you know the problem above, it is an old hat. If not it does not really matter. But some fifty years ago your ignorance could have cost quite a few beers (or - sorry! - cups of coffee) at your club (or pub).

The intended solution is: 1. a8R Kh1 2. 0-0-0+ mate!

The last move is absolutely legal, the rook in question has not moved and there are no threatened squares between the rook and the king. Or rather...it WAS legal. Not that many years ago FIDEs rules was verified with an extra item on castling saying: "The king and the rook must be on the same rank". So there goes that problem (together with some others with the same theme), into the historical museum of chess curiosities.

Sorry to say, the same goes for this nice little problem:

White to mate in 2- N. Elkies

Add a black B8: White to mate in 2

Now we are on the track, that should not be that difficult. White plays 1. f8 black B, and no matter what it is 2. Nf7+ mate next move. If you put a black bishop at f8 i the position, the solution is 1. fxg8 black R, with again 2. Nf7+ mate to come.

This sort of "over promotion" was also legal once, or rather: It was not explicitly stated, that it was not. Now the rules says that you can promote to a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same color - no more no less. No less? Yes, in the 19. century there were in fact some proponents (even Steinitz it is told) of the right to promote to a pawn, a "dummy pawn" as it was called. You may ask: For what purpose? To counter that question, this position was composed at the time:

White to move and draw

Yes, white plays 1. bxa8P! and if black takes the bishop at h3, it is stalemate. Otherwise white takes on g2 and gain a fortress with the opposite coloured bishops.

Indeed, some nice problem has fallen with this ongoing tightening of the rules. One I am especially fond of is this, also from the good old days:

White to mate in 3 - Emil Palkoska, 1910

And that one you should try to solve for yourself - you have been given enough hints!

Ok, you may say that this is all old stuff, very entertaining but with no relevance for nowadays chess. So? Well, look at this endgame study which circulated among the chess insiders in the 80es:

White to move and win - my version (from memory)

I believe I have read somewhere that the composer is from Dar-Es-Salaam, but I can not find sources for that.

The solution is: 1. Kf7, Nd6+ 2. g7+!, Kh7 3. g8D+ and mate next move.

Then you may object that white is in check, in fact a double check, when he unaffectedly moves his little pawn at the second move. Yes, he is in check BEFORE the move, but is he after? You see, at that time the rules stated that the king is in check "...when the square it occupies is threatened by one or TWO of the opponents pieces." So the check is elegantly parried by making the kings square threatened by THREE pieces!

Relax, nowadays the rules state that the square in question must be threatened by "..one or more of the opponents pieces".

One also quite recent puzzle arises after the well known opening moves: 1. e4, e5 2. Bc4, Nf6. Now white moves and wins! You simply play 3. Qxf7+ mate! As you might know, checkmate ends the game immediately without any question. But whites last move was illegal, you may object. Yes, right, but if an illegal move is made, you have to protest before the game has come to an end, after that it is too late! Well, now they have added to the rule, that checkmate finishes the game under the condition that the checkmating move was legal.

FIDES commission of rules was at hard work in the end-80es and 90es. At the congresses in 1992 and 1997 they came up with some revision, up tightening and complementing of the rules, that makes puzzles and compositions like the above almost impossible. That is, one the theme on what the pieces actually can do on the board.

But there are still twilight zones in the rules, not least because new rules are introduced that can lead to a games abrupt finish.

In this position white is in the move, when the mobile phone of the player of the black pieces rings. What should be the result of the game?

By closer examination of the position you will find that the game in fact already has come to an end before the tragic incident with the phone. If white moves his knight it is stalemate. If the bishop goes to a7, black has to take it. The same goes if white moves his king, in both cases ending up with insufficient material. In fact blacks last move must have been Ka7-a8 and whites move before that b7-b8B, and already after that move the game has ended. It has reached a so called "dead position", as stated in the FIDE rules:

"The game is drawn when a position has arisen in which neither player can checkmate the opponent`s king with any series of legal moves. The game is said to end in a `dead position`. "

So, in principal both players should have received a warning from the arbiter after b7-b8B for not playing according to the rules...

If you want more of this "dead reckoning", I recommend you this site:

http://www.geocities.com/anselan/chess.html

Ok, now I am maybe pushing it too far, or rather really exploring unknown territory: In this position it can be either white or black in the move. What happens then if the mobile phone of the player in the move rings?

If you study the position, you will find that who ever is in the move and what ever he moves, it is checkmate. So, I guess that if the white players phone rings he is lost, but that his opponent can only be given a half point, given that he had no possible way to win the game according to the rules.

Thomas Volet, 2006

And now, at the final, it gets really difficult. The position above was published with the stipulation: "What will be the outcome?"

By a retrograde analysis (you just try it!) it is possible to state that if white is in the move, the last 100 half moves have been without pawn moves or captures. But if black is in the move, there has only been 99. In the position both black and white can give checkmate, but without capturing ore moving a pawn.

So this is about the 50-moves rule, on which FIDE states: "The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by the player having the move, if....the last 50 consecutive moves have been made by each player without the movement of any pawn and without any capture."

And so what? If it is blacks move and he plays Rd8+ mate, can white then "claim" a draw? I really do not know. But a blogger at the chessproblem.net has some distinct opinions on that, he even claims there are some "inconsistencies" in the FIDE rules! You would not be surprised...Read and judge for yourself at:

http://www.chessproblem.net/viewtopic.php?t=128

Who moved last?

After you hopefully gained some insights from the above, you should be able to solve this little puzzle. And after doing that, you may use it for teasing your local club arbiter.

And if you have become - or are - keen on such off beat chess problems, I would like to recommend "Outrageous chess problems" by Burt Hochberg, New York 1999. But do not read it just before bedtime!

Chessmasters and the Principle of Justice

And now we are at it again. The global, governing body of the chessplayers, FIDE is changing rules and regulations at an extraterrestrial pace, perhaps inspired by the presidents allegedly contacts with aliens.
"But time does not stand still, times change. And FIDE must adapt to the requirements of different times...", states the president. As he also has claimed that we all soon will be taken away from earth by aliens, that is maybe why he in such a haste.
Otherwise it is difficult to see the reason behind changing the formate for the contest for the world championship LESS than an year after it was changed the last time. The rules for forfeits if you are too late for the game they also wanted to change at the latest congress. Some constructive opposition made them slow down a little, so that the proposed rules will be deliberated and probably changed by the "Presidental Board". That should in fact not be legal according to the FIDE-statutes, unless it is "a matter of emergency", but maybe it is? From this, and a LOT of other instances from the last 12-14 years, it is not really surprising - and for no one with a little insight hairraising - that FIDE also is involved in some kind of blackmail against the Bulgarians concerning the match Topalov-Kamski.
But...decisions of such (star-?)quality sooner or later have their price, unless of course you change them very quickly, which is perhaps also one of the reasons for this unearthly speed? Some 6-7 years ago FIDE introduced a doping regulative demanding some selected players to give urine samples at the FIDE events. Some very prominent players did protest, but the circus went on, mostly regarded as some kind of joke. Of course no player was ever found guilty of any kind of abuse, but there were a few case with lowerranked players who refused to participate and got some kind of penalties. And the overall aim, to have chess promoted to a genuine olympic sport via IOC, has not come closer
But then...and it simply should happen sooner or later - after the last round of the recent OL in Dresden, world nr.3, GM Vasili Ivanchuk refused to provide his urine. According to the rules his team, Ukraine should be stripped for all its points and Ivanchuk banned from playing for some time, up to two years. The problem with the former is - among others - that it influences the distribution of the medals. How FIDE will crack THAT cockonut, we are all eager to see.
And now GM Aleksei Shirov stands forward and want us all to BAN FIDE!, speaking out in an open letter at Chessbase.com. A symphatic endavour, apart from that it is not FIDE per se that is the problem - realistically we can not do without it - but the chess politicians who have been in charge for too many years. I am especially refering to the president.
Shirovs letter starts up with: "I don’t know how many times I have said to myself that it makes no sense at all to keep getting involved in chess politics and that I should just concentrate on my work...". But then you may ask: WHEN has Shirov, or any other top grand master at all (maybe apart from Kasparov and a very few others) involved themself in chess politics? By "involved" I mean constructively trying to change the conditions in cooperation with peers.
You know, this has been going on since 1995, when Ijumshinov was elected for the first time. I suppose some of the very young present super Grand Masters can not even remember there has ever been anyone else. At that time I suppose we all thought that ANYTHING would be better than his predecessor, Campomanes. But soon strange incidents already took place. Participants at the OL and FIDE-congress in Erevan in 1996 can tell a lot about free gold watches... for some reason Iljumshiniov soon managed to turn the WCh-system upside down (for the first time, many to follow). In 1998, at the age of 36 (!), he released his autobiography: "The presidents Crown of Thorns". Oh, just the title, just the title...Yes, he has also been the president of the russian republic of Kalmykia since 1993. Where Putin failed, he managed...One chapter of the autobiography is titled "Without Me the People are incomplete". Yes, it is true! - and you can download the whole book from FIDEs homepage and see for yourself! And if you want to read more about Iljumshinovs merits, I recommend you the very well informed article at wikipedia.
But the president has also put a lot of money in chess tournaments, event if it is heavily questioned that they are all of his own (if at all). And Shirov, and the rest of them, has taken part in these tournaments for years, no, for a decade, time passes. Yes, and when a serious challenger, Bessel Kok, appeared in 2006, many of the leading grandmasters supported the incumbent president (Ok, not Shirov, as far as I remember). Of course chess masters also need an income, but the very best of them are not so poor that they have to stand up for anything. At least they do not need to be shortsighted, which you some times have to if you live a life in poverty, struggling everyday for your next meal (which some lowerranked masters indeed have to). It is a widely approved assumption, that FIDEs reputation during Iljumshinov rule has fallen to lowest level of almost any comparable international organisation, meaning that chess has become very little attractive to potential sponsors. One may wonder how many means for existence chess masters have lost on that account...And the strongest grandmasters maybe at times protest, but actually they DO and have DONE NOTHING about it. On the contrary, they have taken actively part in the whole charade.
So: Why are strong chess masters generally so shortsighted, indifferent, if not to say ignorant when it comes to matters apart from the chessboard? Nowadays social and political conditions may provide some of the answers. It is a hard, irrational, inconceivable, hypocrite, if not to say insane world we live in, without any recognisabe justice. We, the chessplayers, all need to hide in our beloved game now and then, and the professional players can do it all the time.
On THAT matter, let Emmanuel Lasker talk through his "Chess Manual":
"On the chessboard lies and hypocrisis do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in a checkmate, contradicts the hipocrite. Our little chess is one of the sanctuaries, where this principle of justice has occasionally had to hide to gain sustance and a respite, after the army of mediocrities had driven it of the marketplace. And many a man, struck by injustice as, say, Socrates and Shakespeare were struck, has found justice realised on the chessboard and has thereby recovered his courage and his vitality to continue to play the game of life. Later generations, not so narrowminded as ours, will recognise and appreciate this merit of our noble game."
Following that, I hope that Shirov, and the rest of them, after a very long respite at long last has gained a lot of sustance and recovered their courage and vitality. And from now on will take part in the game of life.

Futility in the desert

A FIDE-official is taking part in a tournament. He is rather late for the first round, and he knows as good as any what THAT means. Just when he is about to enter the playing hall, his cell phone rings. At the display he can see it is from Kirsan, so anyway he answers the call.
"Hello, Kirsan. It is a bit inconvenient just now. Can you call back later?"
Kirsan agrees and the FIDE-official hurries to the playing hall - so much that he forgets to switch off the cell phone.
After some twenty minutes play his phone rings again. He knows what THAT means, nothing to do about that, so he stops the clock and shakes hands with his opponent. Then he answers the call.
"Hello, it is Kirsan. I just want to tell you that the Presidental Board has postponed the new rules about forfeiting if you are too late for the round."

And now a difficult case for the future chess jurisdiction: Just at the beginning of a playing session a players cell phone rings. It is his opponent calling, telling him that he is too late and therefore resigns the game, which is anyway lost. Will they both be given a zero?

A FIDE-official is walking around in the Sahara Desert, wearing Bermuda-shirts, sunglasses and sunhat. A beduine comes riding by on a chamel.
"Excuse me, sir", says the FIDE-official". "Can you tell me how far it is to the beach?"
"Well, sir, about 1000 kilometres", the beduine answers.
"Ok, then I think I will stay on the beach."

Chess in Greenland?

Well, Greenland is not completely new to me. I was also working as a teacher from 2003 to 2006 in the town Upernavik in the North-Western part of the country, situated at the 73. latitude. And I did try to teach the kids some chess.

We purchased some chess sets (some very poor and cheap ones) and they were very happy for the opportunity to play "skakki", as they say. And then they sat up the pieces for...draughts! - and played on with great entusiasm. As the good teacher I finally took the lead and was in fact able, step by step, to teach them the rules of the real "skakki", NOT "tammorneq" as draughts is called in greenlandic.

One proof is the picture above, taken on a lovely, sunny day in june 2004. The big chess set we found somewhere at the school. Another teachers seemed to have tried to introduce chess some years before me. To what use the set was in that connection, I have no idea. Well, as a trained eye may deduce from the photo, I never got to teach them some openning theory...

Greenland has a population a little less than 60.000 inhabitants, scattered in small towns all over this vast territory. There are very few chess clubs, I guess 3-4 in all. But there are some chess entusiast among the genuine greenlanders. And then there is me and a few other danes with chess interest living in the country. So - who knows? - maybe we can get something up and running, maybe even a national chess organisation. But it will for sure take some years before we can put up an olympic team.

A chess study of mine

White to move and win

Yes, I am also very keen on chess problems, especially endgame studies. I have composed a few my self and one you see above. I submitted it for this years Corus Study Competition, but it did not take a price - would you believe it? Ok, this competition was one of the rare of its kind with VERY good prices in cool cash, so it attracted some of the very best composers from all over the world.

A good problem is, in my opinion, distinguished by a comparatively short solution with a surprising, nontrivial finish showing the essential idea. I believe mine lives up to that, but judge for your self.

Try to solve it, it is not that hard, when you all of a sudden get the right idea. And if you give up, you can ask your little helper, I mean your chessengine, for some help. Any way, I will give the solution later on.

For the diagram I have made good use of the service at www.chessup.net. You should try it!

Steinitz matters (1)

What did Wilhelm Steinitz matter to chess? As a boy I read in some of my very first chess books, that Steinitz was the "founder" of modern chess. That he was the one to come up with the theory of "the balance of the position", and something about that you should only attack when you have the "advantage". Later on I read something similar in writings by distinguished authors like Reti, Euwe, Saidy, Golombek amo.. Some of them even wrote that Steinitz "formulated" his theories, especially in his columns in "The Field" from 1873-83.
As a more mature chess addict I, by som instance, got curious. Why was it that I, who had read a quite huge amount of chess litterature, had never come about and read any passages, where the man explicitly "formulated" these "theories"?
I got a copy of "Modern Chess Instructor", Steinitz´s chess manual from his later years. Here was quite interesting insights into "modern chess" compared to, first and foremost, Morphy, but nothing about "theories". But, any how, a great manual, compaired to its time. I also read Hannaks Steinitz-biography from 1936: "...the Michelangelo of chess". Very nice, almost nutty-nutty and halleluja to the great man and his life, which indeed was very special and interesting too, but nothing about "theories".
Then I -and THAT was a mistake! - bought ChessBase´s CD on Steinitz, published in a series of world champion monographs. It contained some short texts covering Steinitz chess career and a database-jump with his games - and not much more. It seems that this Chessbase-company think they can get away with publishing - and selling! - almost any rubbish. I claim that I could produce such a CD in less than two weeks. Do not buy these monographs, I recommend you!
But then I found out that ChessCafé was selling a Steinitz-CD edited by Sidd Pikard. Wise from experience I cheked the content thoroughly and then purchased it. I was not disappointed. Here you will have a lot of games commented by Steinitz him self in CB-formate. And a lot of texts from the great man, even some scanned in from the original sources. And much more. A true gem for Steinitz-freaks, even though it is quite expensive. You can only complan about the title: "Complete works of Steinitz", which it is not, more it is "Selected works..."
But...even here, nothing resembling an explicit "fórmulation" of theories.
So here I am, still more bewildered. Soon I will get Landsbergers quite recent biography. And I am also at the look out for Purdys much-referred-to article "The great Steinitz Hoax", published in the end-70es.
But...I have found another track to follow. The man did comment on a enourmous amount of games, both in "The Field" and his "International Chess Magazine", and otherwhere (fi. the tournament book on New York, 1889). And these comments did have some distinctions, he was obvíously after finding the inner logic in each game, and there by in chess in general. An approach which was not at all common at that time. And as you may suppose he was widely read, he must have had some impact on other chess commentors, at least.
So the searching goes on, and I by this time am trying to locate different prominent chess writers from 1870es, 80es and 90es. Question: Can you detect some influence from Steinitz in their chess thoughts and comments?