Polgár Back in 2700 Club

Due to her strong performance in the recent Greek Team Championships (her team won the event), Judit Polgár has finally broken the 2700 barrier again--a milestone for the tactical genius, as her rating took a nosedive back in 2008, and it's taken her almost three years to climb her way back up again.

Judit's recent stellar performances in Mexico (where she defeated both Ivanchuk and Topalov to take clear first) and the Euro Championships (where she tied for first, claiming the bronze medal on tiebreaks) have given her a big surge lately.

It remains to be seen whether the Hungarian heroine can make further gains at the World Team Championships, which start this Saturday. As Chess Indeed's Man-on-the-Street, Sir Robin of Sheboygan, pointed out: "Being on Board 3 should allow her to win many games!"

Go Judit!

Summer Lecture Series Announced

Chess Indeed's man-on-the-street Sir Robin of the Redwoods informs us that the Summer Lecture Series has finally been announced at the Snails Corners Chess Club in exotic Sheboygan, Wisconsin--and it looks like a doozy of a lineup!

Alvin Becker, renowned meteorologist and a strong "weak expert," will be discussing the following topics for anyone with enough stamina to sit still for four hours at a stretch:



International Master Captain Caveman will be
giving a simul during the lectures, making it even
harder for Becker to hold his audience's attention.



1. World championship games Alekhine obviously played while drunk

2. Bobby Fischer's 60 Memorable Anti-Semitic Rants

3. How to Avoid Fool's Mate--even if you're a fool



4. The ten shortest chessplayers of all time (surprisingly, the midget inside "the Turk" is only #3)



5. How to hypnotize your opponents using a large, hand-cranked spiral-generating device



6. A move-by-move analysis of Steinitz-God, Baden-Baden 1898

7. Chess is different from Checkers--here's how

8. Is Ivanchuk insane? A peek into the mind of a bewildered man

9. Fire on board: how to unobtrusively ignite a chessboard when you're losing

10. A look at the Ostrich Counter-Defense (1...Nh6 2...Ng8!?)



As usual, I will have a front-row seat for these lectures (by which I mean I'll be safe in my plush Boston hovel, one ear cocked vaguely toward Sheboygan as the other thrills to the dulcet crooning of Lionel Richie).

Unusual Tactics: Smothers Brothers Mate

Today Chess Indeed launches an exciting new series, Unusual Tactics, in which we spotlight rare tactical motifs and try and come up with ridiculous names for them.

Today we look at what seems (at first glance) to be an ordinary run-of-the-mill Smothered Mate.

Every woodpusher knows the correct mating technique here: knight discovers double-check on h3, queen sham-sacs on g1, knight "seals the coffin" on f2, and everyone's home in time to watch Matlock.

But in this particular case, g1 is guarded twice, which means the usual method won't work. A second knight is needed (the "brother" of the first knight, if you will) to finish the job: 1...Nh3+ 2.Kh1 Qg1+ 3.Ng1 Nhf2+ 4.Rf2 Nf2#.

Since the first knight needed his brother's help to complete the smothering, the obvious name for this mate is the Smothers Brothers Mate--and I hereby claim credit for this absurd moniker, should it ever find its way into one of the more disreputable chess tomes of, say, GM Raymond "the Penguin" Keene.

Next week: the Porky Pig

My Grumpy Uncle Mel

The more attentive among my quillion-some-odd readers will be familiar with my "Grumpy Uncle Mel," a perpetually cranky relative of mine whose chess skills are so feeble that his name has become synonymous with "patzer" (in such phrases as "even my Grumpy Uncle Mel could solve that problem," or "that looks like the kind of howler my Grumpy Uncle Mel might make").

Anyway, I figured it was high time I put a face to the name, so please enjoy the following Grumpy Uncle Mel Slideshow.

Grumpy Uncle Mel after being "rudely awakened" from a nap.

Grumpy Uncle Mel, shambling toward the bathroom "to drain m' damn lizard".



Grumpy Uncle Mel, after being mistaken for uber-terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (he gets that a lot) and waterboarded for 14 hours straight.

Aged Champions Set to Square Off

In a field with the likes of Aronian, Topalov, and Kramnik, I doubt too many people predicted Boris Gelfand would win the Candidates matches, but for the first time in his life (at age 43!), the corpulent Belarusian will play for the World Championship.

With World Champion Vishy Anand turning 41 later this year, this looks like the oldest pair of World Championship combatants in many years. Their combined ages total 84.

You have to go all the way back to Botvinnik-Petrosian 1963 to find an analogue: Botvinnik was then a creaky 52(!), while his Armenian challenger had seen a mere 34 summers, for a combined total of 86.

For a World Championship match where both players were over 40, you have to go way back to Alekhine-Bogulyubov II (1934), when Alekhine was 42 and "Bog" was 45 (total = 87).

Therefore this is the "oldest" World Championship in 77 years--a surprising statistic in a chess era where youth is both stronger and more prevalent than at any other time in history!

The Many Faces of Lex Grischuk

He has just stunned the chess world by defeating the titans Aronian and Kramnik back-to back--something nobody except his mother believed he could do (and even she secretly bet against him).

He's also the only Top GM with dreadlocks.

For both these reasons, Chess Indeed turns its attention this week to Alexander "Lex" Grischuk (commonly known as "the Grisch"), and asks the question: just who the hell is this guy?

As it turns out, he's actually six different people (see image above), depending on his mood. Formally diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder in 2002, Grischuk can assume any one of a half-dozen different personalities at will.

"For the Aronian match, I unleashed The Turk, an anti-Armenian chessplaying machine. For the 7' 3" Kramnik, I took up my magic beans and became Jack the Giant-Killer. For Gelfand, I'm trying to decide between Little Bo Peep and an Oompa-Loompa."

One thing's for sure: Grischuk's match preparations are going to involve much more than just chess.

Gelfand in Trouble - Lack of Hat May Be Cause

Boris Gelfand is on the verge of losing his Candidates semifinal match to a resurgent Gata Kamsky--and experts are speculating that the absence of the Belarusian's trademark "flying squirrel" cap may be the reason.

Gelfand (shown below in the massive fur hat which many fans believe is the source of his power) lost the third game of the rapid phase of the match today, after failing to spot Kamsky's sharp tactical blow 16...c4!, which cost Gelfand a decisive amount of material.


Boris Gelfand, wearing his absurdly wide Minsk hat. "I sometimes have trouble walking through doorways," admits the World #15, "and must tilt my head 45 degrees to accomplish it."


Now in a critical "must win" situation, it will be interesting to see whether Gelfand wheels out the massive head-covering--which, at this point, may be his only hope.