Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Anish Giri And Mikahil Botvinnik

This time, let us give way and give special attention to Dutch chess writers. They deserve it anyway. Chess world just found a new star, and he is a Dutch. Wesley So fans among other chess prodigy loyal followers may call the "comparison" (because I'm pretty sure this will mislead many) a bit too early and a bit premature. But not long time ago, didn't many too made a comparison (the real one) between Wesley So and Bobby Fischer? But I guess, the Dutch people also deserves to make a "comparison" of their own too. How bout hearing that the newly crowned Corus B champ, Anish Giri, is now being "compared" (again the misleading notion that will surely arise) to no other than the great Mikhail Botvinik himself? But in fairness to Hans Ree, he has a point. Giri could be the next Botvinnik of his generation. Wesley So the next Bobby Fischer? Sounds remote but not impossible though. But sounds cute to me just the same :)

But we relish the success of our fifteen year-old Dutch champion Anish Giri in Group B. We cannot call him a product of the Dutch school of chess, as he was born in St. Petersburg and has lived only a few years in the Netherlands, but at least we can say that he has flourished on Dutch soil.

One of the positions studied by Botvinnik when he prepared for the match of 1958, is the one that occurred after Black's tenth move in the game Harikrishna-Giri. As we can see in his notebook, Botvinnik's intention had been to play 11.e3 followed by 12.e4. These are good moves, but what Giri did against Harikrishna, the immediate 11.e4, was much stronger.

When I saw that game I thought that Giri's opening preparation had been better than Botvinnik's, of course not because he was the better player, but because he could use the engines.

But I was wrong. Later Giri said that he had never prepared for this sideline of the Slav and that he had seen at the board that 11.e4 was winning. So it had not been Fritz or Rybka that had been superior to Botvinnik's preparation, but just some minutes of thinking at the board by Giri.

Had the position occurred in Botvinnik's match, I would like to think that he would also have improved on his preparation. A Dutch writer once said that five minutes typing would provide more ideas than hours of thinking, and so it is with chess. At the board we are in a pressure cooker, much more alert than during our preparations.


Continue reading from ChessCafe.com columnist Hans Ree "Dutch Treat"

1 comment:

rjsolcruz said...

des,

this coming sat, meralco chess club is hosting a small simul event in memory of our co-employee who has castled long up there in heaven. we are calling it the noel olvida memorial cup and funds for this event came from the friends (mon pantaleon, james macagba, bong cachola, willy baetiong as of this writing) of noel, who hails from talim island and was buried there.

noel is one of my best friends and plays a little chess. he is one of my regular donors/sponsors in our chess outreach in tahanan walang hagdanan and new bilibid prison.

we have invited kids from public schools such as magsaysay hs, rosario elem school, qc science hs, taytay nat'l hs, aguinaldo hs, and are inviting your kids from tanay, at no charge.

wwe are hoping that through noel's legacy, we can help these kids hone their skills and give them a chance to play w/ masters. and we have invited nm bernardino and maga.

just let me know your entries and have them bring chess sets.

god bless.

rolly
meralco chess club