Month: June 2015

What the Pawn Sacrifice Poster Says About Chess Players

I am one of those guys who spends most of his life wishing that he could go to film festivals to catch the latest and greatest independent films from across the globe. Instead of actually going to these festivals, however, I am most likely doomed to tracking the films that interest me as they spend years in distribution limbo awaiting a mainstream theatrical release. This has especially been the case with the movie Pawn Sacrifice, the upcoming biopic about the 1972 World Chess Championship between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. I remember hearing about it for the first time and was filled with excitement! That was over a year and a half ago, with Pawn Sacrifice just now preparing for its theatrical debut. In any case, I digress.

For most of the time that the public has been aware of the existence of the movie, the only real promotional material available for it was a publicity photo showing Tobey McGuire and Liev Schreiber in their respective roles as Fischer and Spassky. Of course, the initial reviews of the movie from the premier festival have not been great although these days it is impossible to trust most movie reviews, especially the ones coming from independent film festivals. Yet, I still held on to my hope until the official poster for the film was finally revealed.

The Mind of Robert J. Fischer

At first, it struck me as a fairly standard piece of modern poster art. Earth tones are all the rage in Hollywood’s digital arts factories. I guess that it is because faded browns and grays increase the audience’s sense of the character’s pain and struggles. I also like the subtle complexities of the picture. There is much for the audience to discern from the look on Bobby Fischer’s face and the chess notations coming out of his head. For the people who knew, played with, and experienced the real Bobby Fischer, the notations coming out of his mind represent the whole of who he was as a human being and as a chess player. Bobby lived his life only to play chess. When he played, he was the best that the world had ever seen, but the darkness of his dichotomous existential paradigm eventually took him from the game, and eventually…sanity itself.

Just a hint of emotional struggle…
An Algebraic Quandary

I did not give the poster much thought until I started seeing the reactions from other chess players on Chess.com and on various Facebook chess groups. Where most people might decry a lack of creativity in Hollywood these days or the overemphasis on brown colors, but instead, chess players know exactly what is most important in life, and that is the accuracy of the chess!

You see, the chess notation coming out of Bobby’s head in the poster is historically inaccurate. Although Bobby might have annotated some of his games in algebraic notation (shown in the poster), it is a well known fact that he exclusively used descriptive notation when playing in tournaments. This might not seem like mich of a big deal to the casual observer, but to a chess community flustered and running out of patience with Hollywood’s inability to even set a board up correctly, it means everything in the world. I realized that I saw the commenta as petty and obnoxious mainly because I am a huge Bobby Fischer fan and I have been looking forward to the film for quite some time. However, after some introspection and examination of the poster, the trailer, and the comments from others within the chess community, I came to the conclusion that:

  • 1) It is historically inaccurate.
  • 2) It does not matter to 99% of the audience that will see the film.
  • 3) It does not change the film at all.
  • 4) It does matter to the remaining 1%, who are those of us that go to bed at night and solve tactical positions in our sleep.

I regret my initial impressions of the response to the poster in some sense. Yes, perhaps the complaints (if taken seriously) are a bit on the obnoxious side, but those comments represent the passion of a community that has dedicated itself to the game. For us, chess is not just a game…it is our game. At this point, I am willing to attribute the algebraic notation to simple human oversight since watching the trailer reveals that a key shot of the chessboard that actually reflects a position from the original tournament. Perhaps these small details will make up for the algebraic notation in the minds of most chess players, or perhaps it does not really matter at all. Even great historic films like Schindler’s List and Amadeus are filled with historical inaccuracies, but the small details did not effect the overall quality of the final product.

Despite the initial reviews, I am hopeful that Pawn Sacrifice will be an excellent re-telling of one of the Cold War’s defining moments. Tobey McGuire might be the best Bobby Fischer to ever hit the silver screen, or he might be the worst. The character of Bobby Fischer himself was so unique and so far off of the charts of what we would consider normal that I think it is practically impossible to find anyone who could play him in a way that truly expresses the torment he lived with.

Ultimately, any criticism of Pawn Sacrifice’s historical inaccuracies demonstrates that for those of us who live their lives in the world of chess, it will always be more than a game.

For some excellent analysis of the movie and some of the issues I discussed here, check out FM Mike Klein‘s awesome article on Chess.com. Pawn Sacrifice will be arriving in theaters this September. Check out the official trailer here.

Finally Making Progress?

Yesterday, I shared my feelings on the recent cheating scandal involving WGM Miheala Sandu and the Women’s European Chess Championship. At one point in the post, I wanted to focus on the significant effect that a chess player’s mental status has on the outcome of a game. After WGM Sandu was subjected to the baseless assaults on her character, the effectiveness of her gameplay took a devastating turn for the worse. This is much the same for chess players of all skill levels and experience. Chess knowledge, experience, and preparation cannot make up for the psychological difficulties of poor concentration, stress, anxiety, and other negative effects on the human mind.

A perfect example of this in the amateur world would be the effect that work stress has had on my recent over-the-board success. On Chess.com there are several different time controls that a player can select. Among those are Bullet, Blitz, and Standard for live chess, and Standard and Chess960 for daily (or turn-based) chess. Although it is frowned upon by many chess teachers, I tend to play a lot of 5-minute blitz chess, mostly because my busy schedule rarely affords me the opportunity to sit down and play an extended series of 15-minute standard games. On May 16, 2014, I deleted my old Chess.com account and signed up for a new one using the username AmishHacker because it is something I have used extensively on other sites for decades. In any case, it was on that day that I achieved both my highest and lowest ratings in blitz chess: 1200 and 692 respectively. For what its worth, all players start out at 1200 and most of us fall down to a norm relatively quickly.


Since that time, my blitz rating has hovered between 750 and 900, but it reached a peak rating of 951 on October 26, 2014 before taking another freefall. For each of these ELO rises and falls, I am able to look back at specific life events that affected the way that I was playing.

An Unstoppable Freefall


In May of this year, my day job took a turn for the worse, which created an immense amount of stress and anxiety for me and for my family. The effects of this event are evident in the devastating ELO drop that occurred shortly thereafter. I played some of the worst chess games of my life in the span from May 20 to June 1. Simple tactical problems became monumental obstacles and no matter how much I studied games or practiced on a board at home or with Fritz, I kept coming up short. As a prime example, check out this little gem:

Sure, many people do not pay attention to their games at times and can make mistakes like this, but it had become so incredibly commonplace in that span of time that it certainly detracted from my desire to play chess, much less blog about it. Then, things started to change…

An Impossible Resurrection


June 1 was the day that things really started turning around for me both in my professional life and on the chess board. Much of the chaos that had plagued my family’s life ended on that day and almost immediately, many of my chess games began to return to normal. Except that this time, things were going to be different. As of today, my blitz rating sits at 962, which is the highest it has been since May 26 of last year! Of course there are some games scattered across my record that are hopelessly lost positions won on time, but most of the games recently are legitimate wins that have given me a renewed sense of hope for the future. In addition, I am now only 7 games away from batting .500, which means I will have an equal number of wins and losses for the first time in my chess career.

With a starting ELO of 692 in May of 2014, an ELO in June of this year equates to a 39.8% increase over the past year! It may not seem like much to some people, but small advances like this are why I love playing chess! The work is hard, but it is thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding!

If you play regularly on Chess.com, perhaps you will take some time to hunt me down and challenge me to a game! Win or lose, every venture out onto the board is a chance to learn, explore, discover, and grow!

Select Games from the Past Week


Chess, Cheating, and Callousness

The European Women’s Chess Championship recently concluded in the Georgian (Slavic) city of Chakvi. Ukrainian Grandmaster Natalia Zukhova emerged victorious, but that victory was overshadowed by questions and accusations of cheating directed not at the champion, but at Romanian WGM Mihaela Sandu (rated 2300 ELO). Thanks to a letter accusing the young chess player of cheating by utilizing computer assistance, WGM Sandu was tried and convicted in the court of public chess opinion before she even had a chance to defend herself. What terrible thing did she do to warrant such negative attention to herself? Simple: she holds a lower ELO than the opponents she was mercilessly destroying.

The Supernatural Power of the ELO


Chess is famous for its ability to equalize the playing field by eliminating the social, cultural, racial, and practically every other kind of sociopolitical differentiator out there. However, chess replaces all of these differentials with a single number, called the ELO rating system. The ELO system was designed by Arpad Elo, a Hungarian physics professor and chess player. Although the methods for determining the exact quantification of a player’s exact ELO rating can vary between countries and federations, the basics of the system are mostly universal and give chess players, fans, clubs, and anyone else involved with the game an idea of the player’s strength. Just like people around the world with high IQs like to brag about them, chess players have most, if not all, of their existence within the chess world determined by their ELO.

For example, the best that Campfire Chess can hope to promote in its current state is amateur chess because your friendly host has a blitz rating of ELO 930 and a standard rating of ELO 1010. Unfortunately, I have not played in an official USCF tournament as of yet and have not established a baseline ELO outside of my online training efforts. If you consider that a player rated 900 who wins a game against a player ratined 1100 will gain approximately 11 ELO points, you might get a sense of how much work is required to advance an ELO rating to the Grandmaster or Candidate Master levels!

In the context of the European Women’s Chess Championship, it was the simple crime of having a lower ELO than her opponents that brought the claws of her challengers out against Mihaela Sandu.

The Accusations


The accusations against WGM Sandu are that she was using some kind of electronic assistance to win games against her higher-rated opponents. After only five rounds into the event, the Romanian Grandmaster was leading the event with an amazing score of 5.0! I am not sure that I see this being a problem for most Grandmaster-level players, but at least 32 players in the tournament took exception to Sandu’s games and submitted a letter to the tournament organizers demanding that they take actions against her for cheating. Here is the text of the letter:

  • We, the participants of the 16 European Women Chess Championship would like to express our grave concern regarding raising suspicion of cheating in the tournament. We would like to ask organisers cooperation in this regard. There are a few ways to fight with advanced technology, and we believe organizers should do their utmost to avoid such situations. We have already asked for a 15 min delay in the live transmission of all the games. It is a common solution, used in many top level tournaments. If this is technically not possible, then we would like to ask organizers to propose another solution of this problem for the remaining rounds of the Championship.

It was not long after the first letter was published that a second letter was posted that specifically requested a blackout of WGM Sandu’s games for rounds 8-11.

  • We, the participants of the 16th European Individual Women’s Chess Championship want to express concern about the situation with M.Sandu’s performance. We would like to ask organizers not to include her games from round 8-11 in a live transmission and publish them after the rounds. We do not see any important reason to dislike this precautionary measure for both sides. We hope that such a decision will prevent all possible suspicions.
Credit: ChessBase

The letter is correct in that there are few ways available for tournament directors to fight against advancing technology. As smartphones become smaller and more powerful, other devices that can transmit data in amazingly inconspicuous ways are popping up all over the chess world. In some ways, the suspicions surrounding WGM Sandu are not surprising given the recent cheating cases that continue to arise in tournament chess. However, do the actions of some individuals represent the actions of the whole? There are hundreds of thousands of chess games played every month in professional tournaments around the world, but what percentage of those players participating are outright cheating the system?


The Cheater and the Cheetah


I like to think that chess is different from other activities because its players (for the most part) tend to be among the most intellgient, analytical, and creative thinkers in the world. However, that does not elminate the human desire to break the rules at times or for the desire to win at all costs to overtake a person’s mind. As I mentioned above, cheating has a long and unfortunate history in professional chess. While it might make sense in some ways that the 32 players on the letter might suspect cheating, there are many systems in place at top professional tournaments that are designed to sniff out players who might be receiving information from remote computer systems or other forms of outside assistance. In June 2014, Chess Life ran a fantastic article on Dr. Ken Regan of the University of Buffalo and his customized algorithm designed to search live game broadcasts for moves that might indicate a player is receiving information from outside sources.

Surely it is not possible to catch every cheater in a tournament, but even cheaters utilizing advanced technology are not likely to work hard enough to draw attention to themselves. No one that I am aware of even broached the possibility that Fabiano Caruana was cheating during his historic run at the 2014 Sinquefield Cup. Immediately after his 7-0 winning streak, Fabiano swiftly returned to his mere-mortal status, just as many chess players before him have done. Unfortunately for WGM Sandu, the fact that her game performance deteriorated significantly following the institution of the 15-second delay and the continued attacks on her character.

Many skeptics will point to this deterioration of performance as validation of their cheating claims. To me, this seems rather asinine given the fragile nature of the human psyche and the intense amount of focus necessary to win at top levels of professional chess. Who could perform flawlessly after they are mercilessly smeared? I wish WGM Sandu the best in her future chess tournaments and hope that someday the professional chess world will be able to find that delicate balance between calling out true cheaters and letting great winning streaks continue to be the great pieces of chess history that they are.

Not convinced? Check out all of WGM Sandu’s games from the tournament:

Further Reading


The Updates Continue

As with any good design philosophy, I make every effort to create a sense of unity among the different pages and social media sites used for Campfire Chess. It has taken a few days to fully implement, but the new design language is now fully implemented across every element of the blog, the shop, and the social media pages. Perhaps the most exciting part of the entire transformation is a complete re-write of the downloads section and long overdue updates to the publications and reading list pages. Since its inception, the site has maintained a downloads page with free wallpaper, game collections, and other exclusive goodies for online chess fans. Some of these items were taken from long-gone chess websites while some of it, including most of the wallpaper and game collections, was created exclusively for Campfire Chess. Here is a breakdown of what has been updated since June 1st:

The Downloads Page
  • New Wallpaper:
    Added two new Campfire Chess flame logo (light and dark options) to the list. More new wallpaper is on the way in the coming days!
  • New Sizes:
    Support for non-retina display iPads and iPad Mini (1024×1024) added to all wallpaper downloads. Support for iPhone 6/6+ is being phased in over time, but is only available for the Campfire logo downloads at this time..
  • PGN Format:
    It is no surprise that I am a huge fan of ChessBase, but there are many chess players out there today that utilize iOS tablets, MacBooks, Linux, and other platforms where using ChessBase is not an option. Therefore, to increase the universality of use for the files distributed here, most of the ChessBase file formats have been removed and left with PGN-only download options. Users of ChessBase can convert these files into CBH format if they want to take advantage of the software’s more advanced referencing functions.
  • Opening Trees:
    In addition to adding new players including Judit Polgar, Garry Kasparov, and Susan Polgar, each player now has an exclusive opening tree for use in ChessBase, Fritz, or similar chess program that supports the CTG file format.
Other Pages
  • Publications:
    The publications page has always been a challenge, but some new HTML and CSS has finally brought the cover displays under control. In addition, any reference (other than cover images) to OffMyChess.com were removed.
  • Reading List:
    The reading list is one of those places that received a lot of attention when the site went online last year, but it had fallen into serious disarray. Some of the links to game collections were broken and there were still references to the old OffMyChess.com rating review scheme on some of the books. Fortunately, the entire page has been re-written with new HTML and CSS to bring it into compliance with the new design philosophy.
  • Online Shop:
    Fixed problems with the logo header in the shop, created new merchandise categories, and finally merged the design philosophy of the blog and the shop to mirror each other. There are also new stickers, calendars, and t-shirts available for those moments when you gotta have that Campfire swag!

There are many more updates coming, but this represents the bulk of the major renovations that will be most apparent to readers and regular users. I thank every one for their continuous support of the site and look forward to offering many other game collections, commentary, and other exclusive chess goodies!

Spring Campfire Chess Magazine Delayed

I make every effort to publish Campfire Chess Magazine four times a year: January, June, September, and December. The January 2014 edition was the first issue to bear the logo, style, and content of the site’s new namesake. Unfortunately, because this website and the magazine are part of my chess hobby, there is not always a guarantee that I will have the time and resources available to complete the magazine as I intended. I think that these times will be few and far between. In the case of the magazine’s spring edition, some life events caused me to fall behind both in maintaining the site and preparing to publish the quarterly magazine. The June 2015 edition of Campfire Chess Magazine will be released on July 1.

In the meantime, please consider visiting the publications page to browse through the complete magazine back-catalogue.

The one who makes the last mistake…

Chess is a game of skill played out among some of the world’s greatest strategic minds. Legend has it that chess is the result of attempts by ancient military commanders and kings to demonstrate their battle strategy before engaging in conflict. In the case of the great players like Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, and Magnus Carlsen, victory often came to the player whose strategic understanding and execution of the game was faster and more devious than their opponents. For those of us who spend our lives at the bottom of the ratings barrel, victory often comes to the player who makes the next to last mistake.

This game was played last month and is an excellent example of tactical play and some intriguing choices in tight situations.

GM Julio Sadorra Wins Texas State Championship

The 2015 Texas State and Amateur Championship chess tournament was held from May 22 to May 25 at the DFW Airport Marriott South in Fort Worth, Texas. Approximately forty-one people participated in the State Championship section while the State Amateur Championship section was packed with one-hundred and thirty-seven people! Social media saavy WCM Claudia Munõz was on hand to compete for the tournament championship and to take plenty of photos for the rest us! In the end, it was GM Julio Sadorro with 4 wins and 2 draws who took the overall tournament win. WCM Munõz played exceptionally well and placed 24th overall with 2 losses, 2 draws, and a win. The final standings for the top ten players in the Championship section were:

# Name Rtng Post Rd 1 Rd 2 Rd 3 Rd 4 Rd 5 Rd 6 Tot
1 GM Julio C Sadorra 2626 2625 W32 W17 W18 D16 W5 D2 5.0
2 IM Darwin Yang 2575 2576 H— W7 D8 W13 W4 D1 4.5
3 NM Tianming Xie 2166 2224 W34 D30 W20 D28 W16 D6 4.5
4 NM Jeffrey De Jesus 2329 2338 W6 W9 D16 W27 L2 D5 4.0
5 NM Dachey Lin 2315 2322 W21 D19 W37 W8 L1 D4 4.0
6 Andrew J Widener 2142 2186 L4 W41 D10 W19 W28 D3 4.0
7 Joey Kelly 2100 2170 D12 L2 W22 W32 D18 W17 4.0
8 NM Atulya Vaidya 2254 2265 W40 W38 D2 L5 W27 D12 4.0
9 Robert Sanchez 2170 2199 W35 L4 W36 D17 D12 W18 4.0
10 NM Bovey Liu 2235 2234 D22 D39 D6 D37 W21 W20 4.0

GM Julio Sadorra and the Texas State Championship Trophy Photo: Texas Chess Association

The Amateur Section was open to players U2000 ELO or unrated, while the Championship Section was open to players over 2000 ELO or with a rating higher than the 2014 Amateur Champion, IM Darwin Yang (2570 ELO). This year’s Texas State Amateur Champion is Benjamin Frenkel who destroyed his competition to win a perfect 6/6 with an ELO of 1888!

Benjamin Frenkel and the Texas Amateur Championship Trophy Photo: Texas Chess Association

The final standings for the top ten players in the Amateur section were:

# Name Rtng Club Rd 1 Rd 2 Rd 3 Rd 4 Rd 5 Rd 6 Tot
1 Benjamin Frenkel 1888 90% W70 W106 W18 W10 W16 W9 6.0
2 Daniel Hung 1884 90% W78 W113 W41 W39 D3 W17 5.5
3 Adrian Diaz 1993 100% W34 W82 W19 H— D2 W25 5.0
4 David R Gaston 1902 100% W95 W36 D15 W24 D17 W19 5.0
5 Ryan S Ackerman 1862 100% W98 W49 W57 D9 D7 W20 5.0
6 Peter Mikhail 1890 100% W94 L15 W66 W18 W44 W23 5.0
7 Jonathan F Allen 1921 100% H— W65 W71 W85 D5 W15 5.0
8 Annastasia Wyzywany 1864 90% W68 W75 D85 D40 W62 W16 5.0
9 Travis Guenther 1943 100% W55 W63 W61 D5 W11 L1 4.5
10 Atreya Vaidya 1971 60% W72 W14 W58 L1 D15 W52 4.5

Welcome to the new Campfire Chess!

I am pleased to finally roll out the first major website design update since Campfire Chess launched last year! The other design was a modified version of the Sparkling WordPress Theme by Colorlib. It served me well and was relatively easy to maintain, but it started feeling a little too bulky for what I wanted. The new site is designed to be much more lightweight and to facilitate an improved game repository and game presentation. In the old template, the games were immediately posted on the main page and the processing of the PHP and JavaScript could bog down some browsers and mobile devices.

The new update should take care of those issues and present a much more streamlined and modern appearance that will serve well into the foreseeable future.

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