World Chess Championship 2023 Yan Nepomniachtchi vs. Ding Liren

The World Chess Championship is being held in Astana, Kaszakhstan starting on April 9, 2023.  This time out the world #2 Russian GM Yan Nepomniachtchi is facing off against world #3 China's GM Ding Liren.  The former world champion Magnus Carlsen has declined to participate, so Ding was brought in as a replacement since he finished second in the most recent Candidates tournament after Yan.

GM Richard Rapport, born in Hungary, but now playing for Romania, is serving as Ding's second.  GM and FIDE Senior Trainer Xu Jun is the coach of the Chinese national chess team, and is also in Astana.

In Nepomniachtchi's match vs. Carlsen, Peter Leko, Ildar Khairullin and Nikita Vitiugov were Nepo's seconds, but it is not known if they are still serving in this role.

There is a FIDE flag next to Yan on the playing table rather than a Russian flag this time out.

You can watch the games live in a number of different places:

World #5 US GM Hikaru Nakamura is livestreaming coverage of each game on his new channel on kick: https://kick.com/gmhikaru

He later uploads the stream or a recap to his channels on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/@GMHikaru/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@MoreGMHikaru/videos

World #6 GM Anish Giri has been doing live commentary for chess.com's channel on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/live/V90CXk1RCMY?feature=share

In the early games he has been joined by US GM Daniel Naroditsky and UK GM David Howell, and in the last half of the match, one time challenger for the title world #7 US GM Fabiano Caruana is scheduled to join.

Caruana has been doing recap videos with US GM Cristian Chirila for their C-Squared Podcast on Youtube:

https://youtu.be/wznXZvPLHNk

Former world champion and current world #9 Viswanathan Anand has been doing live commentary on FIDE's channel on Youtube with US GM Irina Krush:

https://www.youtube.com/live/r5ve1MQJP0I?feature=share

 

Canadian Grandmasters

Daniel Abraham Yanofsky was the first Canadian grandmaster.  He was born in Poland, and his family emigrated to Winnipeg when he was 8 months old.   In 1939, at age 14, he held America's leading light Reuben Fine to a draw, and achieved the highest score on 2nd board at Buenos Aires Olympiad.  In 1946, Yanofsky beat Mikhail Botvinnik who two years later became world champion.  Yanofsky became a lawyer, but scored his first GM norm at Dallas 1957 beating American GM Samuel Reshevsky, one of the world's top players.  His second norm came at Tel Aviv Olympiad 1964, where he once again beat Reshevsky.

Yanofsky had a good grounding in the openings, but where he really shone was in positions with an unusual material balance.  When his opponent offered a sacrifice, he would disdain material gain instead striking in the centre, pursuing his own attack.  He would threaten his opponent's king with checkmate, and then win material as they struggled to defend.

The second Canadian GM was Duncan Suttles.  Suttles was born in San Francisco, but his family moved to Vancouver when he was 5, and he became a Canadian citizen at age 21.  Suttles seems to have scored his first GM norm at Lugano Olympiad 1968 where he beat future GM Hans Ree, and held GMs Viktor Korchnoi and Bent Larsen to draws.  He gained his second GM norm at the Church's Fried Chicken International, San Antonio, 1972 beating American GM Larry Evans, and holding the former world champion Tigran Petrosian to a draw.

Suttles was well known for pioneering fianchetto openings such as the Rat 1.e4 g6 and the Benko's 1.g3, and for developing his knights to peculiar squares.  American GM Anthony Saidy described Suttles as the most original strategist since Nimzowitsch.  Suttles is the president of the Vancouver software company Magnetar Games.

Peter Biyiasas was born in Greece, but moved to Vancouver when he was young.  Biyiasas scored his first GM norm at the Marshall Chess Club tournie in New York 1977 where he beat Soviet Emigre GMs Anatoly Lein and Leonid Shamkovich.  He was awarded the GM title after scoring well at Buenos Aires Olympiad 1978.  The next year he emigrated to the United States where he became a programmer for IBM.

Kevin Spraggett was born, and raised in Montreal, Quebec.  He was awarded the GM title for his performance at Taxco Interzonal 1985 where he beat GMs Jonathan Speelman and Lev Alburt.  In recent years, he has been living in Portugal where he continues to play.

Evgeny Bareev was born in the Soviet Union, and became a grandmaster in 1989.  By 2003, he was the 4th highest rated player in the world.  In 2015, he emigrated to Toronto, Ontario where he coaches promising juniors, and occasionally plays.

Alexandre Lesiège was born in Montreal, Quebec.  He was granted the GM title for his performance at the Quebec Open 1999.  He retired from chess in 2004, but returned in 2015, beating Bareev in a mini-match.

Dimitri Tyomkin played his earliest games in Israel, but from 1998-2005 played many tournaments in Canada transferring to the Canadian federation.  He received his GM title in 2001.  Currently, he is living in Spain where he continues to play.

Mark Bluvshtein was born in the Soviet Union.  His family moved to Israel in 1993, and then Toronto in 1999.  He became a grandmaster in 2004, the youngest Canadian GM at age 16.

Igor Ivanov was born in the Soviet Union where he once defeated the then world champion Anatoly Karpov in a game.  He defected to Canada in 1980 living at first in Montreal.  He played for Canada in Toluca Interzonal 1982, and Lucerne and Thessaloniki Olympiads in 1984 and 1988.  Increasingly in the 1980's, he began playing more and more tournaments in the United States.  He was awarded the GM title in 2005 for his achievements earlier in his life.  He passed away in 2006.

Bator Sambuev was born in Russia, where he gained the GM title in 2006.  He emigrated to Toronto in 2007, and then moved to Montreal in 2010.

Pascal Charbonneau was born in Montreal.  He won a chess scholarship studying at the University of Maryland Baltimore, and then settled in New Jersey.  He gained his GM title by winning the Chicago Winter Invitational in 2006.

Anton Kovaylov was born in the Ukraine.  His family emigrated to Argentina in 2000, and then Montreal, Quebec in 2007.  He became a GM in 2008.  In recent years, he has been studying at the University of Texas Dallas.

Thomas Roussel-Roozmon was born in Quebec.  He scored his first GM norm in the Quebec Open in 2007, and his second norm at the Khanty-Mansiysk Olympiad in 2010.

Eric Hansen was born in Irvine, California, but grew up in Calgary, Alberta.  Hansen achieved his final GM norm at Istanbul Olympiad 2012, and was awarded the title the next year.  He lived briefly in Dallas where he attended university, but more recently has based himself in Montreal or Spain.

Razvan Preotu was born in Toronto in 1999, but his family moved to Burlington in 2003.  He scored his third GM norm at the 2016 World Open in Philadelphia, and then broke 2500 by drawing with GM Gata Kamsky at the 2016 Washington International, qualifying to become a GM.

Kaiqi Yang seems in line to become Canada's next GM.  He was born in China, and emigrated to Toronto in 2017.  His victories at Pacarin and Novi Sad, Serbia in January, February 2019, seem set to push his rating over 2500, the last requirement he needed to qualify.

References

Bruce Harper and Yasser Seirawan.  Chess on the Edge, vols. 1-3. Chess'n Math Association.

Chess Grandmasters

There is a certain prestige to being a grandmaster in chess. Beginners often wonder how they can become one. Grandmasters command respect from their opponents. When you see a GM title in front of someone's name, you know that person knows a thing or two about chess.

The term "grandmaster" has been used in a chess context for a great many years. A gentleman writing into the magazine Bell's Life in 1838 referred to the English chess author William Lewis as "our past grandmaster." Lewis's student, George Walker, referred to the 18th century French player François-André Danican Philidor as a grandmaster. The tournament directors at Ostend 1907 and San Sebastian 1912 dubbed their events grandmaster tournies. In the run up to the tournament at St. Petersburg 1914, both the German magazines Deutsche Schachzeitung and Weiner Schachzeitung referred to that tournament as a grandmaster event. In 1940, Robert Lewis Taylor wrote into the magazine, The New Yorker, suggesting that the finalists at St. Petersburg 1914, Emanuel Lasker, José Raúl Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, Siegbert Tarrasch and Frank Marshall had been described as grandmasters by Russia's Tsar Nicholas II.

In 1924, the French Chess Federation organized a tournament in Paris held at the same time as the Olympic games. Pierre Vincent proposed that a world chess federation be created, and thus, the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) was born. In its early years, FIDE focused on organizing the chess Olympiads, but as yet had no titles as such.

In 1929, Boris Verlinsky won the 6th Soviet Championship, and was declared the first Soviet Grandmaster, although this title was revoked in 1931. In 1935, Mikhail Botvinnik became the second Soviet Grandmaster for his victory at the Moscow international tournament that year. In 1936, the Chess Section in the USSR established a set of rules requiring the players attain a certain minimum score, a 'norm' in tournaments of at least 10 games to become eligible for the title of Master of the USSR.

In 1950, FIDE voted to implement a system of titles, with international grandmaster being the most prestigious. The first set of GMs included then world champion, Mikhail Botvinnik, and those playing in FIDE's first Candidates tournament at Budapest, 1950, such as former world champion Max Euwe, Reuben Fine, Paul Keres, Samuel Reshevsky, Vassily Smyslov along with other players who had been world class at their peak.

In 1953, FIDE brought in rules for a player to become a GM by finishing in the top two places in an international tournament with 80% GMs or International Masters playing. The 1957 regulations returned the focus to players qualifying for FIDE's Candidates tournaments. In 1965, FIDE established a system of tournament categories based on the percentage of GMs or IMs present, and players had to achieve GM norms by winning a certain percentage of games against the GMs, IMs and untitled players playing.

In 1970, FIDE adopted the rating system of the physicist Arpad Elo, using the average rating of participants to determine a tournament's category. In 1978, FIDE introduced a rule that GMs must have achieved a minimum rating of 2450 to qualify for the title. In 1988, FIDE raised the minimum from 2450 to 2500. The current regulations require a player to achieve 2 norms in 2 tournaments of at least 27 games as well as a minimum rating of 2500.

In future blog entries, I hope to look at the players who have become grandmasters in Canada, and annotate some of their games.

References

Chess Informant 26 (1978) and 46 (1988)

FIDE Title Regulations effective from 1 July 2017. FIDE website.

Földeak, Arpad. 1979. Chess Olympiads 1927-1968. Dover.

Hooper, David and Kenneth Whyld. 1992. The Oxford Companion to Chess. Oxford University Press.

Soltis, Andrew. 2000. Soviet Chess 1917-1991. McFarland.

Winter, Edward. Chess Notes 5144 Tsar Nicholas II. Chess History.com Website.

Winter, Edward. 1999. Kings, Commoners and Knaves: Further Chess Explorations. Russell Enterprises.