The Behting study is sound !!

In november 2011 I showed Behting's study, that has puzzled chessplayers for more than 100 years now.

white to play and draw.

It should be known by now by most chessplayers that the surprising Kc6 draws, but in august 2012, chessbase.com looked into the problem and was asking for "cooks" - people wanting to investigate the problem and potentially show the problem is not sound as Ng7+ might also draw.

But in october, GM John Nunn concluded that the study is correct after all as Ng7+ looses.

Check out the analysis !

Presentation by Robert Houdart

Last friday, there was a presentation In Leuven ( Flanders ) on chess engines by Robert Houdart, the Flemish author of Houdini. You can read a summary here.

It is in Dutch, but I am sure you will get the point. Really interesting stuff !

Interesting is also a grat Rybka - Houdini game :



The commentator gets lyrical about Houdini's romantic style, allowing old gambits ( such as the Blackmar Diemer... ) to be revived.

Solving Behting's study

I got a mail saying that the engine "Patzer" has been known to resolve Behting's study ?!

I could not find any weblocation on this engine. Anyone can help finding more details on this engine. Is it freeware ?

Behting's study

I loaded Behting's study today in my computer, wanting to see if any of my loaded chess engines would be able to find the solution of this famous problem.

For those who dont know this famous study - it dates from 1906 and was created by Karlis Betins ( Karl Behting in German ) from Latvia who worked a lot on the Latvian gambit.

White must try to secure a draw in this exciting position

Can you find the drawing move ?

If not, dont feel depressed - none of the chess engines could find it either...

But it is remarkable that the human mind could conceive this puzzle in 1906, and no computer is able to break it in 2011. Food for thought, no ?

Maybe we should all start playing the Latvian gambit, as the author ( Behting ) was the key contributor of this opening - as a sort of tribute, saying "I am playing an opening invented by a human that is smarter than any computer !".

If you, or your computer, can find the correct move ( without looking it up on the internet ), you are really a miracle man !

Botvinnik Semi-Slav

After having lost badly yesterday evening against a well prepared opponent in a fierce Botvinnik Slav game, I thought it would be a good idea to look up the correct line in the de-facto standard book on this complicated opening : "The Botvinnik Semi-Slav" by IM Steffen Pedersen, published in 2000.

I saw that the line I played was not even listed - so I guess it was really that bad - but what puzzled me more, was the author's bold statement in the foreword :

"...In these Fritzy times, it is fairly easy to check analysis to a resaonable degree of accuracy, but with the highly complicated positions which make up most of this book, chess engines are often not that trustworthy, or to be more exact need far more time and have to be 'taken down the road' all the way. Naturally, various chess engines have been of great help during my work, but when analysing such complicated positions as arise in the Botvinnik System or the Anti-Moscow variation, intuition counts for a lot. For example, I wonder whether a computer will ever be able to find Sergei Ivanov's amazing 22...Rh5!! to be found in the introduction to Chapter 2...."

Well, Steffen, I checked out this position on my laptop and guess what, Houdini 1.5a identified 22...Rh5 is a fraction of a second - it did not have to be 'taken down the road' at all. Also, if finding this move is intuition - then my laptop seems to be very human indeed...

This great example convinces me once again that computer analysis is by far the most important thing in analysing complicated openings, like the Botvinnik Slav or the Blackmar Diemer. Computers are not only capable of analysing deeper using brute force, now they seem to have human characteristics also !