GM Kaufman v.Novag Constellation 3.6 QR Odds (Moves 1-40)

[Don]

I'm able to log in again now, thanks to Sam. I play 34.hxg6. My only chance is to weaken the Black king. ..Re5 was a bit strange looking, but perhaps not a bad move.

Well Connie finally goes haywire with all of the possible Pins,Skewers,Discovered Checks ,Forks and Captures
She decides to recapture the P in the worst possible way with the disastrous ...

34..Qxg6

[d]6k1/p1pr1p1p/1p4q1/3nr1B1/2Bp2R1/1Q6/P4P1K/8 w - - 0 34

Excellently played by GM Kaufman

Hopefully she can still cling on to the draw

Sigh Regards
Steve

Larry is once again unable to make a post, so I will relay his response:

Meanwhile I'm unable to log in again to TalkChess for some reason, although I can read everything there. So please forward my reply and comment:

"I play 35.Qg3, defending the bishop, attacking the rook and threatening to pin the queen. It seems that Black must return some material. The tactics appear to me to be five ply deep on Black's last move, so either I'm missing some delaying sequence or else Connie only managed a 4 ply search on that move."

So Larry plays 35. Qg3

Don

[bob]

I'm able to log in again now, thanks to Sam. I play 34.hxg6. My only chance is to weaken the Black king. ..Re5 was a bit strange looking, but perhaps not a bad move.

Well Connie finally goes haywire with all of the possible Pins,Skewers,Discovered Checks ,Forks and Captures
She decides to recapture the P in the worst possible way with the disastrous ...

34..Qxg6

[d]6k1/p1pr1p1p/1p4q1/3nr1B1/2Bp2R1/1Q6/P4P1K/8 w - - 0 34

Excellently played by GM Kaufman

Hopefully she can still cling on to the draw

Sigh Regards
Steve

It will be interesting to see GM Kaufman's reply. Black's ...Qg6 does not look as bad to me as maybe it should.

It is what I would call "an onerous concession." If white defends the rook, the black king has to move instantly, and now white occupies the g-file. Looks like black is going to give back material quickly now. Question will be can it stop the bleeding before it becomes fatal... As a human, my first thought was simply Qg3 to _really_ take over the g-file. Be interesting to see what larry says. Of course, I might change my mind after deeper analysis. Will try to sic crafty on this when I get home tonight and see what it thinks...

[bob]

I'm able to log in again now, thanks to Sam. I play 34.hxg6. My only chance is to weaken the Black king. ..Re5 was a bit strange looking, but perhaps not a bad move.

Well Connie finally goes haywire with all of the possible Pins,Skewers,Discovered Checks ,Forks and Captures
She decides to recapture the P in the worst possible way with the disastrous ...

34..Qxg6

[d]6k1/p1pr1p1p/1p4q1/3nr1B1/2Bp2R1/1Q6/P4P1K/8 w - - 0 34

Excellently played by GM Kaufman

Hopefully she can still cling on to the draw

Sigh Regards
Steve

It will be interesting to see GM Kaufman's reply. Black's ...Qg6 does not look as bad to me as maybe it should.

I think that after this move Larry is likely to win the game, even if Connie still technically has the win (which I'm not at all sure of.)

Unless I am blinded, after the obvious Qg3 white gets most of the material back (netither h5 or f5 seems to help, because of Qxe5 and later Qe8+ Qxd7 or Qxe5-Bxd5+, respectively), which means Connie is toasted. The black pawns will start falling like flies.

Miguel

That was my first-glance opinion too. I said a while back that the h4 stuff could be a problem for a non-deep-searcher here as one mistake and the roof falls in.

shingles-in-hair regards,

Bob

(typical Steve sign-off)

[bob]

I'm able to log in again now, thanks to Sam. I play 34.hxg6. My only chance is to weaken the Black king. ..Re5 was a bit strange looking, but perhaps not a bad move.

Well Connie finally goes haywire with all of the possible Pins,Skewers,Discovered Checks ,Forks and Captures
She decides to recapture the P in the worst possible way with the disastrous ...

34..Qxg6

[d]6k1/p1pr1p1p/1p4q1/3nr1B1/2Bp2R1/1Q6/P4P1K/8 w - - 0 34

Excellently played by GM Kaufman

Hopefully she can still cling on to the draw

Sigh Regards
Steve

It will be interesting to see GM Kaufman's reply. Black's ...Qg6 does not look as bad to me as maybe it should.

I think that after this move Larry is likely to win the game, even if Connie still technically has the win (which I'm not at all sure of.)

The Connie may have a difficult win and certainly a draw but it won't handle it correctly. I guess the Connie made this blunder due to too many options and the depth is well beyond her horizon. A little K-Safety & Pawn capture knowledge would have gone a long way.

Crow Sucks Regards,

The superconnie was never a "bad program" but it ran on limited hardware. We've been spoiled by putting this kind of tactical disaster behind us thanks to today's hardware. But back in the 80's and 90's, this was what a typical computer chess game looked like. One of my all-time favorite games was between Belle and Chess 4.6 at the 1978 ACM chess tournament in Washington DC. Both were failing low, failing high, for about 5 minutes David Levy could not even keep up with the tactics as moves were played. If memory is correct, Belle won that, searching about 5K nodes per second (this was before the 1980 belle that hit 160K...)

[Terry McCracken]

I'm able to log in again now, thanks to Sam. I play 34.hxg6. My only chance is to weaken the Black king. ..Re5 was a bit strange looking, but perhaps not a bad move.

Well Connie finally goes haywire with all of the possible Pins,Skewers,Discovered Checks ,Forks and Captures
She decides to recapture the P in the worst possible way with the disastrous ...

34..Qxg6

[d]6k1/p1pr1p1p/1p4q1/3nr1B1/2Bp2R1/1Q6/P4P1K/8 w - - 0 34

Excellently played by GM Kaufman

Hopefully she can still cling on to the draw

Sigh Regards
Steve

It will be interesting to see GM Kaufman's reply. Black's ...Qg6 does not look as bad to me as maybe it should.

I think that after this move Larry is likely to win the game, even if Connie still technically has the win (which I'm not at all sure of.)

The Connie may have a difficult win and certainly a draw but it won't handle it correctly. I guess the Connie made this blunder due to too many options and the depth is well beyond her horizon. A little K-Safety & Pawn capture knowledge would have gone a long way.

Crow Sucks Regards,

The superconnie was never a "bad program" but it ran on limited hardware. We've been spoiled by putting this kind of tactical disaster behind us thanks to today's hardware. But back in the 80's and 90's, this was what a typical computer chess game looked like. One of my all-time favorite games was between Belle and Chess 4.6 at the 1978 ACM chess tournament in Washington DC. Both were failing low, failing high, for about 5 minutes David Levy could not even keep up with the tactics as moves were played. If memory is correct, Belle won that, searching about 5K nodes per second (this was before the 1980 belle that hit 160K...)

That's why, particularly in the eighties computers were so easy to smash.
For the last 10 years they've been very difficult to win against and since 05, well my days of smashing computers is long over.

Still, Qg6?? was a bit shocking at first sight. I had expected the Connie to either play something weaker than it had far earlier in the game, it hadn't, then in the last two moves it starts to really play strange stuff, Re5(?), Re8 was obvious and now one of the worst mistakes I've seen even from a dedicated from the mid eighties. Larry got what he needed all at once, amazing.

[Terry McCracken]

I'm able to log in again now, thanks to Sam. I play 34.hxg6. My only chance is to weaken the Black king. ..Re5 was a bit strange looking, but perhaps not a bad move.

Well Connie finally goes haywire with all of the possible Pins,Skewers,Discovered Checks ,Forks and Captures
She decides to recapture the P in the worst possible way with the disastrous ...

34..Qxg6

[d]6k1/p1pr1p1p/1p4q1/3nr1B1/2Bp2R1/1Q6/P4P1K/8 w - - 0 34

Excellently played by GM Kaufman

Hopefully she can still cling on to the draw

Sigh Regards
Steve

It will be interesting to see GM Kaufman's reply. Black's ...Qg6 does not look as bad to me as maybe it should.

I think that after this move Larry is likely to win the game, even if Connie still technically has the win (which I'm not at all sure of.)

Unless I am blinded, after the obvious Qg3 white gets most of the material back (netither h5 or f5 seems to help, because of Qxe5 and later Qe8+ Qxd7 or Qxe5-Bxd5+, respectively), which means Connie is toasted. The black pawns will start falling like flies.

Miguel

I hope the Connie chooses f5? as it's goose is going to be cooked more quickly with greater certainty.

35..f5 36. Qxe5..fg 37. Bxd5+..Rxd5 38. Qxd5+...Qf7 39. Qd8+..Kg7 40. Qd4+ +-.

[Steve B]

I'm able to log in again now, thanks to Sam. I play 34.hxg6. My only chance is to weaken the Black king. ..Re5 was a bit strange looking, but perhaps not a bad move.

Well Connie finally goes haywire with all of the possible Pins,Skewers,Discovered Checks ,Forks and Captures
She decides to recapture the P in the worst possible way with the disastrous ...

34..Qxg6

[d]6k1/p1pr1p1p/1p4q1/3nr1B1/2Bp2R1/1Q6/P4P1K/8 w - - 0 34

Excellently played by GM Kaufman

Hopefully she can still cling on to the draw

Sigh Regards
Steve

It will be interesting to see GM Kaufman's reply. Black's ...Qg6 does not look as bad to me as maybe it should.

I think that after this move Larry is likely to win the game, even if Connie still technically has the win (which I'm not at all sure of.)

Unless I am blinded, after the obvious Qg3 white gets most of the material back (netither h5 or f5 seems to help, because of Qxe5 and later Qe8+ Qxd7 or Qxe5-Bxd5+, respectively), which means Connie is toasted. The black pawns will start falling like flies.

Miguel

That was my first-glance opinion too. I said a while back that the h4 stuff could be a problem for a non-deep-searcher here as one mistake and the roof falls in.

shingles-in-hair regards,

Bob

(typical Steve sign-off)

More Like Shingles -in -Grey -Hair ..after that Howler

how many Class A players would actually allow the Q to step into a pin like that?

anyway.. Larry Set this up beautifully and deserves full credit
every last piece in his diminished arsenal aimed at the King..
Pins traps and pitfalls...

If Connie does manage to loss this game ..she will be

Ebay Bound Regards
Steve

[Steve B]

Still, Qg6?? was a bit shocking at first sight. I had expected the Connie to either play something weaker than it had far earlier in the game, it hadn't, then in the last two moves it starts to really play strange stuff, Re5(?), Re8 was obvious and now one of the worst mistakes I've seen even from a dedicated from the mid eighties. Larry got what he needed all at once, amazing.

i remember another forum game i played in the Hiarcs Forum where
i operated the Mephisto Polgar 10 Mhz and Mark Uniacke operated his Scisys Simultano
Polgar had a tough endgame and a possible draw when she decided to exchange down.. to a hopelessly lost endgame
the annoying thing about that game was that Mark's Simultano did not realize it should trade down and was avoiding the exchange!
sadly.. Polgar kept offering the trade!!
The Simultano finally got fed up.. accepted the trade.. and coasted to the win
Much to my chagrin the game was published in Hallworth's "Selective Search" Mag ..

Tales From the Crypt Regards
Steve

[gladius]

That's why, particularly in the eighties computers were so easy to smash.
For the last 10 years they've been very difficult to win against and since 05, well my days of smashing computers is long over.

Still, Qg6?? was a bit shocking at first sight. I had expected the Connie to either play something weaker than it had far earlier in the game, it hadn't, then in the last two moves it starts to really play strange stuff, Re5(?), Re8 was obvious and now one of the worst mistakes I've seen even from a dedicated from the mid eighties. Larry got what he needed all at once, amazing.

Qg6 appears to look good to computers at low depth. GarboChess JS still likes it at 5 ply (switches to hxg6 at 6 ply).

Here it it's rather optimistic view of Qxg6
Ply:5 Score:3772 Nodes:44181 NPS:68075 Qxg6 Qg3 Re4 Bf4 Nxf4

And hxg6:
Ply:7 Score:3586 Nodes:293279 NPS:67327 hxg6 Bb5 Qd6 Bxd7 Qxd7 Qd1 c5

[Steve B]

g6 appears to look good to computers at low depth. GarboChess JS still likes it at 5 ply (switches to hxg6 at 6 ply).

Here it it's rather optimistic view of Qxg6
Ply:5 Score:3772 Nodes:44181 NPS:68075 Qxg6 Qg3 Re4 Bf4 Nxf4

Thanks Gary for relaying Larrys next conditional move!

IF 35..Re4 then 36.Bf4

Connie replies...36..

J/K Regards
Steve