Postal chess has been completely Darwinised; nowadays play is online via the ICCF webserver. ICCF rules are very simple: there are no rules. You can use books, databases, tablebases - and, yes, engines. I was quietly optimistic about this: my laptop can only run the antiquated Fritz 11, no match for today's engines, but we have worked together a long time, and I know its idiosyncracies. Surprisingly, many players still refuse to use an engine on principle, and I soon found out what the consequences are. I was on board 1 for the B-team, so it was quite a shock to discover my opponent was Jack Rudd, the IM legendary for his take-no-prisoners style and blazing speed. But OTB prowess counts for little here, especially without an engine.
My 'chessboard policeman' persona, so often a noose, is a positive asset here: my ability doesn't let down my understanding. The theme of the match is both sides' refusal to compromise: my upholding of chess logic come what may; his insistence on making the 'drunken machine-gunner' style work. With the engine on the side of order, this was gloriously impractical on his part - but we can only be thankful, for the games were certainly entertaining.
They started in mid-October - and we finished last week. Most games haven't even started yet! The first game to finish was my white. I stuck with my usual 1. e4 mainlines, and he made the incredible decision to play the super-sharp Polugaevsky Najdorf. There is a huge amount of theory, and we just followed the databases for a while - but then he grabbed one pawn too many and suddenly black's position collapsed:
Pre-engine annotators like Alekhine and Botvinnik were much quicker to declare a game strategically lost than today. But maybe they were justified! Here white makes a positional error in the opening and can then only watch as black, with a series of hammer blows each more improbable than the last, tears him to shreds:
In two games I probably sacrificed more pieces than in my entire OTB career - the final body count stands at three pawns, a Knight, two Bishops and a Rook. It took just 48 moves to beat an IM twice. But it's troubling. Even with an outdated engine, I was able to not just beat but humiliate him - but I don't dispute for a second that he is much stronger than me. On a level playing field I would undoubtedly get to taste my own medicine. Or consider how Polugaevsky dedicated much of his professional life to discovering the secrets of his variation, yet you can do it all in a few days with an engine and databases. We stand on the shoulders of giants though: his work should never be forgotten. Most depressing is the knowledge that I will never be able to play anything like this over-the-board: I can look, but I can't touch. There is always that asterisk next to the result: I don't have a 100% score against an IM, but my laptop does.
It's not all bad: the games were undeniably spectacular. And there is a role for the human. Especially with an analysis partner of 2007 vintage, strategic understanding - intuition, I would go so far as to say - adds a lot. If you are willing to work methodically through the variations, not just parrot out the top move when it analyses the position on the board, anything is possible - thus was born 14... d3!? in the second game. I conceptualised a symbiotic relationship: I was identifying candidate moves as normal, and only then unleashing the engine's superhuman calculation and tactics. The analysis I produced is endless; the variations in the notes are aggressively edited highlights! Even with engines, hard work in chess is always rewarded - a heartening conclusion. But will I play more correspondence? These games are at once a huge advertisement and a huge turn-off; I would have to play another engine-user to decide. But in future I will (hopefully!) have a full-time job and even less spare time. Two games demanded a lot of work; playing a tournament's worth would be an incredible strain. For now, I will probably leave my adventures here - but never say never...
As if to emphasise how far removed correspondence is from 'real' chess, my next tournament was the Chipping Sodbury Rapidplay last weekend. However, my decision not to record was made considerably easier when they didn't have any scoresheets. I've come to the conclusion that annotating six low-quality games isn't worth the trouble, though the occasional gem might make it here. I scored 2/6 in the Open, performing roughly to my grade; undoubtedly the highlight was beating a 173 as black with... yes, the Caro-Kann! However my next post will instead be my most recent league game for the University, away at Clevedon earlier this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment