Three Pawns Problem

A History

I read about the three pawns problem in The Oxford Companion to Chess, 2nd. ed. (1996) by David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld. They assert that it had been known for two centuries or longer before solved by József Szén in 1836. Hooper and Whyld present a portion of Szén's analysis, which I was able to read in its entirety at least a decade ago. But, they also noted it had been examined by Pietro Carrera in 1617 and was likely known earlier (420).

Peter J. Monté, The Classical Era of Modern Chess (McFarland 2014), a book I acquired last week (see "Monumental Scholarship"), fills in some details. A small untitled manuscript discovered in 1939 by chess historian Adriano Chicco contains what might be the oldest extant version of the problem. This MS was authored by Count Annibale Romei of Ferrara. Romei's date of birth is unknown, but his death in October 1590 seems clear. Chicco dates the MS within the years 1565-1568, making it "the oldest known work on modern chess written extensively by an Italian author" (Monté, 188).

Romei's MS contains this "Subtlety" (Monté, 193).

White to move

After 1.a6 king moves 2.b8Q Kxb8 3.c6, we reach a position that should be well-known today (see "Floating Square").

The next manifestation of the problem mentioned by Monté is Carrera's (Monté, 313).

Black to move

Successfully stopping Black's three connected passed pawns leads to stalemate, which under some rules in Carrera's day is a win, or a half-win, depending on where the game is being played.

Monté also notes that José Antonio Garzón believes that Francesch Vicent presented a version of the three pawns problem to the Ferrarese nobility about 1502. The argument appears in José Antonio Garzón, El regreso de Francesch Vicent. La Historia del Nacimiento y la Expansión del Ajedrez Moderno (Valenciana, 2005); English translation by Manuel Pérez Carballo, The return of Francesch Vicent : the History of the Birth and Expansion of Modern Chess (Valenciana, 2005). The website Valencia Origen del Ajedrez 1475 has generously made the critical chapter of the author's key argument available for reading in English online. In that chapter Garzón systematically presents every known manuscript preceding Vicent's to argue that modern chess did not develop over hundreds of years, as many historians have assumed, but emerged quickly in Valencia about 1475, and from there spread very rapidly across Spain and the Italian peninsula. Monté seems convinced, or nearly so.

Following Carrera, the three pawns problem next makes its appearance in the position that I posted two weeks ago ("A Greco Composition"). I found this position in Antonius von der Linde, Geschichte und Litteratur des Schachspiels (1874). Monté fills in some details. It appears in three Greco MSS: Grenoble MS (1624), the Paris MS (1625), and the Orléans MS--undated, but likely 1624-1625 based on its strong similarity to the other two--my observation (Monté, 352).

White to move

White can create a position that is losing with 1.Kd1, but there is no reason to play such a move except to taunt your opponent. If Black is on move, the position takes on much of the characteristics of Szén's, where the player on move has a forced win. I gave Black the move and played Greco's against Stockfish on my iPad a week or so ago. As Hooper and Whyld eloquently express. "understanding of the analysis is not without practical value" (420).

I presented Szén's position in 2009 ("Pawn Wars"), but as some readers will not be able to view the images in that post (I was using an external image hosting service), I repeat it here.

White/Black to move (and win)

In my view, all of these positions are worthy of study and practice.

Monumental Scholarship

Notes Towards a Book Review

Peter J. Monté, The Classical Era of Modern Chess (McFarland 2014) is a work of monumental scholarship. It does not replace H. J. R. Murray, A History of Chess (Oxford 1913) because it is of more limited chronological scope. Rather, it summarizes in a few pages (1-24) a good portion of Murray's text and what scholarship has contributed in the century since Murray. Monté then expands Murray's 26 page chapter XII "From Lopez to Greco" to a full length work of over 400 pages. The second and third parts of The Classical Era of Modern Chess add more than one hundred pages of detailed documentation of the sources of games and problems from this era.

My first impression of the book was that it is impressive scholarship which will serve as a frequently consulted reference work sitting beside Murray; Hooper and Whyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess, 2nd ed.; and a few other texts on a shelf next to the desk in my office. Also, I might read it. Although documented at least as well as Murray (probably better), and often concerned with the minutia of manuscript details, it remains quite readable.

When the book arrived two days ago, I immediately opened it to the chapter on Greco and skimmed that 36 page chapter. It begins with a discussion of his life, including how much we think is known relies upon a short passage by Alessandro Salvio of dubious credibility. Monté presents the whole of Salvio's passage in Italian, followed by a clear English translation. A couple of weeks ago, I had been trying to make sense of this same passage using Google Translate.

Following three and one-half double-column pages on Greco's life, Monté turns to his manuscripts. These include not only those listed by Antonius van der Linde (1874), J. A. Leon (1900), Murray (1913), and J. G. White (1919); but the list is expanded through more recent work by Monté, assisted in great measure by Alessandro Sanvito, who published a list in Italian (2005). Monté includes a manuscript that is no longer known to exist, but that may have been a source for Francis Beale. Beyer's MS, as he names it, was described briefly by August Beyer in Memoriae historico-criticae librorum rariorum (1734); Beyer gave it a date of 1632. Scholars have long assumed that Beyer transposed two numbers and that the missing MS should be dated 1623. A critical point emphasized in The Classical Era of Modern Chess, however, is that Beyer mentions that the MS was presented to King Charles I, who ascended to the throne in 1625. Monté finds it quite plausible that Greco was back in London in 1632. If so, William Lewis's assertion (1819) that Greco died at an advanced age, and which has long been dismissed on the authority of Salvio's brief passage, might be correct. Monté does not overstate his case, rather suggesting ways that future scholarship might confirm (or deny) Salvio's assertion.

Following detailed discussion of Greco's MSS, which remain the best sources for information about his life, the book turns to a discussion of Greco's sources, greatly expanding Murray's claim that Greco learned chess from the works of Lopez and Salvio (the 1604 text, which is much more credible), and also extending Tassilo von der Lasa's remark that Greco also learned from Polerio.

Monté then turns to publications of Greco's work, which begins with Beale's The Royall Game of Chesse-Play (1656). The chapter concludes with discussion of Greco's lists of rules, his openings, and his problems and endings. I posted one of Greco's endgame compositions a week ago (see "A Greco Composition").

Other chapters follow a similar pattern, There are chapters on Lucena, Damiano, Ruy Lopez, Annibale Romei (see below), Polerio, Gianutio, Salvio, and Carrera, as well as chapters devoted to particular manuscripts. The end of Part I includes three chapters: "The Pawn's Leap", and "From the King's Leap to Castling", and "Epilogue". The Epilogue offers a nice summary of how Monté views the contributions of his this book.

Useful

After less than an hour with The Classical Era of Modern Chess in my possession, I put it to work. About a week ago, I discovered an apparent error in the Wikipedia article on Greco. The information was from a web source of dubious credibility. I removed the "error" and challenged the source. Discussion ensued. A better source was found (Murray), but I pointed out that Murray's phrasing was less than clear. The "error" was put back into the article, but in a better framework (paraphrasing Murray). It all hinged on whether Cusentino, which appears in the title of the Corsini MS, possibly Greco's first, is a surname in the modern sense of the word, as some read Murray.

Title page of Greco's first MS
 from Monté (2014), 324

Monté references work published in Italian by Alessandro Sanvito, noting, "[t]he adjective 'Cusentino' in the title refers to the Calabrian province Cosenza, and Celico (mentioned in the Libretto) belongs to it" (324). Hence it is a surname in the same sense that we might call Adelard of Bath, Mr. Bath (something I've never seen done). Bath was his hometown.

Further Wikipedia edits followed with information from the monumental text.

This morning I started another project--something I've poked at without substantially helpful resources for seven years--that is now made easy, albeit time consuming, with Part II. Openings and Games of the Classical Era of Modern Chess (439-530). This section documents the earliest known, as well as subsequent occurrences, of every move that can be found in manuscripts from this era. For instance, 1.e4 e5 was recorded by Damiano, who lauded the moves as "best" (439).

From this section, I now know that a well-known opening trap credited to Greco (and the notorious loser Nomen Nescio) in ChessBase Mega 2020 and nearly every other database on chess players' computers, as well as websites like Chessgames.com, was something that Greco copied into his manuscripts from the work of others.

Greco,Gioacchino -- NN [C54]
Greco Europe, 1620

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d4 Bb6 6.dxe5 Nxe4 7.Qd5

This game appears Levy and O'Connell, Oxford Encyclopedia of Chess Games, vol. 1 1485-1866 (1981) as G-5. Greco likely copied it from Polerio. It’s earliest known appearance is in a manuscript by Annibale Romei (c. 1565-1568). This MS was discovered in 1939 by the scholar Adriano Chicco. Romei offers the line 7.Bxf7+ Kxf7 8.Qd5+ with the suggestion that 7.Qd5 is an improvement (460).

Likewise, the assertion found in many places that in London, Greco began extending what had been collections of openings or opening traps to the conclusions or near conclusions of games, can be understood in greater specificity.

Greco,Gioacchino - NN [C41]
Greco Europe, 1620

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bc4 Bg4 4.h3 Bxf3 5.Qxf3 Nf6 6.Qb3

The opening to this point is recorded in several manuscripts by Polerio. The rest is Greco's contribution.

Black to move

6...Nxe4 7.Bxf7+ Kd7 8.Qxb7 Ng5 9.Bd5 Na6 10.Qc6+ Ke7 11.Qxa8 1-0

This game appears Levy and O'Connell, Oxford Encyclopedia of Chess Games, vol. 1 1485-1866 (1981) as G-17. The earliest known record of the moves from 6...Nxe4 is in the Mountstephen MS, which Monté dates to 1623 (447).

Greco's Database

For many years I have found the games credited to Gioachino Greco useful in both study and teaching. His games have been praised by strong players throughout history, most notably by Domenico Lorenzo Ponziani, Mikhail Botvinnik, and Max Euwe. Botvinnik is often quoted as saying the Greco was the first chess master. A selection of his games, almost certainly composed, are available in ChessBase Mega 2020 (82 games), as well as online collections that are mostly derived from earlier versions of the ChessBase database. Chessgames.com has 79 games; 365Chess.com has 75--that one game lists "Analysis Analyze" as the Black player is a dead giveaway that ChessBase is their source.

However, there are more games, or variations of these games that can be credited to Greco. I started looking outside the databases eight years ago when I encountered a line credited by Garry Kasparov (or his ghostwriter) to Greco, but failed to find it in ChessBase (see "Tracking Down Greco's Games"). A few months later, I began the slow process of entering into a database the games and variations in William Lewis, Gioachino Greco on the Game of Chess (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1819). Lewis has 168 variations arranged into 47 games. His source was a French edition of Greco's games, which was probably based on the last manuscripts Greco created (1625 in Paris). The games presented by Lewis were rearranged by another Lewis--Angelo Lewis, writing under the pseudonym Louis Hoffmann (1900). Hoffmann's collection increased the number of games to 77, reducing the number of variations on each game (see "Gioachino Greco on the Game of Chess"). My chess camp workbook that summer was derived almost entirely from games in Lewis 1819. Unfortunately, my hard drive crashed later that summer, and the last backup had been in February. 

When I started using the ChessBase database (2004), it had been in the works for more than two decades. According to the article "ChessBase is 25" (19 May 2011), Matthias Wüllenweber created the first database on an Atari ST and sent a disk to Kasparov in 1984. ChessBase came out with their first commercial version of the database in January 1987. The article does not identify Wüllenweber's sources for games, which must have been many. However, one print book that would have been an exceptional beginning sits on my shelves.

David Levy, and Kevin O’Connell, eds. Oxford Encyclopedia of Chess Games, vol. 1 1485-1866 (1981) lists sources for every game included, a practice that should be more common among publishers of chess books (and software). In the past week, I have created a spreadsheet that lists the 77 Greco games in Levy and O'Connell (Hoffmann is their sole source) and whether each one is in Mega 2020, chessgames.com, and 365chess.com. Levy and O'Connell annotate 34 of the games, crediting Greco with the annotations. Presumably these annotations correspond to Hoffmann's variations (confirming this hunch may be the next step in my research work).

Two weeks ago I finished a project that had taken a couple of years because I would work on it for an hour once or twice a year. I now have a database with all of the games from Francis Beale, The Royall Art of Chesse-Play (London 1656). Nine of these are in ChessBase Mega 2020. Beale carries three of these beyond the endpoint in the database. I suspect that many or most of them appear as annotations in Levy and O'Connell.

Largest Online State Chess Championship

WA State Elementary 2020 is the Largest Online State Championship Ever
By WSECC Organizers | June 4, 2020

Seattle, WA – The 2020 Washington State Elementary Chess Championships is the largest online state chess championship in US history, featuring a whopping 1170 players! At a time when most local and national events were cancelled due to COVID-19, members of the Pacific Northwest chess community collaborated with ChessKid.com on Saturday May 2 to host the Washington State Elementary Chess Championships online. Chief organizer Jacob Mayer orchestrated the day’s festivities, which included a live stream, raffle contest, virtual Zoom help desk, real-time tournament standings, and an online chess store featuring local vendors. The Facebook live stream, hosted by Randy Kaech, contributed to the event’s prestige with a star-studded cast of special guest speakers including Seattle Seahawk K.J. Wright, former World Champion GM Susan Polgar, WA State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, and local chess stars IM Bryce Tiglon and WFM Alexandra Botez. Despite some first round hiccups caused by a server crash, over 1,000 players completed the marathon 7-hour, 7-round extravaganza.

Hosting an event of this magnitude online presented several logistical challenges and was only possible thanks to the tremendous efforts of the WSECC Organizers, the ChessKid Team, and the local chess families. All games were played from home over the internet using custom accounts created by ChessKid’s team to incorporate the players’ local NWSRS (Northwest Scholastic Rating System) ratings to ensure proper Swiss pairings. Due to high traffic volume on the ChessKid website, many players experienced connectivity problems and subsequently reported them post-event via a feedback form. A joint effort between the ChessKid team and the WSECC Fair Play Review Team resulted in impartial adjudication of all games in question and players’ scores in affected games were adjusted accordingly for points fairly earned.

To ensure honest play and fair games, each player signed a Fair Play Agreement before the start of the tournament in which they promised to play their own moves without outside assistance. A systematic three-pronged approach consisting of ChessKid analysis, engine analysis, and human analysis was used to check all suspicious games for fair play violations. Only the players found by all three methods to have violated the Fair Play Agreement were forfeited from the tournament. For the most part, the fair play rules were followed, as less than 1% of total players were found to have violated fair play.

After 3,721 games and 254,340 moves in 7+ hours of play, only the most courageous chess warriors survived the marathon experience! Special congratulations to the following State Champions: Kindergarten – Ted Wang, 1st Grade – Sharvesh Arul, 2nd Grade – Shrey Talathi, 3rd Grade – Keshav Beegala, 4th Grade – Derek Heath & Erin Bian, 5th Grade – Derin Goktepe & Jack Miller, 6th Grade – Owen Xuan, Kai Marcelais & Christos Boulis, 7-8th Grade – Sonia Devaraju & Brandon Peng, I Love Chess Too – Anne-Marie Velea.

Congratulations to all who have contributed to this record-breaking event!

About Washington State Elementary Chess Championships

The Washington State Elementary Chess Championships (WSECC) is largest annual scholastic chess event in the Pacific Northwest. Starting with only a few hundred players in the early 1990s, the tournament now attracts as many as 1,500 scholastic chess players from throughout WA State each year. WSECC rotates between the western, southern, and eastern regions of the state on a 3-year cycle. Since 2020, the event is run by the WSECC Organizing Committee, a group of experienced chess leaders and organizers from throughout WA State. This committee, appointed by the nonprofit Chess Enrichment Association, is tasked with running the highest possible quality event each year. The committee’s goal is to provide the opportunity for local scholastic chess players from all backgrounds to compete in a fun, large-scale festival of chess. For more information, please visit: https://wsecc.org/.

About Chess Enrichment Association

Chess Enrichment Association (CEA) is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit corporation based in Lynden, WA. Its purpose is to support and host chess tournaments, camps, programs, and other events that promote chess for children, primarily focusing on elementary scholastic chess programs. CEA was founded in 2004 by Elliott Neff and now oversees the organization of WSECC starting from 2020.

Contact
To learn more about this record-breaking event, please see the link to the website in the sidebar.

Note: I am sharing this with the permission of others on the WSECC organizing committee. I am a member of the committee. NM Josh Sinanan took the lead composing the article, but the rest of the committee offered feedback

A Greco Composition

This position is presented as mate in 17 moves by Antonius von der Linde in Geschichte und Litteratur des Schachspiels (1874), where he credits Gioachino Greco as the composer. Komodo 13 fails to confirm the forced checkmate, but there is no doubt that White wins with correct play. Shift the White king one square to the left and you have the position about which József Szén wrote with the solution in the 1830s (the player on the move wins in Szén's position).

White to move

Locked?

The year was 1999. The place was Internet Chess Club. The time control was 2 12. I was White.

Black to move

The game continued:

37...Rf7 38.Kg2 Rfh7 39.Kh2 and I offered a draw. My opponent agreed. Did Black have something better?

Pattern?

Yesterday morning I was reading my own Checkmates and Tactics (2019), a self-published book created as a camp workbook for a youth chess camp. This book consists of exercises I have been using with developing players for nearly 15 years, as well as a glossary of tactical ideas and checkmate patterns.

Although I wrote the book, I still need to calculate when I encounter some of the exercises. Such was the case yesterday morning, although the first move was instantly obvious in exercise 76 from Saalbach,A.--Anderssen,A., Leipzig 1858.

Black to move

Nonetheless, the correct way forward was not immediately obvious when the motif reappeared during a blitz game last night.

Black to move

Fortress

I was looking through a game played in 1996 and published in Chess Informant 65. Veselin Topalov and Boris Gelfand played an instructive endgame. Gelfand annotated the game for Informant. I studied the game as played, studied Gelfand's annotations, and with the engine running mistakenly thought that Topalov had a decisive advantage. Hence, I overlooked the game result. I tried to repeat Topalov's apparent success against Stockfish 11.

Naturally, I failed. Gelfand anticipated my failure in his annotations, which I should have studied with greater attention.

Black to move

Stockfish 11 64 POPCNT -- Stripes,J
Blitz 15m+10s, 04.06.2020

44...a5

Gelfand gave this move an explanation mark, as it is the only move with winning chances.

45.Kf3 24 a4 46.Kg4

Gelfand played 46.Ke2, and after 46...a3, sacrificed a pawn. 47.b6 cxb6 48.Nc1 Kc5 49.Kd3 Bf4 and the game was drawn ten moves later, but my chess engine says that Black has a decisive advantage. Many years of using chess engines should have taught me however, that -+ with a score in the neighborhood of -2.50 is not yet a won game.

White to move

After 49...Bf4

My play against the engine continued:

46...a3 47.Nc1 Kc5 48.Kf5

Black to move

48...Bb2

Gelfand's annotations offer 48...Kd4 here as unclear, but it is probably a draw.

49.Na2 Kd6 50.Nb4 Kc5 51.Na2 Kxb5 52.e5 Kc5 53.d6

Black to move

53...Kc6

There were a couple of ways to lose here.

a) 53...cxd6 54.e6 Kc6 55.Kg6+-

b) 53...Bxe5 54.d7+-

54.Nb4+ Kd7 55.dxc7 Kxc7 56.Ke4  Bxe5 57.Kxe5 a2 58.Nxa2 ½–½

I tried a second time against Stockfish. This time play began with Gelfand's suggested alternative to Topalov's choice.

Black to move

Stockfish 11 64 POPCNT -- Stripes,J.
Blitz 15m+10s, 04.06.2020

49...b5

Topalov played 49...Bf4, as noted in my note above.

50.Kc2 Kc4 51.d6 Bxd6 52.Nb3 Be5 53.Na5+ Kc5 54.Kb1 Kb6 55.Nb3 b4 56.Ka2

Black to move

White has a fortress very much like the one that Gelfand constructed in the actual game, whci was played at Wijk aan Zee in 1996 and published as Informant 65/588.

56...Kb5 57.Nc1 Kc4 58.Nb3 Bb2 59.Nd2+ Kd3 60.Nb3 Kxe4 61.Na5 Kd4

White to move

62.Kb3 Kc5 63.Kc2 Kb5 64.Nb3 Be5 65.Kb1 Kc4 66.Ka2 Bf4 67.Na5+ Kc3 68.Nb3 Bc7 69.Nc5 Kc2 70.Nb3 Bb6

White to move

I had worked hard to reach the position, and then just before Stockfish moved, I saw why it was not winning.

71.Nd4+!

71...Bxd4 is stalemate.

71...Kc1 72.Nc6 Bc5 73.Na5 Kc2 74.Nb3 Bb6 75.Na1+ Kc3 76.Nb3 Kc2 ½–½

Surprising

My students and I are going through some of the gems in Irving Chernev, The 1000 Best Short Games of Chess (1955). The finish of this game between Aron Nimzovich and a player whose identity is not preserved by Chernev proved delightful.

White to move