Artwork © 芸芸☁️ (@__wayne__0119)
Monday, November 14, 2022
Sunday, November 13, 2022
Handstand
A painting of a gymnast doing a handstand has popped up on the wall of a destroyed building in Borodyanka, Bucha Raion, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, and appears to be a work of British street artist Banksy. Photo: Andrew Kravchenko/AP. |
Saturday, November 12, 2022
Around the World in 310 Days
Pictured, from left: Regina Wender Fischer (mother of 11th World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer), Cyril Pustan, and other marchers on the San Francisco to Moscow Walk for Peace (1960–61). The walk drew thousands of participants all along the way and ended with a formal dinner with Nina Petrovna Khrushcheva, wife of Soviet leader Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev. Regina and Cyril met on such occasion for the first time, and married shortly thereafter. Photo c/o Laurence Saffer. |
Friday, November 11, 2022
Thursday, November 10, 2022
Life Under Construction
A homeless sleeps on a bench in front of the church of Santa Maria in Traspontina on Via della Conciliazione in Rome, Italy. Photo: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images. |
Techno Vintage
Brave New World
Stefano Tatai, December 27, 2015
It was 1963. I was so lucky to have an aunt like Mary Pannunzio, wife of Mario, Director of Il Mondo (The World) and one of the most followed and appreciated Italian intellectuals not only in Italy, but all over the world. (He was even invited by President Kennedy, but his modesty did not allow him to accept such an invitation).
On one of the evenings for which Rome has always been famous, when the Ponentino makes the air pleasant — I believe it was in June or July — there was a reception at the house of Carandini, to which I was also invited, apparently as a driver and a spare wheel of the Pannunzios. It was an after-dinner organised in honour of Aldous Huxley on his passage to Rome, in the presence and participation of the best of the journalism which today we would call of moderate left-wing views, with some exceptions, such as, for example, Guttuso who was openly a communist.
What left an indelible memory in me was, of course, Huxley. I was still in Hungary when I read (1956) “Brave New World”, which impressed me strongly. And not only me, but also other classmates of mine in the eight year of secondary school, the last one before the final-year examination.
The Head of our class was Professor Takács, who was also the Party secretary (needless to say which party) of the school, and, maybe out of a rebellious spirit we went on attack, bringing Huxley’s book out as a topic of discussion, whose plot, as far as we could feel and see, struck us as a detailed metaphor for society and ideals of communism. I do not exclude that the discussion, sometimes lively, was the cause of the report that Takács forwarded to his superiors, resulting in my non-admission to university. (It is a curious fact, however, that Takács emigrated to Israel a few months after the Revolution).
I’ll briefly tell you the story of the novel.
We live in an ultramodern society, in which problems and inconveniences of contemporary society are eliminated. The demographic explosion is obviated, because sons are born planned in a test tube and are raised in order to find a perfect social inclusion, in five categories (Alfa, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon) in which each one is proud of his belonging and is totally free from rebellious instincts. Religious conflicts, as well as any kind of social conflicts, are eliminated; in a word: a perfect society is created.
Until the unexpected happens. Although almost all of historical memories have been erased, some Indian reservations — that can be visited by the upper categories — have been maintained the way today we go to visit a museum. It is in one of these visits that a Beta woman gets lost and, remaining for years in the reservation, generates a child with the ancient system, giving birth to him. The already adult son is found back by the “outside world” which, in an impetus of solidarity, takes him and inserts him into the new society. Perfect for everyone, but not for a young without the psychophysical conditioning of “modern autochthonous”. The conflictuality between the two worlds explodes with tragic consequences.
My encounter with Huxley was disappointing. Huxley was kind to me and sympathetic for my Hungarian origins, but my rudimentary knowledge of the language did not allow me to express my admiration for his book, nor even to go into the details about which I would have wished to ask for his thought.
For example: in writing his story, did he have in mind communism which, either consciously or unconsciously, we identified as the basic philosophy of the book, or did he have in mind the development of the society going in the direction of an annihilating technology of human values in which we believe?
Stefano Tatai, December 27, 2015
It was 1963. I was so lucky to have an aunt like Mary Pannunzio, wife of Mario, Director of Il Mondo (The World) and one of the most followed and appreciated Italian intellectuals not only in Italy, but all over the world. (He was even invited by President Kennedy, but his modesty did not allow him to accept such an invitation).
On one of the evenings for which Rome has always been famous, when the Ponentino makes the air pleasant — I believe it was in June or July — there was a reception at the house of Carandini, to which I was also invited, apparently as a driver and a spare wheel of the Pannunzios. It was an after-dinner organised in honour of Aldous Huxley on his passage to Rome, in the presence and participation of the best of the journalism which today we would call of moderate left-wing views, with some exceptions, such as, for example, Guttuso who was openly a communist.
What left an indelible memory in me was, of course, Huxley. I was still in Hungary when I read (1956) “Brave New World”, which impressed me strongly. And not only me, but also other classmates of mine in the eight year of secondary school, the last one before the final-year examination.
The Head of our class was Professor Takács, who was also the Party secretary (needless to say which party) of the school, and, maybe out of a rebellious spirit we went on attack, bringing Huxley’s book out as a topic of discussion, whose plot, as far as we could feel and see, struck us as a detailed metaphor for society and ideals of communism. I do not exclude that the discussion, sometimes lively, was the cause of the report that Takács forwarded to his superiors, resulting in my non-admission to university. (It is a curious fact, however, that Takács emigrated to Israel a few months after the Revolution).
I’ll briefly tell you the story of the novel.
We live in an ultramodern society, in which problems and inconveniences of contemporary society are eliminated. The demographic explosion is obviated, because sons are born planned in a test tube and are raised in order to find a perfect social inclusion, in five categories (Alfa, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon) in which each one is proud of his belonging and is totally free from rebellious instincts. Religious conflicts, as well as any kind of social conflicts, are eliminated; in a word: a perfect society is created.
Until the unexpected happens. Although almost all of historical memories have been erased, some Indian reservations — that can be visited by the upper categories — have been maintained the way today we go to visit a museum. It is in one of these visits that a Beta woman gets lost and, remaining for years in the reservation, generates a child with the ancient system, giving birth to him. The already adult son is found back by the “outside world” which, in an impetus of solidarity, takes him and inserts him into the new society. Perfect for everyone, but not for a young without the psychophysical conditioning of “modern autochthonous”. The conflictuality between the two worlds explodes with tragic consequences.
My encounter with Huxley was disappointing. Huxley was kind to me and sympathetic for my Hungarian origins, but my rudimentary knowledge of the language did not allow me to express my admiration for his book, nor even to go into the details about which I would have wished to ask for his thought.
For example: in writing his story, did he have in mind communism which, either consciously or unconsciously, we identified as the basic philosophy of the book, or did he have in mind the development of the society going in the direction of an annihilating technology of human values in which we believe?
Wednesday, November 9, 2022
Praying Ephebe
A trove of 24 bronze statues preserved for 2,300 years by mud and boiling water have been discovered in a network of baths built by the Etruscans in a now spa town, San Casciano dei Bagni, province of Siena, Tuscany, Italy. Photo: Jacopo Tabolli/University for Foreigners of Siena (Università per Stranieri di Siena)/EPA. |
Once Upon a Life
Pictured, from left: 11th World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer, Florencio Campomanes, and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos in Manila, Philippines, October 1973. Photo: Stefano Tatai. |
A Will and a Way
An article signed by Pier Franco Quaglieni, entitled “Thus a nephew-in-law betrayed the memory of Pannunzio”, has lately appeared in Il Giornale of April 16, 2022, recounting the story of how the library of Mario Pannunzio was blown away from the Pannunzio Centre — incidentally chaired by Quaglieni himself — and ended up being owned by the Italian Chamber of Deputies. To be sure, Quaglieni himself admits that the Chamber of Deputies is in itself a worthy final destination for such a legacy, but he also claims that the will of Pannunzio’s Hungarian wife, Mary (Maria) Malina, was to donate her husband’s library and documents to the Pannunzio Centre. It did not take him long to discover that the executor of the deceased’s legacy was a nephew of her’s of Hungarian descent, and thus a nephew-in-law of Pannunzio, named Stefano Tatai, a twelve-time Italian Champion and international Master of chess. And he, apparently, was the one who, in disregard of his aunt’s last will, decided to sell his uncle’s library and documents to the Italian Chamber of Deputies. Curiously enough, neither all Pannunzio’s friends, nor Mary, ever said anything to him about Tatai, that Quaglieni saw, at the time of his own university studies, only once “at a tavern in the Prati rione of Rome”. Tatai, who fled Hungary as a refugee in 1956, very much relied upon the help of Mary and Mario Pannunzio in dealing with the needs of his being a chess professional in Italy. And thus Quaglieni writes: “It would be interesting to know what Tatai got in return and if other Italian hands were behind him”. And yet the lack of a question mark does suggest the awareness that the answer may never come.
The Young and the Immortal
To the young
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, November 7, 2022
I don’t know if it makes sense to believe that one can address the “young”. Of course youth and old age live together as long as it is alive in each one and we carry always within us the young we used to be, just as the young foreshadowed, lucidly and forcibly, old age. It is just this contemporaneity of times and ages that has got lost, so that today the young become old prematurely and the old believe themselves to be young out of time.
For this I find no other words to address the young than those that on August 23, 1914 a twenty-two-year-old girl, Carla Seligson, wrote to Walter Benjamin a few days after her sister Rika had committed suicide along with her lover, the nineteen-year-old poet Christoph Friedrich Heinle. The two young had decided to take their lives right after learning the news of the outbreak of the world war. I would like the young to reflect on this decision today that the nuclear war talk has become something like a daily chat. But above all I would like that in the words of Carla Seligson they felt vibrating that “regret for a greatness missed” which according to Benjamin is the language of youth. “There are only two ages”, writes Carla Seligson, “youth and death”. It is this intact awareness of the seriousness of one’s own condition that I would like to remind the one who today believes to be young. I translated the short text literally, trying to preserve its harshness(*).
The Suicide
Death takes shape and is shaped, to die is only the end of life, gone, perished. In death, there is a relationship of the dying to the world, from which neither the one nor the other can ever escape. Who dies the death, reaches the state of the perishing world. This happens in a great power over the world, which is a devotion to her who loves him. This death is spaciously shaped, it gives birth to eternity in the omnipresence of what was lived through. Juvenile death is pure, when it becomes the deathbed of the world and appropriates entirely the bodies of things. In such a death there is born a new world, in which only matter dies. The passage to death is a renunciation of creating or working. The young rarely succeed, the old almost never. The one who dies when his time and season are come has no age, and it is only in youth that the passage does swing freely. There are only two ages: youth and death. They limit each other, the brother’s death gives to the young the richness which belongs to the immortal. His brother is thus immortal. The chain of death reaches everyone.
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, November 7, 2022
I don’t know if it makes sense to believe that one can address the “young”. Of course youth and old age live together as long as it is alive in each one and we carry always within us the young we used to be, just as the young foreshadowed, lucidly and forcibly, old age. It is just this contemporaneity of times and ages that has got lost, so that today the young become old prematurely and the old believe themselves to be young out of time.
For this I find no other words to address the young than those that on August 23, 1914 a twenty-two-year-old girl, Carla Seligson, wrote to Walter Benjamin a few days after her sister Rika had committed suicide along with her lover, the nineteen-year-old poet Christoph Friedrich Heinle. The two young had decided to take their lives right after learning the news of the outbreak of the world war. I would like the young to reflect on this decision today that the nuclear war talk has become something like a daily chat. But above all I would like that in the words of Carla Seligson they felt vibrating that “regret for a greatness missed” which according to Benjamin is the language of youth. “There are only two ages”, writes Carla Seligson, “youth and death”. It is this intact awareness of the seriousness of one’s own condition that I would like to remind the one who today believes to be young. I translated the short text literally, trying to preserve its harshness(*).
The Suicide
Death takes shape and is shaped, to die is only the end of life, gone, perished. In death, there is a relationship of the dying to the world, from which neither the one nor the other can ever escape. Who dies the death, reaches the state of the perishing world. This happens in a great power over the world, which is a devotion to her who loves him. This death is spaciously shaped, it gives birth to eternity in the omnipresence of what was lived through. Juvenile death is pure, when it becomes the deathbed of the world and appropriates entirely the bodies of things. In such a death there is born a new world, in which only matter dies. The passage to death is a renunciation of creating or working. The young rarely succeed, the old almost never. The one who dies when his time and season are come has no age, and it is only in youth that the passage does swing freely. There are only two ages: youth and death. They limit each other, the brother’s death gives to the young the richness which belongs to the immortal. His brother is thus immortal. The chain of death reaches everyone.
(*) Original German text:
Der Selbstmord
Der Tod wird gestaltet und hat Gestalt, das Sterben ist nur der Schluß des Lebens, Fortsein, Verderben. Es ist im Tode die Beziehung des Sterbenden zur Welt, der keiner der beiden nirgends entgeht. Wer den Tod stirbt, trifft den Weltzustand, der untergeht. Dies geschieht in einer großen Macht über die Welt, die ein Hingegebensein an sie, die ihn liebt, ist. Dieser Tod ist raumvoll gestaltet, er gebiert die Ewigkeit in die Allgegenwart des Gelebten. Der jugendliche Tod ist rein, wenn er zum Sterbebette der Welt wird und der Körper die Dinge sich ganz zu eigen machte. Mit solchem Tode ist die neue Welt geboren, in der nur die Materie stirbt. Der Übergang zum Tode ist Abkehr vom Schaffen oder Abkehr von Werken. Sie gelingt dem Jüngling selten, fast nie dem Greis. Auch hat der kein Lebensalter, wenn er in der Jahreszeit zur Stunde starb und nur in der Jugend schwingt frei der Übergang. Es gibt nur zwei Lebensalter: Jugend und Tod. Einander begrenzen sie ganz, des Bruders Tod schuf einen Jüngling mit dem Reiche, dem der Unsterbliche angehört. So ist sein Bruder unsterblich. Jeden erreicht die Kette der Tode.
Agamben’s Italian translation:
Il Suicidio.
La morte prende forma ed ha una forma, morire è solo la fine della vita, della perdita, della corruzione. Vi è nella morte una relazione del morente al mondo, alla quale nessuno dei due può mai sfuggire. Chi muore la morte, raggiunge lo stato del mondo che tramonta. Questo avviene in un grande potere sul mondo, che è un darsi interamente a colei che lo ama. Questa morte è spaziosamente formata, essa partorisce l’eternità nell’onnipresenza dell’amato. La morte giovanile è pura, se diventa il letto di morte del mondo e si appropria interamente dei corpi delle cose. In una tale morte nasce un nuovo mondo, nel quale solo la materia muore. Il passaggio nella morte è una rinuncia al fare o all’agire. Riesce raramente al giovane, quasi mai al vecchio. Non ha età colui che muore quando è venuta nella stagione la sua ora e solo nella gioventù si offre libero il passaggio. Ci sono soltanto due età: la gioventù e la morte. Esse confinano l’una con l’altra, la morte del fratello dona al giovane la ricchezza che appartiene all’immortale. Suo fratello è così immortale. Ciascuno raggiunge la catena della morte.
Der Selbstmord
Der Tod wird gestaltet und hat Gestalt, das Sterben ist nur der Schluß des Lebens, Fortsein, Verderben. Es ist im Tode die Beziehung des Sterbenden zur Welt, der keiner der beiden nirgends entgeht. Wer den Tod stirbt, trifft den Weltzustand, der untergeht. Dies geschieht in einer großen Macht über die Welt, die ein Hingegebensein an sie, die ihn liebt, ist. Dieser Tod ist raumvoll gestaltet, er gebiert die Ewigkeit in die Allgegenwart des Gelebten. Der jugendliche Tod ist rein, wenn er zum Sterbebette der Welt wird und der Körper die Dinge sich ganz zu eigen machte. Mit solchem Tode ist die neue Welt geboren, in der nur die Materie stirbt. Der Übergang zum Tode ist Abkehr vom Schaffen oder Abkehr von Werken. Sie gelingt dem Jüngling selten, fast nie dem Greis. Auch hat der kein Lebensalter, wenn er in der Jahreszeit zur Stunde starb und nur in der Jugend schwingt frei der Übergang. Es gibt nur zwei Lebensalter: Jugend und Tod. Einander begrenzen sie ganz, des Bruders Tod schuf einen Jüngling mit dem Reiche, dem der Unsterbliche angehört. So ist sein Bruder unsterblich. Jeden erreicht die Kette der Tode.
Agamben’s Italian translation:
Il Suicidio.
La morte prende forma ed ha una forma, morire è solo la fine della vita, della perdita, della corruzione. Vi è nella morte una relazione del morente al mondo, alla quale nessuno dei due può mai sfuggire. Chi muore la morte, raggiunge lo stato del mondo che tramonta. Questo avviene in un grande potere sul mondo, che è un darsi interamente a colei che lo ama. Questa morte è spaziosamente formata, essa partorisce l’eternità nell’onnipresenza dell’amato. La morte giovanile è pura, se diventa il letto di morte del mondo e si appropria interamente dei corpi delle cose. In una tale morte nasce un nuovo mondo, nel quale solo la materia muore. Il passaggio nella morte è una rinuncia al fare o all’agire. Riesce raramente al giovane, quasi mai al vecchio. Non ha età colui che muore quando è venuta nella stagione la sua ora e solo nella gioventù si offre libero il passaggio. Ci sono soltanto due età: la gioventù e la morte. Esse confinano l’una con l’altra, la morte del fratello dona al giovane la ricchezza che appartiene all’immortale. Suo fratello è così immortale. Ciascuno raggiunge la catena della morte.
(English translation by I, Robot)
Frida Kahlo, The Suicide of Dorothy Hale, 1938. Courtesy of WikiArt.
Tuesday, November 8, 2022
Pomegranate juice
Contrary to the hope of his family, 12th World Chess Champion Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov still remains in intensive care, as his wife, Natalia Vladimirovna Bulanova, confided to Komsomolskaya Pravda on Monday evening: “November 7. Anatoly Yevgenyevich is not worse, but recovers slowly. The doctors shall not move him from intensive care until parameters are stable. He is able to sit in bed. He speaks indistinctly. He asked very much for pomegranate juice — I will bring it to him tomorrow”. |
Monday, November 7, 2022
Silent Spring
Speaking with RIA Novosti, FIDE President Arkady Vladimirovich Dvorkovich revealed that Mexico has shown great interest in hosting a World Chess Championship match between the challenger Ian Alexandrovich Nepomniachtchi of Russia and the vice challenger 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén) of China, since the legitimate World Champion, Magnus Carlsen of Norway, formally renounced his title due to format issues. “We have not yet received any official application or [financial] guarantees as to the hosting of the match”, Dvorkovich said. “Mexico was the first to show interest. I won’t name other interested countries, as we are now discussing such issues. In terms of organisational opportunity, Mexico suits us because of its complete neutrality. I have no doubt that China would also be very interested in hosting the match, but we’d prefer something a bit more neutral”. Last, but not least, Dvorkovich announced that “The time of the match between Nepomniachtchi and 丁立人 (Dīng Lìrén) is April next year. |
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Sunday, November 6, 2022
All the King’s Cooks
12th World Chess Champion Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov seems to be recovering well from his injuries, according to what his wife, Natalia Vladimirovna Bulanova, said in a talk with a Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent. “Anatoly Yevgenyevich is fine, recovery is proceeding according to the treatment protocol. Today [Saturday] I spent three hours — from 12 o’clock in the morning to 3 o’clock in the afternoon — next to him. I brought him an iPad, now he holds it in his hands. He speaks well, just a little wheeze. He complains about tasteless hospital food. Tomorrow I will bring him chicken broth”, she said to her interlocutor, confirming the hope that on Monday, November 7, he will be moved to an ordinary ward. |
Alternative Art
A construction scaffold on the outside of a house in Via San Gallo at Florence, Italy. |
Saturday, November 5, 2022
Half Way
雷挺婕 (Léi Tǐngjié) – Anna Olehivna Muzychuk
FIDE Women’s Candidates Tournament 2022–23 Pool A; Semifinal match game 4; Monte Carlo, November 5, 2022
Grünfeld Defence D85
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Qa4+. Varying from 7. Be3 c5 8.
Nf3 Qa5 9. Qd2 Nc6 10. Rb1 a6 11. Rc1 cxd4 12. cxd4 Qxd2+ 13. Kxd2 e6 14. Bd3
0-0 15. h4 Rd8 16. Rc4 h6 17. Rb1 Bd7 18. Rb6 Be8 19. e5 Rd5 20. Rc2 Rad8 21.
Be4 Rb5 22. Rxb5 axb5 23. Ke2 Bf8 24. Rd2 Na5 25. Rc2 Nc6 26. Rd2 Na5 27. Rc2
Nc6 28. Rd2 ½ ; ½ 雷挺婕 (Léi Tǐngjié) – A. O. Muzychuk, FIDE Women’s Candidates Tournament 2022–23 Pool A, Monte Carlo 2022, Semifinal match game 2.
7. ... Nd7 8. Nf3 0-0 9. Be2 Nb6?! This calls to mind the old dictum by Siegbert Tarrasch that a Knight on b6 (or b3 with White) “always stands badly”, which is especially true because Black should hurry to play the thematic 9. ... c5; for example: 10. 0-0 Nb6 (well, maybe it’s not so bad, after all) 11. Qa3 cxd4 12. cxd4 Bg4 13. Rd1 Qd6 14. h3 Bxf3 15. Bxf3 Rfd8 16. e5 Qxa3 17. Bxa3 Rd7 18. Rab1 Rad8 19. Rdc1 Rxd4 20. Bxe7 Re8 21. Bc5 Rd2 22. Bxb7 Bxe5 23. a4 Bb2 24. Re1 Rxe1+ 25. Rxe1 Nxa4 26. Re8+ Kg7 27. Bf8+ Kf6 28. Be7+ Kg7 29. Bf8+ Kf6 30. Be7+ Kg7 31. Bf8+ Kf6 ½ : ½ Girya – M. O. Muzychuk, FIDE Women’s Grand Prix 2015–16, 4th stage, 成都 (Chéngdū) 2016.
10. Qb4 Qd6 11. 0-0 Bg4?! But, as Grandmaster Alex Vladislavovich Yermolinsky asks in his comments to the game Inarkiev – 李超 (Lǐ Chāo) mentioned in the following note, “What is the point of parting with a Bishop when Black isn’t attacking d4? [...] 11. ... Qxb4 12. cxb4 Bg4 would make more sense”.
12. Qb3
7. ... Nd7 8. Nf3 0-0 9. Be2 Nb6?! This calls to mind the old dictum by Siegbert Tarrasch that a Knight on b6 (or b3 with White) “always stands badly”, which is especially true because Black should hurry to play the thematic 9. ... c5; for example: 10. 0-0 Nb6 (well, maybe it’s not so bad, after all) 11. Qa3 cxd4 12. cxd4 Bg4 13. Rd1 Qd6 14. h3 Bxf3 15. Bxf3 Rfd8 16. e5 Qxa3 17. Bxa3 Rd7 18. Rab1 Rad8 19. Rdc1 Rxd4 20. Bxe7 Re8 21. Bc5 Rd2 22. Bxb7 Bxe5 23. a4 Bb2 24. Re1 Rxe1+ 25. Rxe1 Nxa4 26. Re8+ Kg7 27. Bf8+ Kf6 28. Be7+ Kg7 29. Bf8+ Kf6 30. Be7+ Kg7 31. Bf8+ Kf6 ½ : ½ Girya – M. O. Muzychuk, FIDE Women’s Grand Prix 2015–16, 4th stage, 成都 (Chéngdū) 2016.
10. Qb4 Qd6 11. 0-0 Bg4?! But, as Grandmaster Alex Vladislavovich Yermolinsky asks in his comments to the game Inarkiev – 李超 (Lǐ Chāo) mentioned in the following note, “What is the point of parting with a Bishop when Black isn’t attacking d4? [...] 11. ... Qxb4 12. cxb4 Bg4 would make more sense”.
12. Qb3
12. ... Be6!? Not the most consistent, but after 12. ... c6?! 13. Rd1 Qc7 14. Ba3 Nc8 15. Rac1 Bxf3 16. Bxf3 Rd8
17. e5! White got a great advantage: 17. ... e6 18. c4 Rb8 19. Be4 c5?! 20. Bxc5 f6 21. Bb4 fxe5
22. d5 b6 23. dxe6 Ne7 24. Rd7! Rxd7 25. exd7 Qxd7 26. c5+ Kh8
27. c6 Rc8 28. Qf7 Qd4 29. Bxe7 1 : 0 Inarkiev – 李超 (Lǐ Chāo), FIDE Grand Prix 2017, 4th stage, Palma de Mallorca 2017.
However, Yermolinsky, in his own words, “an old Grünfeld hand”, opines that “No matter what 12. ... c5 13. Ba3 Qc6 had to be tried”.
13. d5 Bg4 14. h3 Bxf3 15. Bxf3 c6 16. Ba3 Qc7 17. Rae1 cxd5 18. exd5 Bf6 19. Re4
However, Yermolinsky, in his own words, “an old Grünfeld hand”, opines that “No matter what 12. ... c5 13. Ba3 Qc6 had to be tried”.
13. d5 Bg4 14. h3 Bxf3 15. Bxf3 c6 16. Ba3 Qc7 17. Rae1 cxd5 18. exd5 Bf6 19. Re4
When interviewed afterwards, 雷挺婕 (Léi Tǐngjié) felt that White ought to have somewhat better chances due to the Bishop pair and a general advantage in mobility, which may be a bit optimistic, at least from a computer perspective. There is no question, however, that Black’s game is not so easy to play with as machines think.
19. ... Rfc8? After this error, White’s advantage becomes crushing. Black had to play 19. ... Nc8! 20. Rc4 Qe5 21. Qxb7 Nd6 22. Bxd6 exd6 with enough compensation for the Pawn.
20. Bg4! Rd8 21. c4 h5 22. Be2 Rac8 23. Re1 Rd7 24. g4 h4 25. Qe3 g5 26. Bd3 Na4
19. ... Rfc8? After this error, White’s advantage becomes crushing. Black had to play 19. ... Nc8! 20. Rc4 Qe5 21. Qxb7 Nd6 22. Bxd6 exd6 with enough compensation for the Pawn.
20. Bg4! Rd8 21. c4 h5 22. Be2 Rac8 23. Re1 Rd7 24. g4 h4 25. Qe3 g5 26. Bd3 Na4
27. Bxe7! Sic et simpliciter. White liquidates to an easily won ending.
27. ... Rxe7 28. Rxe7 Qxe7 29. Qxe7 Bxe7 30. Rxe7 Nc5 31. Bf5 Kf8 32. Rxf7+! Nevertheless, 32. Rxb7! is the “dual”.
32. ... Kxf7 33. Bxc8 b6 34. Bf5 Kf6 35. d6 Nb7 36. d7 Ke7 37. f4 gxf4 38. Kf2 Nd6 39. Kf3 Nxc4 40. Kxf4 Nd6 41. g5 Nb7 42. Ke5 1 : 0.
27. ... Rxe7 28. Rxe7 Qxe7 29. Qxe7 Bxe7 30. Rxe7 Nc5 31. Bf5 Kf8 32. Rxf7+! Nevertheless, 32. Rxb7! is the “dual”.
32. ... Kxf7 33. Bxc8 b6 34. Bf5 Kf6 35. d6 Nb7 36. d7 Ke7 37. f4 gxf4 38. Kf2 Nd6 39. Kf3 Nxc4 40. Kxf4 Nd6 41. g5 Nb7 42. Ke5 1 : 0.
The fourth and last game of FIDE Women’s Candidates Tournament 2022–23 Pool A saw 雷挺婕 (Léi Tǐngjié) prevail over Muzychuk, mostly by virtue of her superior theoretical preparation. Photo: Michał Walusza/FIDE. |
Peace, Love and Pop
About 100 thousand people are expected to join in the march for peace and an immediate ceasefire in Russo-Ukrainian war which is being held today (November 5) in Rome, Italy, organised and promoted by the “Europe for Peace” coalition, involving hundreds of civic, religious and cultural institutions. Photo: ANSA. |
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