Igor Lysyi: “I worked hard at mastering 1…е7-е5 for Black….
AlphaZero benötigte nur wenige Stunden des Selbstlernens, um zu dem Schachspieler zu werden, der die Welt erschütterte. Das System Künstlicher Intelligenz wurde mit nichts anderem als den Regeln des Königlichen Spiels gefüttert, bevor es das weltbeste Schachprogramm in einem langen Match besiegte. Die im Dezember 2017 veröffentlichte Auswahl von zehn Partien sorgte für weltweites Aufsehen: Wie war es möglich, gegen einen Gegner von übermenschlicher Stärke derart brillant und riskant zu spielen, ohne auch nur eine einzige Partie zu verlieren? Für Zeitenwende im Schach haben Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan mehr als zweitausend zuvor unveröffentlichte Partien von AlphaZero untersucht. Zugleich hatten sie exklusiven Zugang zum Forschungsteam von DeepMind und konnten einen einzigartigen “Blick unter die Haube” werfen, um so die Tiefe und Breite von AlphaZeros Suchfunktion ermessen zu können. Zeitenwende im Schach präsentiert zugleich eine Sammlung einprägsam erläuterter Schachpartien außergewöhnlicher Qualität. Die erstaunlichen Entdeckungen von AlphaZero in jedem relevanten Bereich lassen die Spielstärke von Profi- wie auch Vereinsspielern wachsen: Eröffnungsvorbereitung, Figurenbeweglichkeit, Initiative, Angriffstechniken, langfristige Opfer und vieles mehr. Dieses Buch bietet faszinierende Einblicke in die Perspektiven und Möglichkeiten der Künstlichen Intelligenz. Wobei sich der Radius keineswegs auf die Bewältigung von Spielen beschränkt, sondern ebenso auf verschiedenartigste gesellschaftliche Herausforderungen gerichtet ist.
Isaak Lipnitsky (1923–1959) was a leading Ukrainian chess player of the early 1950s as well as a celebrated chess theoretician and journalist, whose textbook Questions of Modern Chess Theory became an internationally recognized classic. Born in Kiev shortly after the establishment of Soviet control over Ukraine, he achieved a career-best result of second equal in the 1950 Soviet Championship, half a point behind the winner Paul Keres, during which he defeated Petrosian, Smyslov, and Geller. He also played in the finals of the 1951 and 1952 Soviet Championships, as well as winning the Ukrainian Championship in 1949 and 1956, and the Kiev Championship in 1956. According to the Chessmetrics website Lipnitsky was ranked no. 12 in the world between September and December 1950 with a peak rating of 2700 and a best TPR of 2729 recorded in the 1950 Soviet Championship.
In the words of Grandmaster Kevin Spraggett: “As a player Lipnitsky was well trained in strategy and tactics, capable of playing all types of positions equally well. However, what he really liked doing was playing complicated positions, a trait that many of the finest Ukraine masters seemed to have inherited.”
Lipnitsky’s fascinating biography with original research by the authors takes us from his childhood in a poor Jewish family, through to his membership of the Kiev children’s chess club at the Pioneer Palace under the tutelage of the great coach Alexander Konstantinopolsky, who nurtured David Bronstein’s talent at the same time. It introduces the reader to the origins of the Soviet Chess School in Kiev, which was one of the USSR’s greatest talent mills. Lipnitsky’s World War Two service as an intelligence officer is discussed, as is what is known of his wife and daughter and his eventual full-time chess career.
Lipnitsky died at the tragically young age of 35 from a terminal disease that curtailed his tournament performances in his final years. His tragedy was not confined to that, however. His paternal grandparents and aunts were murdered by the Nazi occupiers during the War, and his daughter later died in a psychiatric hospital.
Kyiv-based Candidate Masters and chess historians Mykola Fuzik (born in 1957) and Alexei Radchenko (1947-2013) spent several years researching Isaak Lipnitsky’s biography, which was first published in Ukraine in 2018. This book provides instructional analysis of 63 of his best games, mostly annotated by Lipnitsky and his contemporaries, supported by computer corrections. Opponents include Tal, Petrosian, Smyslov, Botvinnik, Bronstein, Keres, Geller, Averbakh and Taimanov among other names. It also contains a highly original article he wrote on attack along the a1-h8 diagonal, as well as a number of interesting photographs of the protagonist and his family.
Tal lo describiría así: “En Zurich ya no era fácil jugar contra el Fischer de dieciséis años”.
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British Chess Magazine (November 2024)
British Chess Magazine (August 2023)
Feature articles by leading GMs and hundreds of deeply annotated games.
Ian Nepomniachtchi, challenger to Magnus Carlsen’s World Championship title in 2021, is an outstanding chess talent. “Nepo” as he is universally known is a fascinating player and this book assesses his career and analyses his original and creative style in great depth with numerous deeply annotated games.
Nepo is one of the very few players in the world to hold (at least prior to the match) a plus score (four wins to one with six draws) against Carlsen in classical chess. Nepo and Carlsen are peers and first started playing each other in the Under-12 category of the World Youth Championship in 2002. In that event, Nepo edged out Carlsen on tie-break. At that time he out-rated Carlsen by 100 points and was generally considered to be the more promising of the two prodigies.
Nepo is a fascinating player who loves open and irrational positions and excels when on the attack. Unsurprisingly, he cites Mikhail Tal as his all-time favorite player and says Tal is the player who has exerted the greatest influence on him. As with that great Latvian genius, Nepo thrives on anarchy and chaos and has frequently got the better of Carlsen in games with mind-boggling complications. He is also lethal when he has the initiative.
Nepo has steadily climbed the world rankings and his finest achievement was his victory in the 2020/2021 Candidates’ tournament with 8½/14 points (+5-2=7) which gave him the right to challenge Carlsen for the world title.
Cyrus Lakdawala is an International Master, a former National Open and American Open Champion, and a six-time State Champion. He has been teaching chess for over 40 years, and coaches some of the top junior players in the U.S.