Chess: How does White win?

Published on 01/05/2011 19:50

Monday's chess...

LAST month's Euro Championship ended with a controversy regarding the tie-breaker system used, with Dane Peter Heine Nielson pointing out just how illogical and unfair the method used to split the 26 spots for the Fide World Cup was. That sparked off a massive online debate about fairer alternatives.

Tiebreaks were a bit more on the adventurous side at the recent US Championship in St Louis, with the title-deciding (and third place spot) places – if required – first going to rapids and a final "Armageddon bid game" involving game theory as researched back in the 1950s by Nobel laureate John Nash of A Beautiful Mind movie fame.

In the Armageddon bid process, Black has draw odds. Each player bids an amount of time with an upper limit of 45 minutes they are willing to take on the clock to play with their colour choice. The player who bids the lower time gets Black and receives that initial time; the other player gets White and 45:00 but must win. If both bid the same time, a coin-flip determines colour.

Last year, Gata Kamsky claimed the title by drawing the final Armageddon game. This year though, he beat Yury Shulman before going to the tiebreaks to reclaim his title. Third place, and an additional $5,000 (3,000) prize money was decided by Armageddon, and won by Sam Shankland.

The US Woman's Championship also went to the Armageddon decider this year, with IM Anna Zatonskih claiming her fourth title and the $18,000 (10,800) first prize by winning the bid process and successfully holding the draw with Black against WFM Tatev Abrahamyan.

S Shankland - R Hess

US Ch. Final, (Armageddon)

Nimzo-Indian Defence

1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Bb4 4 f3 c5 5 d5 Nh5 6 Nh3 d6 7 g4 Nf6 8 Nf2 Bxc3+ 9 bxc3 e5 10 Bg5 h6 11 Bh4 Qe7 12 e3 Nbd7 13 Bd3 g5 14 Bg3 h5 15 h4! gxh4 16 Bxh4 hxg4 17 fxg4 e4 18 Be2 Qe5 19 Qc2 Nf8 20 Kd2 Ng6 21 Bxf6 Qxf6 22 Nxe4 Qe7 23 Rxh8+ Nxh8 24 Rh1 Ng6 25 g5 Kd8 26 Nf6 Kc7 27 Rh7 Ne5 28 Qe4 b6 29 Bh5 1–0