The Miles Report

An Ohrid Time
The recent European Individual Championship in Ohrid, Macedonia was
probably the strongest Open tournament ever -- being accustomed to
being in the top hundred players in the world makes it a bit of a shock to
be seeded 74th in a field of 200! However it will probably be mainly
remembered as the first important event where the new FIDE time limit
was used. For anyone that is not aware of it the powers that be are trying
to impose on the world of chess a new standard time control of 40 moves
in 75 minutes, plus an increment of 30 seconds a move, then an extra 15
minutes plus the same increment for the remainder of the game. This
move is clearly very controversial, and has been condemned in an open
The Miles letter by Karpov, Kasparov and Kramnik (alphabetical order in case you
wondered!), and has definitely not been well thought out, but it appears
that we will be forced to live with it for a while.
Report There are many aspects that need to be considered. The first is what is the
reason for the change. The FIDE argument is that speeding the game up
will make it more marketable, and while I accept that for television (if
Tony Miles only they were interested) and as a spectator sport half hour games (which
I believe was what FIDE wanted before the opposition proved so large) or
blitz are more appealing, I cannot see that 3 or 4 hour games are much
more viable than 6 or 7 hour ones.
Another is that this move, if generally accepted, would lead to the
destruction of classical chess. This is the argument made by the three Ks
in their letter, and it also seems very valid to me.
A third point which seems to have been almost totally ignored is a
practical aspect. Personally I usually drink a lot during games. Now,
though, I may have to change, as a few calls of nature can lead to
substantial time trouble. Imagine reaching a queen ending that is going to
go on for another fifty moves or so, at thirty seconds a move... not a happy
thought. As for an attack of galloping gut-rot... well, that really doesn't
bear thinking about.
To be fair I did ask the Chief Arbiter Geurt Gijssen about this, and he
pointed out that the arbiter does have full discretion to pause the game
under such circumstances, but that is hardly ideal.
The main subject of discussion though, is the effect on the quality of
games. The FIDE attitude was that 3 hours was plenty of time and that

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quality would not suffer at all, though this sounded more like a vague
hope than any serious conclusion. One point that strikes me as important,
but generally neglected, is the question of recording moves. The official
line is that with thirty second increments one has enough time to record all
the moves and is therefore obliged to do so. In my view the increments
give enough time to play sensibly, but being obliged to write necessitates
breaking ones concentration every thirty seconds and hence destroying the
quality of play in anything other than a trivial position. I suspect that if
electronic boards, which automatically record the moves, are used there
would be a substantial improvement here.
My own view, which I think is not widely shared, is that this time control
is pretty much on a par with rapid chess, and if that is what FIDE wish to
market then they may as well go the whole hog and do just that. Like the
three Ks though, I would greatly regret the destruction of classical chess.
Anyway "Quality of Play" is always a fun topic. Lets take a look at a few
high (or perhaps low) lights of the Ohrid tournament.
White: P.Blatny (2547) Black: T. Likavsky (2425)
1.Nf3 g6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bf4 a6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Ne5 Bg7 7.Be2
7b6?? 8.Nc6 1-0
White: K.Sakaev (2637) Black:
A.Delchev (2584)
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 c5 3.d5 b5 4.Bg5
Qa5 5.c3 Ne4 6.Bh4 Bb7 7.e3 e6
8.de

8...de?? 9.Bb5
Oops!
9...Nc6?
Here 9Bc6 would limit the
damage.
10.Ne5 1-0
If 10Qb5 11.Qd7 mate, or
10...Qc7 11.Qa4. Making the most
of his extra free day Delchev went
on to qualify for the World

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Championship!
Okay, it is true that one cannot entirely attribute these classics to the
time control. An hour and a half should be enough to avoid such
accidents. The thing is though that one has to speed up ones play
somewhere, and bashing out the opening moves quickly is the most
reasonable option on balance. It can be overdone though! Let's take
something a little less drastic now:
White: A.J.Miles (2562) Black:
V.Bologan (2676)
Nothing too complicated. After
1.Rb4 followed by Ra7, and if
necessary Be2-f3, the black b pawn
is a goner. And...

White: A.J.Miles (2562) Black:

J.Lautier (2658)
Position after white's 40th move.
White is three pawns up and
threatening Qf7. And, just so I can
embarrass someone other than
myself...

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White: N.D.Short (2676) Black:

N.Sulava (2526)
Barely out of the opening, and
black's queen is trapped.
Right, take a look at these three
positions. Given that there were no
huge time scrambles and no
colossal blunders, what do you
think was white's total score from
these three positions? At a normal
time control I think I could
guarantee it would be 3/3. Needless
to say, in this case it was not! (Answer below)
Just to make some space between the question and the answer, how
about this little curiosity....
White: L.Ilic (2282) Black: V. Korchnoi
1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 g6 4.h3 Nf6 5.e5 Nfd7 6.Nf3 Nb6 7.Bd3 a5
8.0-0 Na6 9.a3 h6 10.Ne2 Nc7 11.c3 a4 12.Be3 Nc4 13. Qc2 Ne6
14.Rae1 b5 15.Bc1
15...Kd7 16.Nh2 Kc7 17.f4 Ng7
18.g4 e6 19.Nf3 Be7 20.Kg2 Kb6
21.Ng3 Ra7 22.Rf2 Ka5 23.Rg1
Kb6 24.Rff1 Ka5 25.Kh2 Kb6
26.Kg2 Kb7 27.Kh2 Ka8

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28.Kg2 Qd7 29.Kh2 Qe8 30.Kg2

Qd8 31.Kh2 g5 32. Nh5 Nh5 33.
gh gf 34. Bf4 Bd7 35.Rg3 Qf8 36.
Rf2 Be8 37.Bc1 f5 38.ef Bd6
39.Ne5 Ne5 40.de Be5 41.Bg6 Qd6
42.Rff3 Bf7 43. Qf2 Bg3 44. Rg3
Rg8 45.Kg2 e5 46.Bh6 Rd8
47.Re3 d4 48.cd ed 49.Re7 Re7
50.fe Bd5 51.Kg1 Qe7 52. Qd4 c5
53.Qd2 Bc6 54. Qe3 Rd1 55. Kh2
Qh4 0-1
Dont ask me... I am only the
reporter... :)
Answer to the above question: White scored one point out of the three.
Hard to explain. One factor, though, is the strange second time control.
Reaching move forty with a winning position it is hard to avoid the
temptation to relax slightly. When ones opponent does not only fail to
resign, but actually puts up resistance it is quite hard not to drift into
time trouble and panic.
As this is my column and I am a sensitive soul, I can't quite bring
myself to show you how exactly I scored only half a point from those
two positions but here for your education is how the erstwhile
challenger for the PCA World title flawlessly exploits the advantage of
the extra queen:
White: N.D.Short Black: N. Sulava
1.e4 d5 2.ed Qd5 3.Nc3 Qd6 4.d4 Nf6 5.Be3 Bf5
6.Qf3 Bc8
Oops!
7.0-0-0 c6 8.Bf4 Qb4 9.Nge2 Be6
10.Bc7 Na6 11.a3

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Double oops!
11...Qc3 12.Qc3 Nc7 13.Nf4 Bd7
14.Nd3 Ncd5 15.Qb3 b5 16.Ne5 e6
17.g3 Bd6 18.f4 a5 19.Bg2 a4
20.Qd3 b4 21.Rhe1 0-0 22.Kd2
Bc8 23.Ra1 Ba6 24.Qf3 c5 25.dc
Bc5 26.ab Bb4 27.c3 Ba5 28.Ra4
Bb7 29.Ra5 Ra5 30.Qf2 Rd8
31.Kc2 Rc8 32.Kb1

32...Nc3 33.bc Bg2 34.Qg2 Rb8

Counter-oops.
35.Qb2 Raa8 36.c4 Kf8 37.Re3
Rb2 38.Kb2 Ne8 39.Rd3 f6
40.Nd7 Ke7 41.Nb6 Rd8 42.Ra3
Kd6 43.Rd3 Kc7 44.Rd8 Kd8
45.Kc3 Kc7 46.Na4 Kc6 47.Kb4
e5 48.fe fe 49.Kc3 Nf6 50.Kd3 h5
51.h4 Kd6 52.Ke3 Ke6 53.Nc3
Kf5 54.c5 Kg4 55.c6 Ne8 56.Ne4
Nc7 57.Kf2 Kf5 58.Nc5 g5 59.hg
-
Oh, I almost forgot. The new European Champion is Emil Sutovskyof
Israel ( Israel? Europe? Oh well...) after a rapid (15 minute plus
increment) play off with the prodigious Ukranian Ruslan Ponomariov.
The bronze medal went to Georgian Zurab Azmaiparashvili after
another play off with Judith Polgar (errr... yup... luckily I never referred
to it as the Men's championship did I?). Of the fifty qualifiers for the
World Championship, according to my count four are of Western
European origin. Food for more thought perhaps.

Copyright 2001 Tony Miles. All rights reserved.

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