Chess Face (Early Works Book 1)

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I'm not creative, for instance.

Whenever I look at your photos I know it's your picture, you have your personal style of photography, and your work is always of an outstanding quality. Many consider you the world champion of chess photography, and yet I should believe you're not talented? The thing is, we don't have so many professionals in chess. Not only in photography, but in many fields. We don't have so many professional organizers, we don't have many professional journalists, photographers And I have a very professional approach in everything I try: I seek for improvement; I pay attention to the guys who know their craft.

Back then, there was no one taking chess photography seriously. In I was offered to be the official photographer of the Chess Olympiad in Istanbul and I wasn't ready for it. But it's the kind of challenge I was ready to take on. I found it very stimulating. When I'm offered an opportunity I don't deserve, then I give the most. I wasn't ready for it but I prepared myself for a couple of months.

I was observing chess pictures. I was looking at their work, going through all their photos, aiming to learn from what they do better than others and then trying to put it into practice. Kenneth Odeh in Atlantic City, N. Julia Clementson from Guyana. When somebody gives me the confidence and I have this little challenge, I can do my best. Gratitude, confidence, and a little bit of challenge is a powerful mix.

So what is that you learned to look for, and how did your initial technique transform from that Chess Olympiad to the David Llada we know now? More or less I had the ideas, I knew what I wanted to do, and now I know how to do it. I prefer to take close-up portraits, only the face of the players mainly, to avoid any distraction.

In the playing hall you always have distracting things around the players—that's why I focus on the players' faces, very close shots, where you cannot see anything else. For the same reason, I often rely on black and white. Maybe there is someone with a colorful T-shirt in the background: This is a mess. So many people, so many colors, so many things. Sometimes you need to simplify. The less you put in a picture the more impact it makes in general.

So I take this mess and I focus on only one element at a time, that's what I try to do. Speaking of faces, what kind of faces you look for? Do you focus on the eyes, or facial expressions? Yes, especially the eyes and hands—they are the most expressive parts of the body. The hands can tell a story as well.

For instance, when you look at this picture of Nakamura see below , you can see that he is enjoying himself, he is pleased with the opening. The book's cover picture shows a very tense moment, a critical decision perhaps—you can tell that by the pose. The cover of The Thinkers.

For this book, you had to choose from many photos, the work of over five years. How did you select the pictures presented in the book? Even to make that cut must have been difficult. I made a preliminary selection with Jacob Aagaard creative director of Quality Chess , we picked around photos, and then I gave everything to the designer and let him make the final decision, only with aesthetic criteria; that was it. Could be, but I think that some special book like this, in a luxury edition, you will have one every five or 10 years, no more than that.

The market is not so big for a publication like this. I know that some people will never buy this book—many chess people only buy opening books for instance—but the ones who buy this like it very much. Asha Kondo in Mombasa, Kenya. I think it was a very natural idea, after a couple of years taking photos. Already in I conceived The Thinkers as a photographic project, consisting of both a book and a photo exhibition.

With the exhibitions, I would like to give chess organizers something visual that they can use to charm sponsors, something that is going to give very much-needed visibility to chess. As of January 12, , White had won The main reason that 1. He found that White's advantage is equivalent to 35 rating points, i. Other writers conclude that there is a positive correlation between the players' ratings and White's score. According to GM Evgeny Sveshnikov , statistics show that White has no advantage over Black in games between beginners, but "if the players are stronger, White has the lead".

In AlphaZero , playing games against Stockfish , won 25 and drew 25 as White, but won 3 and drew 47 as Black. Joseph Bertin wrote in his textbook The Noble Game of Chess , "He that plays first, is understood to have the attack. White has to strive for a win, Black—for a draw!

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Chess theorists have long debated how enduring White's initiative is and whether, if both sides play perfectly, the game should end in a win for White or a draw. George Walker wrote in that, "The first move is an advantage, The view that a game of chess should end in a draw given best play prevails. Of course, I can't prove this, but I doubt that you can find a single strong player who would disagree.

I remember Kasparov, after a last-round draw, explaining to the waiting reporters: Lasker and Capablanca both worried that chess would suffer a "draw death" as top-level players drew more and more of their games. Lasker suggested scoring less than half a point for a draw, and more than half a point for stalemating the opponent's king. Today some of the sharpest opening variations have been analyzed so deeply that they are often used as drawing weapons.

For example, at the highest levels, Black often uses the Marshall Attack in the Ruy Lopez , a line where Black sacrifices a pawn for strong attacking chances, to obtain an endgame where Black is still a pawn down but is able to draw with correct play. This has long been considered one of the sharpest and most problematic, [56] [57] or even foolhardy, opening lines. Bg5 is seldom seen at the highest level because the main line of this variation leads, with best play, to a draw by perpetual check.

However, Georgiev and Kolev's pessimistic assessment of 6. Bg5 has since been called into question, as White succeeded with Although it is very much a minority view, three prominent twentieth-century masters claimed that White's advantage should or may be decisive with best play. Weaver Adams , then one of the leading American masters, [69] was the best-known proponent of this view, which he introduced in his book White to Play and Win , [70] and continued to expound in later books and articles until shortly before his death in The year after his book was published, at the finals of the U.

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Open tournament , he scored only one draw in his four games as White, but won all four of his games as Black. Horowitz , who took the black pieces in every game. According to Sveshnikov, Vsevolod Rauzer , a leading Soviet player and theoretician during the s, [79] likewise "claimed in the [s]: Adams was the first person I met who actually had theories about how chess should be played. Berliner's thesis, like Adams', has been sharply criticized. As explained below, chess theorists in recent decades have continued to debate the size and nature of White's advantage, if any. Apart from Berliner, they have rejected the idea that White has a forced win from the opening position.

Many also reject the traditional paradigm that Black's objective should be to neutralize White's initiative and obtain equality. In , GM Larry Kaufman expressed a more nuanced view than Adams and Berliner, arguing that the initiative stemming from the first move can always be transformed into some sort of enduring advantage, albeit not necessarily a decisive one. Kaufman writes, "I don't believe that White has a forced win in Chess. I do however believe that with either 1. If chess were scored like boxing , with drawn games awarded by some point system to the player if any who came 'closer' to winning, then I believe White would indeed have a forced win in theory.

He writes, "In my opinion, the only obvious advantage for White is that if he or she plays for a draw, and does so well, then Black can hardly avoid this without taking obvious risks. Those who find these lines have nothing to fear, as Black is indeed OK , but only in those variations! Modern writers often think of Black's role in more dynamic terms than merely trying to equalize. Rowson writes that "the idea of Black trying to 'equalize' is questionable. I think it has limited application to a few openings, rather than being an opening prescription for Black in general.

The revelation that Black has dynamic chances and need not be satisfied with mere equality was the turning point in his career, he said. Sometimes we say 'dynamically balanced' instead of 'equal' to express the view that either player is as likely as the other to emerge from complications with an advantage.

This style of opening play has become prevalent in modern chess, with World Champions Fischer and Kasparov as its most visible practitioners.

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Modern writers also question the idea that White has an enduring advantage. Suba, in his influential book Dynamic Chess Strategy , [96] rejects the notion that the initiative can always be transformed into an enduring advantage. He contends that sometimes the player with the initiative loses it with no logical explanation, and that, "Sometimes you must lose it, just like that. If you try to cling to it, by forcing the issue, your dynamic potential will become exhausted and you won't be able to face a vigorous counter-attack. Rowson argues that both White and Black have certain advantages: According to Rowson, White's first advantage is that, "The advantage of the first move has some similarities with the serve in tennis in that White can score an ' ace ' for instance with a powerful opening novelty , he has more control over the pace and direction of the game, and he has a ' second serve ' in that when things go wrong his position is not usually losing.

This advantage is particularly acute in cases where there is a possible threefold repetition , because White can begin the repetition without committing to a draw and Black has to decide whether to deviate before he knows whether White is bluffing. Rowson cites as an example of the last phenomenon the well-regarded Zaitsev Variation of the Ruy Lopez. This puts Black in an awkward situation, since he must either a insist on the Zaitsev with Re8, which allows White to choose whether to draw by threefold repetition with Nf3, or play on with a different move, or b play a different and possibly inferior variation by playing something other than Rowson argues that Black also has several advantages.

First, "White's alleged advantage is also a kind of obligation to play for a win, and Black can often use this to his advantage. Suba writes, "In terms of the mathematical games theory , chess is a game of complete information , and Black's information is always greater—by one move! Rowson also notes that Black's chances increase markedly by playing good openings, which tend to be those with flexibility and latent potential, "rather than those that give White fixed targets or that try to take the initiative prematurely.

Success with Black depends on seeing beyond the initiative and thinking of positions in terms of 'potential'. A typical position arises after 1. Bb2 Suba wrote of a similar Hedgehog position, "White's position looks ideal. That's the naked truth about it, but the 'ideal' has by definition one drawback—it cannot be improved.

Nf3 Now Black breaks open the position in typical Hedgehog fashion. Nd5 Other moves get mated immediately: Bxb7 Qh3 ; Qe2 Qxh3 ; Kg3 the only legal response to the double check , An examination of reversed and symmetrical openings illustrates White's and Black's respective advantages:. In a "reversed opening", White plays an opening typically played by Black, but with colors reversed and thus an extra tempo.

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The point is, Black's set-up in the Sicilian is fine as a reactive system, but not worth much when trying to claim the initiative as White. This is true because Black is able to react to the specific plan White chooses; in Suba's terms, his information is indeed a move greater! Furthermore, he is able to take advantage of dead equal positions which White hoping to retain the advantage of the first move would normally avoid.

Watson also observes, "Similarly, the Dutch Defence looks particularly sterile when White achieves the reversed positions a tempo up it turns out that he has nothing useful to do! He smiled and said, 'That extra move's gonna hurt me. Yermolinsky also agrees with Alekhine's criticism of 1. White is supposed to try for more than just obtaining a comfortable game in reversed colour opening set-ups, and, as the statistics show—surprisingly for a lot of people, but not for me—White doesn't even score as well as Black does in the same positions with his extra tempo and all. Rowson writes that "in general one would assume that whatever advantage White has would be revealed most clearly in symmetrical positions.

It is often difficult for White to prove an advantage in symmetrical opening lines. As GM Bent Larsen wrote, annotating a game that began 1. Nf3 Nf6 , and accordingly varies with 2. Nc3, the Vienna Game. Bg2 Bg7, or after 3. Nf3 Nf6 transposing to the Four Knights Game 4. Bb5 Bb4 [] 5.

Nd5 [] Nd4 9. Nxb4 [] Nxb5, or 7. Moreover, symmetrical positions may be disadvantageous to White in that he has to commit himself first. Now, whatever White does, Black will vary it and get an asymmetrical position and have the superior position due to his better pawn structure! Further, a particular extra move is sometimes more of a liability than an asset. For example, Soltis notes that the Exchange French position arising after 1. Nf3 Nf6 "is pretty equal". The same position, but with Black's knight moved to e4, arises in Petroff's Defense after 1. That position offers White better chances precisely because Black's extra move Ne4 allows the advanced knight to become a target for attack.

Finally, symmetrical positions may be difficult for the white player for psychological reasons. Watson writes that anyone who tries the Exchange French, "even if he thinks he is playing for a win, assume[s] a psychological burden. White has already ceded the advantage of the first move, and knows it, whereas Black is challenged to find ways to seize the initiative. Gurevich — Short and Tatai— Korchnoi.

Gurevich—Short, [] a game between two of the world's leading players, [] White needed only a draw to qualify for the Candidates Matches , while Black needed to win. He remarks, "there is something compelling about Black's strategy. He seems to be saying: Hodgson — Arkell , Newcastle Bf5, but White has to go first so Black gets to play This doesn't matter much, but it already points to the challenge that White faces here; his most natural continuations allow Black to play the moves he wants to. I would therefore say that White is in 'Zugzwang Lite' and that he remains in this state for several moves.

Bd2 Bd7 would transpose to the Portisch—Tal game below. Finally breaking the symmetry. Kh2 The position is still almost symmetrical, and White can find nothing useful to do with his extra move. Rowson whimsically suggests Rowson notes that this is a useful waiting move, covering e7, which needs protection in some lines, and possibly supporting an eventual White cannot copy it, since after Nxf2 Black would win a pawn.

Rowson notes that with his more active pieces, "It looks like Black has some initiative. Nxd5, Bxe5 "is at least equal for Black". Bxd4 e5 Rowson writes, "Now both sides have their trumps, but I think Black has some advantage, due to his extra central control, imposing knight and prospects for a kingside attack. Now White has a difficult game: Rxf2 Bc2, winning; Qxd8 Rexd8, and Black is better. Rxf2, Bc2 forks White's queen and rook.

The opening of the following game between two world-class players, [] another Symmetrical English, took a similar course:. Bd2 Bd7 see diagram. Once again, White is on move in a symmetrical position, but it is not obvious what he can do with his first-move initiative. But Mikhail Tal said it is easier to play. By moving second he gets to see White's move and then decide whether to match it. Qc1 Here, Soltis writes that Black could maintain equality by keeping the symmetry: Instead, he plays to prove that White's queen is misplaced.

Although the pawn structure is still symmetrical, Black's control of the c- file gives him the advantage. In chess tournaments and matches, the frequency with which each player receives white and black is an important consideration. In matches, the players' colors in the first game are determined by drawing lots, and alternated thereafter. Where one or more players withdraws from the tournament, the tournament director may change the assigned colors in some games so that no player receives two more blacks than whites, or vice versa.

In Swiss system tournaments , the tournament director tries to ensure that each player receives, as nearly as possible, the same number of games as White and Black, and that the player's color alternates from round to round. The game of chess is not solved , meaning it has not been determined with certainty whether a perfectly played game would end in a win for White, a draw, or even a win for Black. Due to its high level of complexity and the limitations of computer technology it is considered unlikely that it will be solved in the foreseeable future. In his paper "Programming a Computer for Playing Chess", information theorist Claude Shannon argued that in principle the game of chess ought to be solvable.

In practical terms, however, he argued that it is not feasible for any computer to actually do this. He estimated that a computer would need to calculate 10 positions from the initial position, which he said would take 10 90 years. Hans-Joachim Bremermann , a professor of mathematics and biophysics at the University of California at Berkeley , further argued in a paper that the "speed, memory, and processing capacity of any possible future computer equipment are limited by certain physical barriers: These limitations imply, for example, that no computer, however constructed, will ever be able to examine the entire tree of possible move sequences of the game of chess.

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