Mikhail Umansky

I've been too down to write lately, so I'm going to start by writing about something cheerful.

The International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF), as part of the celebration of its 50th anniversary last year, organized a tournament to which they invited all the living Correspondence Chess World Champions. And they all played.

There isn't any parallel I can think of in other competitive activities (I'm sure someone will be unhappy if I call CC a "sport"). Chess players often remain quite strong in their old age, even in over-the-board chess, where the strain of constant concentration for hours on end, day after day favors the young. Still, Vassily Smyslov was a Candidate for the World Championship at the age of 61, for example.

In correspondence chess, the advantages to youth are less, and top players sometimes remain cometitive into their 80s and 90s. So this tournament is soemthing like having a golf tournament with Hogan, Palmer, Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, but all at or near their peak form, their skills undiminished by age.

The tournament isn't over, but Mikhail Umansky has clinched first place, with six wins, no losses, and only two draws. This is a mind boggling result. It would be like someone winning that golf tournament by twenty strokes.

Hans Berliner and perfect opening play
Another notable feature of the tournament is the return of Hans Berliner. Dr. Berliner, a professor of computer science at Carnegie-Mellon, retired from competitive chess thirty years ago, after winning the World Championship in crushing style.

Berliner is one of the key figures in the development of computer chess; his program Hitech was one of the first programs to consistently beat masters, and the Carnegie Mellon Computer Science Department is where the Deep Blue team learned their chops.

In 1999, Berliner wrote a book, _The System_, in which he claims that 1 d4 (1. P-Q4) is the best opening move for White, and in fact a winning move. He presents some very controvesial opening analysis in the book. These opening analyses, which Berliner claims demolish several standard defences to the queen's pawn opening, were developed using his System for finding the best moves in the opening. Part of his reason for coming out of chess-retirement was to test his theories in high-level competition. However, his opponents mostly avoided his most critical lines, except in his game against Oim, which did in fact work out well for White.