A TN in the Grunfeld? Well...

A few months ago I was trying to find something to play as White against the Grunfeld. I thought the Bf4 line was pretty solid, and since I'm a greedy little guy, I decided to take a look at a line where Black gambits a couple of pawns for activity. Take a look at this position, after Black's eleventh move:



White's up two pawns a pawn, has sidelined one of the Black knights, and even has the move. Come on, he must be better, right? Well, no -- Black seems to have enough compensation for the material here, because his pieces are all active and White's queenside is extremely vulnerable. Castling queenside doesn't help White: from the diagram position, 12.0-0-0 is met with 12..e6 13.Nc7+ (or 13.Nc3 Bxc3 and Black will have good play against the c-pawns) 13..Nxc7 14.Bxc7 b5! with a strong initiative. The best move is actually the lame-looking 12.Rb1, after which Black has to play carefully. A game between Novikov and Sutovsky continued 12.Rb1 e6 13.Nc7+ Nxc7 14.Bxc7 Na4 15.Bd6 Nxb2 (not 15..Bxb2?? 16.Rxb2 Nxb2 17.Be5) 16.Ba3 Na4 17.Rxb7 Bf8, giving this position:



Black's last move prepares to trade off White's only active minor piece, after which the Black pieces will flow into White's queenside. As the game proved, Black is fine here.

When studying the game, I wondered if there was a more direct way for White to play. After 12.Rb1 e6 13.Nc7+ Nxc7 14.Bxc7 Na4, I began looking at 15.e4, with the obvious idea of playing e5 and closing the long diagonal. The next few moves seemed to be forced: 15..Rc8 16.Bd6 Nxb2 (if 16..Bd4, trying to stay on the diagonal, then 17.Ne2 develops with tempo) 16.e5 Nxc4 17.Bxc4 Rxc4 18.Rxb7, reaching the following position:



This is a fun position to investigate, since both sides have concrete problems with king position and development. At first I was enthusiastic about White's chances. The threat to the a-pawn carries some importance in lines like 19..f6 20.Ne2 fe 21.Rxa7, with advantage to White, while a line like 19..a6? 20.Ne2 f6 21.Kf2 fe 22.Rd1 shows what happens if White can get his kingside pieces into play -- the dark-squared monster on d6 cuts Black's position in half. Moreover, after the obvious 19..Rc1+ 20.Kf2, White actually threatens to sac an exchange with 21.Ne2, for example 20..a6 21.Ne2! Rxh1 22.Rb8+ Bc8 23.Rxc8+ Kd7 24.Rc7+ with the initiative.

For a moment it looked as though I had finally produced a decent novelty. Sadly, I soon realized that the 19..Rc1+ 20.Kf2 f6! spoils all the fun. White can grab on a7, but his kingside is bottled up for the foreseeable future. The deeper you play this position, the less your computer will like it for White.

I then looked at the finesse 19..Rc1+ 20.Kd2!? Bh6+, but suffice to say that 21.Kd3 Bc6(!) 22.Rb8+ Kd7 23.Rxh8 leads by force to a perpetual check (The reader can work out the details as an exercise).


(Black to move and draw)

Meanwhile, 21.Ke2 is untrustworthy after something like 21..Kd8 22.Rxa7 Rc2+ 23.Kd3 Rd2+ 24.Kc3 Rd1, locking White's kingside pieces in.


(White to move and suffer)

Shattered, I steeled myself to play the Bg5 & Qa4+ line instead, despite the fact that it's almost as wussy as the London system. And yeah, I've started playing that too. Sometimes searching for 'truth' just takes too much energy...

[p.s. for those who are interested, the opening moves in this Bf4 Grunfeld line are 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bf4 Bg7 5.e3 c5 6.dc Qa5 7.Qa4+ Qxa4 8.Nxa4 Bd7!? 9.Nc3 Ne4! 10.Nxd5 Na6 11.f3 Nexc5. One of the reasons this "novelty" was never going to be very good is that there are many fine alternatives for Black: on move five there is 5..c6, on move eight 8..Be6, and on move nine 9..Bc6!?.]

Found Object

I'm a Philistine when it comes to art, but I love this collection of photographs. It's amazing how mysterious and alien animals can look when taken out of a 'normal' setting. (Found via andrewsullivan.com.)

Zealand Falls, 03/28 - 03/29

My friends and I spent the weekend hiking at beautiful Zealand Falls, in New Hampshire's White Mountains. It was a fantastic trip: the weather was pleasant, and the scenery was gorgeous. However, I was a little unprepared for all the snow. It completely covered the trails and was quite treacherous -- I found myself constantly sinking into snowy 'potholes,' some of which were a good 2-3 feet deep. Fortunately, AMC volunteers at Crawford Notch lent us hiking poles and gaiters, which helped a lot. To add to the excitement, we were warned that there was an aggressive bull moose frequenting the trail. Though we didn't see him, his tracks were everywhere (along with other signs of his presence: the big guy seemed to be going through some sort of digestive crisis).



Our hike took us to the Zealand Falls hut, around seven miles from the highway. We were among the first people to arrive at the hut, but as the hours passed, more and more hikers filed in. The atmosphere was very communal: everyone crowded into the small common area and kitchen to cook or share stories about their exploits. Soon after arriving, we decided to head up to Zeacliff, roughly 1.5 miles away and 1000 feet up. It was a challenging hike due to the snow, but the view of the surrounding area (below) was certainly worth it.



After spending the night at the hut, we set out for home, only to find that much of the trail had completely frozen overnight. The resulting hike down the icy path was tedious, and the skies threatened to open up while we were sliding around on the trail. Fortunately, we got back to our car before the rain started, safe and relatively dry.

Music Monday

"The Comedians," from Roy Orbison's last album, Mystery Girl. The song was written for Orbison by Elvis Costello. This performance is from Orbison's "Black and White Night" concert, a star-studded tribute/comeback special: Costello, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, K.D. Lang, and Bonnie Raitt, among others, played in the backing band.



Historical Footnote: At the time of this performance, Orbison was experiencing a career resurgence, sparked when his song "In Dreams" was used in the David Lynch movie Blue Velvet. Twenty years later, Lynch used a cover of Orbison's "Crying" as the centerpiece of his movie Mulholland Drive, resulting in one of the strangest, most powerful scenes I've ever watched. I won't post it here, because it's not nearly as effective on its own, but I highly recommend watching the whole movie (if only because it's Lynch's best, and if you don't like it you can safely avoid the rest of his stuff).

Movin' On Up

My parents have decided to move back to Boston from San Diego, starting in July. I think they're crazy, of course. (Hi Mom, hi Dad. Love ya!) But it will be great to see them again! I am a little worried that our dog will oust me from the pack now that I'm constantly covered in cat hair, but hey, she'll probably be cool with it.


The probable reaction (yes, this is a dog)

"Free room service, free cable -- ooh, Free Willy!"

I recently came across this article in the New York Times, describing how jurors are using Blackberries, Cell Phones, and other portable internet browsers to research cases they are sitting for. At the risk of sounding cynical, I'm not sure that this is such a horrifying development. Many civil litigation cases, and certainly most of the large ones, are highly complex. Without background knowledge and research, a juror will find it extremely difficult to evaluate the arguments each side is making. This means that jury verdicts in these complex civil cases will contain a large element of randomness. It's no accident that a larger and larger percentage of these cases are being settled out of court each year -- when the stakes are high, most parties become risk-averse, and relying on a jury verdict is an inherently risky proposition. Jurors who surreptitiously conduct online research certainly breach the legal principle of impartiality (at least in a practical sense, since it is impossible to know the biases of their sources), and I'm not ready to set aside that principle just yet. But the system we have now is becoming increasingly irrelevant, and it's time to confront that fact. Perhaps this story will help bring the issue to the fore.

Your Daily Dose of Pessimism

This is a truly scary article. It's also the most concise explanation I've read of the CDO/CDS derivatives that magnified the financial crisis. Worth reading in full.