| Mar-22-06 | | Everett: 19...Nxf2!
GEEZ! Black doesn't settle for trying to equalize here. Nothing but aggression. |
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Jan-29-13
 | | FSR: Amazing to see Shirazi succeed with "coffehouse chess" (as Black, even) against the likes of Larsen. |
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| Mar-21-14 | | Morphized: "Drill variation" very suspicious.
Crazy game from Shirazi, as usual! |
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| Mar-22-14 | | capafischer1: same sort of coffe house chess that Lasker was accused of. |
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| Apr-16-15 | | Howard: IM Mark Ginsburg says on his blog that "the preparatory 19.f3 wins". Any comments ? I've not read this before. |
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Jul-19-17
 | | keypusher: <Mar-22-14 capafischer1: same sort of coffe house chess that Lasker was accused of.> Yes, but in Lasker's case the accusation is raving nonsense, while here it is correct. <Howard> 19.f3 wins material and leaves White with a winning position, i.e. 19....Nc4 20.Qe2 Nce5 21.fg Bxg4 22.Qc2 Bxd1 23.Qxd1 or 20....Nge5 21.Rdh1 Bd7 22.b3 Nd6 23.Bxe5 Rxe5 24.f4 Qxg3 25.Qf3 Qxf3 26.Bxf3 Ree8 27.Rxh5 f6 28.e5 Nc8 29.e6 and White wins. (Stockfish) |
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| Jul-19-17 | | ChessHigherCat: Kamran played the endgame brilliantly 44. c4!
If 44...Kd4? 45. c3! bxc 46. a3! wins easily.
Similarly if 44...axb? 45 c3! bxc (Kd3? 46. cxb2 Kc2 47. a3 wins easily) 46. a3!How many games would withstand the scrutiny of the tyrannical Stockfish in every particular and who cares? If there's no more to chess than that, then human-human games are a waste of time, you might as well ban the amateur humans and watch computer-computer games all the time (and tomorrow you can probably have them take care of the annoying task of sex for you, too!). |
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Jul-20-17
| | keypusher: <ChessHigherCat> Mark Ginsburg is not a computer. If you have a problem with chess games being scrutinized, why are you on this website? |
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| Jul-20-17 | | ChessHigherCat: <keypusher> I have a problem with the snide comment about "coffee house chess" (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean) just because a superior line was found -- the line quoted being followed by (Stockfish), which is a computer, regardless of who cited it. I knew Kamran well and watched him play a million times, and even had the somewhat humiliating pleasure of playing against him myself a few times. He's a fantastic talent and extremely creative. The fact that he blundered in some big tournaments is unfortunate but I'd like to see how well the pundits on this site do against the "coffee house player" (a trait shared by Philidor, among others). |
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| Jul-20-17 | | say it with a smile: Kudos ChessHigherCat: You got the nail in the head. Possibly the best comment in CG.com so far in 2017. Bravo ! Well.. I only know Shirazi from MORE than
4 decades ago BEFORE he set foot in the USA.
With very limited to no resources in Iran he became Iranian champ several times. He
is a natural talent by all means.
He is very humble and quiet.
God knows how far he would have gotten if he was born here in the States. Another Iranian prodigy, same as Omidyar (founder of Ebay) or the Women's math whiz, the late
Maryam Mirzakhani, the first woman to win mathematics' Fields medal. |
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Jul-20-17
| | keypusher: <ChessHigherCat: <keypusher> I have a problem with the snide comment about "coffee house chess" (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean) just because a superior line was found -- the line quoted being followed by (Stockfish), which is a computer, regardless of who cited it. I knew Kamran well and watched him play a million times, and even had the somewhat humiliating pleasure of playing against him myself a few times. He's a fantastic talent and extremely creative. The fact that he blundered in some big tournaments is unfortunate but I'd like to see how well the pundits on this site do against the "coffee house player" (a trait shared by Philidor, among others).> Your reading comprehension is poor, and as a result you wrote a stupid post. I am confident that FSR meant no criticism by "coffeehouse chess" -- he even put it in quotes, for crying out loud. Nor did capafischer1 (he compared Shirazi to Emanuel Lasker). Nor did I. Wikipedia defines coffeehouse as
<Adjective used to describe a move, player, or style of play characterized by risky, positionally dubious play that sets traps for the opponent. The name comes from the notion that one would expect to see such play in skittles games played in a coffeehouse or similar setting, particularly in games played for stakes or blitz chess>. I think Shirazi would be the last person to deny he played that way. Nor would he deny, I suspect, that 1.c4 e5 2.g3 h5 is a coffeehouse opening. Shirazi's coffeehouse play made him really popular, including with me. Like so many, I loved seeing his games in the magazines back in the 1980s. Chess Life wrote something like <the "Shah" gives everyone the chance to win or to lose in spectacular fashion>. That was Kamran Shirazi to me. And of course I knew he was miles above me as a player. My main point in responding to capafischer1 was to assert that Emanuel Lasker was <not> a coffeehouse player. If you read my posts, you'll probably notice that silly claims about Emanuel Lasker (made bad moves on purpose, relied on psychology, and, yes "coffeehouse" player) are a particular preoccupation of mine. Separate from that, Howard asked whether a <human> master was correct that 19.f3 would have given White a winning position. Since I am not a very strong player or analyst, and I was curious, after messing around with the position for a while, I showed the position to Stockfish, and posted some of the lines it generated. You'll have to learn to live with stuff like that, or get off this website. Assuming that the following was directed at me:
<I'd like to see how well the pundits on this site do against the "coffee house player"> That's easy. He'd blow me off the board. So, in conclusion -- get off your high horse, stop reading your fellow chess fans' kibitzes with the assumption that they're trying to tear down masters, and you'll have a lot more fun and piss fewer people off. |
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| Jul-20-17 | | ChessHigherCat: <Keypusher> What a hypocrite! Lie after lie, drowned in double-talk and false accusations. Tell me, Oh Wise One, how I misread this as contemptuous (I know you're a don't-confuse-me-with-the-facts type, but here's exactly what you said): <keypusher: <Mar-22-14 capafischer1: same sort of coffe house chess that Lasker was accused of.> Yes, but in Lasker's case the accusation is raving nonsense, while here it is correct.> If you really believed that "coffee house chess" wasn't pejorative, you never would have made that contrast followed by a line from Stockfish showing that one of the moves that he played wasn't optimal. Well, that says it all, QED! That has nothing to do with a risky style, it's simply trying to undermine his powers of analysis, although there's no game that Stockfish can't improve on. Don't assume everybody is as dull witted as you are, what a joke! |
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| Jul-20-17 | | ughaibu: I can't see the problem; Lasker didn't play coffee-house chess, in serious games, Shirazi did, this game being an example. And the computer was used to investigate a claim that one of Larsen's moves was sub-optimal, this is nothing to do with coffee-housism, it's standard parctice on this site and generally praised behaviour. |
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| Jul-20-17 | | ChessHigherCat: The problem is that "coffee-house chess" is consistently used on this website to mean "amateurish" and "sloppy", not creative and risky. I remember last year some kibitzers were going on about how Carlsen made some blunder that was almost on the level of <coffeehouse chess>, although of course the all-knowing critic was incapable of saying what the correct move was. A few random quotes from a quick search of the term: <Instead of consolidating his pieces> with 23...Nd6, Rosen decided to launch a <coffee-house attack> beginning with 23...Ne4. After 24. BxN dxB 25. Ne3, Rosen (instead of 25...Qa6) decided to go after Mieses' center pawn formation with 25...c5?! <At first blush, this looks like a coffee-house move>, but Maroczy--who undoubtedly knew what he was getting into when he played the 4. f4 line--found defending against this attack to be rough sledding. When he was around twenty he also said that he had refuted the King's Gambit, and that Lasker was <a coffeehouse player and other ridiculous charges> against that magnificent player. Note that it if it weren't considered a "charge" (accusation) it wouldn't be necessary to clear his name. The implication is that it's a sloppy game based on bluff but this is obviously an excellent game. |
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| Jul-20-17 | | morfishine: <ChessHigherCat> Nice posts! Some of the most imaginative games originated from 'coffee houses' And that was a very nice job putting that condescending, boorish gas-bag <Keypusher> in his place I take great delight when these imps run off with their tail between their legs Bravo!
***** |
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Jul-20-17
| | keypusher: <chesshighercat> Nothing to add to what ughaibu said. If it traumatizes you to hear that Shirazi (a wonderful, creative master) played risky, positionally dubious moves with lots of traps, your problem is not with me, but with reality. |
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Jul-20-17
 | | perfidious: Read <ughhaibu>'s post and agree with him. From that toughest school of all, experience, I will vouch for the fact that Shirazi was another of those players who was reasonable to deal with away from the board, but over the sixty-four squares he was one tough sumbitch. |
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| Jul-20-17 | | ChessHigherCat: <say it with a smile: Kudos ChessHigherCat: You got the nail in the head. Possibly the best comment in CG.com so far in 2017. Bravo ! Well.. I only know Shirazi from MORE than
4 decades ago BEFORE he set foot in the USA.
With very limited to no resources in Iran he became Iranian champ several times. He is a natural talent by all means. He is very humble and quiet.
God knows how far he would have gotten if he was born here in the States. Another Iranian prodigy, same as Omidyar (founder of Ebay) or the Women's math whiz, the late Maryam Mirzakhani, the first woman to win mathematics' Fields medal.> My pleasure, thanks! I knew him in Paris, and he was a real phenomenon. He's the type of guy who could play 10 games blindfold and win while carrying on a casual conversation with somebody else! And like many Iranians I knew in Paris (including my piano teacher who had to leave when they closed the conservatory and one of my girlfriends who was kicked out of the university because she refused to wear a headscarf in her final exams in physics), he was forced out of Iran by the Khomeini regime (how hard that must have been when he was national champion, which is quite an achievement considering that Iran is the founding country of chess, it's not like some typical third-world country). On top of that, they were all peace-loving and free-thinking intellectuals and they have to suffer prejudice in the west just because of their nationality. To get back to chess, when you look back through the comments you can see how nobody appreciates his talents just because he made some blunders in tournaments, but that could happen to anyone. And the fact that he is innovative in the openings is a sign of his genius, not of sloppiness. |
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| Jul-21-17 | | say it with a smile: Some folks are naturally talented. Lord Giveth !! I'd see it everyday in top telecom R&D environments. Capa was one. So was the young Nigel Short. Young Bobby growing up without a
father. Or the very young father-less Tigran
losing his hearing while sweeping streets during WWII's nightmare
in USSR. Some also questioned Tal's "luck".
As a teenager, I could never beat Shirazi or his best buddy (the Armenian). |
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| Jul-21-17 | | Howard: Yet another example of the misuse of the term "coffeehouse move" has to do with the first game in Chernev's classic Logical Chess Move by Move, won by Teichmann (playing Black) in only 20 moves. White's 9th move was 9.h3, which Chernev calls "a coffeehouse move" since it weakens White's king position. But it's been pointed out that if you feed that move to any chess engine, it actually turns out to be a perfectly playable move. White's mistakes came later... ...most notably when he ended up resigning in a difficult, but NOT lost position! Chernev may have been an entertaining writer, but he could often be superficial. |
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Kibitzing
sac: 24...Rxe4
