GM Ben Finegold Pays Tribute to Chess Legend IM Calvin Blocker

Grandmaster Ben Finegold recently posted a video in which he discusses International Master Calvin Blocker's chess career, notes that Blocker clearly played at Grandmaster strength at his peak, and analyzes three of Blocker's wins, including a brilliant victory as Black against three-time U.S. Chess Champion (1987, 1995, 1998) Nick DeFirmian. 

Finegold points out that Blocker's aggressive style of play often leads to decisive results, and that Blocker is a fearless player who turns down draws even against higher rated players. Blocker is a chess artist and chess perfectionist who will spend 45 minutes on a single move in a search for the truth in a chess position. Before I met Blocker, I remember hearing stories about how hard he would fight for the tiniest advantage, one example being his epic Ohio Chess Congress game versus Errol Leibowitz that lasted several hours and over 100 moves. 

I was delighted to watch Finegold's video, and I hope that it brings back great memories for the 40 and over crowd while providing an education to the younger chess aficionados:

Finegold weaves biographical details into the video and in the game analysis, but it is worth taking a deeper look at Blocker's career, particularly for those younger than 40 who may not fully appreciate Blocker's accomplishments.

International Master Calvin Blocker has won a record 15 Ohio Chess Championships (1981-82, 1984-89, 1995, 1997, 1999-2000, 2005, 2008, 2013). State chess championship records are lamentably incomplete, but Blocker must rank very highly on the list of most state chess championships won in one state; John Curdo, who has won at least 17 Massachusetts championships, is the only player I can think of who would be ahead of Blocker for sure. Blocker is not only an Ohio chess legend as a player, but he is a well-regarded coach whose students included Marc Esserman, who became an International Master and published chess author.

Blocker's first love was music, and he was a concert pianist as a teenager before shifting his focus to chess (if you ask Blocker, he will insist that he never gave up piano, but it can at least be said that he stopped receiving formal piano training and doing formal piano performances). Despite being a late starter by chess standards, Blocker became a FIDE Master at age 26 and an International Master at age 27. In the current era during which teenagers become Grandmasters, those numbers may not seem impressive, but Blocker lived in Ohio in the pre-computer chess/pre-internet era and in the context of those conditions his rise was remarkable.

Achieving a high standard in either music or chess is quite an accomplishment, but to do so in both fields is most impressive. 

Blocker never attained the Grandmaster title because of a lack of opportunities to play in Grandmaster norm tournaments. The U.S. Chess Federation (USCF) only has online rating records dating back to 1991, but I did some archival research in old Chess Life magazines, and I confirmed that in April 1990 Blocker ranked 13th in the United States with a 2650 USCF rating:

That means that Blocker was higher rated than many players who participated in the U.S. Closed Championship during that era. It is also worth noting that many of the top players were closely bunched together; Blocker was just 21 points lower rated than Michael Wilder (sixth on the list) and 31 points lower rated than Maxim Dlugy (fifth on the list). Points are harder to gain and easier to lose at the very top of the rating list--so 20 or 30 points at that level means more than 20 or 30 points at the amateur level--but any way you look at it Blocker was one of the very best chess players in the country at that time. 

Blocker did not maintain that lofty perch by protecting his rating, either; he was 47th on the list of most active players, having played 190 rated games in the previous calendar year:

When Blocker was at his peak, the International Master title and the Grandmaster title were much less commonly achieved than they are now. In 1989, the U.S. barely had three dozen Grandmasters and fewer than 65 International Masters:

Currently, the U.S. has over 100 Grandmasters. Are players that much stronger today than they were over 30 years ago? There certainly has been a proliferation of available basic knowledge via computer chess programs and via the internet, but knowledge is not the same as understanding; old school titled players not only knew where the pieces belong but they knew why the pieces belonged there. There is a difference between saying "I traded off his bishop to weaken his dark squares" and "I traded off his bishop because the engine says that gives me a .8 advantage."

Also, ratings have no intrinsic meaning outside of the context of the rating pool. In other words, being rated 2650 in 1989 when that places you 13th in the country is more impressive than being rated 2700 now when that does not even get you in the top 15. The ELO rating system is based on percentage expectancy and the difference between two ratings; that is why Bobby Fischer's 2785 rating is more impressive than Magnus Carlsen's 2800+ rating: Fischer was more than 100 points ahead of the rest of the world, while Carlsen's nearest competitors are much closer to him than that. We don't know who would win a hypothetical match between prime Fischer and prime Carlsen, but we do know that prime Fischer was much further ahead of his rivals than prime Carlsen is ahead of his rivals. Similarly, we don't know how prime Blocker would do against today's young guns, but we do know that prime Blocker learned chess at a relatively late age in a non-computer/non-internet era without being based in a national chess hotbed and he nearly cracked the top 10 in the entire country.

During my archival research, I found this gem from the March 1989 issue of Chess Life:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Julie Anne Desch used to write profiles of chess Masters. In the above article, Blocker talked about his varied interests, including piano, chess, running, and fencing. Blocker said, "Fencing is physical chess...chess is a physical game played on a mental plane and it's won at the mental level...fencing is a mental game played on a physical plane, and it's won on a physical level--on a level of competitiveness, stress, and stress management...but the training techniques in any physical sport are highly relative to chess."

Some commentators dismiss the connections and similarities between chess and physical sports but Blocker correctly notes that those connections are real and they are significant. This is not about making a trite statement such as "Chess is life and life is chess"; this is about the strong parallels between the mental and physical training regimens of chess champions compared to the mental and physical training regimens of other elite athletes.

Blocker is an extrovert and a showman; as entertaining as his games are, it can be even more entertaining to watch him talk about his games in a post-mortem session. In 1989, an issue of the Ohio Chess Bulletin showed a picture of Blocker analyzing an Ohio Chess Congress game while surrounded by a group of spectators (including me), and the caption said something to the effect of, "Blocker analyzes while spectators look on in awe." That was not hyperbole; I was in awe of him, and I was far from the only one. I first met Blocker at the 1989 Ohio Chess Congress, and he was the strongest chess player I had met up to that time.

I have known Blocker for over 30 years, and crossed swords with him over a dozen times in rated play, scoring just one draw (of which I am very proud). Any chess player over 40 years old in Ohio or the Midwest surely knows about Blocker, but when I was at a recent Ohio tournament it took my breath away for a moment when a much younger friend of mine saw Blocker--who attended the tournament but did not play--and asked me who he is. I explained simply, "He is an International Master who won 15 Ohio Chess Championships and was once ranked in the top 20 in the country with a 2650 USCF rating."

The passage of time is sobering, and those of us who know (or lived in!) the distant past have a responsibility to preserve the great names and events that deserve to be remembered. I appreciate Finegold's video, and I embrace the opportunity to supplement that video with what I know and what I have observed about IM Calvin Blocker.

Magnus Carlsen's Decision to Not Defend His World Championship Title is Bad for Chess

A famous saying in the chess world is "The threat is stronger than the execution," but now that Magnus Carlsen has announced that he will not defend his World Chess Championship title we also see that the execution of a threat can be quite damaging.

Before the beginning of the Candidates Tournament to determine his challenger, Carlsen stated that he was not likely to defend his title unless a member of the younger generation such as Alireza Firouzja won the event. Carlsen noted that he had already defeated representatives of the prior generation and representatives of his own generation. I cannot recall another champion in any sport suggesting that his or her enthusiasm for fighting for the crown depended primarily on the identity or age of the challenger. A championship mentality is epitomized by trying to defeat whoever the challenger is.

As it turned out, Ian Nepomniachtchi--the challenger who lost the most recent World Chess Championship match to Carlsen--won the Candidates Tournament for the second consecutive time. Shortly after Nepomniachtchi prevailed, Carlsen declared, "I am not motivated to play another match; I simply feel that I don't have a lot to gain. Although I'm sure a match would be interesting for historical reasons and all of that, I don't have any inclination to play, and I will simply not play the match." Carlsen added, "The matches themselves have been at times interesting, at times a little bit of fun. But overall, I feel like it's my time to go from the world championship matches. I enjoy playing tournaments a lot. Obviously, I enjoy them a lot more than I enjoy the world championship, and frankly I don't see myself stopping as a chess player any time soon."

Carlsen made the announcement on International Chess Day, and to emphasize the point that he is only retiring from World Championship play but not from competitive chess, he promptly won the SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz Tournament, finishing atop a strong field that included Nepomniachtchi and Firouzja.

There have been 16 officially recognized, undisputed World Chess Champions, starting with Wilhelm Steinitz--whose claim to the title is undisputed, though the exact starting date of his reign is disputed--and running in an unbroken chain through Carlsen, who became World Chess Champion in 2013. There were also six "FIDE World Chess Champions" crowned from 1993-2006, and the less that is said about the split title era the better, but a brief summary of the lamentable time when chess imitated boxing's alphabet soup of champions can be found in my article about Viswanathan Anand defeating Vladimir Kramnik in the 2008 match that finally reunified the World Chess Championship title.

Becoming World Chess Champion is the dream of all serious chess players. When the World Chess Champion announces that he will not defend his title he thereby cheapens the value of that title, and this is even more true when the World Chess Champion makes it clear that he intends to keep playing chess. Thus, his message is that being the World Chess Champion does not matter very much, and in fact other chess competitions matter more to him.

Prior to Carlsen, only two of the undisputed World Chess Champions failed to defend their titles. Alexander Alekhine died while he was World Chess Champion, and Bobby Fischer refused to agree to match terms with challenger Anatoly Karpov, resulting in Karpov receiving the title by default in 1975. In the wake of Alekhine's demise, FIDE took over the organization of the World Chess Championship, starting with a round robin event in 1948 that crowned Mikhail Botvinnik as Alekhine's successor. Karpov, eager to prove worthy of Fischer's forfeited throne, ran off an incredible series of tournament victories and held the title until 1985, when he lost a match to challenger Garry Kasparov. 

This is not about whether Carlsen has a right to resign his title but keep playing tournament chess; he obviously has that right. The point is examining to what extent Carlsen has a responsibility to defend his title for, as he put it, "historical reasons." I would argue that the World Champion should keep defending his title until someone beats him, or until he has broken the record for holding the title for the longest time (which is either 27 years by Emanuel Lasker, or 28 years by Wilhelm Steinitz if you count the start of his reign in 1866). 

I am nowhere near the caliber of chess player that Magnus Carlsen is, but I have won the Dayton Chess Club Championship a record 10 times. I considered it a point of pride to fight for the title every year, and I only missed one DCC Championship from 1987 until the club disbanded in 2020. I won my 10th title in 2015 as a new father who was also in the middle of attending law school, and I did not hesitate to play in the 2016 event even though I knew that it would be very challenging to win a repeat title considering my life circumstances at that time; I intended to either win again, or "validate" my successor by participating in the tournament. Over that 33 year period, I was rarely the highest rated player in the tournament, and I don't believe that I was ever the highest rated player in the years that I won (I was the highest rated player some years when I failed to win, but that is another story for another time). The point is that either championships matter or they don't matter. To me, a championship--whether for city, state, country, or the world--means something, and it means something more even than events that offer bigger cash prizes. 

Magnus Carlsen has made it clear that being World Chess Champion does not matter very much to him, and that is sad for chess. I understand that the current cycle requires him to do a lot of preparation for one high pressure match, and then go through that process again without much respite. No one said that being a champion is easy. I also understand that Carlsen would prefer that the World Chess Championship match not be played with classical slow time controls--but there is something to be said for maintaining the tradition of playing slow time control chess in which most games are not decided by chaotic time scrambles. There are separate World Chess Championships for Rapid and Blitz, and Carlsen has already won both of those titles on multiple occasions. The World Chess Championship played at a slow time control is something special and different.

I respect Carlsen's accomplishments and I acknowledge his right to make this decision, but as a chess champion on a local level, as a dedicated participant in rated chess events, and as a chess fan I am profoundly disappointed.

Ian Nepomniachtchi Wins The Candidates Tournament For the Second Time in a Row

Ian Nepomniachtchi won the 2022 Candidates Tournament with a round to spare, earning the right to challenge World Champion Magnus Carlsen in a match. Nepomniachtchi finished with 9.5/14, 1.5 points ahead of second place finisher Ding Liren. Carlsen defeated Nepomniachtchi 7.5-3.5 in the 2021 World Chess Championship match.

Vasily Smyslov was the first player who won consecutive Candidates Tournaments. Smyslov won the famous 1953 Zurich Candidates Tournament before achieving a 12-12 draw in a match versus World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik, who retained the title based on the World Championship match rules in place at that time. Then, Smyslov won the 1956 Amsterdam Candidates Tournament before beating Botvinnik 12.5-9.5 to claim the World Champion title. Botvinnik was entitled to an automatic rematch the next year, and he defeated Smyslov 12.5-10.5. Remarkably, Smyslov advanced to the Candidates Final in 1984 at the age of 63 before bowing to Garry Kasparov, who soon became the youngest World Chess Champion in recorded history.

FIDE--the governing body of international chess--organized Candidates Tournaments on a regular basis from 1950-1992. The tournaments were generally held every three years. In 1993, World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov and his challenger Nigel Short broke away from FIDE to hold a non-sanctioned World Chess Championship match, and for the next 14 years there was both a FIDE World Chess Champion and a linear Classical World Chess Champion. 

Viswanathan Anand's 6.5-4.5 victory over Vladimir Kramnik in 2008 completed the reunification of the World Chess Championship, as FIDE World Champion Anand defeated the man who had wrested the linear Classical title from Kasparov in 2000. Kramnik had won a reunification match against FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov in 2006, but then FIDE held a World Championship Tournament in 2007; Kramnik participated under protest (he felt that the World Championship should be determined by match play, not tournament play), and he finished tied for second (with Boris Gelfand) in that event behind Anand.

Other players in addition to Smyslov and Nepomniachtchi who earned the right to be the World Championship challenger in consecutive full Candidates cycles are Boris Spassky (1965, 1968), Viktor Korchnoi (1978, 1981), and Anatoly Karpov (1987, 1990). Spassky lost to World Champion Tigran Petrosian in 1966, but dethroned Petrosian in 1969. Korchnoi lost World Championship matches to Karpov in 1978 and 1981. Karpov lost World Championship matches to reigning World Champion Garry Kasparov in 1987 and 1990. The above list does not include players who played in consecutive World Championship matches without having to go through a full qualifying cycle, such as Botvinnik (who benefited from an automatic rematch clause in 1958 and 1961). It should also be mentioned that Anand won full Candidates cycles in 1995 and 2014. Anand lost the 1995 Professional Chess Association World Championship match to linear Classical World Champion Kasparov 10.5-7.5, and Anand lost the 2014 World Championship match to Magnus Carlsen 6.5-4.5 (Carlsen had dethroned Anand 6.5-3.5 in 2013).

Smyslov and Spassky showed that a player can bounce back from losing a World Championship match to beat the World Champion the next time around. There has been much speculation about how psychologically devastating it must have been for Nepomniatchtchi to lose to Carlsen the way that he did (repeatedly blundering from equal or even superior positions), but in the wake of that defeat Nepomniatchtchi has shown no ill effects; it will be interesting to see if the strength of character that he has shown while earning the right to challenge for the World Championship again will enable him to avenge his loss to Carlsen.

However, the next Carlsen-Nepomniachtchi match may not be decided by psychological factors; if both players play their best, Carlsen is the stronger player. Another factor may prove most important: Carlsen has intimated that if a new challenger did not emerge from this Candidates cycle then he may retire from World Championship matches, because he apparently feels that he has nothing to prove after beating representatives from the previous generation (including Anand) and his own generation. That is a strange attitude for an all-time great to take--one would expect him to feel motivated to beat any challenger who emerges from the pack--and we will soon find out if Carlsen was posturing, if he was seeking publicity to possibly increase the prize fund for the match, or if he is serious about leaving the World Championship scene undefeated in World Championship match play.

If Carlsen withdraws, Nepomniachtchi will play a World Championship match against Liren, based on Liren finishing second in the 2022 Candidates Tournament. 

The perils of prognostication are very apparent when one looks at how wildly off the mark many of the "expert" predictions about the Candidates Tournament turned out to be. Chess Life Online's commentator GM Jacob Aagard has written some wonderful instructional books, but if you want to make money wagering on chess you would be well-advised to bet the opposite of whatever he predicts. Nepomniachtchi was supposed to fade down the stretch, but instead he dominated the entire event, clinching victory with a round to spare and emerging as the only player to not lose a game. Ding Liren was supposed to be rusty after not playing much over the board chess since the COVID-19 pandemic began, but he finished second. Teimour Radjabov supposedly did not even belong in the field, but he finished a strong third (edging out Hikaru Nakamura on tiebreaks) just a half point off the pace for second. The future may belong to 19 year old Alireza Firouzja, but in the present he struggled to avoid finishing last, ending up in sixth place 3.5 points behind the winner and just .5 points out of the basement.