Time Out

Chess League                                    Chess

The Metropolis Chess League, the only team event organised in Dhaka, usually generates a tremendous amount of enthusiasm among the players and organisers. This year's league started end November and three teams--Muktijoddaha Club, Bangladesh Biman and Leonine--are fighting for the top honours.

The league was introduced way back in 1978 by the Chess Federation to popularise the game among the clubs. In fact, the response was very good and clubs like MSC, Abahani and Brother Union were among the participants that year. But Abahani could not retain interest in the event for long, though MSC and Brothers Union fielded strong teams on a number of occasions. Biman entered the fray in 1980. Three of the top five players of the country are now playing for Biman. They enjoyed a kind of monopoly in the league for a long time, as it became very difficult for others to form a strong team with local players.

Against this backdrop, the Federation decided to allow foreign players to take part in the league Initially, a team could include only two foreigners in their line-up. Even that was perhaps not enough to form a team with very good chances of winning the championship. Then the number of foreign masters was raised to three in order to enable the teams with big budgets to have a shot at the championship. But the idea has its drawbacks also because some of the teams are now relying solely on foreigners. So a big chunk of their budget is being spent for players from abroad. That's self-defeating if we take into account the very purpose of organising the league-- promoting professionalism. In fact, the league is the only source of income for many of our regular players.

Another problem is that the number of teams having a reasonably good budget is still very low. This is an area where things must improve soon. The problems lies in the fact that chess is not a spectator's game and most of our big clubs are simply not interested in anything so quiet and so colourless (in their perception).

Today let's enjoy a game played by Alekhine. The way he develops play on the kingside is worth studying.

White-Alexander Alekhine
Black-Ernst Gruenfeld [D41]
Prague Ol 1931

1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 e6 4.Nc3 c5 5.cxd5 Nxd5 6.e4 Nxc3 7.bxc3 cxd4 8.cxd4 Bb4+ 9.Bd2 Bxd2+ 10.Qxd2 00 11.Be2 Nd7 12.00 b6 13.Rac1 Bb7 14.Qf4! Nf6 15.Bd3 Rc8 16.Rxc8 Bxc8 17.Rc1 Bb7 18.h3 Re8 19.e5! Nh5 20.Qg4 Bxf3 21.Qxf3 g6 22.g4 Ng7 23.Bb5 Rf8 24.Qe3 h5 25.Be2! Qd5 26.a3 Rd8 27.Bf3 Qd7 28.Qg5! hxg4 29.hxg4 Rc8 30.Re1 Qd8 31.Qh6 Qf8 32.Kg2 Ne8 33.Qh4 Qxa3 34.Rh1 Kf8 35.Qg5 1-0

Position after19.e5!

-PATZER

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