chessblogger

History of Chess on The Internet

2012-01-28T16:43:00.001-08:00

Just for fun, I decided to compile the record of how I experienced Internet chess, your mileage will of course vary!

1998 – free internet chess club (FICS)allows to play games on the internet any time
1999 – chess databases like on sites TWIC get updated on a regular basis and people can get access to them on a regular basis
2000 – major tournaments are broadcast on ICC with thousands of people following and commenting on games
2000 – chess portals like Kasparov Chess begin to publish regular articles
2001 – online 4 and 5 piece Endgame TableBases such as Nalimov are accessible
2001 – online chess lessons become as popular as the ones in person
2004 – instructional chess videos begin to get published by companies like ChessBase on a large scale
2005 – even non-major tournaments like Canadian Open get broadcast over the internet via DGT
2006 – YouTube allows regular chess amateurs like myself to share their analysis with others
2009 – commentators like Sergei Shipov switch to video format for sharing their analysis
2010 – playing online chess on a mobile device such as IPhone becomes a viable option
2010 – live chess ratings get updated on the nearly daily basis
2011 – websites like whychess.org broadcast major chess events with live engine analysis
2011 – Live, multi hour HD full game broadcasts of events like World Cup are streamed live with up to date commentary
2011 – Fritz 13 is released, allowing users to upload and share chess analysis via their online database
2012 – What is coming ahead??

Vladimir Kramnik’s Advice on Analysing Chess Positions

2012-01-18T19:53:00.001-08:00

As I was listening to Kramnik discussing the current positions from current Wejk An Zee Tournament on the Russian site chess-news.ru, something caught my attention. Kramnik was only using computer engine to evaluate the position and he was hiding the (dockable?) portion of the UI that shows best move for each side. I tried analysing my game in this mode, and I realized that I think much harder on the position, and I actually know I am not making any gross mistakes in my calculation. Thank you, Mr. former World Champion!

There was a time when Kramnik did not use computer to analyse a chess position …

Taking a Break from Chess

2012-01-01T17:17:00.000-08:00

In November/December - I stopped any studying of chess for about a month, and now resumed it. While that wasted a month of chess learning, this kind of temporary hiatus can have positive effects on your chess improvement and even overall well being (!):

You free up time for non-chess activities during the break
A break gives time to reflect on your studying methods
You can assess the improvements made during the previous study period
You get to plan on what your next goal in chess is, and what are the steps to achieve it
You get to reflect on the importance and role of chess (if any) in your life
You regain appetite for studying chess – when you feel like you are ready for it again
If you play a lot online, you also regain appetite for playing chess
Your new efforts will have some new, better focus
Your brush off bad habits, such as looking at games too quickly, or spending too much time surfing chess news websites
The openings that you felt were getting too boring, may not appear so when you look at them after a break – that can save you time for changing repertoire!

It is very easy to get into a rut in chess, like in anything in life, so taking a break is likely a good thing for any passion you may have!

Happy Chess Learning in 2012!

Book Review – Khalifman’s Opening For White Series

2011-12-31T19:25:00.000-08:00

If you are are looking into buying a chess opening book these days, many books lack depth. This is clearly not the case with Alexander Khalifman’s “Opening for White according to Anand”! I have a copy of volume two – about the mainline Spanish Opening, and I must say the book provides the necessary combination of depth and detail. A few more good points on the book:

Specific moves are in most cases presented in the context of strategic plans
Most of the theory is up to date – at the time of the writing
The book is a solid foundation for a full repertoire
Transpositions are generally explained
Final positions are given evaluations
If necessary to illustrate the ideas of the middlegame – entire games are provided
The author is a reliable authority on opening theory
The entire mainline Spanish is covered – which must have been a ton of work for the author(s)

If you play the mainline Spanish as White (or even as Black), and have no coach to walk you through it, this book is a “must have” in your chess library!

Meditation and Chess

2011-12-29T19:31:00.000-08:00

Recently I have been looking into the benefits of meditation, as well as trying to understand as general purpose. One of the key aspects of successful meditation is supposedly being able to focus on the current moment rather than worrying about the past and the future. World chess champion Garry Kasparov has pointed out that being able to concentrate at the important moment is perhaps one of the most overlooked and important keys to becoming a successful chess player. I recall Canadian Chess Champion Kevin Spraggett has also indicated that he used meditation for his chess growth.

In our society there are so many distractions coming from the media, technology and pressures of everyday life that being able to focus on a chess position is a skill that I would guess can be improved with meditation. I consider difficulty with focusing is one of the main obstacles for my successful studying of chess and better tournament results, so I am getting curious if meditation can help me with that ...

King Race in Pawn Endgame

2011-12-27T16:29:00.001-08:00

This endgame occurred in my game almost 15 years ago.

Jiganchine – Verkhovskaya, Alushta 1997

Black to move.

There are two legitimate questions associated with this position:

What move should Black play?
With best play from both sides, how should the game end?

Hint: Black stands no chance in the king race, so he must play correctly with his pawns!

Crazy Rook Stalemate At the World Cup

2011-11-18T23:06:00.001-08:00

One of the most dramatic moments of this year’s World Cup happened early on, in the first rapid playoff game in Felgaer – Malakhov match. The Russian grandmaster is known as an endgame expert, but and here he found a miraculous defensive resource in what kept looking like a hopeless endgame.

Black to move. His position looks completely hopeless, but since the king is stalemated, he can try to play for a draw with 116. ... Rb5+!? Of course White does not accept the sacrifice, which would have lead to immediate draw.
117. Kc7 Rd5!
White to move
118. Rh7 ?? One move before victory, Felgaer crumbles under immense pressure. The rook is unprotected on ‘h7’ and this makes all the difference. Correct was 118. Re7! Rd7+ 119. Kb6!, and White wins.
118... Rd7+ !
White is forced to take the rook, since otherwise his own rook on h7 falls. But now this is stalemate.
119. Kxd7 1/2-1/2

Malakhov just played Re7+, and you can see that GM Alekseev is the first one of the spectators to react with a grin, all others are still trying to figure out what’s going on for another couple of seconds.

A few seconds later – Felgaer can’t believe that 120 moves into this game, victory just escaped!
The shock of this draw had an interesting effect on the two players, as in the second game Malakhov lost quickly as White and was eliminated.

Solving Simple Tactics – Part 4

2011-11-17T21:32:00.001-08:00

White to move and win in all positions

Starting off with the World Championship game, another collection of queen sacrifices!

“Think and Grow Rich” – Get Better at Chess

2011-11-14T15:38:00.000-08:00

I have already written about motivational books such as Getting Things Done and How Life Imitates Chess and using their guidelines to increase one’s discipline and chess motivation. As I was reading the book “Think and grow rich”, I came across several principles that should drive a person whose goal is to make a lot of money:

Be definite as to the amount. (There is a psychological reason for definiteness which will be described in a subsequent chapter).
Determine exactly what you intend to give in return for the money you desire. (There is no such reality as "something for nothing.)
Establish a definite date when you intend to possess the money you desire.
Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire, and begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action.
Write out a clear, concise statement of the amount of money you intend to acquire, name the time limit for its acquisition, state what you intend to give in return for the money, and describe clearly the plan through which you intend to accumulate it.
Read your written statement aloud, twice daily, once just before retiring at night, and once after arising in the morning. AS YOU READ-SEE AND FEEL AND BELIEVE YOURSELF ALREADY IN POSSESSION OF THE MONEY.

These principles are good motivational guidelines in general, and can be applied to any goal, including achieving success at chess. To translate them into chess goals is not too hard:

Be definite about your chess goal – rating, title, tournament victory
Determine exactly what you need to improve to achieve that goal. What is the difference between my current level, and that of an IM, skillwise?
Establish a date, for example - 5 years from now. Make it realistic!
Establish a plan for achieving the chess goal, including a training (opening, middlegame, endgame) and tournament schedule
Keep reviewing your goal on a regular basis (daily!), encourage yourself

Solving Chess Tactics - Queen sacrifices

2011-11-13T11:51:00.001-08:00

White to move and win in all positions:

Watch me struggling to find answers to these and other positions:

Combinations by Keres, Timman, Andersson

2011-11-12T13:21:00.001-08:00

Simple chess tactics of the day, White to move in all positions:

Timman – Polugaevsky, 1973. Can White Trap Black’s queen?

Andersson – Kostro, Can White take on e4, or Bf5 will trap the queen?

Keres – Alekhine, the game between the two greats ended dramatically. 1. ?

The video shows me solving these and other puzzles:

Tactical Themes in Sicilian Defence

2011-11-11T17:12:00.001-08:00

DDT3000 – perikitosax, ICC, 2009, 15 minutes per game

Black to Move. Can Black take on ‘e4’ with the pawn?

I posted several days ago a great game by Tiviakov, where the rook sacrifice on the ‘f’ file was the winning idea after White played ‘f4-f5’ in Sicilian Scheveningen. I then remembered having played something similar myself on ICC not that long ago. Well, such games do stay in the chess player’s memory and warm his heart at night, so that’s indeed what has happened, and I was easily able to find that game.

Black made a similar mistake in my game, underestimated White’s initiative and captured with 23…fxe4?? (23…Nc2!? 24. Rxc2 Qc4! was correct). After 24. Rxf7! he had to resign on the next move.

White won after 24… Kxf7 25. Qxh7 1-0 with mate to follow.

Black really has to watch out for this theme in this line of the Sicilian, if it works, it is usually quite deadly!

Solving Simple Chess Tactics – Part 1

2011-11-10T21:43:00.001-08:00

To improve your tactical vision, there is no need to buy expensive chess software, it can be done with free copy of ChessBase Light and database that can be downloaded from this page – the one under “Over 3500 tactical training positions from actual games”.

In the video I then follow these steps:

Load a game and change board to use “Training mode”
guess which move should be played, hit “forward” key
If my guess is correct, mark the game in the database as “deleted”
Load next game with “F10” shortcut

Here are few simple positions for you to solve. It is White to move in all of them.

The video shows the setup and solutions:

Tiviakov’s crushing attack against Van Wely

2011-11-08T09:18:00.001-08:00

Tiviakov – Van Wely, 1995

White to move.

In this typical Sicilian Scheveningen, White has developed pressure on the kingside, and had just opened up the ‘f’ file via f4-f5-fxg6. But then Black also has some threats, and his knight has just grabbed on ‘c2’ (which actually was a mistake). How can White unleash his potential on the ‘f’ file in the most aggressive manner?

Click Here to replay the whole game. Or watch the youtube video from my channel:

Tarrasch Rule in Rook endgames

2011-11-02T23:28:00.001-07:00

The Tarrasch Rule says that that rooks should be placed behind passed pawns – either yours or your opponent's. It was in part this rule that I had in mind when I wrote my last blog entry.

I wrote about the diagram: “This type of positions is considered to be a theoretical draw because the Black rook is behind the ‘a’ pawn.” Well, I forgot about the entire chapter on this type of positions that I had read in Mark Dvoretsky’s “Endgame Manual” . Apparently in 2003 a few very important ideas were found for White, that give him many additional winning chances. Wikipedia describes the plan as follows:

Recent theoretical analysis of this position shows that White has a strong manoeuvre:

advance the pawn to the sixth rank
move the king towards the queenside
when the black rook takes a kingside pawn, switch the rook to guarding the pawn from the c-file, i.e. Rc7 then advance the pawn to a7.
Switch the white rook to the a-file with gain of tempo. Thus Black is forced to sacrifice his rook for the pawn without White having to move his king all the way to a7. These many extra tempos make the difference between winning and drawing or even losing.

The point of White’s play is that when the Black king advances – White threatens to give a check and block the ‘a’ file with the rook:
Black to move. White threatens with Rc5+, followed by Rc4-a4, or Rc6-a6, all with tempo.

In Bacrot – Robson, White had a good chance to play for a win in this position:
White to move.

Bacrot played 60. Ra8?, but better was 60. Kd4!, giving up the pawn with the rook on a7 (where it attacks the pawn on f7).

The position in Wikipedia article is the exact one as in Bacrot – Robson, and it is given as winning! So Bacrot missed his win first, before Robson blundered in the clearly drawn position in the very end. It appears from the way Bacrot played this endgame, he had not known or remembered about this endgame research by Dvoretsky!

Drama in the Rook endgame – Bacrot – Robson

2011-10-30T13:21:00.001-07:00

Bacrot – Robson, World Cup 2011, Third Rapid game, replay the game here

This type of positions is considered to be a theoretical draw because the Black rook is behind the ‘a’ pawn. Black conducted precise defence from this position, using the following plan:

When the White king marches to the queenside to support the ‘a’ pawn, Black wins one of the kingside pawns (most likely – the f2 pawn)
Position after 68. Kc5 Rxf2
Black then advances his pawns on the kingside, and creates his own passed pawn
After 77. Rb6 g5
Black gives up the rook for the White ‘a’ pawn
(Robson about to give up the rook for the pawn)
Black plays 80… Rxa7, because White had already threatened with Ra6
White is forced to sacrifice his own rook for the White pawn on the kingside, resulting in a draw
Black to Move
This is where Ray Robson faltered, after playing this long and gruelling endgame, with 10 seconds of increment per move. Black cannot afford for his king to be pushed off to the ‘h’ file, so he must play 87… Kg2! 88. Rg6+ Kf1! with a draw. Instead he quickly played 87… h2?? and after 88. Rg6+ Kh3 89. Kf2!
Black to move, White is winning.
it turned out that Black can’t promote the pawn into a queen because of Rh6+. Instead Robson promoted the pawn into the knight, and after 89… h1N+ 90. Kf3 Kh2 Rg6 Black resigned due to zugzwang. At the press conference after the game Robson pointed out exactly where he went wrong, so it would be wrong to accuse the GM of not being familiar with basic rook and pawn endings. But this shows how putting pressure and playing to the end pays off in these time controls with only 10 seconds per move. Mark Dvoretsky refers to such incidents as tragecomedies, but if you ever watched Bacrot and Robson battle it out, the word comedy would be far down on the list of terms to describe it!

Game is over, Robson still seems in disbelief about what just happened.

Kamsky’s Rook Endgame – Zugzwang

2011-10-29T17:00:00.001-07:00

Gata Kamsky is famous for his excellent endgame technique, and he demonstrated it to win the first game of his match against the young Russian GM Ian Nepomniachtchi:

Kamsky – Nepomniachtchi, 2011 World Cup

White to move
Black is down a pawn, but he appears to maintain some sort of equilibrium because he defends both kingside pawns with the king, and the rook attacks the pawn on g2, making it more difficult for White to advance the king. But it turns out that because the position of the Black rook is passive - White wins rather easily.

40. Kg3 Zugzwang! Either Black king or his rook have to move. Kg7 This abandons the e6 square, so White can attack e5 pawn from the 6th rank.
(Moving the rook does not help either 40... Ra1 (no longer attacking g2) 41. Kg4! a2 42. Kg5 Ke7 43. Ra7+ Ke6 44. Kxg6 Rg1 45. Rxa2 +-)
41. Re6! Re2 42. Rxe5 a2 43. Ra5

Up two pawns, White wins easily:
43… Kf6 44. f4 Rxe4 45. Rxa2 Kg7 46. Kg4 Rb4 47. Ra5 1-0
Black Resigned

After some move by Black, White can play h5 (if gxh5, then Rxh5), and with two connected pawns, the win is trivial:
For example 47… Kf6 48. h5 gxh5+ 49. Rxh5

This is a win according to tablebase: http://www.k4it.de/index.php?topic=egtb&lang=en

Replay the game here: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1633762

Play Like Grischuk – Chess World Cup Fragments

2011-10-17T09:13:00.001-07:00

Grischuk – Genba, 2011
White to Move. Does White’s attack succeed after 21. Bf6 gxf6 22. exf6 Rg8?

In the end of the above variation Black is able to cover up g7 with the rook – but is that sufficient?

Fritz 13 Let’s Check Feature

2011-10-16T11:31:00.001-07:00

Fritz 13 is adding a new feature that is called “Let’s check”. The feature allows to share engine analysis with other users and upload it to the “cloud”. Such analysis would be easy to look at in one of the Fritz panels:

The benefits of this kind of feature seem very exciting:

it will allow fast access to all previously made engine analysis
reduce the need to redundantly run engine on positions that someone else has analysed
encourage sharing between chess players on an unprecedented scale
it actually has a UI that is easy to understand. Convekta’s IDea still seems very complicated to me when I read explanations of how it works

The Video tutorials are brief and to the point:

But the scary aspects of the feature seem a lot more obvious:

spying on each other – sounds like the option is on by default!
in perspective, this takes us much closer to chess being completely solved
ChessBase may control data contributed by many chess players, many engines and so on. While games are now being shared in databases produced by more than one vendor, ChessBase having billions of extra positions stored in their private databases will give them a monopoly over most of chess data, data contributed by their own users, who would now have to pay yearly membership fees to access that data.
focus is on engine analysis, although I think this kind of system should have put emphasis on people’s verbal commentaries (Comments Network feature does seem to go in that direction though, although why not instead use existing GM comments that are spread out through their MegaBase already?)

Yes, this is just a tool to help players with what they do – use best engines to solve mysteries of various chess positions. Some would argue that this is inevitable anyway, but I find this tool more disturbing than anything else.

The biggest question I have though – for how long are they going to have enough storage space to maintain trillions of possible chess positions??

Unzicker – Fischer – Triumph of Black’s Strategy in Najdorf Sicilian

2011-09-30T22:54:00.001-07:00

Unzicker – Fischer, 1962
Black to Move. Young Bobby Fischer has outplayed his opponent strategically. White’s king is weakened, the knight on ‘b3’ has no useful squares. However the "bad" bishop on g5 is placed not badly at all. Also Black’s rooks are very active. How to wrap up the game?

Too see the solution – watch the full game video from my youtube channel:

Play Like Vassily Ivanchuk – Exploiting Weakness of Dark Squares

2011-09-18T18:27:00.001-07:00

Vassily Ivanchuk is one of the greatest players of our time, and in this position he found a way to increase his advantage against another great player.

Ivanchuk – Kortchnoi, 1994
White to move. He has setup a nice blocked on Black’s center, but how to break through this wall of Black pawns?

See the entire game for the solution.

Hint: remember Bronstein’s explanation: the weakness of the dark squares is also the weakness of light squares because opponent’s pieces can occupy key dark squares and attack your pieces that are placed on light squares! This rule applies perfectly in this position.

Fischer’s Strategic Decision – Endgame masterpiece

2011-09-06T01:14:00.001-07:00

Fischer – Euwe, 1960

White to move. Fischer’s move was based on the deep strategic understanding of the role of pieces in this position. He identified that among Black’s pieces, only one is serving a useful defensive purpose, and only one of White’s pieces has not yet joined the battle. As a result of this observation, Fischer immediately traded off that pair of pieces, that left Black pieces tied up, and his ‘a7’ pawn – even more vulnerable.

For the solution, and brief overview of the entire game (taken from the “Mastering the Endgame” book by Shereshevsky) - watch the YouTube video:

Karpov – Miles, Combination in the Endgame

2011-08-25T18:39:00.001-07:00

Karpov – Miles, 1982

White to move. Black had just captured on ‘d5’ with the knight, and Karpov has prepared a refutation. What is it?

Note: the first move of the combination is pretty obvious, but White’s second move is more difficult to find, and without it White would be in trouble.

For the solution, and brief overview of the entire game (taken from the “Mastering the Endgame” book by Shereshevsky) - watch the YouTube video from my YouTube channel:

A different blog post talks about the same endgame: Sicilian Dragon - from the opening into the endgame.

Botvinnik’s 100 anniversary

2011-08-17T23:30:00.001-07:00

Mikhail Botvinnik was born exactly 100 years ago today, on August 17, 1911. There are quite a few events this year to celebrate this. I probably studied more Botvinnik’s games than the games of any other chess player, so recently I also made a series of videos for my youtube channel to share some of the lessons I learned from his books – you can watch them below.

The themes that percolate through Botvinnik’s 3 volume collection of best games are very wide spread, but the following immediately come to mind:

creating and exploiting weak squares in opponent’s position
the importance of correctly evaluating exchanging of pieces
fight for initiative in the opening from the very first moves, both with White and Black
deep preparation of home-made opening systems
playing training games to study typical positions
learning from the analysis of your own games, and applying those ideas in future games
psychology of chess as a sport
professional attitude to chess preparation and competitions
impact of chess on personality and vice versa
good understanding of weaknesses and strengths of your opponents

The list could go on and on. My blog also has a series of posts about Botvinnik.

Chess Strategy - Bovinnik attacks against the strong center

Chess Strategy - Botvinnik Attacks in Isolated Pawn position

Attacking Chess - Botvinnik Finds a New Plan in the Opening

The art of chess planning from Mikhail Botvinnik

Chess Preparation - key improvement in Panov-Botvinnik attack

Chess Strategy - Botvinnik exploits a key weak square

Chess Strategy - Central Domination illustrated by Botvinnik

A typical Botvinnik game, according to Fischer

Chess Strategy - Exploiting weak isolated pawn (Botvinnik - Zagoryansky)

Botvinnik - Ragozin - an overlooked counter attack

Botvinnik - Ragozin - gaining opening advantage in a chess game

Sicilian Dragon - from the opening into the endgame

2011-08-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

DDT3000 – bobhill, ICC, 2010

White to move. Black’s rook is very active and is attacking White’s pawn, so White needs to find his own counterplay. Hint: the strength of the bishop is that it can transfer from one side of the board to another very quickly, White just needs to find targets for the bishop on the queenside.

See the video with the solution and overview of the complete game:

This video shows a 15 minute chess game I played on the internet; an example of applying familiar endgame patterns I learned from Anatoly Karpov's games. Typical Bishop vs. Knight themes apply here as the bishop ends up being stronger when there are passed pawns on both sides of the board.

Geller Defeats Andersson in the endgame

2011-08-07T09:44:00.000-07:00

Geller – Andersson, 1982
White to move. How to best develop the initiative that White has due to control of open ‘d’ and ‘f’ files’?

Ulf Andersson is a renowned endgame specialist, so this game is a rare case of Andersson being outplayed in his area of expertise. After obtaining two bishops, Geller sacrifices a pawn for initiative and activates all his pieces to win in only 31 moves.

For the solution, and brief overview of the entire game (taken from the “Mastering the Endgame” book by Shereshevsky) - watch the YouTube video from my YouTube channel:

Improving position of pieces – play like Mikhail Botvinnik

2011-08-04T18:12:00.000-07:00

Riumin – Botvinnik, 1935
Black to move.

The 6th World Chess Champion was a great annotator, and his notes to his games tend to get to the heart of the position in very simple words. Mikhail Botvinnik’s explained his reasoning in this position as follows: “to ensure a successful attack Black must post his Bishop at h5. This can be achieved only with the Queen's cooperation. But the Queen is burdened by defence of the Queen pawn; hence” …

For the solution, and brief overview of the entire game - watch the YouTube video:

The whole game is an illustration of great piece coordination and strategic planning.

Botvinnik Creates Decisive Attack

2011-08-02T17:38:00.000-07:00

Lisitsyn – Botvinnik, 1932

Black to move

White was playing without a plan, and by a series of well planned manoeuvres Mikhail Botvinnik built up the pressure against White's position. He has space advantage, pressure against the ‘e2’ pawn and his pieces are placed ideally. Now it is time to create decisive threats. Hint: g3 is a weak spot that Black should aim to undermine.

For the solution, and brief overview of the entire game - watch the YouTube video:

Chess Strategy - Geller Exploits Weak Light Squares

2011-07-31T17:10:00.001-07:00

Geller – Bertok, 1961
White to move. Efim Geller outplayed his opponent in this Sicilian middlegame, and controls the light squares in the center (d5 and f5). Now his pieces occupy ideal squares and it just the matter of finding the decisive blow…

For the solution, and brief overview of the entire game (taken from the “Mastering the Endgame” book by Shereshevsky) - watch the YouTube video:

Mastering Chess Openings with John Watson

2011-07-09T14:13:00.001-07:00

By now I have either bought or borrowed all 4 volumes of John Watson’s series “Mastering Chess Openings”. This is definitely a very special project as the author combines the nearly encyclopaedic breadth of coverage with the extensive verbal explanation and analysis of the themes behind chess openings. From reading these books one can begin to understand the inner connections between various chess openings, something that no computer opening tree is able to show right now. Typical pawn structures, piece manoeuvres, and positional themes are discussed across volumes.

Volume 4 is the last one in this impressive project.

This is an essential reading for someone who wants to both improve their opening preparation, as well as their general understanding for the game of chess. Some authors like to focus on problems of the middlegame and endgame, but John Watson definitely has a taste for the philosophy behind chess openings, so it is great that he has expressed it all in these 4 volumes. This is not a repertoire book, so you can’t build a full repertoire based on this book alone. This is also not a full encyclopaedia, as some openings are omitted (such as the Sveshnikov Variation of the Sicilian), but these series should give you a guidance on which openings you should choose. In addition to discussing particular openings Watson focuses on general themes, such as

gambits
pawn structure
opening preparation in the modern age
importance of transpositions and move orders
reversed openings, and the role of the extra tempo

If you have read and enjoyed “Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy”, you should also enjoy “Mastering the Chess Openings”.

Strategy for Gaining Rating on Internet Chess Club

2011-07-07T17:04:00.000-07:00

Internet Chess is mostly for entertainment, but most players today play more games online than over the board. So it is something we need to treat rather seriously if we want to improve from online games. Well, I am not a very good blitz player, and I am not in very good chess shape, but I noticed recently that I played quite a few blitz games on ICC without losing or drawing any. In fact my winning streak lasted so many games that there is not a single loss or draw in my ICC history, which spans 20 last games. Bobby Fischer’s winning streak in 1971 was 19 straight wins, but I had a couple of aborted games here, so his streak probably is still more significant. In the process my Blitz rating went up from 2052 to 2192.

Not to over-celebrate, I wanted to make a few observations to explain how this could possibly happen:

I had lower rated opponents than myself in all of those games. This is not too helpful for gaining rating, but surely helps to make the streak longer
I only played 1-2 game each day. I tend to lose focus/motivation if I play many blitz games at once.
I used a convenient mouse, which helped with concentration
I played these games not at my home, but rather at a place where I have very few external distractions
I was lucky in a couple of those games
I played my regular openings with both colours
I played most of those games with the same time control
I did not surf the web or listen to music while playing, minimizing self-induced distractions
I did not play in tournaments during these 3 months, so again, I got used to the time controls
I started to particularly care about the outcome once I set the goal for 20 games without a loss

Now that I got this blog entry out of my system, I can go and lose a game with a clear consciousness!

Chess Strategy - Restricting Opponent’s Pieces

2011-07-05T00:20:00.000-07:00

Aseev – Sturua, 1985

White to move. Black’s pieces are already extremely tied up, and it is tempting to gain material with Rac1. But is there a better way to convert the advantage? Black’s knight and bishop are tied up on the queenside, and White would obviously prefer to keep them that way as long as possible.

Watch the video to see the entire game with the solution:

Three Hundred

2011-07-03T00:05:00.000-07:00

I made three hundred posts on this blog in the past 4 years. The blog is definitely helping me to keep my interest in chess going, so as long as I am interested in chess, I will probably keep making little notes on the web in one form or another.

This is also a good time to summarize categories of posts (and I must admit some of 300 posts did not make it beyond drafts): there is quite a few posts about opening preparation, endgame, quite a few posts are positions that I think are good for solving. Other stuff is analysis of my own games and games of grandmasters. The rest is either about chess-related software, videos I make on my youtube channel and book reviews. So if you are interested in improving your game, chess software and chess books, hopefully there is something for you read on my blog.

Strategic Approach to Exchanging pieces in Chess

2011-07-01T12:34:00.000-07:00

Botvinnik – Donner, 1963

White to move. Black just played 24… Rc8-a8. Should White exchange rooks?

A long time ago an experienced chess master gave me an advice on how to achieve better positional understanding: in every position – think about what pieces you want to keep on the board, which ones you want to exchange, and why. This example from one of Botvinnik’s books is a great illustration of that point.

The entire game is a great strategic display, you can see it in more details here:

Making Chess Videos – Microsoft Expression Encoder

2011-06-30T14:13:00.000-07:00

So far I had been using CamStudio and Windows Movie Maker for making most of my chess videos, but recent problems with capturing audio from speakers (I basically could not get it to work on my new PC) made me look for another solution. I found Microsoft Expression Encoder tool suite to be quite easy to use and functional (capturing audio from speakers “just worked”). The only limitation is that the capture tool’s free version is limited to 10 minutes. I presume that can be worked around by compositing 2 captures, and by talking faster! As an extra feature, Encoder allows to amplify output volume, which is something that had a lot difficulties with in the past.

The capture tool is easy to use and configure.

The encoding tool looks quite sophisticated, but generates output faster than Windows Movie Maker!

This control allows for adjusting output volume!

Play Like Botvinnik – attacking on the entire board

2011-06-29T00:12:00.000-07:00

In both games below, Botvinnik already has a dominating position, but has to find new areas of the board where he can put pressure on the opponent.

Botvinnik – Lilienthal, 1936
White to move. View the entire game here

The game is fully covered in this video:

Botvinnik – Zagoriansky, 1943
White to move. View the entire game here

I also made a YouTube video about the second game:

Attacking with An Isolated Pawn – Botvinnik’s trademark

2011-06-27T12:18:00.000-07:00

Botvinnik – Batuev, 1931

White to move

Mikhail Botvinnik was well known for his handling of positions with Isolated Queen’s Pawn. Here as well, he slowly built up the pressure and opponent faltered. Black had just played 17 …Ra8-c8?, exposing himself to an unexpected sacrifice. Botvinnik fully took advantage of his pieces being very active. Replay through the game here.

Mikhail Botvinnik in 1933

Play Like World Champion - Botvinnik vs. Alatortsev

2011-06-25T10:22:00.001-07:00

Botvinnik – Alatortsev, 1934

White to move

White delayed castling, and is putting pressure on h7. Botvinnik begins an attack with a manoeuvre that was novel at the time, but today became a standard practice, in this and in many other openings. See the complete game here.

Blink – the Power of Intuition in Chess

2011-06-17T20:50:00.001-07:00

Reading the book “Blink”, I could not help thinking about how it relates to chess. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell discusses how certain decisions can be correctly made with only minimal amount of thinking. It also gives examples where extra time taken to make a decision lead to worse results. The author also suggests the following:

In complex situations, quick intuitive decisions are often more likely to be correct than those based on a lot of complex analysis.

In simple situations, logical analysis actually proved useful and led to good results.

The book actually does not use the word “intuition” enough, but decisions made at the blink of an eye - obviously represent a person’s intuition. The above rules work in chess as well. Very often chess annotators point out that a chess player did not play a move that he would have easily played in a blitz game, instead went with a more complicated idea, which unsurprisingly turned out to be wrong. Another common observation is that “A long think usually leads to a bad move”.

To me - this just goes to prove that improving one’s intuition is very useful for blitz games, but will also make you an overall stronger player, save you time on the clock and add to your confidence as a chess player. For further discussion on the role of intuition of chess – read Dvoretsky’s book Attack and Defence In Chess.

Anatoly Karpov turns 60

2011-05-22T13:42:00.001-07:00

It is hard to believe that Anatoly Karpov is turning 60 on May 23. There is a lot chess players today can learn from this great player, both in terms of positional ideas, and in terms of fighting spirit at the chessboard. His early games had a significant impact on my opening repertoire, and I made several videos with the goal of learning typical ideas that Karpov demonstrated in the 1970s and 1980s.

Photo by Frank Hoppe

Here are videos from my youtube channel with 5 games played by Karpov. He won with White in all of these games and the videos illustrate why he was very successful with 1.e4 and show how he was able to play in the same active positional style against just about any opening.

Defeating the Pirc defense. This game made me realize how important it is to predict opponent’s plans.

Beating the Najdorf

Beating the Najdorf – yet again!

Handling the Sveshnikov variation in the same style – by exploiting the ‘d5’ square

Defeating the Open Spanish – illustrates the importance of initiative in the endgame. This line became a critical test of Black ideas in this variation.

ChessBase turning 25

2011-05-20T00:08:00.001-07:00

In his annotations to the game against Smyslov from the 1958 match, Botvinnik noted that a younger grandmaster ignored a transposition to the Botvinnik-Smyslov game, and as a result – made a faulty comment on some game played in the 1970s. Botvinnik’s conclusion was: “young grandmasters don’t study games of older generation, but it is also clear that chess openings should be stored using computer software”. Yes, this is so true, and Garry Kasparov was one of the first chess players who picked up on this idea, and therefore got involved in the development and promotion of what now became ChessBase software. Here is the story: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7229. Time flies and ChessBase software is now the most popular one among chess players, and it has affected the development of the game quite profoundly.

The photo from the article comes with the caption “It was Kasparov who first recognized the power of the system and used it intensely”. Good point, but it feels like it was Kasparov’s teacher who was first to recognize the need for such software!

Years have passed, and Kasparov now is also inside the software!

Watching the Candidates Matches

2011-05-16T20:00:00.001-07:00

As I am watching the World Championship Candidates matches, I am surprised to see that Vladimir Kramnik is out, despite his absolutely amazing opening preparation. In several games against Radjabov and Grischuk he seemed to have barely made any moves of his own and yet he had a very hard time against Teimur, and even a harder time against Grischuk. I suppose that proves that chess a sport still lives! Knowing most openings “down to checkmate” does not guarantee success, even when accompanied by such a skill of middlegame and endgame that Kramnik has. It does however make the games a bit harder to follow as it is very hard to tell where the game actually begins.

Alexander Grischuk is through to the finals!

The Importance of not Giving up In Chess

2011-04-17T19:05:00.001-07:00

Here is a blitz game where I was losing, but was able to come back to win. This only goes to illustrate that in online blitz games, having a winning position in no way guarantees a full point, and tables typically turn many times. It is thus important to stay focused till the very end.
DDT3000-ERADICATOR, ICC, 2011
Black to move

Black played 26… Bxe5 which seems to be winning, but since White can’t recapture it because of back rank mate. I was about to resign, when I realized that I can stay in the game a bit longer by playing 27.g4

Black continued with winning two pawns, but because of opposite coloured bishops, the position is not so clear.
27… Bxh2+ 28. Kxh2 Bxg4 29. Re8+ Kg7 30. Bd4+ Kh6 31. Be3+

Black to move. White has some counter play, but after 31… g5 Black can continue to play for a win

Instead he blundered twice with 31… Kh5? 32. Rh8 Bf3? 33. Kg3!

Black to move. Rxh7 is a mate threat, and he has to give up a piece and went on to lose.
Checkmate in the endgame is rare, so the irony is that on the first diagram White seemed to be forced remain down a piece to avoid back rank mate, and only several moves later – Black was in the same boat, except for this time there was no way to save the piece.

My New Russian Chess Blog

2011-04-15T08:37:00.001-07:00

My chess blog does have an audience from Russia, although a small percentage (see the stats for the past year). With hopes to increase that, as well as improve my writing skills in mother tongue, I figured I’d start a Chess Blog in Russian. For now it has very few entries, but more will come over time as often I want to share links to chess resources in Russian that would not make sense to post on the English Blog – so now I can post them on my Russian blog.

My Russian blog URL: http://shakhmatist.blogspot.com/

My Russian Chess Blog

How to Study the Endgame in Chess – 10 steps

2011-04-10T16:48:00.000-07:00

I have written a lot about opening preparation, so this may have created create an impression that openings is the only thing I care about as a chess player. However that focus is merely to compensate for the fact that that I have always liked endgames more and my opening preparation was way behind. So here are some tips to improve your endgame:

Read a good book on endgame theory. I can recommend Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual
Read a good book on endgame technique. Here I recommend either some of Dvoretsky’s books, or Shereshevsky’s Endgame Strategy
Study your own games that included interesting endgames
Solve endgame puzzles and studies
Play practice games starting with endgame positions. Use time controls with increments.
Specialize in some material e.g. rooks + knights, or bishops of opposite colour.
Write articles about endgames for magazines or websites. A few years ago, I wrote a series of articles for ‘En Passant’, several of them were about endgames. I probably learned a lot more from that experience than any of the readers.
Use a training endgame course with a software like Peshka
Do a deep analysis of some selected positions and games. Trying to establish exactly whether a given endgame position is winning or a draw can help you to appreciate the whole complexity of chess
Study the games of players, who are particularly famous for their endgame skills – Karpov, Andersson, Rubinstein, Kramnik

Chess Dream – Translating Life into Chess Moves

2011-04-09T16:13:00.001-07:00

Chess can be a part of our life, but at what point does our life turn into a game of chess? Some describe life as a battle, as a chess game that requires strategic approach, but I am talking here about more than a metaphor, but rather of a person’s mind being so deeply immersed into chess when the distinction between daily life and chess gets blurred.

A while ago I read an interview with Vladislav Tkachiev and realized that he talked about the feelings described very well what happened to me about 10 years ago. Chess was a very important part of my life at the time (it still is). I was a weak chess amateur, but I was living and breathing chess. I was changing my openings, and could not decide if I should continue with my quest to master 1.d4, or go back to 1.e4. One morning, as I was waking up and in the middle of a dream, I got a feeling that my day was about to begin, and my day was my chess game. Almost as I was deciding which foot to put first on the floor – right foot or left foot, I was trying to decide if I should start my day with 1.e4 or 1.d4. My day was my chess game, and I was trying to choose the opening. I will quote Tkachiev here:

Even when I am not playing it doesn't mean that chess leaves my mind. I am speaking with you, but at the same time the position against Kortschnoi is going through my mind. It is difficult to explain: I am talking with you, and everything we say is beginning to translate into chess language. You looked at me, Nf3, the girl over there smiled, Nf6, somebody fell over there, c4. This has not been described, because unfortunately the books about the subject have not been written by real chess players. Let me explain it again: Today I talked with you, I went to the swimming pool, I played a game, I went to the bar, I had dinner. And all this is beginning to be translated into chess moves. Nf3, Nf6, c4, g6. It is on the brink of madness, but I have asked many players and they have the same experience. I translate everyday life into chess moves, and it happens even if I don't want it to. Sometimes I ask myself "are you nuts?" The answer is definitely yes. Well, slightly, but it is true.

Vladislav Tkachiev in 2003

The King’s Gambit by Paul Hoffman - Book Review

2011-04-02T21:10:00.001-07:00

When King’s Gambit by Paul Hoffman came out in 2007, I was anxious to get a copy as soon as possible. It had good reviews, and in addition I actually had met Paul Hoffman at a dinner in Toronto in 2004, at the closing ceremony for the Canadian Chess Championship. The book is meant to appeal to both readers who know little about chess, and to experienced chess players. I enjoyed the read quite a bit. It provided insider details on the top chess players – Kasparov, Susan Polgar, Joel Lautier, Nigel Short, and others, but also gave more details about the lives of players whom I had actually met at the board – Pascal Charbonneau and Jack Yoos.

Paul’s love for the game shines throughout the book. An chess amateur’s description of the sense of happiness of winning a good game that only chess players are familiar with – make the book stand out.

You will enjoy this book if you have ever

dreamt to be a grandmaster
admired a fellow chess player’s personal achievement
wanted to learn about Garry Kasparov’s restaurant manners
prepared for your tournament opponents by spying their ICC game history

Reading “King’s Gambit” I remembered watching Pascal Charbonneau’s dramatic win last round at the Canadian Closed Championship in 2002:

Charbonneau – Cummings, 2002
White to move. Black had just moved the bishop away from guarding g7, how can this be exploited?

My YouTube Chess Channel

2011-04-01T23:30:00.001-07:00

A few days ago my YouTube channel hit a bit of a milestone – I got a 100th subscriber. Big Thank You to Everyone who subscribed!

This is a good time to make some observations about the blog/channel duo:

Effort:

The blog is more of an outlet for quick notes, thoughts, book reviews, and tactical ideas that caught my attention. On the other hand - making the 65 YouTube videos took a lot more of serious game analysis, some new hardware (microphone) and experimentation with recording software. I would go over the game a few times and try to understand its key points before I could talk for 10 minutes about it. So those videos probably took even more effort than the nearly 300 blog entries. The upsetting part is that at some point is that some of that effort was used while my microphone setup was far from ideal, so the sound quality of some earlier videos is very disappointing.

Feedback:

I also found that I received more comments on the videos, than on the blog entries – viewers who made it through the video probably got engaged in it to the point of actually feeling like making a comment. While the videos are harder to make, and involve wearing headphones to “consume” – the rewards are hopefully higher for both the maker and the viewer.

Learning:

I used the videos to structure my chess study, so the videos follow several themes, with playlists accordingly:

Pawn Structure Chess – when your Opponent Surprises you

2011-03-31T12:16:00.000-07:00

DDT3000 – sgilroy, ICC 2011, 20 minutes per game
Black to move.
Here I expected 25…b5-b4, fighting for ‘d4’ square in the typical fashion for the Spanish game. But my opponent surprised me with a different pawn move, as he instead chose to fight for ‘d3’.
25…c4 I thought “Oh no, I’d better stop Ne6-c5-d3”, so I played
26. Bxe6
Black to move. Which recapture is best? My opponent surprised me again, and I must admit, I was so shocked that I blundered immediately and resigned within a couple of moves. Several positional considerations need to be considered:

Black is eyeing f3 with his queen and knight, but for now it is well guarded
White may later transfer his knight to ‘d5’ via ‘e3’ so ‘d5’ needs to be covered
Black’s rooks currently don’t control any open or semi-open files, but they obviously would like to!

How would you recapture on e6?

Chess Grandmaster Audio Interviews in Russian

2011-03-29T11:08:00.000-07:00

Russian website http://chess-news.ru/ is one of the most informative and up-to-date Russian chess resources on the web, and it has a few audio interviews of grandmasters. Unfortunately I have not been able to find an audio podcast feed for these interviews, but with a little Google Reader search trick, I can download them almost as easily. Khalifman, Shipov, Karjakin, Vasjukov – this is a feast for a Russian Speaking chess fan.

Kasparov vs. Karpov 1988-2009 – Tactics

2011-03-27T22:32:00.000-07:00

Here are some more positions to add to my book review of Kasparov vs. Karpov 1988-2009.

Kasparov – Karpov, 1990, game 20
White to move. The concentration of White pieces on the kingside leads to a mating attack.

Karpov - Kasparov, 1990, game 11
Black to move. Black is down the exchange, and the knight is attacked, so retreat is not an option. How can Black force a draw?

Kasparov – Karpov, Valencia 2009, rapid game 3
White to move. The last brilliancy we see from Garry Kasparov?

Kasparov vs. Karpov 1988-2009 – Book review

2011-03-26T21:49:00.001-07:00

This book wraps up the series about all the games between two perennial opponents – Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov. The last volume is probably as exciting as the previous ones, if not the most exciting one. It has more tournament games than the previous ones, and includes the 1990 Match in New York/Lyons, about which I already have read/reviewed another book – Five Crowns.

Each book in the series has several brilliant games that have become classic, those to remember the struggle between the big K’s by.
1984 – the 27 game was Karpov’s endgame masterpiece, but the fact that the match lasted 48 games is most remarkable.
1985 match – the 16th game in Kasparov Gambit, and the 24th game – arguably the most “decisive” game in history.
1986 match had the 16th game with the crazy Spanish Attack as well as the “study like” 22 game.
The match in 1987 in Seville is probably most remembered by the last two games where Karpov and Kasparov exchanged wins and Kasparov got to keep the crown.

What games stand out in this 1988-2009 volume? In the 1990 match Karpov was playing aggressively as Black, but in this entire match, Black did not win a single game, so this strategy somewhat backfired. Among the better games are two wins by Kasparov in the Spanish Zaitsev Variation – games 2 and 20, and Karpov’s nice positional suffocation of Kasparov’s Grunfeld Defence in Game 17.
Among their tournament games, there were a couple of gems as well:

Kasparov – Karpov, Amsterdam 1988 was a mad clash where Kasparov sacrificed a couple of pieces and managed to outplay Karpov in time trouble
Black to move. In severe time trouble Karpov overlooked the most decisive way to end the game.

Karpov – Kasparov, Linares 1993 was the famous “Fischer chess” game, where all of Karpov’s pieces ended up on the first rank! Black to move. White had just attacked the rook with 22. Nc1. Does the rook have to retreat?

While in matches the record between K and K was very close, in tournaments Kasparov has scored 7-1 in decisive games. I can think of a couple of reasons for this:
- the tournament games were played later in their careers when Kasparov was in his prime, and Karpov rather on a decline, relative to his prime years
- Kasparov was more of a tournament player, so by the time K and K met, Karpov would often need to win to catch up with Kasparov, so he’d play more sharply than he would in matches.

What can a chess player learn from the series? I paid special attention to the following:

The differences in style between Kasparov and Karpov are striking. In more than half of the games you can see Kasparov sacrificing something (usually a pawn) to activate his pieces, and Karpov – accepting the offered material. This is simply amazing! Both players achieved great results with their styles.
Insights into opening preparation for each game show the development of opening theory – Kasparov shows what he prepared for each game, and how theory developed since then
Time spent on each move. This adds to the reader’s understanding of what players saw, why they made blunders, what moments they considered critical in the development of each game.

The book also covers a few aspects of “chess politics”, the scandal during 1988 USSR championship, GMA, negotiations between FIDE and PCA during 1990’s and overall development of chess history during the covered years.

On a personal note, I read this volume in Russian, and to me this made for a much more pleasant experience, as while the translation in the English editions (which is all I have for the previous two volumes) is usually good, small imperfections still make me wish for seeing Kasparov’s original Russian text.

Kramnik – Carlsen - annotated by Seirawan

2011-03-20T18:55:00.001-07:00

Yasser Seirawan has annotated Magnus Carlsen’s victory over Vladimir Kramnik from the currently played Amber Chess Tournament.

Kramnik – Carlsen, 2011

Black to move. How can he fight for control over d5 to get a desired pawn structure?

Seirawan explains very nicely the positional goals of both sides as Kramnik is planning to play against the ‘d5’ outpost and wants to occupy it with a piece. It backfired as Carlsen fought to complete his development and control d5 with pieces as well. It struck me that such positional ideas that seem to be more common in Sicilian defence (for example – in Sveshnikov Variation that Kramnik himself plays) – can just as easily occur in closed openings.

Watch the video below to see it yourself:

Getting Things Done – Studying Chess

2011-03-19T21:54:00.001-07:00

Personal chess improvement has always been an ongoing project for me, but often without well-defined goals and somewhat obscure objectives. Just like any a complex project, it needs some structure, planning, motivation, and ability to track progress. I believe this applies to both professional chess players and to amateurs, who only have a few hours a week to dedicate to chess improvement. No one can reach perfection in chess, so everyone’s time is limited, making success dependent on how effectively we study the game.

What happens often is that while going over your game, you realize – “oh yeah, I played badly in this rook endgame, I’d better study some related endgame theory”. Another day, during a blitz game online, your opponent throws a rare variation of Scandinavian defence at you, and you realize that you had never even considered this line in your opening preparation. Again, that creates another “TODO” item that may linger in your mind for a while, but most likely won’t materialize into action on your part. I’ve heard chess players often make regretful remarks during post-mortem sessions about what they “should have, could have, would have” studied. Things we want to do to improve our chess are of broad variety, here are some more examples:

Studying a particular opening variation
Reading a specific book that received good reviews
Watching an interesting chess video with player interviews
Trying out new training software, such as Peshka
Studying games of a particular player – such as Botvinnik
Playing practice games in a particular opening
Preparing for a particular tournament
Preparing against a particular opponent, whom you often face in tournaments
Improving your time management
Practicing tactics
etc

What is a good way to keep track of this kind of lingering thoughts, ideas, and make sure your best intentions for self improvement are fulfilled with some meaningful actions? Turns out chess is not a very different from any other areas that “knowledge workers” are involved in – areas where defining “What To Do?” is almost as important then the action act of “Doing”. I believe that the system known as “Getting Things Done”, advocated by David Allen should apply almost ideally to studying chess.

Here are some of the principles of Getting Things Done approach:

Have a system to keep track of things you need “To Do”, rather than keeping them in your head and worry about forgetting individual items
Do regular weekly reviews of tasks, act upon them depending on your available time and energy
Focus on tasks based on the physical contexts you are in – near computer, in transit, etc
Manage multiple projects within the same system – chess can be one of your “projects”, and you can have multiple projects dedicated to chess improvement
Define short term and long term goals and objectives

Life Time – Becoming a GM
Long Term – 3-5 years - Becoming an IM
Short term – 6 months - Improving your openings for Black

While this system is good for anything we do in life, it is not easy to consistently follow, as I discovered myself. However personal chess study strikes me as something where this “Getting Things Done” approach could be particularly effective.

The Importance of Staying Focused in Chess

2011-03-02T19:33:00.000-08:00

This video goes over a promising position that I lost due to relaxing prematurely. That kind of attitude always gets punished – especially in sharp positions with rapid time controls.

Replay the game in the viewer:

Solving Susan Polgar’s puzzle

2011-02-28T15:09:00.000-08:00

Solving this chess puzzle from Susan Polgar’s blog, I had a bit of a dilemma, choosing between transforming the position into one of two possible endgames.
Kulon – Juracz, 2011
Black to move.
Everyone answering the question (other than me) – decided on the exchange sacrifice 1… Rxa2 2. Rxa2 Bb2.

OPTION 1 – “Pawn endgame”
White to move. I quickly considered this position, which is practically equivalent to a pawn endgame, and it appeared slightly unclear. However because Black bishop covers ‘d4’ and ‘e5’, White will loose the d5 pawn and the game because of zugzwang. Everyone else who answered the puzzle in comments on the blog – went for this solution. I however chose a more complicated way, which I think is also sufficient for a win.

Why not just trade rooks with 1… Rxe2 2. Kxe2 f5 and go for endgame with bishops of opposite colour – which I am a big fan of:
OPTION 2 – Bishop Endgame
White to move. Two passed pawns are hard to stop in the long run – in quick analysis I was unable to hold this for White. Black king threatens to break through to b2, so White has to guard against that, but otherwise Black forms a passed pawn on the kingside. For example: 3. Kd3 Kf8 4. Kc4 Ke7 5. Kc5 Bd6+ 6. Kc6 g5
Black pawns begin marching 7. Kb5 Kf6 8. Kc4 Ke5 9. Kc3 h5 10. Bb1 g4 11. hxg4 fxg4 12. Kd2 Kf4 13. Ke1 Kg3 14. Kf1 Kh2 15. Kf2 h4 16. Kf1 g3 17. Ba2
Black to move. 17…h3 wins on a spot.

If White chooses a different plan, and transfers the king to guard the ‘a’ pawn and free up the bishop, we can get a position like this:

Black to move. 1…f3!? 2. fxg4 g3!? creates an instructive position:

Black wins because his bishop guards both of White’s pawns from the same diagonal – as per Mark Dvoretsky’s teachings.

Success in chess depends on knowing typical ideas and recognizing those patterns on the board. Sometimes there is more than one way to win the chess game – in a tournament you only need to find one! In analysis, we can, however, muse around and come up with multiple solutions for our own entertainment…

Crushing Attack – Splitting the Chess Board into Two Parts

2011-02-26T23:47:00.000-08:00

In his books and videos – Garry Kasparov has often emphasized the skill of splitting the board into two halves. After that - an attack on the side where you have a numerical advantage is very likely to succeed, even if you are temporarily down in terms of overall material on the board. Once I was taught a good lesson in a blitz game, that illustrated this thesis.

aggro-Garryncha, ICC, 2003
White to move. Black just played 18…Nb4. The White pawn on e5 prevents Black’s Queen knight and Rook from taking any part in the action on the kingside. White quickly took advantage of this situation.

19. Bxh7!! Kxh7 20. Re4 (20. Bf6!! forces mate even faster) 20... Qxc2 21. Bf6!

Black to move. He is completely helpless even though he can grab the second extra piece.
21… g5 22. Rh4+ Black resigns 1-0

It is interesting how White delivers attack on the dark squares, as Black’s bishop and queen are uselessly guarding the light ones.

Liudmila Belavenetz – Best Chess Coach for Juniors

2011-02-24T20:25:00.000-08:00

Liudmila Belavenetz (Людмила Сергеевна Белавенец) is mentioned in most reports on Russian junior cthat you see online today. That is not a surprise to me because I have been honoured to be her student for several years in the mid 90’s when I attended the Spartak Chess School in Moscow. A rare chess teacher has so much love for the game and passion about their students successes in competitions.

Liudmila Belavenetz was USSR Champion among Women in OTB play in 1975, and she was also the World Chess Correspondence Champion (1984-1992), so she is a very strong player herself. However she has a talent to explain chess in simple terms to young kids and teach the basics – with kindness and humour.

I was delighted to read this interview (in Russian) that tells a story very similar to mine.

I played chess a lot between the ages of 4 and 8, but later took a break as the game suddenly became no longer fun. When I was 12 - curiosity brought be back to the chess club, but it was really Liudmila Sergeevna Belavenetz who made me interested in chess again. Moreover, it was probably because of her that I got myself into teaching chess years later. As I was getting older and more competitive – I got to understand why several of her students were world champions in their age groups. In addition to explaining opening tricks, a coach needs to know how to support a young player during the competition – after a win, and after a loss. I have seen very few chess teachers do this with as much kindness and skill as Liudmila Belavenetz. Computer software can help you to prepare for opponent’s openings before the game, but only a good coach can set you with a positive mood and inspire you to succeed.

I was recently glad to see lead the awards ceremony for a Women’s blitz tournament in Moscow:

Liudmila Sergeevna awards Valentina Gunina

I hope Liudmila Sergeevna continues to be a vibrant force in Russian Junior Chess for many years to come!

Sacrificing a Pawn for Having ‘No Bad Pieces’ – Marshall Gambit

2011-02-22T22:44:00.000-08:00

My only tournament game against a grandmaster was played in 2004, during Canadian Closed Championship in Toronto. In the first round I got this position as Black against Kevin Spraggett, after the slightly unusual opening moves: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 b5 5. Bb3 Na5 6. O-O Bb7 7. Nxe5 Nxb3 8.axb3 Nf6 9. Re1 Be7 10. d3 d5 11. exd5 Nxd5

White to move. Is Black’s compensation sufficient?
In my preparation, I had analysed forcing moves like 12. Qf3 and 12. Qh5. The grandmaster thought for a little bit, and played the simple 12. d3-d4. He won fairly easily after I made a judgement/tactical error at some point and my compensation went astray (I ended up down a pawn, with a bad bishop to boot). After the game he made a comment that made an impression on me; it was along the lines of “This gambit looks reasonable, Black has no bad pieces and it will be very hard for White to win. It can be a 100 moves game”. He also mentioned that similar gambits were appearing in other lines of the Spanish around the same time. I was, of course, thrilled not only to have played a game against a famous player, but also to be a given a free lecture afterwards.

Kevin Spraggett, photo by Federació d'Escacs Valls d'Andorra

There was a lot of truth to the Grandmaster’s observations. Not surprisingly, one of the recently popular lines of the Marshall Gambit carries strong resemblance with my home grown gambit (it was really invented by my coach back in Russia who strongly believed in Black’s solid compensation in the form of two bishops and sound structure).

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 O-O 8. h3 Bb7 9. d3 d5 10. exd5 Nxd5 11. Nxe5 Nd4 12. Nc3 Nxb3 13. axb3

Black to move. Two bishops and better pawn structure provide Black with compensation that grandmasters have been willing to bet on. Below is a sample game where Black’s initiative got out of hand. The two diagrams have only slight differences (the Marshall Gambit version is better for Black since he already castled and White committed to a relatively useless h2-h3 – maybe this tempo makes all the difference?). John Watson’s Mastering Chess Openings is full of such examples, where a healthy opening strategy appears in similar variations, benefiting a player with a rich opening repertoire.

Online Tactics – Find the combination

2011-02-21T23:13:00.000-08:00

Garryncha – slipperyfish, ICC, 2004
White to move. White has a powerful battery on the g file, but Black controls the center. That control however is fragile – the Queen defends the ‘d7’ rook, which defends ‘d5’ pawn, which in its turn defends the ‘e4’ rook, which also defends the ‘e5’ pawn. This sounds like a house of cards – and it is, White just has to find one precise move!

PrezAcc – Garryncha, ICC, 2004
Black to move. The goal of the rather unexpected combination is to lure Black king into a mating net. I am glad that I was able to find this trick in the blitz game, and not sure if it would have occurred to me today.

Tactics – Attack with Opposite Coloured Bishops

2011-02-20T12:32:00.000-08:00

BONO-Garryncha, ICC, 2004
Black to move. White has weak spots on light squares on d3 and b3, so the tactics shots are in the air

garcikrespo - Garryncha, ICC, 2004
Black to move. Again - the powerful bishop on the long diagonal is aiming at the exposed White king, and it is the matter of destroying the pawn protection…

Blitz Tactics – Find the Combination – Black to Move

2011-02-19T11:08:00.001-08:00

Dirk – Garryncha, ICC, 2004
Black to move. Black has a positional advantage, as White has a weak pawn on d4 and his king is exposed

Garryncha – Styxon, ICC, 2004
Black to move. White had just protected the pawn with Re1-g1, missing a powerful shot

ghost-buster – Garryncha, ICC, 2004
Black to move. Black has a positional advantage, and White’s pieces are a bit uncoordinated. How to take advantage of it?

All 3 positions are examples from my online games that played a few years back. Players rarely find deep strategic plans in their blitz games, but simple tactical shots take a second or two to spot, so players found the best move in all 3 of these games.

Alexander Khalifman on Opening Preparation

2011-02-16T19:51:00.001-08:00

I just watched a pretty entertaining interview with former FIDE World Chess Champion Alexander Khalifman. When asked why he made a quick draw with White against a lower rated grandmaster (who was rated 2530), Alexander the Great made a few remarks on how opening preparation works these days:

If your opponent prepared the opening variation with Rybka, his rating is not 2530, his rating is 3000!
There is a saying that if a grandmaster looked at the opening variation a week ago, it feels like as if he never looked at it
Memory is the main skill that gets affected as chess players get older, or stop studying chess intensely
Khalifman’s former strength – broad opening repertoire – is now becoming a vulnerable spot, since that requires keeping too many sharp variations in his head

The last remark definitely resonated well with myself, as I had to considerably constraint my repertoire, choose between 1.e4 and 1.d4 as White and focus my study on lines that I actually intend to play – a reasonable approach for a chess amateur. Here is the video of the interview – in Russian (which I loosely translated), recorded at the just finished Aeroflot Open

Kasparov Wins TV Quiz Show

2011-02-15T18:03:00.001-08:00

These days media often reports on Garry Kasparov as a politician (and not always with a positive twist), so by recently winning a Quiz Show in Georgia he reminded of himself as a prominent intellectual. For example he has written personal success and has supported revisionist theories on world history. Kasparov has been involved in the so called “What? Where? When?” show in Russia a few times, but those events were not as widely publicized. Does this success indicate that chess players are more intellectual than the average population? To me – this mostly indicates that Kasparov has fantastic memory, a lot of interests outside of chess, as well as enormous ambition and desire to win – at anything. I am hoping the video of this recent show will soon become available online.

“Что? Где? Когда?” has been a very popular Russian Tv Show for over 30 years.

Update as of February 26, here is the video of the show

Windows Live Writer - Backing up your Chess Blog

2011-02-14T18:27:00.000-08:00

This post is of course not only relevant to a chess blog, but to any blog that is created with Windows Live Writer (I use 2009 version). Following my several computer disasters in the last couple of years, I have been a bit more diligent about backups, and Windows Live Writer Backup tool is part of the routine; Windows Live Writer backup is a very simple tool that lets you export most of your Blog data into a single file. I have once had to do a restore, and it worked pretty well.

Just run the tool and press Backup (you might have to run it as an administrator).

As an added benefit, it lets me monitor how my blog grows in size over time (also indicates why my blog takes so long to load on slow connection)

On that note – here is a quick tutorial on how to use Windows Live Writer to add chess content, such as diagrams, to your posts.

In this video I show how to insert chess diagrams to your blog post with only a couple of quick shortcuts. This how-to video assumes that you already have Chess Base Light 2009 and Windows Live Writer installed . Both are free tools from ChessBase and Microsoft respectively. You'd need to have a blog setup already as well. The post I made in the video is here.

Reading about Karpov – Kasparov duels – book review

2011-02-12T18:01:00.001-08:00

Reading through Garry Kasparov’s record of his chess games , I get a bit of a better idea of why Kasparov and others claim that Karpov-Kasparov matches triggered the explosion of analysis and in depth study of various openings. Here is an example that struck me in particular: in game 16 of their 1986 match Kasparov got to the position on the diagram in his analysis and concluded that after 20… b4! the best chance for White is to play is 21. Rb3!

Kasparov – Karpov, 1986 match, analysis position from game 16

White plays Ra3-b3! Rook and bishop are both attacked, but White moves the rook to another attacked square!

r3rbk1/1b1n1pp1/p2p1q1p/3P4/PppNP3/1R1B1N1P/1P3PP1/2BQR1K1 b - - 0 21

Amusingly, this whole line of the Zaitzev variation of the Spanish opening was then re-played 20 years later – in K.Lahno-E.L'Ami, Wijk aan Zee 2006, and probably in some other games. To me that seems to indicate that it takes 10-20 years for the chess world to catch up with Kasparov’s opening preparation from the pre-computer era.

Game 16 of the 1986 match is definitely one of the main highlights of Garry Kasparov on Modern Chess, Part Three: Kasparov v Karpov 1986-1987

Replay through the entire line with brief notes from Kasparov

Play Like Mikhail Botvinnik – free training course

2011-02-05T17:18:00.001-08:00

Convekta has released a free course for their Peshka Training software. The course is easy to install and start using and consists of two main parts – Theory and Practice.

Theory mode consists of lightly annotated games played by Botvinnik.

Practice mode is probably the more useful part of this free offer

In practice mode you also get to see statistics – either per lesson, or overall

Percentage of correct moves - I have not solved a single exercise correctly

In practice mode you literally get to train to play like Mikhail Botvinnik – and test from your strategic skills to tactics. Around 10 years ago I thoroughly studied a collection of games by Mikhail Botvinnik and got a great deal of respect for his art of planning and brief and clear explanations that got to the essence of every position. This course is exactly what a chess student would want to have after going through such a collection. To summarize:

Pros of this course:

It is free!
A large number of examples
Exercise format is well implemented – your time is tracked for every position, and you can see various metrics on your progress

Cons:

I’d like to see more verbal explanations, especially given the nature of Botvinnik’s positional style

Tragicomedy in the Endgame by Mark Dvoretsky – Book Review

2011-01-29T13:19:00.001-08:00

When chess players make mistakes, they attribute it to bad luck. When tournament reporters see mistakes made by strong players, they explain it to time trouble. When a great chess coach like Mark Dvoretsky watches his students make all kinds of mistakes, he sees lots of patterns. Dvoretsky’s latest book is his attempt to summarize such patterns – both those typical for individual players, like Kasparov, Kramnik, Yusupov, as well as for chess players in general. The chapters include, among others

Poor knowledge of theory
King placement
Play with pieces and exchanges
Pawn structure and pawn play
Giving up too early
etc

Thinking back about my games and endgame mistakes that I have made, I realize that nearly every one of those errors can fall into one of Dvoretsky’s categories, so a detailed study of this book should be of great practical value.

I got a hold over the Russian edition of the book earlier this month and have thoroughly enjoyed reading it. The English one is coming out soon and I strongly recommend it. I have written about Dvoretsky’s latest books a couple of years ago, and the gist of my opinion was that Dvoretsky is best when writing about the endgame since in that case his analysis tends to be more readable and instructive than when he dives into complex tactical middlegames.

Dvoretsky’s main premise behind the book is that most points are lost or gained in the endgame, and this is where most players should invest their study effort. I can easily believe this idea - a year ago I made a video with analysis of mistakes I made in a single game. I survived an opening that I did not know much about; I survived a tough middlegame even though I was in time trouble. But then a reasonable, even promising position got turned into a worse bishop endgame, in which I did not put up any good resistance. My 52 and 60th moves in this game could be easily be described as tragecomedies!

Wright – Jiganchine, Vancouver, 1999
Black to move. Black wants to bring the king to the center – is 52… Re7 the correct approach? How to assess the resulting position?

See the consequent bishop endgame analysis in the two videos below:
Part 1
Part 2

Seirawan – Chess Duels: My Games with the World Champions - Book Review

2011-01-22T16:04:00.001-08:00

I got this book as a gift for Christmas, having requested it because I had been a big fan of Yasser Seirawan’s annotations since having a large collection of “Inside Chess” magazines. Having been interested in any information about chess personalities, I probably learned more new facts about world champions than I ever did in the last ten years. With great respect for fellow chess player, Seirawan reveals a lot about top grandmasters – their personal strengths and weaknesses. Particularly interesting are his recollections of various episodes involving Garry Kasparov. The stories range from those of admiration for Kasparov’s ability to calculate variations (to the point of everyone in the room being quiet from awe), to those of confrontation with Kasparov over the board, when the World Champion would knock all piece off the board by pressing the clock too hard and having to apologize to Yasser.

Having scored well against older Mikhail Tal, Seirawan had less success against Anatoly Karpov (and no, he is not giving a clock simul here!)
Photo by Gerhard Hund

In addition to stories and anecdotes, the book is also full of analysis of all the games that Seirawan ever played against World Champions. Those games reveal the difference between a very strong grandmaster – and the great ones. And it is a very subtle difference indeed, so subtle that you need explanation from the player involved in those games to even feel it. Among other things the book shows that the champions are only human! Seirawan’s positional instincts and style have posed some problems for World Champions, but overall by virtue of being consistently better in various parts of the game – Spassky, Karpov and Kasparov have been able to post a positive score against him. It is somewhat indicative that the only game that Seirawan won against Kasparov – was won after Kasparov over pressed in Seirawan’s time trouble. It is possible to beat the best players in tense complications, but it is very difficult to outclass them, and Seirawan’s notes on every move explain the inner struggle between the players – the thinking behind choices of openings, time spent on each move, comments made by players after the game, etc – all those details that you will not find by looking at a game in a database.

The story about young Kasparov being a devoted communist is quite interesting
Photo from Owen Williams, the Kasparov Agency

Realities of professional chess players’ life, such as the need to travel and deal with time zone differences are explained very well in the book. The history of attempts to establish chess as a professional sport, starting from 1980’s and the GMA were also interesting to read about. The clash between FIDE and Kasparov in the 90’s, Moscow Olympiad of 1994 (which I had attended myself as spectator when I was a little boy), PCA tournaments and its quiet collapse are described in a lot more details than I had been aware of. If you are chess fan - Chess Duels: My Games with the World Champions by Yasser Seirawan is a great addition to your chess book collection.

Persistence in Chess

2011-01-15T18:50:00.000-08:00

When I started to study chess seriously,I would typically like the quality of my play in the beginning of a tournament – until losing a game to a stronger player, or making a blunder. Confidence in good preparation and ability to find reasonable moves is re-enforced by playing several decent games, but a loss would destroy this sense of control. As a result, during the rest of the tournament – I would be
- less thorough while looking for a move, since I have less faith in “my system” of logically evaluating the position to find the move
- getting into time trouble due to lack of confidence
- lose motivation, since the “good tournament” is ruined
- start to think how to prepare better for the “next tournament”

Some of these points, especially the first one, are typical for players with “analytical approach”, among which, according to Mark Dvoretsky, are such players as Rubinstein, Botvinnik and Kasparov. Once the analytical apparatus reveals a flaw, the perfect machine is no longer so perfect.

A different attitude is typical for players with the “intuitive, or practical approach”, such as Anatoly Karpov. For me one of the most useful ideas about tournament play came from Karpov’s book where he talks about how

“Some chess players, would give up after a loss or two, but a real player would realize that a series of defeats has to be followed by better luck, and wait for his chance”.

Anatoly Karpov – waiting for opponent’s mistakes

This patient waiting for your chance is what I consider persistence in chess. Even if you are not going to win a tournament – each game counts towards your ELO rating the same way, so previous losses should not affect one’s motivation, which I wrote about in an earlier post. Moreover – in the end of the tournament – your opponents get more tired and more likely to make a mistake!

Chess This Weekend at Lansdowne Centre – Richmond, BC

2011-01-13T18:18:00.001-08:00

I thought I should re-post this note from the BCCF bulletin that I received today:

The BC chess community needs your help. Securing places to play chess is a challenge. We have found a potential sponsor in Colliers International. They manage hundreds of commercial properties throughout the province and have offered us a trial opportunity. We can use vacant store space at Lansdowne Centre in Richmond to hold a chess event next weekend. It is short notice but we are accepting the challenge. Attached are the notices for a Sat/Sun adult open event for strong players and a Sunday only K-12 tournament for beginners and first time tournament players.

In addition to the tournament there will be chess happening all day in the public courtyard of the mall with large sets, lessons, simuls and bug house games. The mall administration will be watching closely to see if people show an interest in chess. If they see a good response they will invite us back and expand the program. We need lots of people to play in the tournament and visit the public activities to make this a success.

We need everyone in the chess community to help however they can. Come and play in one of the tournaments if you can. If you can’t play in a tournament drop in for some social chess on the public boards, or just check out the action and have some fun. We need the chess community to stand up and be counted. What you do next weekend could change the face of BC Chess forever. It could lead to giant chess sets in a mall near you. So come and play, have some fun and help out BC Chess at the same time.

Email Ken at ChessBC@shaw.ca to help, or for more information -

To register and to find out more information go to http://www.bcjuniorchess.com/calendar/?entry=3&display=month

Positional Exchange Sacrifice

2011-01-11T19:07:00.001-08:00

DDT3000 – In-lightning, 15 minutes per game, ICC, 2011

White to move. Would you, or would you not sacrifice an exchange here?
It depends, and while this is a question of judgement but I would argue that 20. Rxf6!? is not really a sacrifice, but instead a fair trade off. I took on f6 without much thought, and went on to lose a complicated game by dropping a bishop in a probably drawn endgame. But given the opportunity – I would take on f6 again and have a fun game. On to the actual positional justification of the move:

I was not too happy with my position, since my bishop was passive, rook on b1 - awkwardly placed, and while the knight had some prospects on f5 and d5 - Black has ability to cover those squares. So I took an opportunity, which, given that both White and Black had about 10 minutes left on the clock (no increment) - I would take again. In a standard time controls game - I would likely not take such a decision very lightly, but in rapid chess - this move is almost standard.

After 20. Rxf6 gxf6 21. Ng3 In return for exchange, White gets the following advantages:
1) The knight gets a permanent control over f5
2) The bishop - permanent control over d5. Opposite coloured bishops definitely contribute to compensation.
3) Black's king is somewhat weakened.

Sure an exchange is worth something, sure White does not have any immediate threats; but the long term control over the light squares - is enough to create threats for your opponent, which given limited time - make things equally hard for White and Black. White has no bad pieces and a lot of positional trumps, so even if Black has a chance to try to convert an advantage, he would first have to defend for 20 moves. The game was not without mistakes, but here is a position which we arrived at after a few more moves

White to move. After Nh6, Black can defend against Nf7 with Rc7, but he can’t really escape from the bind. For example: 32. Nh6! Rc7 33. Qe6 Bd4 34. b4 Bc3 35. b5 axb5 36. axb5

Black to move. White has a fortress since Black has to guard f7 and g8; White can also give perpetual with Nf7-d6-f7.

Even though I went wrong with 32. Nd6? – I still maintained a lot of chance until the very end. The risk White takes upon with Rxf6 in my view is equal to the risk that Black takes by allowing such sacrifices.

SQL to Chess – Querying Chess Database

2011-01-06T08:22:00.001-08:00

Most Chess Databases use their own format for storing information about chess games and the games themselves. If you want to query or extract any data out of the database package – your best bet is to use pgn files, although recently Aquarium also added ability to export data via scripts. In either case – performance is likely to be an issue as text files can get pretty large. When I learned that Jose Chess uses MySQL, I was curious to find out how to connect to its database so that I can search it with my own queries. Eventually, I was able to get it to work, and run a query like this against its large database which comes with Jose Chess and contains about 1.5 million games

This query shows the opening that scores the best for White – A94 - who would have guessed! The most popular index is B22 – 2. c3 Sicilian. There is obviously now opportunity for running more metrics on players, openings, openings trends, etc.
Getting all the data extracted out of Jose Chess obviously took a bit of reverse engineering, but basically I had to:

Find the path where Jose Chess and its embedded MySQL instance is storing the database. On Windows 7 it is - C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\jose\database\mysql\jose
Install MySQL and MySQL workbench to have a standalone instance of MySQL
Create a new database (schema) in MySQL workbench, and in that DB – tables to match the Jose Chess tables
Drop the Jose files into my wherever my standalone instance of MySQL is storing its files - C:\ProgramData\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.5\data\jose_huge_db
Restart standalone instance of MySQL
Run the query on the screenshot above!

Here are the files that need to be dropped around:

The only (but significant) disappointment is that Jose Chess is still storing game text (moves) in its internal binary format, so I can’t easily get to that data …

Chess Position Trainer 4 – Public Beta is out

2011-01-01T16:11:00.001-08:00

After much anticipation, the new version of Chess Position Trainer is getting rolled out to the masses, as the program’s author announced on his blog.

First Impressions:
- It installed successfully on my Windows 7 – 64 bit machine.
- I was able to import my opening repertoire from a pgn file, and then navigate through the moves.
- The number of buttons and widgets seems to have increased dramatically since version 3, and the screenshot above shows the “Beginner Mode”!
- The “statistics” panel seems very promising. For example, after I went through one line, it showed me visually how much more of my repertoire I still have to study/review. 15 Positions reviewed, 17042 – not reviewed! A picture shows I still have a long way to go, to put it mildly…

This tool is sure to be a great New Year’s gift to chess players who use software for practising their opening skills.

Motivation in Chess

2010-12-31T16:55:00.001-08:00

I have been on a break from studying chess due to personal reasons and this made me realize that the most important component for improvement in chess is motivation! With much being written about individual moves, combinations, tricks, positional details, training techniques – I rarely see a discussion of how does one become interested in chess, and then keep the passion alive. What drives players, both amateurs and professionals, to play and improve their game?
Do some people get immersed in the game without a strong desire to improve, merely fascinated by its aesthetics?
Do others only focus on the competitive side of the game, without the reflective look at the beauty of some moves?
Perhaps for some - the immersion to the game - is a way of escaping into a different world? For me, as probably for most players it is a combination of such factors that makes me study and play chess.

Sharing secrets of the King’s Indian Defence is very important, but perhaps the grandmasters can help weaker players by explaining more about what drove them to success, what motivated to study hard. Perhaps one book that talks about this subject is Kasparov’s How Life Imitates Chess, which I had reviewed already once, but I’d like to see more written about this.

Happy New Year to everyone, as this is likely my last post for this year!

Checkmate with 4 queens - from Alekhine to Kasparov

2010-12-04T19:22:00.001-08:00

Reading Kasparov’s books is quite entertaining, and some parallels between various historic chess battles can be observed.
Kasparov – Karpov, 1986 match, game 22
After 43.Rb4!
Black’s king is vulnerable against the attack on the c1-h6 diagonal, and although I was familiar with this idea/position before, only now I noticed that the main line of the combination contained a pretty mate:
43. Rb4 Rxb4 (Karpov actually played 43… Rc4) 44. axb4 d4 45. b5 d3 46. b6 d2 47. b7 d1=Q 48. b8=Q

Both sides have a new queen, but White’s threats are more dangerous, Qf4 is a threat.
48… Qc1 49. Nxg6 Qxg6 50. Qh8+ Qh7 51. Qgxg7#

Checkmate! Does that look familiar?

Well, now all sorts of bells start ringing, and indeed, I found a similar mate in another book by Kasparov:
Capablanca – Alekhine, 1927, Game 11
Checkmate after 67. Qh1#

Sometimes it’s worth digging a bit deeper into trees of variations in Kasparov’s books as now I understand why every time he mentions game 22 of the 1986 match, he calls it a “study like win”. It is also not surprising that Kasparov thinks that Alekhine is the World Champion with chess style most similar to his own.

Scripting Your Chess Database

2010-11-25T18:41:00.001-08:00

Scripting is a relatively common feature in many software packages (think of Excel Macros), so it is unfortunate that no chess software package has ever exposed it – until now! When staring at databases with my games, I’ve often had desire to do things like

Create a diagram right before every move that has a question mark, if that blunder was made by a player with a give name
Export games to a different format
Add a diagram for all games after every 5th move for convenient printout and practice of visual replay
Calculate an average number of blunders per game, compare the average between two sets of games (e.g. my blitz games and my slow games)
Find out in how many games do I stay in my repertoire until move 15?
Find out who of the top 10 players has an opening repertoire most similar to mine

These are features similar to what’s available in ChessBase’s and Chess Assistant’s of this world, but not quite the same. If you are a programmer, with access to the code of the tool - adding them this is not too hard. But if you are a mere user, without source code, you are out of luck completely. With scripting however, you at least have a chance. In addition to being able to do some new things, your powers multiply in other ways:

It is easier to interoperate between programs and use the power of multiple packages – e.g. you can export data into Excel
It becomes possible to automate several repeated UI manipulations and tie them into one script
Users can share their scripts between each other and you get features added to your tool added more often and for free

Aquarium Scripter is coming out very soon (rumour is - tomorrow) and I can’t wait to read reviews and if those are good - get an official copy of it. The features are described here, and I have to imagine (from the first blurry screenshot) that instead of a plain list of games

we now still have a plain list of games, but also an ability to run scripts against selected games!

Now we are getting somewhere!

Watching World Chess Blitz Championship

2010-11-22T08:02:00.001-08:00

The world blitz championship 2010 was won by Levon Aronian, and for a chess fan – the greatest attraction of this event was the amount of video materials available with the coverage of the games. I’d like to point out three sources that I was following:

The official site, which also includes the coverage of the Tal memorial itself – in Russian, but some post-mortem with Nakamura was in English - http://video.russiachess.org/ – in Russian
Multiple YouTube video channels – bumblebee1607, SergeySorokhtin, EugenePotemkin and probably a few more. Chessbase has posted pgn games next to some of the videos – to make it more convenient to replay:

Sergei Shipov’s analysis – on http://www.crestbook.com/ – in Russian. The synchronization suffers a bit, but I like the way Shipov explains the essence of every position within 5 seconds.

Chess Position Trainer – Show Novelties

2010-10-30T15:59:00.001-07:00

Once you created an opening repertoire in Chess Position Trainer (or imported it from elsewhere), you can cross-reference it against the database of games that you played. Here is a little walkthrough of how to use this feature.

Typically I play a lot of games on ICC, which stores all my games in a PGN file.

By using “show novelties” menu, I get a prompt for a pgn file, and then – a list of games:

Clicking on each game takes me to the position in which the game departed from my repertoire! The tool comments on what I should have played, according – to my own opening preparation

Apparently castling is premature here, but, alas, I forgot how exactly to deal with this piece sacrifice in the dragon, and did not play Nb3.

The new version of Chess Position Trainer is coming out soon, I can’t wait!

Loose Pieces Drop Off – Practical Chess

2010-10-24T11:40:00.000-07:00

In his book “Secrets of Practical Chess”, John Nunn coined the phrase “Loose Pieces Drop Off”. Here is a little example that I think illustrates this rule well:

cerassee – DDT3000, ICC, 15 minutes per game

Black to Move.
White just played 21. Ba5? and seemingly created a threat to the rook on d8. However making aggressive moves before finishing development (White’s rooks have not moved yet!) is dangerous, and Black was able to exploit exactly that. As a hint – consider that Bd3 is attacked by the rook from d8, the knight on c4 is already attacked by Be6. Now also Ba5 is unprotected. Black should be able to exploit all this “looseness” of White pieces and he did… How?

Creating Opening Repertoire in ChessBase

2010-10-23T08:17:00.001-07:00

I already wrote about how to better manager your repertoire as well as why you need to build your repertoire in the first place, but this video (posted by “Robofriven” on ChessVideos.TV) illustrates nicely the details of doing it in a particular tool – ChessBase 9 in this case. The author also mentions Chess Position Trainer, so you definitely don’t have to be restricted to one tool; more important is that your repertoire is stored somewhere at all, and you have simple ways of it updating it.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4477

Chess Endgames – Passed Pawns Must Be Pushed

2010-10-18T16:19:00.000-07:00

Passed pawns in the endgame are more powerful than in the middlegame. With few pieces left on the board, they can be supported by their own king and tie up entire opponent’s army. As usual, it takes a bit of experience to sense that a pawn is especially dangerous in a given situation. Feel free to skip to the last diagram in this post to see the full power of passed pawns.

Jiganchine – Black, BC – Washington scholastic match, 1999

Black to move.

My opponent did not find anything better than repeat the position after 41… Kf6 42. Rb6+ Kf5 43. Rb7 Kg6 44. Rb6+ Kg5 45. Rb7 Kf6 1/2-1/2
At the time I took it for granted that rook endgame with minimal material advantage ended as a draw. However, looking at this position with the fresh eye, draws attention to the fact that White’s king is very badly placed. It is completely cut off from the center of the board, so Black should take advantage of it: 41… d4!

On top of White’s king being badly placed, Black king protects the squares on the ‘d’ file from the White rook, so White has great difficulties stopping this pawn. I analyzed two options – both are losing for White.

a) 42. Rxg7 d3 43. Rg8 Kd5 44. Rd8+ Kc4 45. Rd7 Kc3 46. Rc7+ Kd4 47.Rxh7 d2 48. Rd7+ Ke3 49. h4 Ra4

Black is winning: the White king is cut off along 4th rank,White has to sacrifice the rook for 'd' pawn

trying to stop the pawn immediately does not help either:
b) 42. Rb8 d3 43.Rd8 d2 44. h4 h5

White is in some kind of amazing zugzwang. Either his king has to leave the ‘g’ file, making e5-e4 break possible, or the rook has to go to d3, which turns out also problematic.
45. Kh2 e4! 46. fxe4 Ke5 47. Kg3 Kxe4 –+ Black king advances to support the pawn
45. Kf2? d1=Q+
45. Rd3 This is the only square for the rook on the ‘d’ file, but here comes: 45… e4!! 46. fxe4 Ra3!!

Black wins as he is going to get a new queen. The triumph of the passed pawn!

Why did my opponent not consider this advance of the pawn, and why did I overlook it in whatever analysis I did after the game? The power of material must be so strong in player’s heads, that giving up even a pawn often does not occur to many players.

Chess Endgames - Keeping the Rook Active

2010-10-16T16:23:00.001-07:00

The major rule of rook endgames is that you should keep your rook active. When you look at a given position - usually it is obvious whether or not your rook is active However, sensing the moment and finding the tactical opportunity for activating the rook actually requires a bit of experience and judgement. An important corollary of the above rule is that you should also try to keep your opponent’s rook passive.

What does it mean for a rook to be active?
1) it attacks opponents’s pawns and protects its own
2) it can attack or cut off opponent’s king
3) it has freedom for manoeuvre, so zugzwang is never a problem
3) if there are vital open files or ranks - it controls one of them

To be a bit more specific - here is an example from a report I wrote for a Canadian Chess magazine a few years ago:
Juma - Kazakevich, Canadian Junior Championship, 2004
Black to move.

GAME CONTINUATION: In the game Black played 32….Kg7? Centralizing the king cannot be wrong, it can only be untimely. White responded with 32. a4! and the game was agreed drawn a few moves later in this position:

Black can’t make any progress. His rook is slightly more active, but there is no zugzwang in sight. The extra doubled 'f' pawn has lost most of its value, and bringing the Black king to the queenside would cost the kingside pawns.

CORRECT CONTINUATION: Much better was 32... Rc3! 33. f4 Ra3
The Black rook attacks both the a2 pawn and the g3 pawn. In the game it could only attack one of them at the same time. Such placement of a rook, which makes sure the 'a2' pawn does not move, is standard for rook endings (check out Rubinstein-Lasker, 1909, if you have not seen it). My analysis gave Black a win in all lines, but over the board it is enough to find the continuation that gives best winning chances, and that would be this line. Eventually we could come down to the position like this:

White to move. He is in zugzwang, since his rook has no moves, so he is likely going to lose as Black king threatens to invade on g4.

Why bring up this old dusty game on which I already wrote something long time ago anyway? Well, it only today occurred to me that history repeated itself in my own game, and I also failed to keep my rook active in a pretty similar situation. This game was played even earlier, but I did not analyse it seriously until last year.

Nathani – Jiganchine, BC Junior Championship, 2001

Black to move.
GAME CONTINUATION: I decided to play “safe”, keep as many pawns on the board as possible, and gave up the advantage by misplacing my rook:
27… Rb7? 28. Ra6 Rc7.
Black’s rook is passive, an extra pawn does not mean much here, the game should be drawn.
CORRECT CONTINUATION: Instead I had a much better option that would have kept my rook active:
27... Rb5! 28.Rxa7 Rxe5 29. Kg3 Rc5 30. Ra2 Ke7
Black is up a pawn, and has a more active rook. Stronger players can correct me, but this is a lot likely to be winning than the position that I got in the game.

Pawn Structure in the Closed Spanish – Geller vs. Smyslov

2010-10-10T09:44:00.001-07:00

Following up on my previous post, here is another example from the collection of Efim Geller games “Application of Chess Theory”

Geller – Smyslov, 1970
position after 22.Nf3

The 7th world Champion Vassily Smyslov “agreed” on this pawn structure (by playing f7-f5), despite its several long term flaws:
1) light squares are weak, and in particular - White’s knights can occupy e4 and f5 squares
2) d6 pawn is weak
3) White controls the ‘a’ file
5) the b4 and d5 pawns restrict Black’s knights, and especially - the d8 knight has no good future prospects

However, commenting on static features of a position is much easier than exploiting them to your advantage against a strong opponent. Watch this video to see how Geller converted his positional trumps into a full point:

While Geller’s game serves as an argument against playing an early f7-f5 in Closed Spanish, delaying it may lead to White himself playing f2-f4-f5. The final position of Karpov – Unzicker, 1974, illustrates that idea:
White just played Ng3-h5 and Black resigned!

A game Nunn-Short, 1986 illustrates how Black can try to implement f7-f5, without giving up the e4 squares:

Black just played f7-f5, but White’s pieces are well prepared for complications;
watch the video to see who comes out on top:

Combination by Efim Geller

2010-10-08T16:18:00.001-07:00

Geller-Anikaev, 1979

White to move

On his way to winning chess USSR championship at the age of 55, Yefim Geller wins this brilliant attacking game. Watch the video for the solution and to see the whole game. A pawn storm on kingside results in the attack and invasion on the ‘f’ file. White’s play is a response to Black’s negligent 13… Rfc8, which weakened f7 pawn. Hint: the final shot aims at bringing the dark squared bishop to the long diagonal.

Memorizing Chess Openings

2010-09-25T14:55:00.001-07:00

During Canadian Chess Championship in 2002, I had a pretty odd incident related to memorizing opening variations. In round 4 game I forgot my preparation literally on the next move after we entered the line I had prepared. I lost that game without putting up much resistance. In round 8 game, however, I without any particular effort played to 33rd move from my opening preparation and got a winning position, later managing to convert my advantage. How could this have possibly happened to the same player, in the same tournament?

In reality both examples had little to do with my memory being bad on one day, and good on another, but rather with how familiar I was with the ideas of each line. The line I chose in round 4 was prepared for that particular game; it was a suspicious sideline, and Black had to play carefully after violating some basic opening principles. Round 8, on the other hand, followed a line that I had played a lot with both colours in the past, and before the game I simply refreshed my memory and looked up the particulars. That being said, my round 8 opponent had also been well familiar with that line; he lost partially because he had been anticipating me to play other lines, and did not refresh this particular variation in his mind before our game. Below are the actual examples.

Glinert – Jiganchine, Richmond, 2002, Round 4 (Replay the game in the viewer, or watch a youtube video with full analysis)
Black to move
In the Panov attack, Black ventured with a very rare Qa8 and Rd8, to which White responded in a logical way with Bd2 and Ne5. I had planned to play along Krogius,N-Kortchnoi,V/Tbilisi 1966 where Kortchnoi continued with 12… Nf6, defending his kingside, and opening up the d file. I had been looking at that game several hours before the clocks were started! Instead I played 12… Nxe5?!, and lost because of difficulties getting Bc8 into the game.

Jiganchine – Sokourinski, Richmond 2002, Round 8 (Replay the fully annotated game)
White to move
We are in the end of a somewhat forced opening/endgame variation – also in the Panov attack. Black had just finally regained a pawn with 32… Kxf3?!, but the cost is too high: his king is cut-off, and White threatens to transfer the king to d4. With the prepared (just before the game) 33. b4! White frees up the king from guarding b2, and has excellent chances to win the game.

I’d also summarize as to main reasons I think chess players have a hard time forgetting their chess openings (I am sure you can think up a few more)

Not familiarizing themselves with ideas, but rather trying to remember individual moves – that just never works, at least not for me!
Getting confused by move orders. You can even remember the ideas, but playing them in a wrong order is pretty common
Confusing similar variations. Often I remember that a particular move has to be played, but it actually applies to a different position with similar characteristics
A non-forced nature of the opening. Glinert-Jiganchine is a concrete position, but the threats have not materialized just yet.
Broad variety of options. In Jiganchine-Sokourinski, we got to move 33 by grabbing each other’s pawns and pieces pretty much non-stop along a narrow path. It is way harder to remember the correct path when the lines branch off in various directions

Blitz sacrifice - exploiting the long diagonal

2010-09-12T18:01:00.001-07:00

Here is a quick snapshot from my blitz game today. After my opponent and myself exchanged a few blunders, I found a neat shot in this position:

DDT3000 – pmg, 3 minutes per game, ICC, 2010
White to move, Black just played Qb6-d8.

Play like Karpov – tactics and strategy

2010-09-07T22:17:00.000-07:00

Karpov – Giorgadze, 1983.
Anatoly Karpov found a great way to wrap up the game. Watch the embedded YouTube video to see the answer.

White to move

An overlooked counter attack from a Botvinnik game

2010-09-04T21:50:00.000-07:00

In a classic, but underestimated training game Botvinnik – Ragozin, the following position arose after White’s 28. Re1-e3.

Black to move. Can Black capture on c3?

The threat is to attack on the ‘h’ file, and in particular – to trap Black’s queen with Re3-h3-h7. In his notes, Botvinnik did not dwell too much on this position, but the capture on ‘c3’ is very thematic throughout this game, so I felt curious to check what happens if Black bravely ignores White’s idea, and carries on with his counter attack! Let me share some analysis.

Yes he can!! Yes he can take on c3. In fact, it would have led to a forced draw, and given that in the game Black went down after 28… Ng8 pretty fast, making a draw against the strongest player in the world was probably a great option (1947 was the only year in the twentieth century without a world chess champion). Play would continue:
29 . Rh3 Rxd4

Black carried out his plan of destroying the White center. Just two moves ago there were two White pawns on c3 and d4, now there are two Black rooks
30. Rh7 Rg4!!

When your opponent attacks your queen, you should hang your rook as well!! This is what you get when you analyse a game with a computer, but in reality this is a very harmonious development of Black’s ideas – he destroyed White's center so that his pieces could get some freedom, and now they have it - big time. White’s queen is guarding the knight, which is guarding the White rook, so if either one of them gets distracted, White’s whole plot falls through. He does have enough resources to get a draw though.
31. Nd7+ Ke8
32. Qxg4 Rc1+ (Bad was 32... Qxh7?? 33. Nf6+)
33. Bf1 Qa1!
34. Qe2 Nd5!
Black is down a full rook for only a couple of pawns!!
35. Ne5 Nc3
36. Rh8+ Ke7
now White has to scramble for a draw:
37. Nxg6+! fxg6
38. Rh7+ Kf8
39. Rh8+ Ke7
40. Rh7+
draw by perpetual check

In the game Botvinnik won with a nice sacrifice, but I think this draw would have been a much more exciting finish to this game. This is probably one of the more interesting discoveries I ever made while analysing a grandmaster game from a book. Perhaps that’s because I had rarely analysed games from printed books with the help of a computer…

Opposite Coloured Bishops – part 16 - Conclusion

2010-08-28T14:50:00.000-07:00

This is the last post on the subject of endgames with bishops of opposite colours – all examples are from my article on the same subject published in Canadian chess magazine “En Passant” almost 10 years ago.

There is an attitude to endings with opposite coloured bishops that 'they are all drawn'. There is certainly a good reason for this. And yet almost all examples that I showed had a decisive result. Partly this is because in most of them one side had a material advantage. But some endings shown had even material in the starting position. Therefore, in a position with rooks on the board, it is often possible to outplay your opponent. If you are playing for a win, there might also exist a psychological effect that would help you: when seeing opposite coloured bishops, even strong players may relax and expect that even with second rate moves they will get their draw. Not necessarily!

I also hope that the readers’ thinking about types of endings will expand from "pawn endings" and "rook endings" to more complex combinations of material, such as “rooks + bishops of opposite colour”, “rooks + knights”. These are what Dvoretsky calls “simple positions” – not quite endgames, but nor middlegames either. Studying ideas typical for each type of these simple positions will lead to a better understanding of chess.

To wrap up the series, here is the analysis/solution for the puzzle from the last post.

Topalov Veselin - Shirov Alexei, Linares (10), 1998
Black to move

47...Bh3 !! An amazing move, which initially does not seem to make any sense. The point is that Black's king needs to support the 'd' and 'a' pawns as soon as possible. The bishop on e4 was on his way. By going to h3, Black attacks the 'g2' pawn, so he wins a tempo. The reason why he is not afraid to lose the bishop, is because this bishop would not help him to advance the queenside pawns anyways. 48.gxh3 Kf5 49.Kf2 Ke4 50.Bxf6 d4 Diagram

51.Be7 Kd3 52.Bc5 Kc4 53.Be7 Kb3 Diagram

The Black king comes to c2. 0-1

Opposite Coloured Bishops – part 15

2010-08-26T13:59:00.000-07:00

I am now wrapping up the series on endgames with opposite coloured bishops, with a couple of positions for you to solve.

Spraggett Kevin - Hartman Brian, Hamilton m (4), 1993

White to move.

For the solution and to see the whole game go to http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1131765

Hint: One of the characteristics of endgames with opposite coloured bishops and rooks, is that when the weaker side tries to setup the blockade, the stronger side’s rook can be sacrificed for the blockading bishop.

Topalov Veselin - Shirov Alexei, Linares 1998

Black to move

The next post will include the full solution to this famous position, but if you can’t wait – the game is available here: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1143956

Opposite Coloured Bishops – part 14

2010-08-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

I found this example in one of the books by Mark Dvoretsky, in the chapter written by Gregory Kaidanov. The game shows the power of making far reaching long term strategic plans, in positions where your opponent is completely tied up. In endgames with opposite coloured bishops, fortresses are very common; to break through such defensive schemes you have to think in terms of plans, rather than follow “move-by-move, let’s see what happens next” style.

Psakhis Lev (ISR) (2580) - Hebden Mark (ENG) (2435)
Ch World (team) (under 26) Chicago (USA), 1983

White to move – find the winning plan.
Black pieces are completely tied up to the defence of 'f7'. And yet it takes a very original plan from Lev Psakhis to win this game.
43.Kf1 Ba7 44.Ke2 Bb6 45.Kd3 Ba7 46.Kc4 Qc7+ 47.Kb3 Qe7 48.g4 Bb6 49.Kc4 Ba7 50.Kb5 Diagram

What is the king doing? 50...Qe8+ 51.Bc6 Qd8 52.Kc4 Qe7 53.Qd7! This is the point! After the exchange of queens the White king will support the advance of the 'b' pawn. 53...Qe6+ 54.Qxe6 fxe6 55.Rxf8 Kxf8 56.Kb5 Diagram

56...Ke7 57.Ka6 Bxf2 58.c4 Kd8 59.Kb7 Be1 60.b5 Bf2 61.b6 Bd4 62.Ba4 d5 63.cxd5 exd5 64.exd5 e4 65.Kc6 Kc8 66.d6 e3 67.Bb5 Bf6 68.Ba6+ Kb8 69.Kd7 1-0

Bluff in chess - refuting opponent’s opening play

2010-08-02T02:17:00.000-07:00

When your opponent is playing the opening of a chess game almost without thinking, it is hard to imagine that he is making severe blunders and that his play should be refuted. Most likely everything had been checked on a computer and has been played before either by him, or by other players in the database. But here is an example where my opponent “was just playing too fast”. I think after playing 2 games a day for 4 days in a row, he simply did not want to spend too long on this last round game.

Jiganchine – McLaren, BC Championship, 2008

White to move. Find the most promising continuation.s

Black has been playing very fast so far in this tournament game, and even though I was pleased with having a centralized knight on e4, I did not look too far for a tactical refutation as well. Yet after 17. Nd6! Qc7 (I was incorrectly concerned about 17… e4, but that is just wasting time since the knight wants to come to g5 anyway) 18. Nfg5 Nd8 Qe1!? – Black’s position has too many weaknesses, and White is going to win at least a pawn – Black can’t guard the e5 pawn, while also trying to cover up f7. Black’s pieces are also too passive to provide any real compensation for it.

Black to move. White is practically winning

Instead I wanted to keep a positional advantage and blockade on e4, and lost all of my advantage after 17 Nfg5? Nxe4 18. Nxe4 f3! with unclear position. The game ended well for me, but this was definitely a mistake on my part early out of the opening. Had my opponent been making his moves a bit slower, I would actually try to play more aggressively. Instead, I wanted to play solid moves and just blockade e4,which gave me nothing special. So in that sense, his “bluff” actually worked quite well for him! I go over the entire game in this video.

How to learn the most from your online blitz games

2010-07-30T00:28:00.000-07:00

play with slower time controls. You won’t learn much from 1 minute games, and on ICC it does not take too long to find an opponent for a decent 15 minute game
focus, focus, focus, don’t get distracted on other windows open on your computer while opponent is thinking (or even worse – during your move!). I already wrote a whole other post about that.
don’t play online chess when you are tired. That kind of makes sense, since it’s hard to focus when you’re tired.
make sure all your games are automatically stored into a pgn file
review each game soon after it’s played
don’t feed it immediately to an engine, analyse by yourself for a bit
check the opening against a Reference DB to see where you and your opponent deviated from previously played games
if your opponent played something you completely did not expect - update your opening repertoire afterwards
don’t play too many games in a row
don’t take online chess too seriously, remember that over the board tournaments is a completely different game from online blitz

To the last point, when I played in my first British Columbia Junior championship a few years ago, the highest rated player had been a bit rusty. He had not played tournament chess for about a year, and he did not do so well (finishing outside of the top 3 from what I could recall) in our little competition. After the tournament he told me with a smile that he had played a lot of 1 minute games right before the tournament. He was doing really well in those, and assumed he was in excellent shape for the event. Switching time controls is never easy, I am sure we have all discovered that!

Improving time management in a chess game

2010-07-26T22:16:00.000-07:00

You can’t improve what you can’t measure. I recommend keeping track of the time you spent during the game. Once you get into the habit of adding clock information to every move, it won’t be any more of a distraction than recording the move itself. Once you get home – you can enter it later into your personal collection/database of games and later use it while analysing the game. I went over a quick example in my previous post on the same subject. To improve your time management, here are 10 questions to think about:

did you spent enough time during the critical moments?
were there simple moves on which you spent more time than necessary?
was your opening preparation sufficient to quickly play the opening moves?
did you take advantage of your opponent’s long thinking sessions by preparing a quick response against his most likely moves?
was your overall playing speed appropriate for the time controls in the tournament?
were you spending enough time on your moves even if your opponent was in time trouble?
is your thinking generally efficient? Are you careful about first identifying all candidate moves, or do you ever spend time calculating crazy complications to later discover that they are not necessary?
do you handle time trouble reasonably trouble well – stress wise? There are good blitz players, who collapse at the end of a long slow game due to time trouble…
can you play basic and/or simple endgames with little increment only? games are often decided in those long endgames when speed matters.
do you play in enough slow tournaments for any of this to even matter?

I suspect by answering these questions you will learn a lot more about your chess strengths and weaknesses in general. I personally suspect that my opening preparation is often falling behind so I sometimes have spend too much time early in the game. I also generally don’t get too stressed out by time trouble (not more than I usually am, that is), but even though I like the endgame, I know there plenty of endgames I misplayed that I might have saved if I had an extra half an hour on the clock! I am also really bad about thinking during my opponent’s time, I am usually so stressed out during my games that I can’t stay in front of the board while my opponent is thinking.

All in all, if your time management is poor, or if there is something you want to improve about it (I know I do) – the popular advice is to play training games or an entire tournament with focus on better time management. Even if it has a detrimental impact on your result just in that tournament – that would make you a better player in the long term.

A tactic that Karpov and Kasparov both missed

2010-07-25T15:27:00.001-07:00

Karpov – Georgadze, 1983

Black to move. Where should the rook retreat?
In this position Black played 24… Rcc8 and experienced difficulties after White transferred the knight to c6. He later lost the game.
In his book “My 100 wins” (1984) Anatoly Karpov instead recommended 24… Rc7 (presumably to make sure that Be7 is guarded when White knight arrives to c6) 25. Nb4 Qf5 – “starting the counter attack as soon as possible”. There is a little tactical problem with that suggestion, that Karpov probably overlooked. It is ironic that Kasparov later copied the entire annotation in his Volume 5 of “My Great Predecessors”, without spotting the mistake (and I am pretty sure it is a mistake, since White gets to win a pawn or exchange on a spot without obvious compensation). That just goes to show that even world champions should blunder check their recommendations with engines (although of course there were no engines when Karpov’s book was first published).

Here is the position after Karpov’s suggested improvement of “Rc5-c7”.

White to move. How to win material immediately?

Feeling critical moments in a chess game

2010-07-24T08:25:00.001-07:00

One important skill for a chess player is to feel the moment in a game when you really have to think hard and an make an important decision or two. How well do you sense such critical situations? In analysis, you or your engine can always identify the blunders, when advantage switches from one side to the other. But what about during the game? To measure your skill – I suggest recording time spent on each move on a score sheet during the game. While going through the game afterwards – it will be not hard to tell whether you spent enough time during the critical moments. You can also improve your time management by identifying moves on which you spent more time than necessary!

Looking at time spent will also reveal what of opponent’s moves came to you as a surprise…

Here is an example played with 1 hr 30 minutes per game, and 1 minute increments:
Yoos - Jiganchine, Keres Memorial 2009.
1. e4 c6
2. d4 d5
3. e5 c5
4. dxc5 e6
5. Be3 Nd7
6. Nf3 (1-24) Qc7 (1-29)
7. c4 (1-19) dxc4 (1-12)
8. Qa4 Bxc5 (1-11)
9. Bxc5 Qxc5
10. Nc3 Nh6 (59)
11. Ne4 (1-12) Qc6 (49)

Without even looking at the board or replaying the moves, this time spent after moves tells a story! Looking at the moves again, what can we see?
1. e4 c6
2. d4 d5
3. e5 c5
4. dxc5 e6
5. Be3 Nd7

The main line now is 6. Bb5
6. Nf3 (1-24)

Jack was spending several minutes here, so I was already feeling that my opening choice was not completely bad. But was he trying to remember theory, or just choosing which line to play to surprise me the most? He in fact had already played Nf3 in one of his games before!
6 ….Qc7 (1-29)
Now, the usual move is 6… Bc5, but because Black plays 6… Qc7 against 6.Bb5, I played the same move without much thinking. Clearly I did not sense an important difference between 6. Nf3 and 6. Bb5
7. c4 (1-19)
White must have either had this prepared at home and he was double checking, or it was part of his plan with Nf3. Either way, he was not spending too much time here yet.

7… dxc4 (1-12)
The almost 20 move think on move 7 shows that clearly I had not expected 7.c4, even though this is a somewhat common idea, and makes more sense with the queen on c7, rather than on d8.
8. Qa4 Bxc5 (1-11)
Only reasonable move, so makes sense to play it fast.
9. Bxc5 Qxc5
10. Nc3

Now Black has to choose between Nh6 and Ne7, so here comes a 10 minute think.
10… Nh6 (59)
11. Ne4 (1-12)

Again, White is playing reasonably fast, and at this point Black has to choose between 11… Qc6 and 11… b5 !?
11… Qc6 (49)
11 moves into it, I I already spent almost half of my time. I carried on in a similar fashion, got into time trouble and made a decisive blunder on move 16 already. All that could have arguably been prevented had a put a bit more thought on my critical decision on move 6, which I clearly did not!

David Bronstein had also been advocating including time spent as part of the game scores – since it is just as much part of the game as the actual moves! You can learn more about the trends in you play - going through the records of my games I noticed that in most games that I have lost – I had been spending more time than my opponent starting from the opening – this game against Yoos is a typical example.

It is a good tool for evaluating your overall understanding of the game as well. Mark Dvoretsky has an example in one of his books where he played an anti-positional move and immediately realized its flaws. He then goes on to explain that the fact that he played it very fast means to the coach that he is impulsive, whereas if he had spent a long time on it – that would have revealed poor positional understanding.

Analysing the endgame – looking for turning points

2010-07-18T21:08:00.001-07:00

The logic of any given chess game usually does not become apparent until you dig deeper into it move by move. It takes time to understand the features of the position, identify the characteristic ideas, key positions and their evaluations. The computer is helpful, but in the endgame you want to tell if the +1.69 evaluation shown by the computer engine can actually be turned into a win, or it is, in fact a theoretical draw.

This position is from one of my games from Canadian Championship in 2004, Jiganchine - Bailey

White to move. Evaluate the position. Click here to replay the entire game.

The position seems messy; White is slightly ahead on material, but Black’s pawns look quite dangerous. Who is better? White won the game, but primarily because my opponent tried to play against my time trouble. While analysing the endgame, I had 3 goals:

Establish some understanding and rough evaluation of the starting position
Determine key ideas for both sides
Go through the game move by move searching for improvements, keeping track of critical moments – when evaluation of the position changes – e.g. from being equal to winning for White.

After a couple of hours in front of the computer I came up with this:

The starting position is roughly equal – both sides can build a fortress of their own, so with correct play, I don’t see how any side can play for a win
White and Black have several ideas
1. White has two key ideas – to not lose, he needs to block Black ‘f’ and and ‘g’ pawns along dark squares, keeping the king on g3. If White wants to win – his goal is to obtain a passed pawn. That appears hard in the initial position, but may become a possibility if Black becomes too ambitious.
  Black to move. He can’t counter the advance of the ‘a’ pawn, while Black’s pawns are blocked.
2. Black’s idea is to support the advance of kingside pawns with the king, and if possible – to counterattack the pawn on h6. A position like this illustrates that Black’s pawns can get dangerous:
  White to move (analysis) – he is in zugzwang and is losing!
  If the rook moves from g7 along 7th rank – Black will play g4-g3 with deadly effect
Black was doing ok, but at some point erred by moving his king to e5 – too far from the ‘h’ pawns. Watch this video to follow my analysis of all the things that my opponent and myself had missed:

White to win – find the combination

2010-07-17T14:44:00.001-07:00

Johnson – Jiganchine, Keres Memorial 2007, Vancouver

White to move

Watch this YouTube video to see the solution.

Pawn storm in the Sicilian – Salov swindles Gelfand

2010-06-19T21:55:00.000-07:00

Salov – Gelfand, 1998

White to move

The d4 knight is attacked, but it is an essential piece for White’s initiative. How to keep the attack going and justify White’s pile of heavy pieces on the ‘h’ file?
Watch the video for the answer and to see the entire game – White actually got a bit carried away with his sacrifices and was lost right before the time control, but a fortunate swindle brought him a full point.