White to move 
surprisingly White's threats of Rd6-d8-h8 are completely dominating... )
Black to move.
White to move
Black to move
Black has a nearly decisive advantage here because the 'a' pawn is hard for White to deal with.
Black to move. Find the best move/plan (feel free to post it in the comments section).
Black to move. Find the best move/plan (feel free to post it in the comments section).
White to move
White to MoveIn order to improve my time management - I keep track of time I spend on every move during tournament games. Those get scribbled into score sheets by hand and then I enter them into the database by hand together with the moves themselves.
Do I ever look at them again? Not very often until now – having discovered how handy it is to look at this data in SCID score graph, so after converting values into the graph-friendly format, I can see my remaining time visually – from 100 minutes remaining on the clock to 0. I can see that my time took a drive on move 13 or so in a recent game I played.
Clicking on the dot on the graph – I can recall that I was trying to spend some time out of the opening – trying to find a plan, before playing 14… Qe7. Was it justified? Looking at the graph above – probably not.
After a (very) long break, I played in a major swiss chess tournament – Canadian Chess Open 2012 in Victoria. I scored only 50%, which is not too great given that all of my opponents were rated lower than myself. Nonetheless, I truly enjoyed playing after such a long break. Here is what I re-learned about competitive chess yet again:
Jiganchine – Degtiarev, 1996
Since I was not sure what I was supposed to do here, in this position I played 18. Ke2 and offered a draw, which was accepted.
Agreeing to a draw prematurely was a sin I was suffering from a lot during most of my years as an active chess player, especially in Junior tournaments back in Russia. How to do you assess the above position? I had just missed a winning line a few moves ago, and was disappointed by that. But looking at the position today, White still has several advantages:
Ironically, even today I did not think of it way it until I realized that a computer engine evaluates a position as +- without giving any direct winning ideas. I think White should:
I moved the pieces around, and arrived at this sample position:
In short, nothing is really indicating a draw here, White can play for a win without significant risk. Offering a draw can be explained by a combination of factors:
This endgame occurred in my game almost 15 years ago.
Jiganchine – Verkhovskaya, Alushta 1997
There are two legitimate questions associated with this position:
Hint: Black stands no chance in the king race, so he must play correctly with his pawns!
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
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.
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
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
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!
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
trying to stop the pawn immediately does not help either:
b) 42. Rb8 d3 43.Rd8 d2 44. h4 h5
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!!
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.
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 
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:
CORRECT CONTINUATION: Much better was 32... Rc3! 33. f4 Ra3 
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
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.
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 
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) 
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)
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)
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
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.
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.
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.
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