Rooks and Bishops – Find the best move

Matnadze, Ana - Gagunashvili, Merab
GEO-ch I Liga  2002.04.27  

White to move


Wirig, Anthony - Loetscher, Roland
Mitropa Cup 22nd  2003.05.19  

White to move

These positions are taken from my E-book about endgames with bishops of opposite colour:

The book is formatted for electronic readers and can be read on devices of various sizes, from tablets to phones. The free sample includes 3 thoroughly annotated games and the full book comes with dozens of training positions to help develop a good sense for positions with bishops of opposite colour.

I think ebooks are a very promising media for chess content, and would be very interested to hear what you think about it.

SCID vs PC latest release – docking feature

I am very impressed with the very latest release of SCID vs PC 4.9. It has a docking feature, which up to this point had been missing in this otherwise excellent (and free!) software product.

I can move sub-windows around, and as one would expect, as I navigate through the move in the game, SCID updates the tree view.

As a side note, while playing with docking, I also realized that any database in SCID can also be opened as a tree, which is very handy, and allows to look at multiple trees at the same time!

Bishop Endgame - Solution

Kiviharju – Ehrnrooth, Finland  1982  

Black to move
Solution: he must initiate a breakthrough on the queenside to create a second passed pawn. 1. ... b5! 2. axb5

( 2. Bxb5 Kxb3 -+ would give Black a passed 'c' pawn. )

2. ... f3+!

It is essential to open up the bishop to control 'b8' square, so that White does not get counterplay by advancing his own pawn. Material considerations are less important than strategic values!

( 2. ... a4? 3. Kf3 a3 4. b6 a2 5. b7 a1=Q 6. b8=Q+ = )

3. Kxf3 a4 4. Bd3 Kxb3   White resigned because he will have to give up the bishop for 'a' pawn. 0-1

This position is taken from my E-book about endgames with bishops of opposite color:

The book is formatted for electronic readers and can be read on devices of various sizes, from tablets to phones. The free sample includes 3 thoroughly annotated games and the full book comes with dozens of training positions to help develop a good sense for positions with bishops of opposite colour.

I think ebooks are a very promising media for chess content, and would be very interested to hear what you think about it.

Bishop Endgame – Find the Best move

Kiviharju – Ehrnrooth, Finland  1982  

 Black to move (Solution will be posted tomorrow)

This position is taken from my E-book about endgames with bishops of opposite color:

The book is formatted for electronic readers and can be read on devices of various sizes, from tablets to phones. The free sample includes 3 thoroughly annotated games and the full book comes with dozens of training positions to help develop a good sense for positions with bishops of opposite colour.

I think ebooks are a very promising media for chess content, and would be very interested to hear what you think about it.

Garry Kasparov Turns 50

Time flies, only “a few years ago” I was watching on Soviet TV an interview of a 27 year old Garry Kasparov while he was playing his last match against Karpov in 1990, and now he suddenly turns 50!

As a little tribute, here is a recent video I made of one of his last successful performances:

Training games for chess improvement – Botvinnik’s method

Mikhail Botvinnik was a big supporter of training games as a tool for the chess improvement.  He himself played a number of such games and later published some in the collection of his games. He showed how ideas developed in training games helped him to win the competitive games. In fact, Jan Timman published an entire book dedicated to Botvinnik’s training games.

As for myself, about 10 years ago I played a match of 10 training games against an opponent of roughly my strength. I lost the match by 1 point and overall it was a good experience. Both me and my opponent noticed that we were willing to take more risks than in usual tournament games. It also helped my opening repertoire to include the Open Sicilian.

Here is my analysis of one of Botvinnik’s training games: Part 1

Part 2

How to Analyze a Chess Game - 10 Point Checklist

I already wrote about analyzing chess games, but would like to return to the subject, as I have recently re-evaluated the thoroughness with which this has to be done. Now I created a 10 point checklist, which repeats some of the previous ideas, but is more appropriate in the context of a single analyzed game:

1. Is the opening well annotated? Will you likely have problems in the same line ever again? Against the same opponent?
2. Do you have an evaluation graph of the game – in SCID or elsewhere? If not – do you have an idea of when advantage shifted from one side to another?
3. Is every blunder marked as “?” in your analysis?
4. Have you updated your opening repertoire (if you have it stored on a computer) based on this game?
5. Did you learn anything about chess in general from this game? Write it down!
6. Did you learn anything about yourself? Did it reveal your weakness in any area of the game – tactics, strategy, psychological issues (lack of confidence, nervousness, etc)?
7. Was your time management in this game appropriate? Would a grandmaster have to spend as much time on those moves as you did?
8. Did you write down your thoughts? Did you put down all the candidate moves you considered?
9. Are there any moves that you did not consider during the game – but now realize should have been on your mind?
10. Does it now feel like you spent way too much time going through this game??