Just another chess blog

The Magician of Riga

2012-01-18T04:33:00.003+11:00

Mikhail Tal, 1936-1992

“Later, I began to succeed in decisive games. Perhaps because I realized

a very simple truth: not only was I worried, but also my opponent”

Alexander Kotov:
"There is no other grandmaster who can so entrance the spectators or inspire them to understand the hidden secrets of the game. Tal's own unbounded love for chess induces a similar feeling towards himself on the part of those who hold the game in high esteem."

John Nunn:
"Whatever the result, I always enjoyed playing Mikhail Tal. During the post-mortem he would enthusiastically demonstrate variation after fantastic variation, proving time and again that he had a wonderfully inventive chess mind and an amazingly quick tactical vision. Not all of the lines were sound, as he himself was well aware, but he was fascinated by the beauty and depth of chess... I am proud to have known Misha and to have played against him."

Gary Kasparov:
"He was the only one I knew who didn't calculate the variants, he saw them.

Interviewer: Can you elaborate?

GK: We calculate: he does this then I do that. And Tal, through all the thick layers of variants, saw that around the 8th move, it will be so and so. Some people can see the mathematical formulae, they can imagine the whole picture instantly. An ordinary man has to calculate, to think this through, but they just see it all. It occurs in great musicians, great scientists. Tal was absolutely unique. His playing style was of course unrepeatable. I calculated the variants quickly enough, but these Tal insights were unique. He was a man in whose presence others sensed their mediocrity.

He led a very unusual life. He didn't think of anything. He lived here and now, and this enormous energy was always around him. The positive energy. Tal was one of the few completely positive people I knew, he wasn't contentious. Chess is very contentious game by its nature, and he wasn't."

See photos below

It seems to me a lot of chess players first get in to chess because of Bobby Fischer, then they forget about him and move on to players like Mikhail Tal. We'd all love to believe in the myth of the lone American taking the Russians apart with beautiful inventions thought up at the board, but Fischer by his own admissions relied far more on knowledge than imagination. Invention was definitely the domain of Mikhail Tal, and he lived in the perfect age for it. It's often said that if Tal lived in the computer age he would just be a normal GM, that "play is now much more accurate" than in 1960 when Tal won the world title from Botvinnik, up to 1992 (the year Tal's death aged 52). This has some truth to it but is also nonsense- a quick look at Vishy Anand's awful loss to Hikaru Nakamura in the London Classic last month will show that even the world champion can crumble to an unorthodox attack. At club level though, if you have the stomach to try and emulate him, Tal is the perfect player to study. We all play inaccurately at times; Tal's attacks teach us what to look for in a badly coordinated defense, and how to exploit it.

After e5 white has open access to f7 and an open d-file to attack down

as is common in the Sicilian. Black's knight is effectively pinned to d7 due to white's

coordination against d8. Other ideas are (1) sacrificing a piece on b5 to gain an

even bigger development advantage, (2) if black plays f6 to break this attack on d8, e6 is critically weakened, (3) eventually playing Nd6+, Bxd6, Qxd6 is an idea.

After Ne4 white has monster knights. If he can clear the d-file with a sacrifice on e6 or b5 then Ne4-d6+ becomes a real threat because black is forced to swap his dark squared Bishop which is obviously crucial for defending the dark squares around the king. Without the f8 bishop to defend, black may be forced to play f6, weakening e6 (Black's Queen is easily pushed away from defending the dark squares.

White's rook has a few good squares to go to!

Holy crap! That surely wins just by the shock it delivers. With this sac, white clears the d-file and all his pieces are coordinated. By getting his d4 knight out of the way he is now threatening Nd6+, removing black's dark squared bishop and threatening mate on the dark squares. Once the dark squares are weakened, f6 is met by Nc7+, king moves, Nxe6!

Personally I think I can get much closer to understanding Tal than Karpov, and what's more I have more fun along the way. Tal himself said he loved the gather of people and the shocked gasps around him when he threw out his sacrifices. To try to play like him requires bravery, and it's certainly the most exhilarating feel you'll get from chess in my view. Remember:

"He who is afraid to sacrifice is afraid of chess"

And learn to sac.
A few more quotes to finish:

Alexi Shirov:
"I was too weak to understand his chess ideas at that time but I remember getting covered with cigarette smoke"

Vladimir Kramnik:

"We are all, in a sense, Tal's children; I grew up on his games and in my childhood I played in such a style."

Bent Larsen:
"Tal was a fearless fighter. Nobody could successfully accomplish so many incorrect manoeuvres! He simply smashed his opponents.

Tal:
"Mother, I have just become Ex-World Champion" (on returning home after losing the '61 rematch to Botvinnik

"If you wait for luck to turn up, life becomes very boring."

"My head is full of sunshine. – Mikhail Tal"

"The man who has proved that you can reach the top and remain human." (on who his chess hero was)

Mikhail Botvinnik:
I couldn’t make myself dislike him.

Edmar Mednis:
"In chess, at least, the brave inherit the earth." (commenting on Tal)

Grant Szuveges:

"I used to study his games a lot, that's where I got the dynamic attacking streak in my otherwise boring play"

I will not hide the fact that I love to hear the spectators react after a sacrifice of a piece or pawn. – Mikhail Tal

First, how to sac my queen, then rook, then bishop, then knight, then pawns. – Mikhail Tal (on what he thinks about after his opponent moves)

It's funny, but many people don't understand why I draw so many games nowadays. They think my style must have changed but this is not the case at all. The answer to this drawing disease is that my favorite squares are e6, f7, g7 and h7 and everyone now knows this. They protect these squares not once but four times! – Mikhail Tal

Round II! "You wanna beat snake? You gotta play like snake!"

2012-01-11T00:17:00.003+11:00

I've just started a new tournament in Buenos Aires and I'm enjoying it after an inaccurate but exciting win last night.

Next game Wednesday and I'm going to throw the Scotch gambit at an unsuspecting victim!

Movsesian - Kasparov (2000), Rxc3 in the Najdorf

2012-01-10T08:01:00.003+11:00

Movsesian - Kasparov (2000)
A game too good not to annotate!

I stumbled on this game the way any Najdorf player would: by typing in 'Kasparov 0-1' and clicking wildly. What really gets me about this game are two things:

After the Rxc3 exchange sac, what wins the game is typical Najdorf play- the exchange sac simply makes the usual themes stronger.
The old cliché "use every piece in the attack" is demonstrated pretty damn well!
And... In every club you have players who pick "systems" against a range of openings. Against the Sicilian the most common approach of a player who wants to get by with as little opening theory as possible is to play f3, 0-0-0, Kb1, and g2-g4-g5. This game shows that against the Najdorf, "slow", unchallenging play can often see the black pieces come to life and take over the position.

White's d2 knight and c1 Bishop defend key squares, but they also block white's Queen on e2 defending along the second rank and black's d1 Rook can't defend the open c-file. Black's play demonstrates how to take advantage of these weaknesses and use every piece in an attack.

Buenos Aires Chess Club!

2011-12-15T02:36:00.003+11:00

The Club Argentino de Ajedrez in Buenos Aires is frankly amazing! I played my first allegro there last night (running from 8pm - 1am on a weekday!) and was amazed by about 10 staff, a cafe/bar/restaurant on the second floor where you can also find the pieces/board from Fischer-Petrosian 1971, and Capablanca V someone too. They have over 500 members, around 100 photos of Najdorf all over the walls and events every day of the week all year round. Membership is costly at 80 pesos a month (18$) but you're clearly getting your monies worth!

What it does show you is the different potential for chess in a place where a single club can have over 500 members, and have posted opening hours of 5pm - 3am daily! Talking to a guy over a cigarette between rounds, he was saying that all the strongest chess countries are cold- Russia, Holland, Norway, Poland- and that it made sense that Australia didn't have as big a chess culture because we're all out playing sport or on the beach as kids. Argentina is hot, but judging from the 100+ photos of Najdorf on the wall all it takes is one enigmatic champion to enliven a love for chess.

After only a couple of tournaments in the last 12 months I had a horrendous start in a tournament with 30 players all over 1700, but felt a lot better after putting a few decent attacks together in rounds 4-7.

The London System

2011-06-21T02:07:00.009+10:00

What is a system? Basically it's a setup that certain players use practically regardless of what their opponent plays. There are positives and negatives to such an approach. Firstly it takes a lot of the opening work out of chess, and if you use that time studying the end or middle-game, I'd say it's a better use of your time than learning every possible variation after e4-e5. Another advantage is that systems are usually very very solid, and that's why they can be used against almost anything. In the London System no weaknesses are created by white in the early parts of the game and that presents a unique challenge to black- the challenge of patience! A lot of players will eventually play aggressive, weakening moves while white just slowly develops through the middle-game.

The negative side is obvious, the rigidity of it. Most strong players agree that it's important to understand a wide variety of setups or more importantly the ideas behind them.

FM Grant Szuveges suggested the following system, which is full of imbalances. Black needs to be comfortable playing a standard fianchetto defence like the KID, or Gruenfeld in case white transposes with 3. c4, but "London players" aren't known for their love of transpositions!

If white doesn't castle and fixes the center with c3, black might have to

defend a strong attack on the weakened light squares and up the h-file.

Here's an example from two of Melbourne's own: Ascaro Pecori playing white against Domagoj Dragicevic

Pecori - Dragicevic: What is better, Qb3+ or Bc4+?

Next let's have a look at what happens when white Castles Kingside.

Finally, here's my game from tonight! Not bad for a first try, but I got mixed up recognising what opening I was actually playing after it probably transposed from a King's Indian Attack Reversed against the London System, into a King's Indian Defence proper.

The end of this game gives me a bit more faith in how I'm studying and shows the difference between studying tactics and attack. The Nxd5! idea is not really a tactic- it's not "AxB, CxA then D is hanging" - it's based on understanding that white's knight on d2 blocks his defence along the second rank. It can move, but then it gives up the defence of f3. Understanding attack makes full use of all those problems in tactics books you've solved, as they'll never appear if you don't know how to get there. Think of a Samurai who knows a thousand ways to kill a man from a yard away, but took a few weeks off Samurai school when they were going over how to get inside the sweet sweet kill-zone. That's how most chess players have studied tactics. Gotta learn both people!

---------------------
I also looked at this briefly for whom it may interest! (not me!)

Preparing for the London I found it very frustrating that I couldn't seem to create an interesting, imbalanced position no matter what I played with Black. Here's what Roman Dzinishvilli recommends in "openings for black explained" with some annotations I made while trying to understand it!

What I don't like about this is that I really don't know what to do in the middle-game. It seems to me that Black has set up like a Sicilian, but with none of the logical counter-play against e4 or on the c-file that makes the Sicilian setup sensible.White has some small attacking plans against d6 and creating some weaknesses with a2-a4 and black even needs to defend economically with accurate moves in some variations.

Attacking the fianchetto

2011-06-08T07:01:00.007+10:00

This week is the 5th round of the MCC Open and my opponent plays the fianchetto defences. Whilst I've been guilty (for the first time in a while!) of studying some opening lines, I'm trying to stay true to the philosophy of studying more general themes through whatever opening is relevant each week. On pulling out a few attacking manuals and flipping to the "attacking the fianchetto castled position" chapters, I've gone through some great games.

The first is a win by Mikhail Tal which features all three techniques against the fianchetto that i'll be focusing on:

1) "The Benoni Jump" which features a knight jumping in to f5 after white has played g4 and usually a rook to g1. The knight obviously threatens the defensive Bishop and the dark squares around the black king as well as opening the g-file after gxf5, gxf5.

2. Pushing the h-pawn. The fact that black has played g6 means that white's h (or f!) pawn can come into contact with black's defensive shield a move earlier than usual. What is impressive in this game is how long Tal maintains the tension before playing an eventual hxg6.

3. Lining up Queen and Bishop on the dark squares

The second game is the very famous Karpov - Korchnoi game II from the 1972 candidates final, an important moment for the Yugoslav Attack against the Sicilian Dragon. Karpov's novelty 19. Rd3 caused a change in Dragon theory with h5 to block white's h4-h5 push often played by Dragon players today.

This game, as is often the case in the St. George attack, features a lot of the tactical theme "deflection" and "removing the guard" (the f6 knight). If you haven't seen the game before, take the time not to treat it as the "theory" it has become- personally I've never looked at these lines out of disdain for the 'memory-work' the Yugoslav requires, but once you start to look at the reasons behind each move rather than just look at it as a variation 26000 sixteen-hundred players have memorised, then you can appreciate it and learn from it.

Finally- here's a random tactic! White to play and win, enjoy!

The Stonewall

2011-05-28T18:51:00.001+10:00

....knock down their shitty wall!

Every club has one! On Monday I've got a long awaited rematch against the Stonewall of M.C.C legend Roger Un-Beattie-able! I played a nice game with him in the Victorian Championship Reserves last year. Even though I hadn't studied the Stonewall setup before, I managed to build a good position at the board. (The lessons learned from that game were the weaknesses created by 6. a6?! and 15. f5?)

To start with, some older ideas. One obvious plan in a fixed pawn structure is to play Ba6 and swap weak bishop for strong bishop. But swapping isn't always good. For example, it's not worth swapping the Bishop if white takes back with a pawn covering the hole he has made on e4. This is something to remember in all variations of the stonewall.

From Andrew Soltis': Pawn Structure Chess

Another example is given in the Queenside Stonewall:

White has exchanged Bishop for knight on c6 and black uses the doubled

pawns to control the central squares

Now on to some more modern ideas:

It's up to everyone to choose their own system, I don't mind this one. Crucially black gets his c8 Bishop out before playing e6. Let's have a look at the position and make some general strategic comments:

At move 6 white has made 4 pawn moves to black's 3
I feel that white's e3 pawn is a little overworked: after an eventual cxd4, white will either play exd4, weakening the f4 pawn, or cxd4, weakening b4 (see Valderrama - Korneev where white is forced to play a3)
The position is closed, so these tempi are not as important as in an open position.
Due to the c3 pawn, white's b1 knight and c1 bishop lack space to move into. Because of that, black should definitely hold off cxd4 and let white struggle with the space disadvantage for these pieces.
Both sides will usually castle King-Side, though white can leave the King in the center.
Black should be careful of Bxh7 sacs given the position of his Bishop on g4 (Bxh7, Kxh7, Ng5+ then Qxg4 is a common tactical idea)
White can have tactical problems on the c-file, especially if he plays slowly and doesn't move the b1 knight, bringing the a1 rook into the game. If black has time to play moves like Rc8 and Qc7, then maneuvers like cxd4 followed by Nb4 can cause trouble.
After obvious moves like h3 black should carefully consider where he places his Bishop- often f5 is the best square despite the fact white doubles the pawns with Bxf5. The f5 pawn solidifies black's control of e4, stops white playing f4-f5 and importantly opens the e-file and white's e3 becomes a weakness.
Because of the pin with Bg4, Ne4 can be quite strong for black, especially after white castles. White can take the knight on e4 with: Bxe4, dxe4, h3, but obviously this is going to be weaker after white has castled as black can play exf3, hxg4, fxg2

Black's 12. Bxe5 is a tough move to see. In an opening where we're constantly told about 'good and bad bishops' I wouldn't even come up with Bxe5 as a candidate. f6 and Ne7 (followed by f6) come to me immediately. So let's try to work out why the GM took the continuation Bxe5, fxe5, f6:

There are long-term and temporary aspects of every chess position- in this one the long-term weaknesses are:

White's backward e3 pawn on a semi-open file
The outpost on e4
Black's f5 pawn
White's dark squared Bishop

None of these weaknesses change after Bxe5! So it's a question of whether the d6 Bishop is really a strength- at the moment it's not.
The temporary weaknesses are white's development problems with the a1/b1/c1 pieces.
So in my view, Bxe5 is a way of keeping the weaknesses in the white position alive, but quickly opening the position too: the best of both worlds. Essentially black has to choose between Bxe5, fxe5, f6 or Ne7, Nd2. Black thought that using the development lead was his best road to an advantage.

Coaching, thought process and the philosophy of taking on strange opening moves

2011-05-08T04:01:00.011+10:00

So, the last tournament I played I was lucky enough to win the A-group rating prize, which was some coaching with FM (2347) Michael Baron. Michael has a style I admire; no computers, no inordinate amount of opening study; you can tell he's studied chess in the Russian style and understood the game in a way that's different to most top Australian-born players.

We looked at the following game, the focus was mainly philosophical and based on thought process, so don't read on if you're expecting to learn anything specific about Sicilian positions! Michael then gave me 4 games to study with similar/relevant themes which i'll go through in more detail.

What is the best move for black in this position?

That was a trick question. The point of this lesson was that black shouldn't necessarily be looking for the best move. Candidates for "the best move" might be:

d5
Bxa3
Nc6
Bc5

Which all try to look at the position as some finite riddle to be solved. Looking at the specifics of this position and trying to refute or exploit the opening was not the right way to go about it. Michael gave d6! as the best move and now that I look at it I totally agree with him. Thinking about it:

If white plays c4?! hoping to go into a Maroczy Bind setup, we can assume the a3 knight will eventually go to c2. A knight on c3 is crucial in the Maroczy as it covers black's two liberating pawn breaks b5 and d5. So that setup is out for white
Nc4 will be met with the excellent b5! when Black gets a free tempo setting up his normal Najdorf setup with pressure on e4.
What other plans does that knight have?!!?!

Finally, it gave me a first insight into chess coaching. It's an interesting experience. No chess player worth his salt doesn't have his or her own opinions about the game, about learning and about their philosophy on chess. But in coaching there's no room for ego and if you want to learn anything you have to be ready to accept, or at least consider without ego in the way, the wisdom of others!

Stay tuned for the 4 games which i'll try to get through this week:)

An annotation: Kasparov V Karpov Game 20, 1990

2011-04-07T21:06:00.006+10:00

Black does not want to play fxe4:

1. White will take back with Nd2, improving his worst placed piece.

2. With d2 vacated, white can play Bd2! then Bxb4, freeing c2 and d3 for the Queen to batter the light squares around the King.

3.If black defends those light squares around his king with Nf6, we notice fxe4 has given up g4, allowing the maneuver Nh2-g4 removing the defender.

The Theory - Najdorf (7. Nd7)

2011-02-25T16:56:00.008+11:00

Unfortunately one of the most logical systems in chess is also one of the most theoretical. I say that because the Najdorf is a great system to play when white doesn’t play strict "book". In my experience, if white doesn’t play theoretical lines black inevitably takes over the position by playing fairly obvious moves, putting pressure on points he's set up to attack better than white is to defend. It reminds me of a comment that made me laugh on ozchess - a correspondence game was started with 1.e4 and Dave Beaumont said “positional mistake- the pawn’s under-defended.” The Najdorf is a system that often makes me think that statement is true!

Anyway- White has good chances in the sharp theoretical lines, as for the rest, even for an undercooked positional player like me – the position plays itself. I'll look at 6. Bg5 lines with a delayed Be7 for black, which makes sense because black rarely castles in the Najdorf anyway.

a) One nasty sideline with 10. Bxf6 & 11. e5
b) The horrible world of Nd5 sacs!
c) The Sozin setup with Bc4 - which deserves a post of it's own.

In the first sentence I distinguished between the theoretical and the logical, because that’s what it sometimes feels like for me. That’s slightly unfair to the theory though, so in this post I’ll try to show the logic behind the theory. Before you read this post on theory I'd recommend looking back at posts (1, 2, 3) to understand the themes of the Najdorf when white doesn't play accurately (if you don't already know them).

a) 10. Bxf6 sideline

What a tedious amount to have to learn for a sideline! I thought I'd try to show some logic behind these strings of moves, and though there are some typical Najdorf moves from both sides in there, I'm thinking more and more that it's just memory work. I haven't memorised an opening for many years and it's helped my chess (and my enjoyment!) a lot, but sometimes you have to take the good with the bad- below 2000 level the Najdorf is an opening you can play with common sense, but you have to be prepared for a guy who's had Fritz running on deep position analysis until his keyboard's melted too.

b) Nd5 sacs

Black to play: Qb6!?, Rc8!?, Be7!?

You can't really stop a Nd5 sac if white wants to play one, and no matter what rating Rybka gives it, you have to be a great defender to stay alive. There are 3 possibilities:

1. Palliser gives Qb6! But only if you're able to play a tricky ending with 3 white pieces for your queen:

2. Rc8 - I'd love to make this move work. It develops, it ties up the d3 bishop a little bit, and I like the idea of provoking a move like Kb1 when black can get another tempo to coordinate/develop his pieces. The following is just me playing around with Rybka, it's amazing how black gets these +2, +3 positions which turn into losses with one inaccurate move.

(14. Bf4 is also pretty challening, black can give up an exchange and get a comfortable position. Qc4 is probably the move for black.)

3. Be7 is arguably safer, pushing the game into known waters as white really only has Qg3! to continue the attack. It's a simple attack to play and an extremely difficult defence which makes me not at all drawn to it.

I'll post a few annotated games in this line as I play them- tonight is fixed opening night at the MCC and I'm sure there'll be a few people keen to come and obliterate the Najdorf!;)

Update!

2011-01-27T03:50:00.002+11:00

I've been having a few weeks off chess for other things, but i'll update our annotations of the Najdorf games I played last month:

The first game you can find studied here:

http://www.ozchess.com.au/games-analysis/1993-pablito-15-vs-superbunny-match-najdorf.html#post35102

Thematic Blitz!

2011-01-07T23:46:00.002+11:00

Hi there!

Had the chance to play a 6 game "thematic" blitz match against a friend (~2000) from the Melbourne Chess Club last night which we're just starting to analyse. I played the black side of the Najdorf 6 times and we're posting some thoughts here:

http://www.ozchess.com.au/games-analysis/1993-pablito-15-vs-superbunny-match-najdorf.html#post34736

I was of course outclassed by the stronger player especially over 5 minutes, but this sort of thing gives you a great idea of the moves that come naturally to you and what ideas you have right/are missing as "automatic" responses.

Down with the Sicilian Kan!

2010-12-10T00:16:00.000+11:00

This week I'm playing a fixed opening game with Andreas (who I've been training and talking chess with for about a year now!) in his pet line, the Sicilian Kan. I've decided to study a line that would usually never appeal to me, the Maroczy Bind, which is hugely different from the "piece play" chess I usually go for. As I explained in my last post, I'm trying to study some foreign positions at the moment and hopefully learn from new structures and goals in opening systems.

So- the Sicilian Kan. In the theory I'm looking at, 6 of black's first 8 moves are pawn moves, and his other two moves are from the same dark squared Bishop. I've got to say that after looking at it for an hour or so, I don't have a lot of respect for it at an early stage:

So, how does this position differ from a Najdorf for black? Simple- it's far weaker.

Black has played d6 and g6, usually a faux pas in the Siclian, as it gives the dark squared bishop too many jobs. He has to babysit the weak d6 pawn and the open dark diagonal- he can't do that with just one bishop.
Against the hedgehog setup, white's c3 knight is usually a hard piece to activate. Several sacrifices have been tried with it, Nd5!? the most famous of them, to try to use the knight the hedgehog tries to stifle. In the Kan, black's un-challenging play has allowed white to leave out Nc3, where it is often just a dead block of wood.
The only advantage black has over the Najdorf is the displacement of white's d4 knight, but that came with tempo and it is a temporary disadvantage not a structural one.
White has the possibility of Bh6, preventing castling.
White has a Queen on e2, supporting an e4-e5 push.
I would imagine that due to black's non-forcing play, that he'd have to know a lot of theory and be comfortable playing against pretty much whatever system white wants to play against him.
White has a development lead.

Looking through some names I see Kamsky, Ivanchuk, Svidler, Grisuk using the Kan, so it can't be as bad as all that. But we have to try to come to our own views on the openings even if they're not all 100% accurate. With my understanding of the Kan, though some of it might be just plain wrong, I'm at least going in with some ideas about black's position rather than just playing blind or trying to work things out on the spot. Our ideas of positions guide our thinking, guide the tactics we'll pull out of a position and the accurate/inaccurate moves we'll consider- since I've started becoming opinionated about openings my play has been a lot more directed, challenging and sensible.

One of those deceptive positions where Fritz will give +=
but which, in reality, probably has one line which maintains equality
and 5 black gets totally smoked in. It's an aggressive position for white,
with a lot of threats, and to get counter-play black is going to have to make
more weaknesses than he already has. Fritz can be a jerk like that: he'll give
= in a position and players will think ok great, nothing wrong with this. The
reality is: = for a computer and = for a human is a vastly different thing. The Kan
is one of those openings, like the King's Indian for black, where one wasted move
can have far more impact than in other openings, because black's position
is already on a knife's edge with structual and development disadvantages.
White can break up the Queenside, attack through the middle with e5 or f5,
he can put a positional clamp on black with c4, Bd2 and a4... all in all, I don't
wanna be black in this position! There are certain openings that belong in the
hands of masters- this Bc5 Kan is one.

Playing a4- When is it good!?

It's one of those moves average players don't really get. You see it in the Benko (a5), to weaken white's Queenside, you see it in the Lopez- Worall attack, to strengthen White's Queen on e2, some lines of the King's Indian, quite often in the older games in the Sicilian to stop counter play. And of course, it's a constant theme against the Kan (Maroczy Bind). Anyway- that's something I plan to keep in mind and post on.

Finally, we just played our fixed opening game so i'll post it- it was very interesting and I was happy to make a reasonably accurate rook sacrifice on move 20. Andreas didn't play the awful Bc5 line suggested in "play the Sicilian Kan" (I still can't believe anyone would advise "improving" players to use that line), what he played asked a lot more of white's planning skills until his 11. e5? made life easy.

Beginners Rook Endings

2010-12-06T17:54:00.001+11:00

Find Barrance

Ok so here we are, my secret shame. I've spent all of about 30 minutes looking at rook endings, and unsurprisingly that's where I'm dropping the highest number of games.

It should be slightly illogical that I've been writing for an audience of 1700ish, trying to find the backbone of the Najdorf, when I don't even know the Philidor position, but something tells me I'm not the only one in that boat!

A general point: a few weeks ago I went to the Melbourne Chess Club "Openings Group" and what you notice when surrounded by the likes of Michael Baron (2324) and Carl Gorka(2179) (pictured above), is that they are not particularly *amazing* opening players. I can think of a few sub 2000 players who know far more theory than them. But what they do have is a great balance in their abilities. One piece of advice they both gave was not to get bogged down studying one opening system, but rather learn to understand a variety of formations and setups. So- in the next few months my goal is just that: Balance, not just with openings but across all of my chess.

1. Rook and King VS King and Pawn
6R1/8/5K2/2k5/1p6/8/8/8 w - - 0 1

From Edmar Mednis', Practical Rook Endings (great book!)
Remember, for "white" to win, he must get his King and Rook to cover a square the black pawn passes through. Remember that the Rook is a long range piece, and can come into the action at any time- so focus on getting the King to perform the right function!

White to play in a critical position:

Forces the black King away from the defence of d2/d3/d4 and therefore c2/c3/c4 too

It's also interesting to study with black to move first, when the black king needs to (a) assist his own pawn forward, and (b) block out the opposing king.

2. Here's an example of how not to do it:

What did black do wrong?
3r4/8/1PK2p2/5k2/8/8/8/1R6 b - - 0 70

3. An instructive example from Reti (particularly interesting is black to play &draw after Rd1?)

8/4K3/8/3pk3/3R4/8/8/8 w - - 0 1

4. Rook V two connected pawns: A simple one illustrates a more global concept

A simpler (theoretical) one shows a global concept: white plays Rg7 to immobilise the black pawns, then he can play the instructive: 1. ... Kb7, Kb3 (of course Rg4 wins in this example), Kc6, Kc4! Black to play wins with 1. f3, when "two connected passed pawns on the 6th beat anything, up to a royal flush." (Ian Rogers!) The point of this simple example is show similar themes in more practical positions like the next few:

White to play and win

So the common theme in all these is that the side with the pawns is trying to get them both on the 6th rank without any damage, and that the side with the Rook is trying to stop that. A few quick ones to illustrate the point:

White to play and win
Very Interesting to try to find the draw for black if white blunders:

And one last R v P before I move on to the Philidor/Lucena:
White can win using some of the themes above:

8/8/8/8/4k3/3pp3/R7/4K3 w - - 0 1

5. The Philidor position:

The philidor draw is fairly easy to achieve by following 3 rules:
i. Your rook on the third/sixth rank and king defending the last rank
ii. Keep the rook on the third rank until your opponent moves his pawn forward to the third.
iii. At that moment, play your rook back to the 1st/8th rank and check until drawn

6. The Lucena position

7. Reaching the Lucena position!

So remember- Find Barronce!

Tactics Tactics Tactics!

2010-12-05T22:05:00.000+11:00

Found a good resource I thought I'd share with you all.

For the last few months I've found myself lacking motivation to work through tactical problems, reason being that after doing a trillion of them I wasn't seeing the improvement in my chess that I'd hoped for. Well, I went from 15-1800 on the ICC, but ICC ratings are probably more about concentration than improvement.

Anyway, I've started studying general attacking ideas recently in a bid to make more use of the tactical patterns I've learned, but even in times when solving problems isn't a priority I think we need to look at the occasional exercise to keep patterns we've learned fresh!

So- in that spirit: pattern recognition videos, for the lazy student!

http://www.chessvideos.tv/wiki/index.php/Tactics_Videos

I have this week off work too so stay tuned for some end game stuff maybe:)!

Attacking the orthodox castled position

2010-11-06T18:16:00.000+11:00

ATTACK: THE ORTHODOX CASTLED POSITION

So the quest continues, to learn the fundamentals of this game before the opening theory, and hopefully pick up some opening knowledge along the way.

Knowing how to attack in general rather than just a few set patterns of attack from openings (like pushing the h-pawn against the dragon, or bringing the white Queen to the dark squares via e1 in the Grand Prix attack), is far more useful. It's far more noble too- you'll get a lot more out of chess if you learn it's spirit rather than memorise a few movements.

Most attacks are based on making weaknesses in the castled position then exploiting them. Last post I mentioned the Queen/light squared Bishop battery (in lots of Queen's pawn openings), on the white squares hitting h7, paired with maneuvers to weaken black's defense of h7 like Bg5, e4-e5 etc. Anyway! Let's look at a few more examples:

1. Azmaiparashvili - Rashovsky
"Going for the jugular!" A cliché yes, but I can't think of any other way to describe this game. White offers e4 for rapid development, plays an early f4 and I can't imagine a quicker attack really!

game continues below;)

So... what can this game teach you? I don't think you (or Azmaiparashvili) calculate attacks like that all the way through, but it does show you 2 things you can remember: firstly, pushing away the kingside defence and organising your game to attack the weak points that creates. and (B): tempo is your friend.
*You can also find this game annotated in Jacob Aagard's fantastic "attacking manual" video series

2. Steinitz V Macdonnell
"attack the weakest point in your opponent's defence"
This game shows you how far defending has come since the old days. Definitely not played in the style of today, but it illustrates two important ideas: cramped positions, and attacking the weakest point.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

a typical plan for white in the 'Sozin'

Not sure if anyone can make sense of that or if it just makes things more confusing!! To weaken d5 white usually:

Plays Bg5 and swaps Bish for Knight on f6.
pushes the f-pawn up the board forcing black to play e5 leaving a hole on his target d5.
Remove the final black defender of d5 by swinging his d4 knight to e2, g3, then h5 and swapping on f6 again. He'll then have a minor positional advantage

Any Sozin players looking for some general annotations can check out John Emms' "Simple Chess" which has 3 or 4 Sozin's in the "outposts" chapter.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Ok, so I lied- I promised to show some simple attacking maneuvers and ended up showing a couple of crazy games with totally different themes... next time!

Learning Logically

2010-11-04T02:11:00.000+11:00

For something entirely cognitive you'd have thought that by now some bearded team of psychologists would've come up with a definitive study method to drill in chess. "Study the end game first the opening last, go through master games, repeat sets of tactical problems, play 1. e4 when you get started, vary your openings, annotate your games blah blah blah blah!" It's all good advice, but I think it lacks a sequence.

For example, annotating games has been really useful for me recently. I've got to a point where I can take a master game, look through it and recognise some positional ideas by myself with no outside notes and learn from it. But I never could've done that if I hadn't spent a month going through general middle-game and positional books beforehand. And it's exactly the same annotating your own games- you can't annotate your own games unless you have some type of positional knowledge to help you realise where and why you might have gone wrong.

I remember when I used to annotate my games 3 years ago: I'd put it through Fritz and say "oh, this is a mistake because he goes here, I go there, then he goes here and he's going to win the bishop pair: - .88" : the fact is that this doesn't improve your 'positional' understanding or help you make the correct decision next time. Now, I still make a lot of positional mistakes in my games, but at least when I go through them I can clearly see why they're positional errors. So, what I'm saying is that "study master games" and "annotate your games" is not particularly good advice to an improving player because it's imcomplete. The correct advice would be "go through a general/positional text until you understand the concepts in it, then you can start to meaningfully annotate games."

Another piece of misleading advice is "until you're 1800 your first name is tactics, middle name is tactics and last name is tactics". Whilst this is totally true, and it's obvious that the easiest way to improve from 1500-1700 is to go through a few tactics books, it can also be totally stupid. For example, learning "how to build an attack" is totally different to spotting a combination. The fact is that about 40% of most tactics books are mating problems, and it makes absolutely no sense to spend that much time learning how to put the finishing touches on an attack, before you've gone through a book like Vukovic's "art of attack" which will give you some understanding of how to build one. In the last year I've done around 5000 tactical problems, only now do I realise that all of that time is not being used correctly, because I don't know how to attack. I've been complaining recently that "tactics never seem to appear in my games anymore" - I see the ones against me, and of my last 11 games... I think I've landed one tactical blow. Studying how to build an attack is going to maximise the worth of time I've spent studying tactics, that and strategy is what I'm focusing on now.

Finally, before I go through some games two more points: I recently watched a documentary starring Susan Polgar called "My Brilliant Brain" which gave Ms. Polgar an MRI scan whilst she was reflecting on some of her previous games. Whilst she was in the scanner they also showed her some pictures of famous chess icons through history. What they found was that the part of the brain that lit up when she was shown the faces of chess icons (let's call it the "facial recognition" part of the brain) was exactly the same part of the brain that lit up when she was shown her previous games. The inference they drew from this was that Susan used recognition of stored patterns more than "rational thought" when she played chess. Frank Lekkas pointed out to me that he thought the test was totally unfair because she's being shown games she's previously played so obviously she's not going to think about them like normal chess positions, she's just going to remember the sequences she previously thought of. That is totally true, but I think the example shows something pretty important too- we all look to FMs IMs and GMs for advice, but the experience of a club player and a GM playing a game is totally different. For a GM, memory and stored patterns play a huge part, a club player however uses a far greater component of "rational or logical thought".

And lastly- know at least one ending well. King and pawn endings or rook endings for example. I think it's infinitely useful to be able to swap down into an ending you know is winning and know how to win -it gives a whole new dimension to your play. Having said that, it obviously doesn't make sense to study too much of the end game while you're still getting smashed by tactical blows in the middle game!

ATTACKING THE ORTHODOX CASTLED POSITION

"This formation is considered the toughest to break down because it presents the fewest potential weak points as compared to the fianchettoed position. The prime aim of any attack against the orthodox castled position must be to provoke a weakness in its structure in order to focus the attack there. A common battery used to force the weakening pawn move g6 or h6 is the Queen lined up on the b1-h7 diagonal in front of the King's Bishop (or Q+B on the a1-h8 diagonal to force f6)... and the removal of the Nf6 defender." (From the Modern Art of Attack, 1988) Obviously the typical manouvers are e4-e5 to push away the Nf6 defender, if g6 has been played f2-f5 and h2-h5, and if h6 has been played g2-g5 to open the h-file.

Things we should notice about this position:

h3 has weakened white's control of the dark squares.
Re1 has weakened white's defence of f2- particularly the defence of the g1-a7 diagonal which the fianchettoed Bishop threatens. For example white cannot meet Bd4+ by giving back an exchange with Rf2, he simply has to suffer an attack on the dark squares.
White's Nd2 is awkwardly placed, blocking his dark squared Bishop's defence of the dark squares.
Intuitively we can see white's pieces are in each other's way and it will take him another couple of moves to coordinate them well.

and a quick miniature:

(From Cozen's "lessons in chess strategy")

and.. I'll go out with a problem: black to play and win

"This is where the theory begins..."

2010-10-26T16:50:00.000+11:00

Said my opponent ominously. Before smashing me with black and white about 10 times. And he's dead right- This Bg5 line is what I come up against about 70% of the time I break out the Sicilian, and most players know this position really well. White usually plays f5 or Bh3, both designed to further weaken the vulnerable e6 or the light squares around the king (a6 is also common).

In the last post I mentioned I had such a tough time trying to crack this line as white, that I've started playing it as black occasionally! I'm so happy to report that, coming up against a ~2000 white player, it's just as hard for black to handle:)!! (and) I was happy to beat a 1900 player on the weekend with white- a nice bishop sac on e6.

Before we start i'll ask a simple question: What are white and black trying to achieve in the above position?

And from here, fireworks! The type of fireworks so often required from white to get an advantage against the Najdorf. That's what makes it such a great defense especially against a weaker player, if white wants an advantage he's usually forced to take a risk and show some decent knowledge of attack in the follow-up.

This is actually a fascinating position to analyse if
you want to do so before looking at the end of the game:
(white to move)

I'm not sure if 0-0-0 is common in the Bg5 najdorf- at move 9 I've seen b4 for black, when the continuation axb4, Qc4 is normal.

The next couple of games come from two icons, the late, great Bent Larsen and the brilliant Boris Spassky. For me, Larsen epitomises the pre-computer age and what was great about it. Anyone who gets the chance to read "Good move guide" (1982) should do it- you'll see the rational, logical foundation Larsen used to analyse positions, which in the computer/theory age so many players skip over.

Boris Spassky for me is everything that chess should be. Every time I've seen him he has had a smile on his face, he's a pure gentleman who loves the game. I loved his interviews with Judith Polgar at the candidates last year, when he was talking about why players persist in repeating a variation they've lost with- he described them as two bulls butting each other with their horns, and went on to give a visual demonstration much to the joy of photographers and press. What's great about these two is that they haven't shirked competition either- Larsen played a tournament 5 or so years ago and scored 0/9 playing untheoretical openings, and Spassky was playing head-to-head games with Korchnoi I believe before his illness.

And I'll annotate this one tomorrow:

The Najdorf & other Sicilians.

2010-08-15T14:35:00.000+10:00

Position from Keres-Winter, 1935. Black to move,

notice the attacking potential & communication between white's pieces.

The Siclian is the toughest defence for an improving e4 player to play against. Black's play is obvious- press the weak e4 pawn, increase the pressure on the c-file, stop white pushing e5/f5 easily.

White's advantage however is based on much more elusive advantages for an improving player, like using a semi-open d-file, forcing black to weaken support for d5 then using it as an outpost, knight sacs on e6 followed up by checks on the h5-e8 diagonal displacing the black King, and in some lines- a time advantage. The following games I've picked out of positional/middle-game/general books, which is how I like to study the openings. The first 5 are atypical Sicilians with black doing something unusual and Paul Keres & co showing some thematic attacking ideas, games 5-10 show ideas for white in more usual contexts.

Keres V Winter, 1935 (Art of Attack, Vukovic)
Keres V Najdorf, 1955 (Tactics in the Siclian, Nijboer & van der tak)
Suetin, Alexi (Theoretical) (A contemporary approach to the middlegame)
Lombardy - Quinteros, 1973 (Maxims of Chess, Collins)
Frericks - Essert, 1988 (Attacking Manual, Aagaard)
Radjabov-Rowson, 2004 (My annotation, white plays 8. Qd3! in the "poisoned pawn")
Tal-Gligoric, 1963 (The life & games of Mikhail Tal)

1. Keres - Winter, 1935. A really instructive game on weak points in the black camp and the coordination of Keres' white pieces. (From Vukovic's Art of Attack)

2. Keres - Najdorf, 1955. Another thematic Nd4 & Qh5+ linkup.

3. How openings develop: "The poisoned pawn variation",

On the left (black to play, fxe6 is a mistake), white has exactly the sort of complicated position he wants at the cost of the pawn. On the right (white to play), black, by hitting the unprotected h4 bishop with tempo, forces white to make-a decision- pacifying the position.

4. Lombardy - Quinteros, Manilla 1973: Brilliancy Prize. A nice example of how to attack the King that can't castle.

A video on the game:

5. Frericks - Essert, 1988. There is a nice video on this game from Jacob Aagaard's "attacking chess manual" in the "attack the weakest point in your opponent's King position" section.

With the f6 knight removed, and black's dark squared bishop able to defend g7,
h7 is the weakest square around the black king.

6. Radjabov - Rowson, 2004: An instructive gameplan based on the light squares for white. The variation is a poisoned pawn Najdorf with 8. Qd3 for white.

8. Qd3 in the poisoned pawn Najdorf.
Radjabov based his strategy on weakening the light squares.

6. Tal-Gligoric, 1963 (The life & games of Mikhail Tal)

to be continued......................!

Ehlvest - Kasparov, 1991 (How to play dynamic chess, Valeri Belim)
Spassky - Petrosian, 1969 (More Simple Chess, John Emms)
Fischer - Camara, 1970 (Planning in Chess, Janos Flesch)
Leko - Svidler, 2007 (Planning after the opening, Neil McDonald)
Borgo - Acs, 2000 (Excelling at positional chess, Aagaard)
Anand - Leko, 2006 (The art of planning in chess, move by move, McDonald)

I WIN A GAME! (on time!)

2010-08-13T04:04:00.000+10:00

In the last 18 months or so I've totally thrown away my opening books, in this tournament it's hurt me but now that I've done it I'll be in a better position to understand any opening study I do from here on. Anyway- tonight I played a semi-slav against a 1900 player, I think it's one of the few openings in my repetoire I understand really well and hopefully I can pass on some useful advice in it.

I'll preface this by saying I think I'm enjoying my chess more than ever when playing the Semi-Slav, some might look at pawns on e & c6, a lack of space and a horrible c8 bishop for black and just discount it as "not for them" (I certainly did, which is why I struggled with the "hyper aggressive" KID for a long time). The fact is that the semi-slav is full of strategy and usually results in an attack on the white King based on weak colour complexes and so on. Anyhow- here's the game, soon i'll do a wider study of the semi-slav on this here blog!

Not the most glorious of wins and it shows that even after having played the opening well, playing a move (14. Ne5!?) that let white make things very tricky, rather than finding the pacifying Qc5 turned a good opening phase on it's head.

In summary, play the Semi-Slav, it's awesome.

PS. For anyone looking for a bunch of annotated games on the Semi-Slav, find Andrew Soltis' "Pawn Structure Chess". Amazing book.

Playnig the Stonewall attack!

2010-07-26T00:07:00.000+10:00

Round IV of the Vic champs I played black against a stonewall setup for white. It was a really interesting game strategically and the critical moment comes at move 15 when my f5? created more weaknesses than it was worth. It's an interesting regress for me as this was the type of move I'd make as a junior- trying to make these attacking moves with not enough respect for the weaknesses they create in a position.

Obviously I was aware of the damange done to e6, but I knew I could defend it- I actually got into what I thought was a dream position I envisioned before f5. But Mr. Beattie found the right moves to exploit e6 and a6 at the same time with some simple but very nice play.

A key improvement on 15. f5? for me would have been organising f6!!! (Rde8, f6 would do) after which I could choose to break open the center with e6-e5 and get both bishops and both rooks bearing down on the King. Also, Kb8 would have been a useful move if I recognised the weakness on a6.
Thanks go out to my T45+45 team who helped me analyse the game.

For anyone interested there's also a collection of Stonewall games here:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1011585

Next up white on Thursday!

Tackling the French Defence

2010-07-17T18:31:00.000+10:00

At the moment I'm playing in the Victorian Championship Reserves competition, and after a draw in the first round today I played white against the French- a pretty quick loss after an early miscalculation where I saw a couple of ghosts.

I don't have a lot of experience playing against the French and I found calculating all these possible variations in the center quite difficult- it's often not as simple as takes, takes back, next move! Often it's more like: takes, ignores the take and pushes pawn, piece moves, Queen moves with a tempo attack etc etc etc. So I recommend having the variations all worked out after exf6 before-hand.

Hopefully i'll win the next one against this guys son!

A week in the life...

2010-07-08T12:50:00.000+10:00

One of the most useful parts of my training so far has been the fixed opening games I play weekly with my training partner Andreas, and how I've been preparing for them. We take turns picking an opening and try to play a 30+10 (or a couple of 20+5) games with it as often as possible. To prepare for these games I pick a couple of random games from middle game/positional/general chess books, and annotate them before we play. I haven't looked at a "pure opening" book in over 18 months and it's done wonders for my chess; I still have a strong idea of the openings and this type of theme-based study of critical points in certain setups has made it much easier for me to find the right middle game moves.

After the games we usually annotate them (unless one of us does something utterly stupid!) and take notes on the types of errors we're making. The benefits of talking about 15+ games with the same opponent is obvious.

This week it's the Sicilian, (I'm playing it against Andreas, my TeamLeague 45+45 opponent, and in a correspondence game VS Carl Gorka) so what better motivation to annotate a few games on it?! I'm going to study 3 particular games:

1) Wotulo - Larsen (Manila 1973), from Andrew Soltis' Pawn Structure Chess - from chapter 2 on the Sicilian/English formation.

2) Mcdonald - Bronstein, Wrexham 1995, from Mcdonald's book Planning after the opening.

and 3) Tolush - Kotov from Max Euwe & Kramer's book The Middlegame.

This approach of studying games rather than theory/move order is probably put to it's harshest test by the Sicilian, when white needs to know a few tricks in the opening to deal with the more direct black attacks - I am not too fussed about the results as I know that the study I'm doing will inevitably be part of my understanding of the Sicilian anyway.

My opinion on studying opening theory is this:

First, you have to learn to beat players of your own level, and learning how to respond to un-theoretical moves in any given structure is far more important than knowing the rote-response to theory. Knowing theory usually only gets you a longer loss against a +2000 player if you're at my level, so- first, learn the fundamentals that will help you beat players of your own level.

At under 2000 level, even under 1600 level it is sad to say that moves are usually played out in perfect move order/theory for the first 10-20 moves, but, if they're not, neither player has much idea of how to exploit the inaccuracy.

Anyway, enough babbling! I'll let you know if I get crushed in all three games. Below is my study:

1. N. Mcdonald - D. Bronstein, Wrexham 1995: White attacks the "Hedgehog" Structure. (From McDonald's book "planning after the opening")

A 71 year old David Bronstein comes up with some great defensive moves against an aggressive McDonald chasing a GM Norm.

(2) Wotulo - Larsen, Manila 1973: (First concepts in the Sicilian) White's inaccurate move order allows black to activate with tempo (From Andrew Soltis' Pawn Structure Chess).

What this game shows us is that white must take some steps to slow down the black counter-play against e4, in any opening you play you can't simply ignore what your opponent is doing and his plans. Part of any successful opening encounter is developing with threats that force your opponent into certain moves he might not want to make, and slowing down your opponents plans. In this game we can see that the absence of a white pawn of f4 takes away any threat of an e4-e5 push, this type of thing makes the black pieces more free: it is in small details like this that opening advantages are won and lost. In short: rather than 8. 0-0? White had to play 8. a4! Then he can think about the maneuver f4, Bf3 perhaps.

3. Tolush - Kotov, Moscow 1945. (From Euwe & Kramer's "The Middlegame")

This is a great book & I recommend it to anyone looking for a broad look at the themes and pawn movements in the Sicilian. If it's teaching on everything else is as good as it is for Sicilian (and I guess it is...) then it's a cracker.

I'll post the annotation of that one tomorrow!