Lousy@Chess

Internet Handles

2011-11-20T06:28:00.001+11:00

I have to say, you encounter lots of internet players with ego-trips (you can tell them by the internet handle - click on the image above to see my opponent's handle).

Take for this instance, this player whom I played.... naturally, my opponent took the easy way out instead of resigning (which seems to be the norm these days when these players lose - they simply disconnected on me).

Speaking of which.... if this is false advertising, then ... can I get my money back? ;-)

Chess Blindness

2011-09-05T22:11:00.015+10:00

Why are some positions more difficult to see than others?

Take for instance, this position I played a while back online. I am White.

For some odd reason, I totally missed the shot. The Black king attacks my Knight and I played the most "natural" move... 1. exf6??

Looking at it now, I just cannot understand how I could have missed such a simple tactic.

I had totally missed the simple 1. e6+!! forking both Queen and King. The unusual placement of the Knight and the fact that it can control the e6 square (in reverse) made me unaware of the tactical shot.

However, if you think elite Grandmasters and World Champions are above it all, guess again!

1. In the recently concluded Botvinnik Memorial, the World rated #1 Magnus Carlsen missed this against Viswanathan Anand by playing 1. R4e1?? What did Carlsen miss?

2. Even the great endgame specialist and 3rd World Champion Jose Raul Capablanca suffered from this. In this game v Thomas, his opponent incorrectly resigned after Capablanca played 1. Qa8?? What did Capablanca miss?

3. Even one of the greatest players of all time also suffers from chess blindness. In the following game, Viswanathan Anand v Garry Kasparov. Kasparov took the Bishop with 1...Qxe3?? What did Garry Kimovich miss?

Answers can be found by highlighting the brackets
[
Game 1
1...g6 2. Ng3 Bf2 and White must sacrifice an exchange down with Rook for Bishop. Carlsen subsequently lost.

Game 2
1... Rxa2! and White is forced to trade massive material leading to a losing endgame 2 pawns down.

Game 3
2. Qxg4 uncovering the hidden attack on the Black Queen and attacking the Rook on c8.
]

Review: Practical Endgames Vol 8 - Practical Rook Endgames

2011-08-25T20:21:00.016+10:00

I've finally gotten a chance to sit down and watch Karsten Müller's Endgame Vol 8 - Practical Rook Endgames.

It's taken him a couple of Chessbase DVDs but Müller now is able to smile on camera and is definitely very relaxed. He is in a particularly jovial mood and his presentation on camera is infectious.

There is no denying the endgame aspect of the royal game is definitely in his area of expertise and this time, he gives it in spades.

Mixing a bit of humour (for a German!) in between serious analysis and explanations, Müller is by now extremely comfortable in front of the camera. This is in stark contrast to his earlier DVDs where he can rattle off some complex variations and endgame techniques in a single breath. Here, Müller takes the time to pause and allows the idea to sink in (but not too long). He has definitely become a much better presenter, in fact, in spite of his German accent, his English is easily understandable and he has become one of my two favourite Chessbase authors (the other being Daniel King).

Ironically, one of the best segments was his commentary on an endgame between himself and fellow Chessbase DVD author, Daniel King. It was a team event in the German Bundesliga and Müller's team had by then lost. However, he explains how he wanted to play the endgame through to the end with King much to the consternation of his team-mates who wanted to go out and eat.

"Why go and eat when you can play a Rook ending?" was his reply.

LOL. The game lasted some 75 odd moves so you can imagine how long his team had to wait for him!

This DVD focuses exclusively on Rook endgames. Unlike his earlier DVD 2 (did I review this? I really need to find my old Chessbase DVDs in the closet), he expounds on important techniques such as how to deal with a blockading Rook, how to use the checking distance effectively, how to maximise the full potential of the Rook.

Chessbase has kindly provided a short video of this DVD. In this video, Müller adopts a slightly more serious tone but this video is typical of the rest of his videos, his explanations are always succinct and precise.

However, all this is not just fun and games. When you start the video, Müller fully EXPECTS you to pause the video in the beginning and study the position and decide on the best course of action to take.

I feel that this method is the best way to reap maximum benefit from this DVD.

The DVD is broken down into the following chapters:

Chapter 1: Rook v Pawn (5 videos)
Chapter 2: Rook techniques (9 vide0s)
Chapter 3: Protection against a series of checks (10 videos)
Chapter 4: The 4th phase of the game (3 videos)
Chapter 5: Activity counts most (5 videos)
Chapter 6: Defence (12 videos)
Chapter 7: Complicated cases (8 videos)

The majority of each video lasts between 2-4 minutes. However, do not be put off by the short length of the videos. What matters most important is the communication of ideas and how well the audience is able to absorb the lessons imparted by Müller. And it is here that Müller does not fail you.

There is one more thing I need to add. In some positions when Müller says this game is "theoretically drawn", he EXPECTS you to know HOW TO DRAW THIS GAME. If you're having trouble with this, please do get a copy of his book, Fundamental Chess Endings (or Nunn's Chess Endings) and read it. At the very least, get his earlier Chessbase DVDs Endgames Vol 1 and 2. These 2 DVDs will teach you the basic strategies and how to apply them correctly in endgames.

In summary, this is a top class video presentation given by Müller. He has IMHO, overtaken Dvoretsky as my favourite endgame author.

I am definitely looking forward to his next Chessbase DVD on endgames. Incidentally, if you haven't got enough of his endgame lessons, I encourage you to visit the Chesscafe website (where he produces an Endgame column every month).

Moves You Should Never Play

2011-08-19T22:22:00.010+10:00

Sorry for the long time in not updating my blog. I've been terribly busy with work and had not had much time with chess.

In the meantime, I've been playing the occasional online blitz games. Here's a collection of puzzles (no solutions! - I decided to put the solutions after all) that you might find interesting. These are snapshots of games that either my opponent or I missed and played a really lousy move that changed the course of the game! See if you can find out the response.

Diagram 1 - 1. Nd2?? ... The retribution was swift.

Diagram 2 - 1. Re1?? No more draws for White

Diagram 3 - 1. Ba3?? Asking for trouble

(this one is not that big an advantage for Black but
it ended up with White having to defend for long periods
before finally succumbing to relentless pressure)

Diagram 4 - 1.... Rxc3?? Black becomes a pawn grabber and
instantly regrets the decision

Update -Solutions added:
Hi LinuxGuy.

No problems. Maybe I'll give out the answer in a different colour (you can see the answer by highlighting)

Diagram 1: White suffers from tactics failure and instantly loses a piece due to 1....Nxd4 and the Knight is untouchable else White loses the Rook due to the pin on c2.

Diagram 2: White should have played the counter-intuitive 1. Kb2! and can salvage a draw because the Black king cannot approach the a-pawn without the Rook giving checks from behind. Now Black wins after 1. Rf1 due to 1... Re2+ 2. Kd3 (forced) Rg2 and starts gobbling the g-pawns. Black will win the pawns and the game later.

Diagram 3: The White king only has 1 defender. The Knight on f3 so that means the typical sacrifice 1... Rxf3! And White is in a heap of trouble after this move. In this game, my opponent tried. 2. Bxd6 Qxd6 3. gxf3 Nxh2 and if the White rook moves (else White is a pawn down for nothing) followed by 4... Nxf3+ with Qh2 and Black starts rolling his pieces out. For a rook, Black has 2 pawns and a Knight and an open White king under fire. More than sufficient compensation. White didn't survive long in this game.

Diagram 4: Again the typical sacrifice occurs with 1... Rxf6!! If 2. gxf6 Black is in deep trouble after Nxh6+ followed by Qh5.

Rybka Officially Banned

2011-06-29T11:08:00.005+10:00

As I've reported earlier on the ongoing saga regarding Rybka as a legitimate chess engine, the International Computer Games Association (ICGA) has just officially disqualified and banned Rybka and its programmer Vasik Rajlich from previous and future World Computer Chess Championships.

In addition, the ICGA is also asking that it returns the trophies+prize money of the World Computer Chess Championships in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

More details here:

http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/rybka-disqualified-and-banned-from-world-computer-chess-championships/

Just wow.

Out Of The Frying Pan

2011-06-26T21:53:00.007+10:00

Sometimes, we get ourselves deeper into the abyss. Take for example this blitz game that I just finished. White played too passively and is paying the price. The White king is exposed, the Black Knight has infiltrated into White's camp and the White pieces are not well-placed.

Black to play.

Here, I'm not going to kid myself. The most predictable move is naturally which I dished out in an instant.

1... Rd2 (no prizes for guessing this move)

The White Queen has a few moves and here, I was thinking....

2. Qe5 but the problem is after 2.... Qxe5 White drops a further pawn after
3. fxe5 Rxf2

White realising this, plays instead.

2. Qe3 and it is here that I set the trap. So the

Question: Can you see what is wrong with this move?

(blanks deliberately inserted)

(more blanks deliberately inserted)

(moer blanks deliberately inserted)

My opponent did indeed play 2. Qe3 but now White is in complete ruins because of .............

2.... Nd3! and the Rook or Knight cannot be taken because of mate on b2 and White would lose the Queen in the process. Ouch.

The Problem With Holidays

2011-06-21T17:02:00.004+10:00

Hi folks, I'm currently not in Sydney - have not been there for the past 2 weeks. In fact, I'm back in the sunny tropics of Singapore visiting my parents, my brother and my in-laws.

So far, it's been a blast. I've brought along my chess tactics book but sad to say, I've been doing nothing the past week except having great lunch/dinner treats all the time. My father-in-law had a new iPad2 given to him by my brother-in-law so I've been busy collecting videos and uploading to his iPad2. You'd be surprised by the amount of free instructional chess videos on youtube and blip.tv.

Of course, this also meant that my chess has taken a very distant backseat as the book I brought along with me has been left on my father's workdesk has been left looking *very* neglected. Hehe.

Unfortunately, my days in the tropics are coming to an end soon. And I'll have to go back to work.... bummer.

The Ideas Behind The Move

2011-06-05T22:20:00.006+10:00

In order to find the correct move, it is necessary to first find out the correct plan. There are 2 ways to formulate a plan.

a) Work forwards ie. if I play this, my opponent plays this and so on and evaluate.

A nicer common idea is to:

b) Work backwards. Find out if the current board position matches up to a previous pattern you've seen before and how to get the pieces to the correct squares. If no pattern emerges, ask yourself, how best to checkmate your opponent then find out the steps to make this happen.

White to play

Yes, it's another puzzle and this one I just played a moment ago. And this one is not too easy but not overly hard (if you know what to look for).

White is obviously in a great position. How does White further press home the advantage?

When you're ready for the solution, scroll down below......

(blanks deliberately placed)

The move is

1. b6!! Do you see the idea? Now in this game, Black felt forced to take on b6 and replied with 1.... cxb6 (shown below)

Now comes the entire idea behind the whole b-pawn push......

2. Rh7! (threatening mate on a7) and now 2.... Bxh7 is met with
3. Rd7 (and unavoidable mate)

Find The Continuation

2011-06-02T23:01:00.006+10:00

I just finished off an online blitz game. I thought that I had played well until I ran it past Fritz..... and what a surprise I got!!!!

In the following puzzle, Black is under a huge pressure as below. Now we can all see what is coming. But that is not the question I want to ask. What I want to ask is:

Evaluate and find the best continuation after 1. Rxf5 gxf5 (this is what actually happened in the game).

When you have finished, see what Fritz found in the explanation far below! FYI, I didn't find the correct continuation but there's no stopping the silicon monster.

(Leaving blank spaces)

(Leaving more blank spaces)

1. Rxf5 gxf5 and we reach the position below. How do we proceed?

2. Ne4+!! A shot out of the blue!! Kh8 (forced) (2... Kh6 3. Qg5# naturally)

3. h6 (threatening 4. Qg7#)

and now.... Black is surprisingly mated.

2.... Rg8 is met by Qe5+ with unescapable mate to follow on g7

Tough Picture Puzzle Question

2011-05-24T15:31:00.005+10:00

What is REALLY happening here?

a) Grischuk is offering a draw at move 0
b) Gelfand is offering a draw at move 0
c) They mutually agreed to draw at move 0 and will now go to the back of the hall to post-analyse this game together

Review : Improve Your Chess Tactics

2011-05-14T15:30:00.006+10:00

A new book I ordered just arrived at my desk today. It's Yakov Neishtadt's "Improve Your Chess Tactics".

Before I start my review, I'll just give a brief blurb. I am familiar with Neishtadt's older tactics tome "Test Your Tactical Ability" from 1981 so I would do a bit of comparison with this new book and his older book.

First off, this book is fairly thick (but nowhere near the monstrous Chess Informant's Anthology of Chess Combinations 3rd Edition - if you'd ever want to get a hernia, carrying that book around would do it *wink*).

But this is not to say that this book offering from Neishtadt is lightweight either. It numbers 385 pages and offers over 700 lessons and exercises.

The first couple of paragraphs in the Introduction is word for word identical but there are some differences between the 1981 tome and this book, resulting in the introduction being worded slightly differently. This is not that big a problem. In fact, I find the introduction extremely well written and I do not think it needs any changes.

With that out of the way, let's go onto the meat of the book.

The book is classified according to themes. The first few sections are devoted to the primary ideas of Deflection, Decoying, Eliminating Defenders, Clearing Squares And Lines.

Each page has been arranged in 2 columns (with the exception of some section introductions).

Chess diagrams are clearly displayed and a small white box or black box indicated to the left of the chess diagram denotes which is the side to move.

The font used is typical of other New In Chess books (you can see the font in the puzzle diagram below). I've owned other New In Chess books including the excellent tournament books (also by New In Chess) Botvinnik-Smyslov and Botvinnik-Petrosian (I humbly suggest that you at least get Botvinnik-Smyslov if you're looking to get a good tournament book about the history behind the World Chess Championships - Botvinnik's annotations are superb).

Each section begins with a chockful of lessons. The author has clearly taken time to explain the not just the moves but also the ideas behind the moves and did not simply to resort to just pure Chess Informant style notations. Additional diagrams for these lessons are supplemented when the variations run too long and this is very nice to see. After all, not everyone can calculate like Magnus Carlsen or Vladimir Kramnik and can retain the diagrammed positions in their heads after some 12 ply moves.

It must also be noted that some lessons from the 1981 tome has carried over to this book (eg. Puzzle 103 Levitina v Gaprindashvili). However, the similaries end there. The words have clearly been rephrased so it looks like the author and editors have taken care to each puzzle and did not simply rehash the same paragraphs. However it must be noted that this simple rephrasing of the words does not mean that they make the explanation any less unclear.

Unlike the 1981 book, this book places a lot more emphasis on a combination of themes. While the older book focuses on specific themes like pinning, decoying etc, the newer and later chapters concentrate more heavily on the topic of a combination of themes. This is IMHO, a very good change and a refreshing update as compared with the old book. At the upper echelons of chess games, it is very unlikely that a game can be won through a simple theme like a pin. Typically, a combination of themes is a certainly required to turn the game to your advantage.

Unfortunately, the claims of having the combinations of the puzzles computer-checked is that it is not thorough. I've recently discovered a small error in the book and have emailed the editors about it and will await their response. I will update it once I've heard from them.

Now having spent some more time with this book for a good few hours, I've not noticed any more visible mistakes. In fact, I found the addition of newer games a very welcome change because some of the ideas and the games I've not seen before and are extremely instructive. Some of the combinations require a good deal of calculation. One of the nice things about this book is that the variations in the lessons never get too far ahead that it makes your brain struggle.

Once the lessons end, the real homework begins. This book is slightly different in its approach. In the older tome, Test Your Tactical Ability, the puzzles that proceed after the lessons are given with hints and problems to overcome. These are then followed by puzzles with just diagrams and no verbose provided.

In this book, puzzles with no explanations nor descriptions (just single diagrams) are presented first. It is only after these puzzles that is then followed by puzzles with some verbose question. In other words, the order of the puzzles have been reversed.

I have to warn you that at my patzer level, the puzzles that are aided with hints/questions are definitely not easy. Some are just given one-liners like "Continue the attack" or "Is Black's kingside really well defended?" or "Can you take the pawn on e5?" Others are however given very extensive treatment and can take up to a paragraph or two. A case in point, Puzzle 309 reads,"White has sacrificed a knight to open the h-file and his pieces are aiming at the kingside. By playing 1.Qe4, he threatens to bring the Queen to h4. It cannot be taken because of mate on h8. How can Black defend?"

Such questions can add to or detract from the puzzle (depending on your tastes) because they provide subtle hints that forces you to work through them. On the other hand, if you feel like up to a challenge, you can also choose to cover these hints with a piece of paper as you work through them. However what these questions do is that they force you to think critically and tactically.

The solutions are presented in the later half of the book. What I do like about the Solution pages is the layout (see picture on the right). Instead of just simply cramming in the solution to a single 1-2 liner littered with chess notation and symbols, detailed descriptions including explanations of the ideas are provided. That is a great aid to anyone who wishes to improve their tactical vision.

A more welcome change is that the original puzzle diagram is also posted to the left of the solution. This is more than an advantage than it appears. No longer do readers need to flip and back-flip to the puzzle page and solution page ad nauseum.

The older book, Test Your Tactical Ability has a section that is no longer present in this book. It is a small section titled,"Do you know the Classics?" In it, you will find the games played by great chess players of the past, and they range from well known tournaments to lesser known games vs lesser known opponents. While I find the omission of this section a bit sad (but not by much), I can understand why it has been removed. Sometimes, the moves played by great chess players of the past do not stand up to scrutiny against the most vicious chess engines of today.

All up, in spite of the error I discovered, I liked this book a lot and I can forsee that it is going to take me up to a year to work and re-work through the puzzles (yes, I have a day job) and I'll be having a lot of fun with it. I'm an old stick-in-the-mud player so I think the maximum benefit that can be derived from this book is if they set up the positions on an actual chess board and work through them by hand (alternatively, you can setup the board position on Fritz/Chessbase in 3D to give you roughly the same effect - although it's not the same, it saves you time from resetting the board positions ).

Conclusion: IMHO this book is fantastic. It is a great learning tool for players and coaches.
Target rating: 1700 - 2200

UPDATE: I've received the reply from the New In Chess editor. They were extremely responsive and replied with the next day. The problem with the diagram I've posted above (2nd diagram) is that there is a error in the line.

The original line is given as:

3. Bg6+! Inviting the king into a mating net

…… Ke6

4. Qc8+ Qd7

5. Bf5+ Kf7

6. Qxd7+ Kf8

BUT now

7. Qd8+ cannot be played because of Black's dark square bishop guarding the d8 square and thus, the rest of the continuation falls apart.

Instead, I've found a much better way to proceed. (LinuxGuy, nice spot on Qxc7 in the comments!)

3. Bg6+! Ke6

4. Qg8+! (idea is the White Queen stops the Black King's escape route along the back rank) Kd7

5. Bf5+ (the Black Queen is now forced to sacrifice itself) Qe6

6. Qxe6+ Kd8

7. Qd7#

Apparently, the NiC editor discovered my mating line was even quicker so they will add my line to the Errata page as well. :D

Aronian Bows Out

2011-05-10T02:22:00.009+10:00

In the rapid match playoffs, Aronian blundered in time trouble as his position grew progressively worse as Grischuk piled on the pressure. He's now out of the Candidates.

Aronian realises he is dead lost

At the moment, Kramnik is still playing against Radjabov. In a nail-biting climactic game with Radjabov winning the 1st blitz game, the clock broke!

Radjabov couldn't believe he blew it by
getting zugzwang in a drawn endgame

The arbiters had to quickly sort out the issue. And when play resumed, Radjabov had a dead drawn ending and was on the verge of winning the tie when in the frentic melee that followed, he got zugzwang and lost!

And Kramnik lives to fight again....

In the 1st of the next 2 games, Kramnik as White coolly outplays Radjabov in a King's Indian. Advantage: Kramnik: 1-0

Big Vlad manages to squeeze a draw in the final game and thus wins their encounter and progresses into the semi-finals to play against Grischuk. Incredible save by Kramnik who was on the verge of losing just 2 hours ago!

Tragic Topalov

2011-05-09T02:19:00.007+10:00

Topalov v Kamsky

Chess is an extremely tragic game. I've been following the Candidates Matches. In Round 4, Veselin Topalov in his final must-win game against Gata Kamsky, blew a win on move 44. Kg1.

To be fair to him, this was an extremely complicated game and the correct move is not easy to find but even then Topalov still had 2-3 possible moves to retain his advantage.

The pained look on Topalov' face as
he realises his win has slipped away

Whatever has happened to Topalov? The old Topalov of 2005 would never have missed it. Now it seems that with him out of the Candidates, it would take another 4 years before he gets another chance to contest for the World Chess Championship title.

An extremely disappointed Topalov in the post-match conference

Pity. Despite all his shenaningans, it's hard not to feel sorry for him.

I am not a Topalov fan but I do admire his fighting spirit. I hope he recovers from this setback and regains his confidence.

Norths Reserves A - Final Result

2011-04-28T23:30:00.008+10:00

I lost my final game against Rex Simmonds at Norths. Rex to his credit played well and I blundered in the most crucial moment - well, that's what you get for playing sharp lines, one misstep and down you go.

So I ended up with +4-3=4 .... a very very average mid-table performance and nothing worth shouting about.

I'm still kicking myself over this week's loss. It's one thing to play badly but quite another when you know you have a winning advantage and throw it all away in 1 move.

Puzzles With Imbalances

2011-04-24T23:20:00.015+10:00

These are actual games I've played (don't scroll past the diagrams if you don't want to look at the solutions).

Game 1 - Winning Attack

Black (Me) has a winning attack, time to bring home the bacon....

(Black to play)

Game 2 - Find The Best Move

White had traded a Knight+Bishop for a Rook+Pawn to pry open my King position. I knew that Black has a slight advantage but I was thinking of how to best activate my pieces here. I sank into a deep long think.... and came up with a move. What move was it?
(Black to play) :

Game 3 - I Didn't See It Coming

My opponent thought that he could defend with Black and played 1.... Qd6. What did he miss?

(White to play)

Answers:

Game 1

1... Bf1+ 2. Rxf1 Rh2#

Game 2:

The move I played was 1.... Nh4! Suddenly the dawn of realisation came when my opponent realised that the Knight on h4 is untouchable. White tried 2. Qb3+ Bd5 and resigned a few moves later.

Added Question: Can you figure out why White cannot play 2. gxh4? Because it ends in mate!

1... Nh4
2. gxh4 Qxh2+
3. Kg1 Qh1+
4. Ke2 Qf3+
5. Kg1 e3!! and mate cannot be prevented

Game 3 -

The winning move was 1. f4! And mate cannot be stopped as the the next move is Qh7#. If
1. f4 Nxf4 (else 1.... Rh8 2. f7=Q+ Bxf8 3. Qg5#)
2. Rxf4 also results in mate after Qh7+ and Qh4#

The Final Stretch For North Sydney

2011-04-23T13:13:00.005+10:00

Just a short blurb, with my final game for the North Sydney Reserves A due next week, I'm up against Rex Simmonds as Black.

This week, my game against 2nd placed Chris Sparks ended peacefully. That leaves me on 3rd place with John Pepping (winning his game against Peter Brennan). With 1st placed Clive Allen still having to play 2 more games, he is almost 100% certainty to win 1st place in our group.

My current score is +4-2=4 or 6 pts out of 10 pts so far. Not a great performance so far but as this was my first competition for over a year, I guess it can be considered a decent performance given the rustiness that has set in.

Rex was kind enough to invite me to a weekly training session that him together with a few other players (around my strength) but unfortunately, it takes place every Wednesday afternoon and I am working.

Thanks for the gracious invitation, Rex!

Congratulations, Anand

2011-04-10T22:58:00.003+10:00

In case, anyone is wondering whatever happened to Aruna (Vishy's wife) and why she has been conspicuously absent for the last few months, well, the current World Champion just had a son to add to his list of achievements!

Congratulations to the new parents!

More details at Chessvibes.

Quiet Times

2011-03-29T11:07:00.006+11:00

I've gotten a day off from work today so I finally have time to catch some breath.

I thought this would be a good time for some down time to continue my chess studies. I could not help but feel that my chess skills have regressed. I used to be able to do my tactics puzzle with relative ease and today, I found to my horror, that out of 7 chess puzzles, I only got 1 correct and even then, I stopped my calculation short by 4 ply moves!

Of course, being out of shape made me realise I need to put in more effort in my chess studies.

Tomorrow evening for the North Sydney Club Reserves A Club Championships, I'm facing young Thomas Zhou with the White pieces. Last week, I finally got over my fear of my opponent, Horst Bleicher who has beaten me nearly every time we met and managed to defeat him in an Open Sicilian (I was Black). So I'm now on +3-2=2 .... still an average performance so far.

Last week, my brother-in-law Steven asked me what my target was for this competition. I still have another 4 games to go till the finish line and I've not actually taken time to think of what I should aim for, maybe 5.5/11 points? Or maybe aim higher? It's interesting, because before the start of the competition, I try not to think about results and to focus on each game with as much energy as possible.

So far, I've not had that bad a result but to progress further, I really need to put in some serious study.

Lumbering From One Loss To Another

2011-03-19T10:26:00.007+11:00

Apologies for the lack of updates. So far, I've had 2 successive losses now at the North Sydney Reserves A Club Championships.

My friend even remarked to me that I look quite haggard in recent weeks, which is not surprising. This week's game against Robert Pike had me totally flat out before the game because of work.

Last week, I also got pulled aside by my boss for a talking to (he was planning to put me on report) in spite of putting in some good work in recent weeks and it's completely knocked me out of my rhythm. He doesn't want me to put in good work, he wants me to put in great work like I used to do.

As a result, I just could not concentrate over the board. Instead, I just played without calculation and that usually invites disaster.

I would like to put some "other" comments as well but I think this should be a "kid-friendly" website. :)

Anyway, up next week is Horst Bleichter and I'm playing Black.

Current results: +2-2=2

I feel like I should be continuing my chess studies but difficulties in maintaining concentration and getting the necessary motivation has been my major stumbling block.

Instead, I've spent my remaining free time, reading some old books on fiction. This week, I finished Agatha Christie's 4.50 From Paddington, James Wyndham's The Chrysalids, Richard Bachman's/Stephen King's The Running Man. With my ebook reader, I've been surprised by how fast I've been reading books of late and it's definitely brought back my love for reading. I find that reading fiction has also allowed me to take time out of any current worries and it's a great way to relax.

Chicken Pox Scars

2011-03-08T18:27:00.002+11:00

Hmm.... it's been 2 months since my first outbreak of chicken pox and my face is still punctuated with chicken pox marks (although a lot has since subsided).

My good wife has constantly encouraged me to apply whitening cream, moisturiser, toner.... etc. etc. and so far, it looks like it does help to soften the brown spots. But this week involves me trying something for a change. I'm going for a facial. I've never been to one before in my whole life. I don't know what got into me to agree to my wife's request.

So that got me thinking. When was the last time I tried something new in my chess openings?

I might be tempted to try a new opening for the next competition (too late to prepare anything for this one). Maybe I'll learn to play the Jaenisch Gambit of the Spanish or the Grob.... hehehe.

Strangely, tonight, right now I'm feeling a bit sick while waiting for the tournament to start in an hour's time as I'm blogging this. And for some odd reason, I've not been fully satisfied with my chess performance so far.

My opponent tonight is Stephen Javor who's rated some 50 points above me. I hope he finishes me quickly because I don't like long grinding games. I really want to go home early and sleep (due to me overexerting myself in the gym earlier in the day) and I'm flat out tired. :)

Formal Complaint Officially Sent To ICGA About Rybka

2011-03-02T00:08:00.006+11:00

Something just hit the fan and it's not pretty.

I had been quiety monitoring the Talk Chess forums for sometime now and the it appears that the dam has finally broken.

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37762

The creator of Fruit, Fabien Letouzey has filed an official complaint to ICGA complaining that Rybka has taken code from Fruit in direct violation of the GPL. Instead of reproducing the letter, I've provided the link to it. You can see it here from ChessVibes .

I had originally heard about it on the grapevine and was waiting for some official confirmation but it looks like ChessVibes was the first to report it.

What has given enormous weight is the list of whos-who of programmers who put their names on the letter. To those who are unfamiliar with the names, allow me to give a quick blurb for all of them.

Fabien Letouzey - creator of Fruit
Zach Wegner - co-developed Rondo
Mark Uniacke - creator of HIARCS
Stefan Meyer-Kahlen - developer of Shredder
Ed Schröder - creator of Rebel
Don Dailey - a computer chess engine developer since the 90s
Christophe Theron - programmer of Tiger
Richard Pijl - programmer of The Baron
Amir Ban - co-author of Junior
Anthony Cozzie - author of Zappa
Tord Romstad - needs no introduction
Ralf Schäfer - author of Spike
Gerd Isenberg - author of IsiChess and HansDamf
Johannes Zwanzger - author of Jonny

This is a very serious charge. Make no mistake, these are highly respected computer chess programmers with years of experience under their belts and when you get these many people putting their names directly accusing Vasik Rajlich (owner of the hugely successful Rybka) of violating the GPL and using code from Fruit, you can be sure that this will cause a major shakeup.

What now remains to be seen is how David Levy, Jaap van den Herik and the ICGA Board will respond to this serious charge.

Play Like Botvinnik Is Free

2011-02-25T08:48:00.010+11:00

ChessOk has released "Play Like Botvinnik" (using the new Peshka interface) for free (for about a month now and I finally managed to get around to playing it).

So head on to their website and download it! :)

Play Like Botvinnik Download

For those of you who are unaccustomed the new Peshka interface, it is definitely very much improved from the old Convekta (users of the old CT-ART versions will know what I mean).

This is a 38 MB download but you'll get so much more in return.

Once you've installed and run it, you'll be greeted by the following screen.

Note that there is a notation window frame at the bottom right corner. In it, you will see notes, tournament tables, notations depending on what you click on the screen on the right above you.

The software contains a lot of test positions where you can give your hand at trying on how to play like the 6th World Chess Champion. These test positions range from tactical combinations to increasing your positional advantage.

To play them, simply click on the "Practice" button as shown above.

Besides the Practise sessions, you can also choose to test yourself by selecting the "Test" button on the button bar at the top and choose how many test positions you want to play at one given session. The Peshka interface also tracks your progress on how many you've gotten right or wrong.

By clicking on the "Theory" button, you will be presented with a tree list of games by Botvinnik. They include games from the early part of his career, to World Championship tournaments (shown above - completed with table and results). If you really want to improve your game (especially your middlegame), I suggest going through these annotated games. They are definitely worth the time and effort.

There is also one small caveat I find annoying. When playing through the games, there is no way to tell who is White and who is Black at first glance.

Nevertheless, this software is fantastic and I highly recommend it. After all, you can't beat free software, can you? :)

Feeling Of Dread

2011-02-22T18:30:00.006+11:00

I don't know why but the thought of playing in a competition fills me with dread sometimes.

I like the royal game but quite often, the competitive side of things weighs on my mind. I've seen chess players practically "lose" it in the heat of competition and I wonder to myself,"Do I want to behave like that?"

Chess also brings out a side of me that is not always pleasant. I find that in competition, I tend to be extremely harsh and hard on myself and that sometimes translates to the exhibition of anger, which is very unlike me, when I am not playing.

Chess sometimes, seems to me like a sadist game. When you get beaten, you want to keep coming back for more. And even if you do win, you hunger for more success.

This is most true in any other competitive sport. But for me chess is also something to pass time, something that I feel is frivolous beyond the 64 squares. A hobby.

So how does one reconcile to having fun to one where you put an intense amount of energy and effort to win?

My opponent tonight is Ian Dickson and I am playing Black. Part of me wants to defeat my opponent, the other part says,"Hold on, it's only a game."

Do I really want to treat it with the seriousness and intensity it requires to play at an optimum level? Decisions, decisions.

Ryde Eastwood Rapids Final Result

2011-02-17T13:40:00.005+11:00

Last night was the third and concluding night for the Ryde-Eastwood Rapids (we play 3 rounds each at 25 min controls). My brother-in-law Steven participated as well.

I'll give a quick recap of the previous 2 nights.

The first night (2 weeks ago) went:

Valenzuela (1184) 0-1 Me
My game against Valenzuela was a Ruy Lopez - Breyer Variation. Valenzuela in time trouble, was most unlucky to have gotten lost in the complications that followed.

Me 1-0 Gletsos (1817)
Bill Gletsos is a very strong opponent and having been on the receiving end of Bill before, I knew this was always going to be tough. We started in an English but in the complications that followed, Bill unfortunately, misjudged the resulting position, allowing my Knights to dominate the board. He lost a Rook for a Knight and we simply traded everything off the board to reach a winning endgame. Bill, to his credit, put up a very good fight.

Kuru (1603) 1-0 Me
My game against Kuru was inexplicable. I had started to calculate some very deep lines in an Open Sicilian and after checking and rechecking, I made a move only to discover a split second later, to my horror, that I played it in the wrong move order and left my Knight en-prise! It was pretty much game over.

The night had started well for me. But the last game was an absolute disaster and one I should have been more careful. Little did I know that the next week's game would turn into a horror show.

Result: +2-1=0

In the 2nd night of the Rapids (last week's games), I went badly astray.

Me 0-1 Hill
Of particular note were 2 very bad games. In my first game against Hill (an Exchange French), I was crushed and wiped off the board in 20 moves! It had a profound effect on me because I was playing stupid moves throughout the entire game.

Muller (1453) 0.5-0.5 Me
The defeat by Hill had an effect on me. And my poor play crept into my 2nd game of the night against Muller which was a Queen's Gambit Declined. I had inadvertently (again!) left a piece en-prise but managed to claw back a draw in a frantic time-scramble. I had the better position but Muller was able to give me perpetual check. I definitely got left off the hook.

Me 1-0 Williams (1411)
My final game against Williams on that night brought some semblance of order back into my game and .... I got lucky. I positionally squeezed out Williams in an R+5P v R+5P endgame (arising from a Ruy Lopez Classical Steinitz - I think ) but had a more active Rook and King and it proved decisive. After having to defend for quite some time, Williams sadly miscalculated and lost a vital central pawn that was holding his position together. He resigned on the next move.

Overall Result: +3-2=1

So before the start of last night, I was languishing at the halfway line of the pack with a somewhat lacklustre 3.5/6 peformance. I knew I could play better and was determined to try to turn last week's disappointing performance around.

Cardenas (1437) 0-1 Me
My first game was against Egon Cardenas. Egon had deservedly beaten me in a classical game in last year's Grade Matches. This time round, playing as Black, we got into a Nimzo-Indian and I exchanged the c3-Knight with my Black bishop causing a doubling of his pawns on the c-file. A slip by Egon was to be proven most unfortunate. I quickly gained the initiative and overpowered the center with a huge pawn majority. Egon to his credit, fought back bravely but there was no stopping the central pawn march. We traded off pieces into a N+R+5P v R+P endgame. Egon's active Rook was constantly harassing my pieces but in time trouble, he miscalculated and I managed to trade off his Rook. He resigned.

Me 1-0 Calixto
Calixto is a relatively new player to the club. He is from the Phillippines. The Filipinos in Australia (especially in Sydney) are extremely strong chess players (class A and above usually). In fact, our very own, the Closet Grandmaster, Amiel is one of them. Calixto soundly beat my brother-in-law last week (I've seldom see Steven getting crushed like this) so I knew it would be a very tough fight. There was also added pressure. At that stage, Calixto was tied with my brother-in-law Steven at 6 points each. So I knew Calixto would also be trying his best to beat me. We got into a very odd version of the Caro-Kann Opening which resembled more of a Pirc in the end. It was indeed quite a hairy game. If you give Calixo a sniff of opportunity, he will spot it. So I was very very careful to play solidly and playing for tactics. I had manage to confine his Rook to the 8th rank and behind a closed file while he was trying hard to coordinate his pieces. In time trouble, Calixo unfortunately, in his eagerness to win a Rook, walked into mate.

Liu (1817) 0.5-0.5 Me
My final game was against my brother-in-law Steven(!). We got into a Symmetrical 4 Knights Opening, and after many pieces were exchanged, the resulting position looked very sterile (Black may have a slight edge but it's very very slight). He offered a draw and there was no reason for me not to take it. After the game, he commented that he will never play such an opening again because it totally didn't suit his playing style at all. Hehe.

Overall Result: +5-2=2

So I finally stopped my poor run of form and finished with a slightly more respectable 6/9 score in the end. My brother-in-law Steven finished clear first with a fantastic 7.5/9 performance.

Finally, my many thanks must go to Bill Gletsos for helping to arrange the games and for maintaining semblance of order during our games and for helping out with arbitration (in spite of him having to play as well).

The complete final results table is as follows:

7.5 pts
Liu, Steven

6.5 pts
Watson, Robert

6 pts
Calixto, Reyanante
Christensen, Joshua
Aspin, Mark
Me! :)

5 pts
Hill, Martin
Patterson, Donald
Cardenas, Egon
Gletsos, Bill
Burgess, Shane

4.5 pts
Mitrovic, Ivan
Grbin, Tereza

4 pts
Muller, John
Kuru, Argo
Marton, Alan
Gluvchinsky, Paul
Edwards, Greig
Bredin Wayne

3.5 pts
Wlliams, Bruce
Valenzuela, Manuel

3 pts
Kirillov, Karl
Chiara, Vince

2.5 pts
Irmler, Feodore

2 pts
Parkinson, Sean

1 pt
Mere, Uno

Another Chess Tournament Dies

2011-02-16T10:05:00.009+11:00

The last few years have seen a recent revival of chess. With the Nanjing and London Chess classic, in addition to the Bilbao Masters, we thought a new era of chess has arrived.

However, the new year of 2011 has delivered a very hard blow to chess.

Next year Amber will be gone from the calendar. This was quickly followed by the cancellation of the NH Chess tournament.

Probably the hardest blow was the loss of Linares (although the organisers are still trying to have one ready before the end of the year) - once considered the Wimbledon of chess. And today, news reports that the latest axe to fall is on Mainz.

As it is, I'm currently suffering from a withdrawal of non-chess tournament period and the only major tournament in the calendar at the moment is the Aeroflot Open (which may not live to see another year). I remember a time when the beginning of the year was filled with major chess tournaments.

Pity.

North Sydney Club Reserves A Rd 2

2011-02-15T17:03:00.004+11:00

In another 2.5 hours, I will be playing against John Pepping (Rated: 1522).

Last week, my board was next to his and from time to time, I glanced at the position. John carried out a pretty nice attack against Rex Simmonds but unfortunately, Rex managed to counter his attack with a tactical combo, winning Rex the game.

There is no doubt that John will be doubly motivated to go for a win and kick my butt tonight. I definitely have to play much much better.

My New Gadget

2011-02-14T22:19:00.006+11:00

Yes, I finally decided to treat myself and got an ebook reader. It's definitely not the top-of-the-line model but a simple relatively inexpensive one that does the job remarkably well.

It reads EPUB books fine and I've been busy away from chess, reading the many free ebooks available from the web (like this one above) from H G Wells's famous novel, The Invisible Man (if you're interested, look for titles under Project Gutenburg).

The nice thing about this reader is that it also allows me to read chess documents and books!

The one shown above is Shipov's analysis of the San Luis tournament of 2005 that I've stored from the web.

Using a free book management software called Calibre, I converted the webpage (retaining the copyrights etc.) and store it locally onto the reader to be read at my own leisure. Very neat.

Navigating The Maze Of Variations

2011-02-11T00:42:00.008+11:00

How does one choose a move in the maze of so many possible moves and variations?

I find that nowadays, when I look at the position, I first look for something to do (where my position is still safe and the kings on both sides are safe) is to in order:

a) look for loose pieces,
b) pieces that can be attacked (eg. backward pawns)
c) look for undefended squares
d) look for squares which can be used to improve my position

Once I found a move, I look for problems should I make that move.
a) Am I vacating a square which can be used by my opponent?
b) Have I left a piece en prise which the opponent can attack/gain a tempo with?
c) Have my defensive position weakened as a result?
d) If it is a pawn move, what has happened to the squares with which it used to defend?

I find that by constantly asking these questions, it becomes easier to make a good move and the number of blunders I make during the game as a consequence fall.

I played a game on Tuesday night and my opponent made a surprising move that I had not figured in my calculations. It was slightly counter-intuitive in that he moved his bishop to target a pawn chain formation directly along the same diagonal as the bishop. It was then that I realised that because the base of my pawn chain is only guarded by a rook and could be pinned, did I discover his idea and thankfully was able to repel his attack in time. I was silently cursing myself in that I had missed his move completely and I chalk it up as a move I should watch out for in the future.

I still find that the moves that are hardest to detect OTB are what I called "counter-intuitive" moves and non-forcing moves and it is from there I usually lose or proceeded to lose my advantage.

Okay, you may ask, having these set of rules is fine but how do I improve on learning how to make good moves during training?

The way I do is this (your mileage may vary) and I find it works for me:

Take any modern tournament book/autobiography that is deeply annotated and well explained by the players themselves. Now go to a random middlegame position of any game (anything from move 18 onwards is probably the best). Set up the board and start analysing. Now test yourself on how far you are able to calculate as many variations as possible (make sure that that the move has been annotated) within a 20 minute time frame. This is to simulate as close as possible to an actual match situation.

Start writing down as much as you can. Once the time is up, check if the variations you've made are the same as what the players have made. If the variation you've chosen is not explained, load the position in Fritz and see if there are any problems with the variations themselves.

At my level, I find that at times, I can find the GM moves but at times, my moves are weak and Fritz/Stockfish suggest alternative moves which are just as good.

It is not just you must know how to calculate but also what to calculate that is equally important.

So what kind of books would I recommend?

Being a patzer, I can only speak from my own experience and would not proclaim that the following list is the ONE but I find the following books have been fantastic when used. I'm sure you will have your favourite books as well.

If you're starting out, Bobby Fischer's My 60 Most Memorable Games is one of the best there is.

Mikhail Tal's Life And Games Of Mikhail Tal is another book I would gladly recommend for use in training.

Vishy Anand's My Best Game Of Chess is an excellent read where Anand annotates the moves and the variations of his games in clear detail (explaining the ideas/motifs and plans)

San Luis 2005 is a very intense book. The annotations are very nicely done, highly detailed and well explained. If you want to truly test yourself, this book will not disappoint when used for such training.

Note that I'm positive that there are other more effective training methods but I find that this training method I used has been effective for me. It may or may not work for you and I would not dare suggest anything to the contrary given my rating. I find that by making known what I use in an effort to play better chess and sharing this information, I hope you may find it useful.

As always, YMMV. Cheers!

Note To Self: Pay Attention!

2011-02-08T18:12:00.004+11:00

Tonight is the start of the North Sydney Club Championships. I didn't really know who I was supposed to play against till my brother-in-law Steven called up to tell me that the pairings were already done last week. Ooops!

Given my lowly rating of 1472, I was expected to be placed in the Candidates B division. Instead, I got bumped up to the Candidates A division. This meant that amongst the 10 players in my group, I am the second lowest rated player - which means that I am forced to play "up" against stronger opponents.

Cool!!!!! :)

My game tonight is against Clive Lane (1552) and I have White. As I don't really have an opening repertoire, I'll just play what comes to mind (my mood). I'd figured that at this level, I don't really need an opening repertoire, I just have to concentrate on tactics, tactics, tactics... :)

I'll report on the game once I'm done.

Cheers

Automatic Moves

2011-02-06T22:36:00.007+11:00

We've all done it from time to time, we make automatic moves on what we think are forced moves.

This is a game I had just a few minutes ago. When I ran it through Fritz, imagine my surprise.

White had recaptured the pawn on c4 with 22. dxc4. What should Black play?

22.... Nxb4 looks nice. Winning a pawn and gaining a tempo due to the discovered attack on White's queen.

Can you find a better plan?

Be warned, the calculation of the correct line is not easy as there are 2 important variations you have to consider that runs up till 6 ply deep. Remember tactics predominate nearly everything in chess.

Now what if I were to tell you there is a way to win at least a piece?

That got your interest hasn't it?

If you need to, stop now before looking at the answer below:

Ready? The winning move.

22.... Nd4!!
The White Queen is forced to move and there are 2 important variations:

Let's take a) 23. Qd1 or any other Queen move except 23. Qe3 - I'll explain later

Now comes the shocker 23....e5!!

a1) If the bishop moves away say 24. Bd2, then 24... Qh3 is decisive threatening mate on g2.
25. f3 (forced) Qxg3+
26. Kh1 Nxf3 and Black's attack crashes through and White must give up material to stave off mate.

a2) If the bishop takes with 24. Bxe5 then 24... Nf3+
25. Kg2 Nxe5+ wins the bishop

Now we go back to the other continuation
b) 23. Qe3 now e5 doesn't work but....

23... g5!! is a killer

Obviously the pawn cannot be taken as 24. hxg5 hxg5 with mate on Rh1#

24. Bxg5 is no solution because of Knight fork after 24.... hxg5 with 25... Nf3+ to follow.

That just leaves

24. Be5 Nf3+
25. Kg2 Nxe5+ winning the bishop

For all purposes, there is a stronger move in the earlier variation but given the practicalities of play, winning the bishop is fairly decisive.

Back To OTB Play And Rustiness

2011-02-02T09:38:00.007+11:00

I went last night to the North Sydney's Chess Club at Cammeray. Unfortunately, they were having lightning chess which I didn't feel like playing as the time controls were a bit too fast for me.

My brother-in-law Steven did play. Most of the regulars of North Sydney turned up together with Michael Morris, Gareth Charles amongst many others and a few surprise turnups by Johny Bolens and Shane Dibley.

I had gone there to pay for participation of the North Sydney Club Championships which begins next Tuesday. Norman Greenwood has informed me that the draws will be held on Thursday.

So after a 2 year hiatus, I'm going back to playing OTB chess again.

Peter Lay won the Lightning round but the highlight of the round for me was between Michael Morris and Johny Bolens. Michael played a rather unorthodox defense and pulled off a very nice tactical combination that allowed him to win a Knight and from then on, Johny got into trouble and promptly resigned a few moves before he was to get mated.

I'm also planning to play in the Ryde Eastwood Club Championships as well which starts 3 weeks from now. For the next 3 weeks, they'll be playing a Rapid tournament with 3 rounds each. My brother-in-law Steven is turning up tonight so it'll be interesting (because he left the Ryde Eastwood club a few years ago). I plan to play in the Rapids but I am not sure if I can make the drive from my workplace to the club within 15 minutes!

In the meantime, with regards to playing again in tournaments, I don't hope for miracles considering my long layoff from chess and have already anticipated a lot of rustiness to have set in with respect to my chess.

PS: I've almost forgotten most of my opening repertoire as well. Oh dear. :)

Become A Better Calculator

2011-01-30T10:42:00.005+11:00

One of the reasons (amongst many others) why my patzer rating is as it is today is because of my poor tactical vision and strategical skills. In other words, the ability to calculate accurately is still some thing I find extremely hard to get better at.

From looking at some of my games, I find that the majority of my losses are due to inaccuracies in my calculation of variations. You know you got your calculation very very wrong when Fritz evaluations changes by more than 1.0 points (eg. from a +0.6 toa -0.4).

Even more alarming is when the difference between your move and the computer's suggested move is different by more than 1.0 (eg. inability to increase from a +1.7 to a +2.9). While it may seem that the advantage is still there, failure to capitalise on minor mistakes made by your opponent means that my ability to increase my advantage is sorely lacking and below par.

So how does one improve on such areas?

Unfortunately, there is no shortcut to success. Constantly working on tactical puzzles and problems is still the key to evaluating a position accurately and finding the best move wherein possible. Learning and knowing how to increase your advantage is slightly more tricky. You need to be able to not only have a good grasp of tactics but also to be able to understand the nature of the position (eg. should I trade pieces, should I push that pawn). This comes with working on specific positional puzzles and problems and working through GM games.

Down With Chicken Pox

2011-01-26T10:43:00.003+11:00

In case people have been wondering where I was.

I came down with chicken pox and have been recovering at home. I was warded at the hospital under observation for a week before the doctors found it safe I would not infect anyone else.

This was followed by another suggested 2 weeks of rest by the doctors.

The funny thing was that this time (I had chicken pox before when I was young), there was no itchiness, fever nor vomiting throughout. The doctor was puzzled because adults normally don't have chicken pox the second time round and it usually appears in the form of shingles.

My face took the brunt of this so now I look like someone peppered my face with bullet holes. My brother-in-law mentioned last night I should put this on my blog so there you go. :)

PS: My wife found it amusing to take photos to document all my pock marks when I was in hospital (actually at my suggestion).

Lucas Chess

2010-12-18T12:21:00.012+11:00

While surfing the web, I happen to come across a very neat free chess program called Lucas Chess (Website: http://lukasmonk.110mb.com/).

This nifty chess program does something very well. It trains you and allows you to play against progressively strong chess engines (using commercially free chess engines - think Rybka and Stockfish). In addition, the program also allows a lot of leeway when playing against a chess engine, you can predefine the number of takebacks or you can ask for a set number of hints from a stronger chess engine. It is similar in concept to using "helplines" on those "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" game shows.

After playing around with it, I have to say that I am EXTREMELY IMPRESSED with this program.

What is very interesting about this little application is that it achieves the abovementioned objectives INCREDIBLY well.

The interface is extremely beautiful and you can also choose from a variety of themes to customise the look of the board and pieces.

To add icing to the cake, LucasChess also includes a whole host of training modules. The modules included with the program are of a wide range, they include amongst other things, tactical combinations, chess problems (mate in 2, 3, 4 and more), basic endgame techniques (think Vancura, Lucena positions), and board memorisation.

Having played with it for quite a while now, I would say that this program is really what you need to get to at least 1700 level.

While some users may find the lack of customisation (in terms of adding add-on modules) somewhat restrictive, it detracts from everything else that is great about this program.

I can go on and on about the usefulness of this chess program but one thing is for sure, this application is going to be a keeper and a mainstay on my computer.

Many thanks to the programmers and all involved in the making of this application. It is a solid gold grade A effort!

I'm Never Going To See Zwischenzugs

2010-12-14T00:22:00.005+11:00

It's quite funny... I just finished an online blitz game and I thought I performed the game quite well. However, upon turning on the silicon machine, Fritz immediately discovered that my opponent was winning with a huge advantage of over +3.00!! It so turns out that my opponent had missed a vital move and played what seemed like a natural human move which shrank his advantage from +3.00 to an instant 0.00 in 1 move and then -1.10 in the next move - shocking to say the least.

However, I have to admit that the winning move was quite difficult to spot. He had put my king under immense pressure and had continued to check my king, inadvertently missing a zwischenzug (an in between move) that didn't involve a check which would have won the game 2 moves later.

This is one problem I had (not with respect to the book) while reading the book from Charles Hertan on Forcing Chess Moves in which he discusses zwischenzugs on Chapter 8. In this chapter, while Hertain explains the importance of always looking for zwischenzugs, in practice, it is EXTREMELY difficult to spot and near impossible to calculate if you're calculating rather long variations in your head.

Even World Championship matches have been decided because of this important tactical motif. A case in point, in Game 12 of this year's match between Topalov and Anand - Topalov had evidently missed 34....Qe8 when he started the tactical complications starting with 31. exf5 but not Anand. If a 2800 rated player can miss it, what chance is there for us mere mortals? :)

London Chess Classic Live Video Stream

2010-12-10T05:29:00.003+11:00

The London Chess Classic is now online.

What may interest people is that the games are commented live (complete with video feeds) by GM Daniel King. Yesterday, we had IM Lawrence Trent and today, GM Chris Ward joined the live commentary.

But what is of particular interest is that for every game, King comments on the various possible variations (without the aid of computer engines!). This is valuable commentary and honestly, watching King presents is like having a chess coach explain to you why certain moves work, some don't, what kind of strategies should be adopted, middlegame plans, endgame techniques - extremely valuable information for the club player who wants to improve his game.

You can catch it here:
London Chess Classic Live Video Stream

Blitz And More Blitz

2010-12-06T23:48:00.003+11:00

I've not been playing in tournaments for the past 9 months now and have been just playing the occasional online blitz (usually 10 min or 5 min + 12 sec increment).

I noticed that as I played more and more blitz, my analysis skills became shallower and shallower, resorting to short calculations or variations. This has steadily led to a regression of my chess knowledge - so in the end, I just really couldn't be bothered with times and have resulted in losing games based on time. My FICS rating has since plummeted to the mid-1400 range and I'm not the least bit concerned. I find that I gained greater satisfaction from losing a blitz game while playing better moves than to win a blitz game playing poor moves.

True, I calculate deeper than I should for blitz but I think it's a good skill to cultivate in the long run.

With the London Chess Classic starting tomorrow (today is the drawing of lots), there's no shortage of chess coverage. I cannot remember the last time chess has been so active in the international scene.

It appears that chess is currently undergoing a mini-revival (in spite of the global economic downturn). This is certainly heartening to see.

Analysing Difficult Positions

2010-11-28T00:04:00.006+11:00

This game is complicated. I am Black. In this online game, White threw everything except the kitchen sink to conjure up an extremely powerful attack on Black's king.

It is Black's turn.

If this was a blitz game, there is no way anyone could see the motifs and the correct move.

If Black can hold on to his position he would win. In razor sharp positions, where a single move can lead to a win or a loss, it is vital to be able to understand the "truth" of the position.

How would you analyse this position? If you were Black, what would you play?

In this game, I lost because I failed to understand the position.

If you do not want to know the answer, STOP READING NOW!! :)

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The way to tackle this problem was to first of all, understand how to go about analysing this.

Think for a moment, if this was White's turn, what would White play?

The answer is obvious.

2. f7! Now White is threatening mate on g8 so the next move is forced.
2. ... Bg7 (any other move is instant mate after 3. Qxh6#)

With this in mind, we know that once the h6 pawn falls it is checkmate.

So what would White play as a followup move?
3. Rh2! with the intention of 4. Rxh6 Bxh6 5. Qxh6# (again!)

Ok. So how do I stop the Rook from sacrificing itself on h6? What this means is that Black has only 2 moves to prevent checkmate.

The Black Queen is way offside. The light-squared Bishop on c4 is hindered by the d4 pawn. True, it can temporarily sacrifice itself with Bd3 but after Rxd3, Black can save the situation since it requires 2 moves by White to reposition itself back on the h-file. This can be saved but is there a better solution (remember the axiom "if you find a good move, look for a better one")?

The Rook on a8 takes 3 moves to reposition itself to the h-file. This is far too late.

How about 1.... b5 trying to pin the White Queen and stopping f7? The problem comes again.
2. Rh2 and now preparing 3. Rxh6+ Bxh6 4. Qxh6 Kg8 5. Qg7# (another mate!)

So what is left? It's the Black Queen.

Is there a way to stop the Rook from entering the h-file with the Queen? Well, given that the Black Queen is on a light square, it needs 3 moves to get to the h-file but the problem is that if the Queen retreats to b7 or c8, White will play f7 and the 7th rank is totally cut off for the Black Queen. It's starting to look grim for Black.

What now? Now that we've identified the threats and possible solutions. Let's look at this position now, with a fresh pair of eyes.

So we know that the Queen retreat doesn't work, the Rook takes too long to lift itself and the c4 Bishop (short of sacrificing itself for tempi) cannot go back in time and b5 pawn moves doesn't work either.

Now imagine if White has a chance to play Rh2, where would you put the Black Queen if you have free rein? If the Queen is on the 1st rank to give check to the White king, then after ....Qf1 it is Black who is now giving checkmate. In other words, if we can find a way to get the Queen to f1 in 2 moves, we can stop Rh2.

The solution to this predicament has to be 1. ....Qa4!! intending .... Qd1+ Kg2 and then Qf1# (if White tries Rh2).

So the correct move to stop this is 1.... Qa4!!

Shocking, isn't it? :)

NYC: Watch Where You Play Chess

2010-11-19T15:41:00.004+11:00

7 men ticketed for playing chess in playground by cops in bulletproof vests

Reminds me of a scene from Dirty Harry:

Callahan: Are you trying to tell me that ballistics can't match the bullet up to this rifle?
DA: It does not matter what ballistics can do. This rifle might make a nice souvenir. But it's inadmissible as evidence.
Callahan: And who says that?
DA: It's the law.
Callahan: Well, then the law's CRAZY!

Botvinnik-Petrosian Book Review

2010-11-17T02:34:00.012+11:00

For readers who have been wondering where I have gone, I have been reading some of the books I bought the last 3 months. And I've just finished reading Botvinnik-Petrosian - The 1963 WCC Match by Mikhail Botvinnik.

I started reading the book 2 months ago and despite it being a somewhat thin book, it was hard because trying to find time to read the annotations and play the game (using a chessboard and its variations) is time-consuming!

If you've ever wanted to know about the old Soviet chess champions, this book is very insightful. It details the going-ons of the clash between 2 heavyweight chess personalities.

Note that this is a patzer's review so hang on to your seats!

Book quality:

This book is printed by New In Chess. The covers have a slight cardboardish glossy feel to it that is typical of many softcover chess books (slightly better than what softcover novels use). Inside, the pages are of pristine white paper and the quality of the paper makes it very easy to move between pages. The binding is glued based but considering how relatively thin this book is, it does the job decent enough in holding the pages together. The font is in Times New Roman using figurine algebraic notation. The font is just a shade bigger (about 1-2 points bigger) than most chess books which makes the annotations stand out very clearly and makes reading a joy. The typeset in combination with the white pages makes reading comfortable.... very comfortable. The book is presented in 2 columns on each page.

Content:

The presentation of the book is well thought out. A table of contents was accompanied with a foreword from Karpov, followed by notes from Igor Botvinnik, a simple overview of the match regulations and a match table containing the 22 games fought.

And with that, the game begins in earnest.

This is where things get a little uneven.

The annotations do not have a uniform feel to it. This is of course, no doubt in part due to the different annotators of each game. While we would all like to have all game annotations from Botvinnik or Petrosian, unfortunately, this is just not possible. So the book has to make do with annotations from other notable chess figures.

Annotations are as follows:-
Game 1 - Mikhail Botvinnik
Game 2 - Tigran Petrosian
Game 3 - Alexander Kotov
Game 4 - Mikhail Botvinnik
Game 5 - Tigran Petrosian
Game 6 - Vladimir Akopian
Game 7 - Vladimir Akopian
Game 8 - Mikhail Botvinnik
Game 9 - Vladimir Akopian
Game 10 - Mikhail Botvinnik
Game 11 - Mark Taimanov
Game 12 - Salo Flohr
Game 13 - Mikhail Botvinnik
Game 14 - Mikhail Botvinnik
Game 15 - Garry Kasparov (from My Great Predecessors)
Game 16 - Mikhail Botvinnik
Game 17 - Viktor Kortchnoi
Game 18 - Vladimir Akopian
Game 19 - Vladimir Akopian
Game 20 - Vladimir Bagirov
Game 21 - Vasily Panov
Game 22 - Vasily Panov

It must be noted that by game 20, Petrosian had an overwhelming 3 point lead. At this stage, Botvinnik knew the game was pretty much over. He tried making an effort in game 20 but when that quickly petered to a draw, games 21 and 22 were just signatory moves that only lasted 10 moves. I don't think anyone can really complain about the annotations of the last 2 games! :)

This is followed by what must be the highlight of the book. A valuable 10 page insight given by Petrosian about the match. In it, he explains the circumstances surrounding the match, his preparation, his psychology and state of mind.

Somewhat oddly included after is a symbolic game of Botvinnik's preparation in his game against Mark Taimanov. This is then succeeded by a 2 page excerpt taken from Chess World 1964 by Botvinnik on why he lost the match.

9 games of Botvinnik-Petrosian were then shown, of which only 2 were properly annotated while the others were simply shown with little or no annotation at all (what a pity!). This is followed by training games between Botvinnik and Furman (no annotations) and the book concluded with Botvinnik's final notebook on opening preparation.

I admit that I've not played through these games but I might possibly do so at a future date when time permits.

Criticisms:

The unevenness of the annotated games makes one feel a tad disjointed. One moment, we are treated to Botvinnik's pedantic style, the next, Akopian's more modernish annotations (with some very extensive annotations by virtue of the length of some of the variations that run up to 20 ply moves!)

I think this is probably the only criticism I have of the book and indeed, it's very difficult to find fault with the book.

Kudos:

The book is littered with many pictures of the 2 players. This is a nice departure from the Botvinnik-Smyslov book where annotations and more annotations fill the book.

All of the annotations were superb and I find it hard to pick out the best game annotation of the whole book. If I were given a choice, I would nominate Game 5 annotated by Petrosian. What makes Game 5's annotations memorable was that Petrosian himself inserted some very interesting comments between moves (including the match environment).

Summary:

This book is going to be one of my favourite books for many years to come. The nice thing is that due to its largely fewer pages (when you see the Botvinnnik-Smyslov tome, you would know what I mean), it is an extremely handy and great book to read along to fill in the time.

I would judge this book to be very educational for players who want to improve their game or for readers who simply want to know about the 1963 match.

Conclusion:

A solid A+ effort!

I've done 1 book and 2 more to go.... I don't expect to finish reading the next 2 anytime soon. They are Botvinnik-Smyslov and San Luis 2005 *gulp*

Carlsen Quits World Candidates

2010-11-06T07:06:00.007+11:00

I guess the biggest news now in the chess world is Magnus Carlsen withdrawing from the World Championship cycle.

Instead, Magnus favours the tournament method (link to Chessbase article)?

I'm sorry Magnus but you've lost me. The matches have been a mainstay and the main attraction of the chess world since its inception to produce a World Champion whether you like it or not. San Luis 2005 only produced a FIDE World Champion much like in the preceding years before it. Mexico 2007 was a special event and one which produced Anand as a unified World Champion because the then existing World Champion Kramnik agreed to play under FIDE's rule. Anand subsequently solidified his status a year later in Bonn and no one has since doubted his status.

No one ever said the path to being a world champion was easy. In the 50s and 60s, players had to qualify for Interzonals and then the Candidates before facing the World Champion. Players who reached this summit truly deserved to be a World Champion. That is why players like Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer proved their mettle and their names are etched in the minds as great chess players in everybody's hearts and minds.

So why a tournament format? It's obvious that Magnus shines in such a format and it is one which guarantees his best chance of winning. But winning such a tournament is worthless in the eyes of the chess world. The years of the split between FIDE and Kasparov are well known and FIDE's introduction of the tournament format was ample proof of that.

I find it amazing that Carlsen qualified not because he had passed through the Interzonals nor the Grand Prix but because FIDE gave him a free ticket to the seat by virtue of his rating and he is still not satisfied.

This is not going to sit well with the rest of the chess world.

If Your Opponent Was Him

2010-10-21T13:39:00.002+11:00

.... what would you do? A Tattoo Too Far (weblink opens a video interview)

The Great Equaliser

2010-10-15T11:16:00.007+11:00

It's been slightly more than 13 years since Kasparov lost to the computer Deep Blue. What this monumental impact it had on the chess world has been nothing short of incredible.

We now know that the best chess mind in the world is no match against the best chess engine in a tactical slugfest. That's because chess engines have the incredible ability to walk a tightrope and still hold a game (given enough processing power and adequate time). Emotion and pressure has no bearing on its performance.

So what has really happened since then?

Instead of signaling the death of chess, what has happened ironically is the exact opposite. Computers have made chess become even more accessible to everyone.

No longer do you need someone to tell you what tactic you missed in your OTB game. The computer will show you the way in less than a blink of an eye, thereby helping you in your game.

The prolifigeration of chess material on the internet and in bookshops, online stores have been incredible. Unsure what your opening plan and strategy should be? Look up in any of the free online databases to see what everyone is playing. Not sure if this 2P+R+K v P+R+K endgame is winning? Look up any of the widely free tablebase chess servers on the Net and your answer will be given.

What also has given rise is the increasing usage by human players to make computer-like moves. Moves which seem impossible and counter to reason suddenly can now be shown to work.

The internet is also largely responsible for the increase and spread of chess information, being quick to embrace chess in all its forms. You can find video analyses of old master games on YouTube, read free online annotations by GMs on games, watch videos of recent tournaments.

We now have so much chess information floating around in the web that it does not matter if you're a 2700 GM or a 700 player, you still have access to the same information as the next person. Never has the playing field been more even.

The unfortunate part is that it also allows anyone to be an armchair critic. :)

Buyer's Not-So-Remorse

2010-10-09T16:47:00.006+11:00

Do you feel guilty of buying too many chess books and not getting around to reading them all?

I'll be the first to put my hands up for this.

I've so far in my possession a couple of books on my bookshelf that I did not get around to finish reading them.

And last week, I just bought another chess book, San Luis 2005 (will be arriving in 2 weeks time via mail) in spite of the fact that I've not finished reading the other 2 New In Chess books that I'm currently reading.

One good thing I found was that I really need to invigorate myself (practically force myself) to read finish the current books in my possession.

But the progress has been slow. A chess book takes ages to complete for me because I have a tendency to want to replay them with a real chess set instead of moving the pieces around in my head. So 1 game takes me at least 2 hours to finish, analyse and understand the motifs and read the annotations (including variations) of why certain moves are made.

It's also extremely tiring to my eyes if I was to replay it on the computer. The problem with playing it over the computer is that my mind is not able to recall it as vividly unless I push the wooden pieces around.

I predominantly identify myself as a type of person who needs to learn via "doing", not one who learns via simple introduction and reading of new material.

FIDE Training And Recommendations

2010-10-07T08:13:00.002+11:00

Now we all know that if we were to approach chess learning the same way we do in school - that is, through consistent effort, diligence, hard work and motivation, there's no reason why we cannot succeed in chess.

So if we were to approach chess the way we study, what kind of books and is there any kind of material that we can obtain to help us understand chess better?

Thankfully, the people at the FIDE Trainers Commission have a nice bunch of information to help you out.

Included here is a list of 100 chess books (note that the list is a bit old - it would be nice if they have an updated list but many of the recommendations are already excellent)

http://trainers.fide.com/recommended-books.html

in which they also list their top books for FIDE trainers.

Also available on the official FIDE Trainers websites are some excellent training materials (called "surveys" - talk about misnomers) at :

http://trainers.fide.com/surveys.html

(Available in downloadable/viewable pdf, doc and zipped cbv/pgn formats)

Chess Engines On The Cheap

2010-10-04T01:14:00.007+11:00

.... well actually, free. :)

Unless you happen to be a chess professional or a serious chess enthusiast/player and absolutely want the latest and greatest chess engines, ranging from Hiarcs 13 to Rybka 4 and you have a bit of moolah to spend, then you probably don't want to read this blog post.

An amateur and a patzer such as myself, don't use the latest nor the greatest chess engine at all.

Besides the ever common Crafty (did you know it came in joint 2nd in the recent 2010 World Computer Rapid Chess Championship?) which you can get for free (http://www.craftychess.com/), there are also a few free chess engines available.

Rybka v2.3.2a is available for free from the Rybka website (http://www.rybkachess.com/free/Rybka232a.zip)

Stockfish is another free chess engine (http://www.stockfishchess.com/download/) along with Toga II.

There are also other free chess engines that are available and which have been removed from participation due to accusations of decompilation and cloning by the Rybka team. These chess engines include Firebird and Ivanhoe (which are reputedly even stronger than Rybka4). As to where to get these chess engines, well, I don't need to tell you how to find them, do I?

Finish Him

2010-10-02T06:12:00.008+10:00

In the game "Mortal Kombat"(or as I affectionately like to call it - More-Dull Combat), the finishing blow to win over your opponent in this computer game is to land a killer blow (called a "Fatality"). So what has is got to do with chess?

Well, is there anything worse than losing a chess game?

Yes, when it's losing a chess game that you know you had a winning position but you could not convert the advantage and not being able to land the killing blow!

History has been filled with such examples from patzers like me, all the way to elite Grandmasters (the Topalovs, Anands and Kramniks etc.). It has also occurred with surprising regularity and at the highest levels (see the Botvinnik - Bronstein World Championship match 1951).

The recent Chess Olympiad is a good example.

Just to show you how bad my calculation skill is, take a look at the following position:

My opponent Black just played

20. ....Qd4?? trying to exchange off my Queen. I meekly retreated my Queen in the game but there is a nice little tactical blow in this position that will give me an advantage.

Can you spot it?

It's 21. Nd4!.

Once you see the move, it's not hard to realise what is happening. If Black takes the Queen with 21.... Qxg4 22 Nf6+ forks both King and Queen and White is a healthy piece up.

If Black moves the King with 21.... Kg7 Then 22. Qxd4 and either 22... cxd4 or 22... exd4 results in the 2 Rooks being forked with 23. Nd7 with a healthy exchange up.

So how does a patzer like me improve my skill in recognising killer blows?

We turn once again to the patriarch Mikhail Botvinnik.

Botvinnik had no chess coach. So how then did he develop his talent?

What he would do is to play over his games, extenuously finding improvements in his play or he can learn to play better. He will play out as many variations of his games as much as possible, objectively trying to seek out the "truth" in each position. By doing so over and over and over again, Botvinnik's chess acumen improved. He start to formulate plans, strategies, and more importantly, he developed his incredible ability to calculate long variations accurately.

This kind of training plan is purposeful. It's training with a plan, a plan that identifies your weaknesses and strengths and how to improve on your weaknesses and to develop your strengths at the same time.

In my case, my weaknesses are in the middlegame and in tactics. As a result, I find myself unable to recognise opportunities when they present themselves. So my training plan should involve solving middlegame problems, and tactical problems and familiar patterns and strategies arising from my typical middlegames.

So what is your plan?

Attacking Manual Wins ECF Book Of The Year

2010-09-28T19:22:00.014+10:00

A well deserved and my heartiest congratulations to Quality Chess and to GM Jacob Aagaard.

The English Chess Federation has awarded the 2 volume work Attacking Manual 1 and 2 as ECF Book Of The Year.

I know what some readers might think. What's so great about these 2 books on attack that hasn't been dealt before? How do you compare them with evergreen books like Vladimir Vukovic's magnum opus Art Of The Attack or Rudolph Spielmann's The Art of Sacrifice in Chess?

I got a chance to browse a few chapters of it and the work is stunning, to say the least. You don't get phrases like "now White is winning" or "the rest is just technique".... GM Aagaard actually takes the time to tell you (in words - not variations) of the hows and the why. And nearly 99% of these explanations go into paragraphs, detailing the nuances of the position and the ideas and strategies attached to them!

This kind of work is getting rare these days where chess books (especially opening manuals) seem to be popping up, left, right and center.

And in the publishing world where pages are often precious "real estate" and tend to be in short supply (especially for chess books), Attacking Manual 1 and 2 breaks both stereotypes. Attacking Manual 1 contains over 320 pages of information while Attacking Manual 2 weighs in at over 450 pages of instructional work! These 2 books are truly phenomenal.

One final word about the books. IMPT: If you plan on getting Attacking Manual 1, do get the Revised and Expanded Edition. GM Jacob Aagaard clearly has put a lot of love and care into these 2 books enough to release a revised version in the space of 2 years - something nearly unheard of in the realm of chess publishing.

So if you don't have these books and you love to attack (or defend), then don't walk to the bookstore, run and get it and you'll have hours .... err, make that months of enjoyment.

Endgame Technique & Karsten Müller

2010-09-28T00:05:00.006+10:00

When anyone mentions training on endgames, one of the names that frequently pops into conversation is Germany's very own chess mathematician and Chessbase presenter Dr Karsten Müller.

At times, his name has become so synonymous with endgame technique that I find it hard to separate one from the other.

He appears everywhere. When he's not releasing books (eg. the latest ChessCafe Puzzle Book 3), you can see him on every issue of Chessbase Magazine (where he deals out even more endgame commentaries and analysis in Chessbase video format), on Chessbase Fritz Trainers (his Endgame series are still ever popular) or on ChessCafe's monthly endgame columns.

And when he's not busy with doing books and videos, he plays for the chess club Hamburger SK team in the German Bundesliga. Dr Müller (he got his PhD at the University of Hamburg) was also a coach and trainer.

One of the reasons for his popularity is his video presentations for Chessbase. He attacks each video lesson with such fervour and aplomb and at times, is unintentionally humorous. In one endgame lesson, he looks at the position in a 2R+K vs 2R+K endgame and proclaims, "now, you can choose to exchange off one pair of the rooks.... *pause* .... maybe not, we shall see..."

I've been an avid reader of Müller's Chesscafe columns. If you sort through the Chesscafe archives, his Endgame columns are worth their weight in gold. If you're below 2000 Elo rating, there are at least 100 Elo points waiting to be earned in those columns.

(Above image: Karsten Müller in his Chessbase Endgame DVD
examines one of his own games in an endgame
which he converted with ease
- yes, he does know his endgame, folks!)

Some fun facts:

He achieved his first GM norm at the German Championship 1997. The critical game took place on his 27th birthday, he was a whole rook down but his opponent was short on time and allowed him a perpetual check.

As he was about to publish his book, Fundamental Chess Endings with Frank Lamprecht, tablebases started to appear on the chess scene. He had to go back and check all the analyses (yikes!) . To make matters worse, he uses the Nunn convention where each move marked by an exclamation mark(!) means it is the only move to play.

Igor Tabolyi sought fit to put a chapter on Müller in the book, Genius In The Background.

Müller has also translated a few chess books into German including Secrets Of Modern Chess Strategy, How To Beat Your Dad At Chess and Dvoretsky's Analytical Manual.

A Young Smyslov Game

2010-09-26T00:27:00.023+10:00

The 7th World Chess Champion Vasily Vasilyevich Smyslov was one of the strongest players and some might argue, the strongest player in the 1950s, eclipsing Mikhail Botvinnik.

Just how good was he?

When you consider that he played 3 World Championship matches with Botvinnik in 1956, 1957 and 1958 and yet emerged with a plus score against Botvinnik, it's no small feat.

One of the most famous quotes from Smyslov was, "I will play 40 good moves. If you can play 40 good moves, we will draw."

He sure knows how to make the skill of making good moves seem effortless!

In this following game position (taken from the book Smyslov's Best Games, a young Smyslov is playing against Gerasimov in the Championship of the Moscow House of Pioneers in 1935, we look at this game after Gerasimov (White) plays 19. h3.

What did the young Smyslov (as Black) uncork that forced White to resign on move 22?

FEN Position:
[r2r2k1/1b3ppp/ppq1p3/4P3/N1P2bn1/PQ5P/1B3PP1/R3RBK1 b - - 0 19]

When you're ready, highlight between the brackets for the answer.

[Smsylov played the move. 19... Rd3!!
In the game White played
20. Qxb6 (if 20. Qxd3 Bh2+ 21. Kh1 Nxf2+ loses the Queen)
20... Rxh3 !! (the point)
21. Bd4 (if 21. Qxc6 Bh2+ 22. Kh1 Nxf2#) 21... Bh2+
22. Kh1 Bxe5+ (and White is helpless to stop a Windmill using a Bishop which loses the Queen!)
0-1
]

Chess In Translation

2010-09-24T17:04:00.003+10:00

There's a new chess website catering to translations of interviews from Russia called ChessInTranslation.com.

It is fast becoming one of my favourite chess websites. In it, you can find English translation of Russian interviews. With the Chess Olympiad now in full swing, this website has now become my daily staple diet of Russian chess news!

Well done to the web administrators of this great website!

Online Cheating - A Penny For Your Thoughts

2010-09-23T08:51:00.008+10:00

While browsing the chess.com forums, I came across the following interesting post from erik (owner of chess.com). The post reminds me of what John Milton wrote in Paradise Lost.

"Abashed the Devil stood and felt how awful goodness is."

------------------------
10th August 2009, 05:52am by erik

We close many accounts each day for computer cheating on Chess.com. Generally people get very very angry about it and email back to deny it and blah blah blah (always the same thing). But today we received a different response and I wanted to share it for 2 reasons: first, a warning to those who are tempted to cheat; and second, to show an example of maturity in someone who is man enough to own up to his decisions.

"First of all, I'm very sorry for betraying the trust put into me by Chess.com.

Things have happened in my life over the last year and at one point in time I decided to make that unforgiveable mistake, and one thing led to another. I regret making that mistake. Not that it'll make any difference, and I'm not expecting you to believe me, but it's been the main reason I was considering to resign all my games and just not play on chess.com anymore. To just be able to help out the community and write articles. Alas, I threw that away the moment I first used that engine.

I have never asked you for anything, nor will I now. Don't worry, I won't try to come back under a different name, I have betrayed the trust put into me and that's sad. Very sad.

I wish you all the best. Please accept my sincere apologies, wish you all the best of luck with the website and I enjoyed all the hours on chess.com."

Tournament Book Mood

2010-09-21T02:45:00.003+10:00

I've not been playing OTB chess for the last 6 months and rustiness has indeed set in.

In the meantime, I've taken time out to start to reading chess books again and have recently bought a few tournament books.

I'm in the midst of reading Botvinnik - Petrosian (New In Chess) and have gone up till game 3 of their 1963 WCC match and what a fight it was! Despite reaching a drawish looking endgame, the two proceeded to battle it out till move 86! Neither was willing to give up without giving it a good fight.

Sadly, my book is starting to get dog-eared pretty quickly due to my constant page-flipping and rather callous handling of the book. But this book is going to be destined to be one of the few books I finish. :)

As an added incentive, I've bought another book Botvinnik - Smyslov (New In Chess) last weekend and will be looking forward to reading/studying it once I'm done with the Botvinnik - Petrosian book. After this, I'm looking forward to acquiring either San Luis 2005 or Reggio Emilia 2006/2007.

Maybe I'll do a simple book review of it when I'm done! :)

Chess.com Boots Out Yelena Dembo

2010-09-20T08:35:00.013+10:00

Making the unusual headlines today is Chess.com's decision to unceremoniously boot out WGM Yelena Dembo. No detailed information was forthcoming from chess.com but word has spread that there was an "anomaly" in her CC games.

Her account (http://www.chess.com/members/view/YelenaDembo) on chess.com is currently being listed as "disabled".

Addendum: On chess.com's forums, a forummer Steve Collyer (UK) have put up his analysis of Ms Dembo's games vs 2200++ opponents. His findings are listed below.

Please note that this is not to be taken as the gospel truth. If you would like to find the correlation, feel free to use the posted games below for your own analysis with your own engines. Me? I would prefer if Ms Dembo's games get a good looking over by a respected GM. I still find the whole incident disturbing.

You can find Ms Dembo's responses on chessgames.com at: http://www.chessgames.com/~Yelena+Dembo

----- Steve Collyer's results ----

Deep Rybka 3 x64 Hash:256 Time:30s Depth:12-20ply

AMD Phenom x 4 2.30Ghz 4GB DDR2 RAM

YelenaDembo (Games: 20)
Top 1 Match: 530/723 ( 73.3% )
Top 2 Match: 638/723 ( 88.2% )
Top 3 Match: 676/723 ( 93.5% )
Top 4 Match: 698/723 ( 96.5% )

In another thread, he posted Ms Dembo's last 18 CC games and I quote:

"Here are the games which I will analyse. Please note that the games are the most recently completed vs 2200+ rateds with 35+ total moves. There are 18 of these, and to complete the usual 20 game requirement I selected the 2 most recent games by near 2200's with 35+ total moves:"

[Event "CM v Dalmatia - Board 1"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2010.05.16"]
[White "YelenaDembo"]
[Black "Slow_Burn"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2805"]
[BlackElo "2797"]
[TimeControl "1 in 5 days"]
[Termination "YelenaDembo won by resignation"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Bg5 a6 7.Qd2 e6 8.O-O-O Bd7 9.Kb1 Be7 10.f4 h6 11.Bh4 b5 12.a3 O-O 13.Nf3 Qb6 14.e5 dxe5 15.fxe5 Nd5 16.Nxd5 exd5 17.Bxe7 Nxe7 18.Qd4 Qe6 19.Bd3 Rab8 20.Qh4 Nc6 21.Rhe1 b4 22.a4 b3 23.c3 Bc8 24.Re3 Re8 25.h3 Na5 26.Nd4 Qe7 27.Qxe7 Rxe7 28.Ree1 Kf8 29.Nf5 Rc7 30.Nd6 Nc4 31.Nxc8 Rbxc8 32.Be2 Rd8 33.Rd4 Ke7 34.Bd1 Ke6 35.h4 Na5 36.Rg4 Rg8 37.Kc1 Rc6 38.h5 Rc5 39.Rf1 Ke7 40.Rgf4 Rf8 41.Rb4 Rc4 42.Rxc4 dxc4 43.Bf3 Rd8 44.Rh1 Ke6 45.Re1 g5 46.Bg4+ Ke7 47.Re4 Rd5 48.Bc8 Rc5 49.Bxa6 Ke6 50.Kd2 Rd5+ 51.Ke2 Rxe5 52.Rxe5+ Kxe5 53.Ke3 Kd5 54.g4 Ke5 55.Bc8 f6 56.Bf5 Nc6 57.Be4 Na5 58.Ba8 1-0

[Event "NaScp with Miss - Board 2"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2010.05.01"]
[White "kingkoy301"]
[Black "YelenaDembo"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2503"]
[BlackElo "2767"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "YelenaDembo won by resignation"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bf4 Bg7 5.e3 O-O 6.h3 c5 7.dxc5 Nbd7 8.Be2 Ne4 9.Nxd5 e6 10.Nc7 e5 11.Nxa8 exf4 12.exf4 Bxb2 13.O-O Bxa1 14.Qxa1 Ndxc5 15.Rd1 Bd7 16.Ne5 Qc8 17.f3 Nf6 18.Qd4 Bf5 19.g4 Ne6 20.Qe3 Ng7 21.Qxa7 Be6 22.Nb6 Qc5+ 23.Kf1 Nfh5 24.gxh5 Nxh5 25.Qxb7 Nxf4 26.Ng4 Nxh3 27.Ke1 Bxg4 28.Nd5 Qf2+ 29.Kd2 Be6 30.Nf6+ Kg7 31.Qb2 Kh6 32.Ne4 Rd8+ 33.Kc1 Rxd1+ 34.Bxd1 Qe3+ 35.Kb1 Nf2 36.Nxf2 Qxf2 37.a4 Qd2 38.Qc1 Qxc1+ 39.Kxc1 Kg5 40.a5 h5 41.a6 h4 0-1

[Event "double challenge - Board 1"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2010.02.10"]
[White "YelenaDembo"]
[Black "ashot_bag"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2752"]
[BlackElo "2304"]
[TimeControl "1 in 5 days"]
[Termination "YelenaDembo won on time"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 d6 4.d4 exd4 5.Nxd4 Bd7 6.O-O g6 7.Nxc6 bxc6 8.Bc4 Bg7 9.Re1 Ne7 10.Nc3 O-O 11.Bg5 h6 12.Be3 c5 13.Qd2 Kh7 14.f4 Rb8 15.b3 Nc6 16.Rac1 Nd4 17.Bf2 Be6 18.Bf1 Qd7 19.Nd1 f5 20.c3 Nc6 21.exf5 Bxf5 22.g3 Rbe8 23.Rxe8 Rxe8 24.b4 Qe6 25.Ne3 Be4 26.bxc5 d5 27.Nc2 g5 28.Nd4 Qg4 29.fxg5 hxg5 30.Re1 Ne5 31.Bg2 Bf6 32.h3 Qh5 33.g4 Qg6 34.Bh1 Bxh1 35.Kxh1 Nc4 36.Qc2 Rxe1+ 37.Bxe1 Qxc2 38.Nxc2 1-0

[Event "10th Chess.com Tournament (2201+) - Round 1"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2010.03.01"]
[White "YelenaDembo"]
[Black "wh47"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2747"]
[BlackElo "2377"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "YelenaDembo won by resignation"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 O-O 7.Bxc6 dxc6 8.Nxe5 Re8 9.d3 Bb4 10.c3 Rxe5 11.cxb4 Qd4 12.Qd2 Re8 13.Qc3 Rd8 14.Bf4 Be6 15.Bxc7 Ng4 16.Qxd4 Rxd4 17.f3 Rd7 18.Bf4 Nf6 19.Nc3 Rxd3 20.Red1 Rad8 21.b3 h5 22.Kf2 Kf8 23.Rxd3 Rxd3 24.Ne2 Ne8 25.Be3 Rd7 26.Nf4 Nf6 27.h4 Ke8 28.Bb6 g6 29.Ke3 Nh7 30.Nd3 f5 31.Ne5 Rg7 32.Rd1 fxe4 33.Rd8+ Ke7 34.Rb8 exf3 35.Rxb7+ Kf6 36.Bd8+ Kxe5 37.Rxg7 fxg2 38.Rxg6 Bd5 39.Kf2 Nf8 40.Rg5+ Kd4 41.Rxh5 Ne6 42.Bf6+ Kd3 43.Be5 Kc2 44.Rf5 Kb1 45.h5 Be4 46.Rf7 Ng5 47.Rg7 g1=Q+ 48.Kxg1 Nf3+ 49.Kf2 Nxe5 50.Ke3 Bc2 51.Kd4 Nf3+ 52.Kc3 1-0

[Event "10th Chess.com Tournament (2201+) - Round 1"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2010.03.01"]
[White "saksipotku"]
[Black "YelenaDembo"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2367"]
[BlackElo "2739"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "YelenaDembo won by resignation"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.g3 Nc6 4.Bg2 Bc5 5.d3 d6 6.Na4 O-O 7.Ne2 Bb6 8.Nxb6 axb6 9.O-O Be6 10.c4 Qe7 11.f4 Bg4 12.h3 Bxe2 13.Qxe2 Nd7 14.Be3 Nc5 15.f5 Nd4 16.Qd2 Nd7 17.g4 f6 18.h4 Ra5 19.b3 Rfa8 20.Qb2 Ra3 21.Rfd1 c5 22.g5 Qe8 23.Kf2 Qh5 24.Rh1 Qg4 25.Bxd4 cxd4 26.gxf6 Nc5 27.Rhd1 gxf6 28.Bf3 Qxh4+ 29.Kg2 Kh8 30.Qf2 Qg5+ 31.Kf1 Nxb3 32.Rab1 Rxa2 33.Rb2 Rxb2 34.Qxb2 Qe3 35.Qxb3 Qxf3+ 36.Ke1 Qe3+ 37.Kf1 Rg8 0-1

[Event "10th Chess.com Tournament (2201+) - Round 1"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2010.03.01"]
[White "wh47"]
[Black "YelenaDembo"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2309"]
[BlackElo "2730"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "YelenaDembo won by resignation"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Bc5 4.O-O Nf6 5.c3 O-O 6.d4 Bb6 7.Bg5 h6 8.Bh4 d6 9.Bxc6 bxc6 10.a4 a5 11.dxe5 dxe5 12.Nxe5 Qxd1 13.Rxd1 Nxe4 14.Nd2 Re8 15.Ndc4 Bc5 16.Nxc6 g5 17.Bg3 f5 18.Bxc7 Bxf2+ 19.Kh1 Bc5 20.h3 Nf2+ 21.Kh2 Nxd1 22.Rxd1 f4 23.N4xa5 Bf2 24.b4 Bf5 25.Rf1 Bg3+ 26.Kg1 Bd3 27.Ra1 Re2 28.Ne5 f3 29.Nxd3 Rxg2+ 30.Kf1 Bxc7 31.Nc6 Rh2 32.Kg1 Rf8 33.Rf1 Rxh3 34.Rf2 g4 35.Nd4 Bg3 36.Rd2 Bh4 37.a5 Bg5 38.Rf2 Be3 0-1

[Event "10th Chess.com Tournament (2201+) - Round 1"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2010.03.01"]
[White "YelenaDembo"]
[Black "saksipotku"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2723"]
[BlackElo "2371"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "YelenaDembo won by resignation"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.d4 Nxe4 4.Bd3 d5 5.dxe5 Be7 6.O-O O-O 7.Nc3 Nxc3 8.bxc3 Nc6 9.Re1 f6 10.Rb1 fxe5 11.Nxe5 Nxe5 12.Rxe5 Bd6 13.Qh5 h6 14.Re1 Qf6 15.Qxd5+ Kh8 16.Be3 Qe5 17.Qxe5 Bxe5 18.Bc5 Bd6 19.Bxd6 cxd6 20.Re7 Rb8 21.h3 Rd8 22.Rb4 Bd7 23.Rd4 Bc6 24.Rg4 Rg8 25.Rg6 Rge8 26.Rc7 Rbc8 27.Rcxg7 Rg8 28.Rxg8+ Rxg8 29.Rxh6+ Kg7 30.Rxd6 Re8 31.f4 Re1+ 32.Kf2 Rd1 33.g4 Rh1 34.Rxc6 bxc6 35.Bf1 Rh2+ 36.Bg2 1-0

[Event "NaScp with Miss - Board 2"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2010.02.05"]
[White "YelenaDembo"]
[Black "kingkoy301"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2713"]
[BlackElo "2475"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "YelenaDembo won by resignation"]

1.e4 Nc6 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 d5 4.Nbd2 Nf6 5.e5 Nd7 6.Nb3 Be7 7.c3 O-O 8.Bd3 a5 9.Bf4 a4 10.Nbd2 f6 11.exf6 Nxf6 12.Qc2 Bd6 13.Bg3 Bxg3 14.hxg3 h6 15.O-O Ng4 16.Nh4 Ne7 17.Rae1 a3 18.b4 Qd6 19.Ndf3 b6 20.b5 c5 21.bxc6 Qxc6 22.Ne5 Nxe5 23.Rxe5 Ba6 24.Bxa6 Rxa6 25.Rfe1 Rf6 26.Nf3 b5 27.Rb1 Ra8 28.Qd3 Rc8 29.Rb3 Qc4 30.Qd1 Ra8 31.Qb1 Nc6 32.Nd2 Qa4 33.Re3 Raf8 34.Nf3 Qa8 35.Rxb5 Na5 36.g4 Nc4 37.g5 Rf5 38.Rxe6 Rxf3 39.gxf3 Nd2 40.Qg6 Qa4 41.Qd3 Nxf3+ 42.Kg2 Nxg5 43.Re5 Nf3 44.Re3 Nh4+ 45.Kh3 Ng6 46.Qb1 Nf4+ 47.Kh2 Qa8 48.Rb7 Qc8 49.Rbe7 Qc6 50.Qg1 Nh5 51.f3 Rf5 52.Re8+ Rf8 53.Rxf8+ Kxf8 54.Qb1 Qf6 55.Qb8+ 1-0

[Event "10th Chess.com Tournament (2201+) - Round 1"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2010.03.01"]
[White "YelenaDembo"]
[Black "olwann69"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2690"]
[BlackElo "2371"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "YelenaDembo won by resignation"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.Nc3 g6 5.e5 Ng4 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.h3 Nh6 8.d3 Nf5 9.O-O Bg7 10.Ne4 b6 11.a3 a5 12.Re1 O-O 13.c3 Ra7 14.g4 Nh6 15.Qc2 f5 16.exf6 exf6 17.d4 f5 18.gxf5 Bxf5 19.dxc5 Bxh3 20.Nfg5 Bf5 21.cxb6 Re7 22.Bf4 Be5 23.Qb3+ Kg7 24.Rad1 Qe8 25.Bxe5+ Rxe5 26.f4 Re7 27.Qc4 Ng4 28.Re2 h6 29.Qd4+ Kg8 30.Nd6 Rxe2 31.Nxe8 Rfxe8 32.b7 hxg5 33.Qc4+ R2e6 34.Rd6 Kf7 35.Rxc6 gxf4 36.b8=Q 1-0

[Event "Burning European Pawns - Board 4"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2010.02.08"]
[White "YelenaDembo"]
[Black "Ambrosia"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2697"]
[BlackElo "2528"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "YelenaDembo won by resignation"]

1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.f4 Bg7 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Bd3 Na6 7.e5 Ng4 8.h3 Nh6 9.Be3 c5 10.Qe2 Nf5 11.Bxf5 Bxf5 12.O-O-O Rc8 13.g4 Bd7 14.Kb1 Re8 15.f5 Qa5 16.fxg6 hxg6 17.a3 cxd4 18.Bxd4 Be6 19.Rhe1 dxe5 20.Nxe5 Nb8 21.Qf2 Nc6 22.Nxc6 Rxc6 23.Bxg7 Kxg7 24.Ne2 Qb6 25.Qg3 Rd6 26.Nf4 Red8 27.Rxd6 Rxd6 28.h4 Qd4 29.Nxe6+ Rxe6 30.Rxe6 Qd1+ 31.Ka2 Qd5+ 32.Qb3 fxe6 33.Qxd5 exd5 34.Kb3 e5 35.c4 1-0

[Event "10th Chess.com Tournament (2201+) - Round 1"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2010.03.01"]
[White "yohomes"]
[Black "YelenaDembo"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2209"]
[BlackElo "2665"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "YelenaDembo won by resignation"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.Qe2 Bc5 6.c3 b5 7.Bc2 O-O 8.Nxe5 Nxe5 9.d4 d5 10.O-O Bxd4 11.cxd4 Nc6 12.exd5 Qxd5 13.Nc3 Nxd4 14.Qd3 Qe5 15.f4 Qd6 16.Be3 Nxc2 17.Qxc2 Re8 18.Rad1 Qc6 19.Qf2 Ng4 20.Qf3 Qxf3 21.Rxf3 Bb7 22.Bd4 Bxf3 23.gxf3 Rad8 24.fxg4 b4 25.Be5 bxc3 26.Rxd8 Rxd8 27.Bxc3 Rd3 28.g5 h6 29.gxh6 gxh6 30.f5 Rf3 31.f6 Kh7 32.Kg2 Rf5 33.Kg3 Kg6 34.Kg4 Rxf6 35.Bxf6 Kxf6 0-1

[Event "Experience"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2008.04.27"]
[White "YelenaDembo"]
[Black "bronkov"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteElo "2482"]
[BlackElo "2355"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "Game drawn by agreement"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Bc5 5.Be3 Qf6 6.c3 Nge7 7.Bc4 Ne5 8.Be2 Qg6 9.O-O d6 10.f4 Qxe4 11.Bf2 Bxd4 12.cxd4 N5g6 13.g3 Bh3 14.Bf3 Qf5 15.Re1 d5 16.Qb3 O-O 17.Nc3 Bg4 18.Bxd5 Nxd5 19.Qxd5 Qxd5 20.Nxd5 c6 21.Nc3 Rad8 22.d5 cxd5 23.Bc5 Rfe8 24.Rxe8+ Rxe8 25.Bxa7 Rd8 26.Bb6 Rd7 27.Nb5 Ne7 28.Rc1 Nc6 29.Rc2 f6 30.Rd2 g5 31.Kf2 Kg7 32.Bc5 Kg6 33.b3 Rd8 34.a4 Na5 35.Rb2 Nc6 36.b4 d4 37.a5 Rd5 38.Nxd4 Nxd4 39.Rd2 gxf4 40.Bxd4 1/2-1/2

[Event "Advanced 2"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2008.04.26"]
[White "YelenaDembo"]
[Black "MM78"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2496"]
[BlackElo "2238"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "YelenaDembo won by resignation"]

1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Be3 Bg7 5.Qd2 c6 6.Nf3 O-O 7.O-O-O b5 8.e5 dxe5 9.Nxe5 Be6 10.h4 Qa5 11.a3 b4 12.Nb1 c5 13.h5 Ne4 14.Qd3 cxd4 15.Qxe4 dxe3 16.Nc4 Qg5 17.Nxe3 bxa3 18.Nxa3 Nd7 19.hxg6 hxg6 20.Bc4 Nc5 21.Qh4 Qxh4 22.Rxh4 Rab8 23.c3 Bc8 24.Nd5 Re8 25.Bb5 Bd7 26.Bxd7 Nxd7 27.Kc2 Nb6 28.Rb4 Nxd5 29.Rxb8 Rxb8 30.Rxd5 Rb7 31.Rd8+ Kh7 32.b4 e6 33.Kb3 Bf6 34.Ra8 Bh4 35.g3 Bf6 36.c4 Bd4 37.f3 Bf2 38.g4 Rb6 39.Nb5 Be3 40.g5 a6 41.Nc7 Rd6 42.c5 Rd3+ 43.Kc4 1-0

[Event "Experience"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2008.03.23"]
[White "---Olivier---"]
[Black "YelenaDembo"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteElo "2228"]
[BlackElo "2459"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "Game drawn by agreement"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 e5 7.d5 a5 8.O-O Na6 9.Bg5 h6 10.Bh4 Qe8 11.Ne1 Bd7 12.Nd3 b6 13.a3 a4 14.Qd2 Nh7 15.Rac1 Nc5 16.Nxc5 bxc5 17.Rb1 h5 18.b4 axb3 19.Rxb3 Bf6 20.Bxf6 Nxf6 21.Ra1 Rb8 22.Rxb8 Qxb8 23.f3 Qb6 24.Nb5 Bxb5 25.cxb5 c4+ 26.Kf1 Nxe4 27.fxe4 f5 28.exf5 Rxf5+ 29.Bf3 g5 30.Qc2 Rf6 31.Qxc4 g4 32.Qd3 Qc5 33.a4 Kg7 34.Ra2 gxf3 35.Rc2 Qa7 36.gxf3 Rg6 37.Qe4 Qg1+ 38.Ke2 Rg2+ 1/2-1/2

[Event "Let's Play!"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2008.04.04"]
[White "YelenaDembo"]
[Black "RichardHayden"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2450"]
[BlackElo "2266"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "YelenaDembo won by resignation"]

1.e4 e5 2.f4 {Thematic Game - This is the starting position.}
exf4 3.Nf3 Ne7 4.d4 d5 5.Bd3 dxe4 6.Bxe4 Ng6 7.Bxg6 hxg6 8.Bxf4 Nc6 9.Nc3 Bf5 10.O-O Be7 11.d5 Nb4 12.Nd4 O-O 13.Nxf5 gxf5 14.a3 Na6 15.Qd3 Qd7 16.Be5 Bc5+ 17.Kh1 f6 18.Bg3 g6 19.b4 Bd6 20.Bxd6 cxd6 21.g4 Nc7 22.gxf5 g5 23.Rf2 a5 24.Rg1 axb4 25.axb4 Ra3 26.h4 Rf7 27.hxg5 Rh7+ 28.Rh2 Rxh2+ 29.Kxh2 Qh7+ 30.Kg2 Qh4 31.gxf6 Kf7 32.Qe4 Qxf6 33.Ne2 Ra8 34.Rh1 Re8 35.Qf3 Rg8+ 36.Kf1 Qa1+ 37.Kf2 Qa7+ 38.Ke1 Qa1+ 39.Kd2 Qf6 40.Rh7+ Rg7 41.Qh5+ Kf8 42.Rh6 Qg5+ 43.Qxg5 Rxg5 44.Rxd6 Ke7 45.Rb6 1-0

[Event "Let's Play!"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2008.04.04"]
[White "YelenaDembo"]
[Black "______"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteElo "2463"]
[BlackElo "2216"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "Game drawn by agreement"]

1.e4 e5 2.f4 {Thematic Game - This is the starting position.}
exf4 3.Nf3 d5 4.exd5 Nf6 5.Bc4 Nxd5 6.O-O Be6 7.Qe2 Be7 8.d4 O-O 9.Nc3 Nxc3 10.bxc3 Bxc4 11.Qxc4 Bd6 12.Ne5 Bxe5 13.dxe5 Nc6 14.Bxf4 Qe7 15.Rab1 Rab8 16.Rf3 a6 17.h3 Nxe5 18.Re3 Nxc4 19.Rxe7 b5 20.Rxc7 Rbc8 21.a4 Rxc7 22.Bxc7 Rc8 23.axb5 Na3 24.Ra1 Nxb5 25.Bb6 Nxc3 26.Rxa6 h6 27.Ra5 Ne2+ 28.Kf2 Rxc2 29.Kf3 Kh7 30.Ra7 Kg6 31.Be3 Nc1 32.Ra3 f6 33.h4 Na2 34.Ra4 Rb2 35.Ra7 h5 36.g4 hxg4+ 37.Kxg4 Rb4+ 38.Kf3 Nc3 39.h5+ Kxh5 40.Rxg7 Nb5 41.Bd2 1/2-1/2

[Event "Advanced 2"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2008.03.30"]
[White "MM78"]
[Black "YelenaDembo"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteElo "2299"]
[BlackElo "2544"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "Game drawn by agreement"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d3 Nc6 4.g3 g6 5.Bg2 Bg7 6.O-O Nge7 7.Re1 d6 8.Nbd2 O-O 9.c3 b5 10.Qc2 Rb8 11.Nf1 b4 12.Bd2 Qb6 13.Ne3 Ba6 14.Nc4 Bxc4 15.dxc4 Qa6 16.Rab1 Rb6 17.Red1 Rd8 18.Bf4 e5 19.Be3 Qxc4 20.Qa4 Qa6 21.Qxa6 Rxa6 22.Nd2 Rxa2 23.Nc4 Nc8 24.Bg5 N6e7 25.Bh3 h6 26.Bxe7 Nxe7 27.Nxd6 Nc6 28.Rd5 Bf8 29.Nc4 Rb8 30.Rc1 Be7 31.Kg2 bxc3 32.bxc3 Kg7 33.Bd7 Na5 34.Nxe5 Rbb2 35.Rf1 Bf6 36.Nd3 Rd2 37.Bb5 c4 38.Nb4 Rxd5 39.Nxd5 Rb2 40.Ba6 Rc2 41.Ra1 Bxc3 42.Nxc3 Nb3 43.Ra4 Rxc3 1/2-1/2

[Event "The Easter Tournament"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2008.03.21"]
[White "YelenaDembo"]
[Black "______"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2526"]
[BlackElo "2257"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "YelenaDembo won by resignation"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Bc5 5.Be3 Qf6 6.c3 Nge7 7.Bc4 Ne5 8.Be2 Qg6 9.O-O d6 10.f4 Qxe4 11.Bf2 Bxd4 12.cxd4 N5g6 13.g3 O-O 14.Nc3 Qf5 15.h4 Re8 16.h5 Nf8 17.d5 h6 18.Re1 Qd7 19.Rc1 c6 20.Bc4 Qd8 21.b4 a5 22.dxc6 bxc6 23.b5 Be6 24.Bf1 cxb5 25.Nxb5 Rc8 26.Qd3 d5 27.Qa3 Rc6 28.Rxc6 Nxc6 29.Rc1 Bd7 30.Qd6 Re6 31.Qxd5 Nb4 32.Qd2 Qb8 33.Nd4 Rd6 34.Qb2 Qd8 35.a3 Nd5 36.Nf3 Nf6 37.Bc5 Rd5 38.Ne5 Be8 39.Bb6 Qd6 40.Bf2 Rd1 41.Nc4 Qd7 42.Rxd1 Qxd1 43.Qe2 Qd5 44.Qe5 Qd1 45.Qxa5 Bd7 46.Ne3 Qc1 47.Qb4 Qa1 48.Qb3 Be6 49.Qd3 Qc1 50.a4 Qa1 51.Qd1 Qa2 52.Bd3 Bb3 53.Bc2 Ne4 54.Qd3 Bxc2 55.Qxc2 Qa1+ 56.Kg2 Nf6 57.Nf5 Ne6 58.Qb3 Nxh5 59.Ne7+ Kh7 60.Qc2+ g6 61.f5 1-0

[Event "Advanced 2"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2008.03.30"]
[White "YelenaDembo"]
[Black "knorke"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2463"]
[BlackElo "2198"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "YelenaDembo won by resignation"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.d4 Nxe4 4.Bd3 d5 5.dxe5 Nc6 6.O-O Bg4 7.Nc3 Nxc3 8.bxc3 Bc5 9.Re1 O-O 10.h3 Bh5 11.Rb1 b6 12.Bf4 h6 13.g4 Bg6 14.Bxg6 fxg6 15.Bg3 Na5 16.Qd3 g5 17.e6 Qf6 18.Kg2 c6 19.Ne5 Qxe6 20.Ng6 Qf7 21.Nxf8 Rxf8 22.Re5 Nc4 23.Rf5 Qe7 24.Rxf8+ Kxf8 25.Kf1 Qf6 26.Re1 Kf7 27.Qe2 Qe7 28.Qf3+ Qf6 29.Qxf6+ gxf6 30.Ke2 f5 31.gxf5 Kf6 32.Kd1 Kxf5 33.Re8 h5 34.Rc8 Na3 35.Ke2 Nb5 36.Kd3 d4 37.c4 Nc3 38.Rxc6 Nxa2 39.Rh6 h4 40.Bb8 Nc3 41.Bxa7 Ne4 42.Ke2 Nc3+ 43.Kf3 Na4 44.Rc6 Nb2 45.Bxb6 Bxb6 46.Rxb6 Nxc4 47.Rb4 Ne5+ 48.Ke2 Ke4 49.Rb6 Kf5 50.Ra6 Ng6 51.Ra8 Nf4+ 52.Kf3 Ng6 53.Rd8 Ne5+ 54.Ke2 Ke4 55.Re8 Kf5 56.Rf8+ Ke6 57.f4 Ng6 58.f5+ Ke7 59.Ra8 Ne5 60.Ra6 1-0

[Event "Experience"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2008.03.23"]
[White "bronkov"]
[Black "YelenaDembo"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteElo "2189"]
[BlackElo "2487"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "Game drawn by agreement"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nb5 d6 6.c4 Nf6 7.N1c3 a6 8.Nd4 Be7 9.Be2 O-O 10.O-O Bd7 11.Be3 Nxd4 12.Qxd4 Bc6 13.f4 Nd7 14.Qd2 Nc5 15.Bf3 Qc7 16.b4 Na4 17.Nxa4 Bxa4 18.Rac1 Rac8 19.Bd4 e5 20.Be3 exf4 21.Bxf4 Rcd8 22.Be3 Bf6 23.Bd1 Bxd1 24.Qxd1 Qe7 25.Re1 Rfe8 26.Bf2 Qc7 27.a4 Re6 28.a5 Rde8 29.Qd3 Be5 30.Rc2 Rh6 31.h3 Rg6 32.Rf1 Qd7 33.Be1 h6 34.Rcf2 Qc6 35.Rf5 Rc8 36.c5 Rc7 37.Qd5 Qe8 38.Bf2 Re6 39.Qd3 g6 40.Rf3 dxc5 41.Bxc5 Rd7 42.Qc4 Bc7 43.Re1 Rc6 44.Ree3 Bd6 45.Rd3 Qe7 46.Rd5 Bxc5+ 47.Rxc5 Rd1+ 48.Kf2 Rxc5 49.bxc5 Ra1 50.c6 bxc6 51.Qxc6 Rxa5 52.Qf6 Ra2+ 53.Kg3 Qxf6 54.Rxf6 a5 55.Ra6 a4 56.e5 a3 57.Ra8+ Kg7 58.Kf3 Ra1 59.Kg3 h5 60.Ra7 Kf8 61.Kf4 Ke8 62.Kg5 a2 63.Ra6 Ke7 64.Kh6 Kd7 65.Rd6+ Ke8 66.Ra6 Ke7 67.Kg5 Kd7 68.Rd6+ Kc7 69.Rd2 Kc6 70.Rf2 Kd5 71.Kf6 g5 72.Kxg5 Kxe5 73.Kxh5 f5 74.Kg5 Ke4 75.h4 Ke3 76.Rf3+ Ke2 77.Ra3 1/2-1/2

Chess Discount Sales Open Till End Of Year

2010-09-19T11:38:00.003+10:00

I'm sure by now, many of you would have heard of Peter Parr's closing of his shop Chess Discount Sales in Sydney.

Peter is retiring at the end of this year. The lease on his shop was due to expire last year but Peter got a year's extension but refused to sign on for another 3 years lease.

Peter was hoping to sell off his business but if he is unable to find a buyer, he will sell whatever's left in his shop online towards the end of the year.

I went down to the shop last Saturday to get some chess material with a friend and my brother-in-law and noticed that popular items have already been sold so if you want to pick up something nice, now is the best time to get it.

Btw, should you need to pay a visit, there's a bit of renovation going on at the front of his shop and instead of entering via the usual flight of steps downstairs at the front of his shop, you need to enter via the main building doorway instead.

I wish Peter the very best of luck in his future endeavours.

BBC Documentary: Seeking The Endgame Part 2

2010-09-17T22:37:00.003+10:00

The second and final part of this 2 part documentary is now available online at the BBC World Service.

Alternatively, you can download the entire documentary in the form on a MP3 file straight from their website.

Hiarcs 13 v Rybka 4 Opening Books War

2010-09-16T15:29:00.009+10:00

The general chess public swooned when Jiri Dufek's Rybka 4 Opening Book (see image on right) hit the market (yes, the very same opening book that Topalov reportedly paid for and used for his World Chess Championship match against Anand earlier this year in Sofia).

But now, a new threat looms over the horizon in the form of the latest update to the Hiarcs opening book - Hiarcs 13c.

A few reports are now trickling in that this updated opening book is beating Rybka4 because Rybka is choosing less than stellar opening lines.

How does that affect me, you may ask?

Well, for the majority of players (those < 2,000 Elo rating), it probably does not matter. However for players above this rating level, things start to get hot under the collar.

Games can be won or loss straight out of the opening (as Anand can testify in Game 1 of the Topalov-Anand WCC match) and every advantage you have, you will use.

One of the main advantages of the Hiarc Opening Book is that it is constantly being revised and improved upon. When you purchase the Hiarcs opening book, you get a year's subscription which promises at least 4 periodic updates.

Sadly Chessbase/ChessOk's offering of Jiri Dufek's Rybka 4's opening book does not have such a feature.

As a chess engine, Hiarcs adopts a slightly different approach to Rybka. In the words of the programmer, Hiarcs tends to think positionally rather than analytically. As anyone who has used Hiarcs knows, Hiarcs tends to think in a more natural human-like way when finding evaluations.

Sadly, Hiarcs 13 was not sold and released as a Chessbase product as was Hiarcs 12 but that does not equate to mean that it is in anyway an inferior product to Rybka 4.

Both chess engines are inhumanely strong.

PS: I don't work for Hiarcs btw and am in now way affiliated to them.

BBC Documentary: Seeking The Endgame

2010-09-13T11:38:00.006+10:00

I'm sure some of you may have seen the Chessbase article on the recent BBC documentary: Seeking the Endgame.

For those who prefer to download and listen to it on their iPod/MP3 player devices, you can obtain the complete mp3 file from here:

Seeking The Endgame Part 1 (MP3)

Duration: 23 mins

Amongst the list of those interviewed is our very own Australian GM Ian Rogers.

The Ford Memorial Catchup

2010-09-13T08:42:00.004+10:00

Apologies for the lack of updates.

The Ford Memorial at Norths has gone underway. Due to some circumstances, I was unable to take part this year.

The greatest shock of the tournament so far was FM Greg Canfell (2315) drawing against Benjamin Cheung (1729). A superb result for young Benjamin.

The young guns are doing very well in this tournament after 3 games played.

Jack Ruan, Oscar Wang and Anton Smirnov are on 3 points each with Benjamin half a point behind followed by Vincent Cheng and Harry Ruan on 2 points each.

My brother-in-law Steven is currently on 2.5 points.

I cannot help but notice that the number of participants for this year's Ford has dropped. Last year, we had 89 participants but this year, it had fallen to around 79 - a fall of 10%.

Chess Discount Sales Closing?

2010-09-02T09:11:00.004+10:00

http://www.chessdiscountsales.com/whatsnew/2010/Sep/sep10.htm

"Closing Down Sale

30% off all products

Some items up to 90% off

Limited stocks"

I'm very surprised that Peter is closing down his Chess Discount Sales shop in the city and I do hope it's a misprint.

I've purchased items from Peter before and it's very sad that the only chess shop in the city is shutting down if this is indeed true. Other bookstores and gameshops don't stock the same wealth of chess related materials as his shop.

Peter has always been very generous and helpful towards the local chess community and has also been a faithful local sponsor for many important local and national chess tournaments like the Australian Open.

"Show Me.... Wax On, Wax Off"

2010-08-28T22:27:00.016+10:00

In the original Karate Kid movie, teen Daniel was hoping to learn Karate from Mr Miyagi but ended up doing all sorts of chores from waxing his car, to sanding his floor and painting his house.

In the movie's iconic moment, when Daniel finally gets fed up with the chores and threatens to leave, Mr Miyagi finally reveals what he was hoping to teach Daniel. Daniel was in fact, learning a very important fundamental skill in Karate - the art of self-defense. You cannot be good at Karate if you only learn about attacking. You must learn how to defend properly.

The same is true in chess.

By learning how to defend, you not only become more aware of your opponent's attacking possibilities, tricks and plans but you acquire the necessary knowledge of how to launch a successful attack. This skill is vitally important if you want to know if a particular attack is good especially when it involves a piece sacrifice.

As an example, in the position below:

Can White play the sacrificial attack 1. Qxf6+?

Another part of the game where defensive technique is vitally important is your endgame skill.

For example, do you know how to defend as Black in a K+R v K+R+P endgame as the one below? Is the position even savable?

Can Black save this position?

Or how to defend with the utmost precision in a K+R v K+Q endgame?

Do you know to win this position as White?
If you're Black, do you know how to give the most problem to White?

It is only by incorporating these techniques into our knowledge which forms a basis from where we can then build bigger memory blocks and know if a particular attack or a particular position can be defended.

That will ultimately, make you a better player.

The Legacy Of Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik

2010-08-14T07:23:00.002+10:00

We have all heard of Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik - the Great Patriarch of Soviet chess and the 6th World Chess Champion.

I can't help but notice that quite a number of players express disapproval of both Botvinnik as a person and also of his approach to chess and to others, Botvinnik was the epitome of everything that was bad about Soviet chess. Some people have even accused him of being a lame World Champion and that he only kept the title for so long is because of the automatic right of a return match for a World Champion.

As anyone who has picked up any of his books, from his well known One Hundred Selected Games to his annotations of the World Championship games (published by Olms and New In Chess), his notes are often very brutal. Botvinnik spares no one, not even himself. And it is this attitude which seems to have turned a lot of players off him.

So what you may ask, is so great about Mikhail Botvinnik?

Despite the criticisms, what we know about modern chess and how we approach chess is largely due to Mikhail Botvinnik's influence and contribution. He paved the way to modern chess. He made important discoveries to opening theory (eg. the Botvinnik Variation of the Semi-Slav still holds up today in the face of computer engines).

Botvinnik was fearless to a fault. He would never back down from tactical complications when the position demanded it but it is his middlegame prowess that are the most impressive.

He helped established what is now the following rules that continues to stand up today to anyone who wants to improve their chess.

#1. Annotate Your Own Games
There's an interesting blurb about this. When asked about Kasparov who was a promising teen at the time, Botvinnik's first question was,"Do you annotate your own games?" As anyone who has annotated their own games (using computer engines like Fritz/Rybka doesn't count), it is not an easy subject and oft a laborious task.

#2. Maintain Objectivity
Botvinnik was pedantic to the fault in this and was his own worst critic. One must cast aside personal bias when it comes to ealuation of any given chess position. You must be impartial and must part with your pride and bias. These days, with the advent of computer engines, spotting tactical mistakes is as easy as flicking off a switch with strong engines like Rybka and Fritz.

#3. A Healthy Body, A Healthy Mind
Botvinnik understood the importance of being and staying healthy. Increasing your body's physical condition means that your body is operating optimally at all times. That means your stamina and endurance improves (vital for tournaments) and your mind becomes more focused on the task at hand. After the 1951 match with Bronstein, Botvinnik realised that his 3 years of absence in chess almost cost him dearly and he started putting himself into shape by exercising regularly, and focusing more on chess.

#4. Study Of Annotated Games By Strong Masters
These days, there's no getting around this. If you want to improve, you have to read through annotated games, not to only to understand how to play the game accurately but to understand the concepts, plans and strategies. For example, Kasparov was made to study Alekhine's games because his approach to chess was similar to Alekhine's.

#5. Thorough Opening Preparation
Botvinnik's opening preparation involved thorough analysis and a deep understanding of the resulting position all the way up till the middlegame. Such a scientific approach to chess was unheard of in the pre-Botvinnik era. Any new or valuable information of interest will be noted down and analysed. These days, all chess players (even beginners) need to develop a basic opening repertoire, and more advanced players typically would try to have a repertoire that that would lead to rich middlegame play.

I think the greatest compliment that I can say is taken from 9th World Chess champion Tigran Petrosian,"We all regard ourselves as pupils of Botvinnik and subsequent generations will learn from his games."

Chess Informant Website Hacked And The Kavalek-Short Affair

2010-08-01T23:00:00.010+10:00

Warning: The Chess Informant website (http://www.sahovski.com) has been compromised. Their sale items including the latest CI 107 and ECO A, 4th Edition (if you follow the links from their main webpage) shows that the website has been hacked.

This only adds to the woes for Chess Informant considering that their Editor in Chief Zdenko Krnić was recently killed in a hit and run accident. I would urge caution on potential buyers from purchasing straight from their website for now. :(

Onto other news, Nigel Short has commented on Kavalek's piece in the Huffington Post (as reported by Chessbase). Kavalek has some serious axe to grind as can be seen in his older 1994 post on the Sentinel.

Short on his part has responded to his allegations and novelty as " It is the sort of move any decent player would find in his sleep." on Chessgames.com

Short also responded of Kavalek,"My objections to the "Kavalek Files" were and are manifold but the fundamental point is the highly unethical betrayal of trust by a man who was employed to help me, and to whom I paid a very large sum of money. What was the purpose of him publishing this series of revelatory articles? a) to puff up Kavalek's own importance b) to damage me professionally by revealing as many of my novelties as possible. As far as I am concerned, his spiteful actions are beneath contempt..."

Do I Have To Setup The Board Again?

2010-07-20T16:49:00.006+10:00

Here's a question:

When doing tactical exercises, how many of you actually bother to set it up on the board? Or do you solve them straight out of the book?

I admit that I am one the laziest people on this planet. When I do tactical exercises, I use Chessbase/Fritz's 3D board setup to setup the position and then try to solve it from there on the screen.

Okay, I admit that it's not ideal, I don't get a true graphical representation and my hand doesn't touch the pieces.

From the various advice in Daniel King Powerplay DVDs to Arthur Yusupov's Boost Your Chess book series, many chess authors and trainers have recommended doing it over the board.

The basic premise is that by physically moving the pieces, your mind connects the events and this adds as a self-reinforcement tool so that you can better remember the lesson learned.

The problem herein is that when trying to solve 5 tactical exercises, you need to setup the position 5 times. Setting up a board is no easy feat, you spend at least a few minutes just to setup the board. And then once you figured out the tactical puzzle, you replay the solution and this involves going back to the initial board position at the beginning over and over again as you run through the variations.

Some others have recommended setting up 2 boards, one to do the analysis and the other to act as a "variation" board to work through the different variations.

At this point, doing 1 puzzle can easily take as long as 10 minutes in terms of just running through the pieces, if not more. Try it for another 4 puzzles and suddenly, the task becomes extra onerous and you seemed to spend more time setting up the board than doing the tactical puzzles.

By putting the position inside Chessbase/Fritz and seeing it in 3D, I can run through the variations pretty quickly (true the 3D is nowhere near photorealistic as an actual board) with the touch of a mouse click (okay, several mouse clicks).

The point is: how well has my memory recalled the position by doing tactical puzzles this way?

In my case, surprisingly, not too bad. I find that I'm still able to recall certain puzzles once I recognise the formation/pattern and the solution to them but not all. However, if I were to redo the puzzles again and again, I find that the memory of the position somehow got "stuck" in my mind. Run it through 2-3 more times a few weeks later and it becomes embedded somewhere between medium-term and long-term memory.

True, none of us can be a Magnus Carlsen or Alexei Shirov where these GMs don't need to physically see the board to calculate variations so until we are all super GMs, what other recourse is there for us?

So what is your method of doing tactical studies? :)

The Silicon Monster Annotations

2010-07-14T02:20:00.007+10:00

When a player works with a chess engine, he/she has to understand the intricacies and the pitfalls behind letting the silicon monster do things like annotating the game.

Chess engines like Fritz and Rybka are enormously helpful in finding missed tactical combinations and how to create strategical plans arising from them.

However, where chess engines fail happens when a position is so incredibly complex that it requires a lot of processing power and time. So sometimes, it does not "see" the correct continuation until it enumerates all the various correct "tree" variations extensively before it finds the correct continuation. That is why in order for a chess engine to annotate properly, you must give it sufficient time to locate the correct variation. You cannot rush these things unfortunately (unless of course you happen to be Topalov and you have access to IBM's Blue Gene/P).

Chess engines can misjudge closed positions where sometimes, the moves suggested by the chess engine doesn't make any sense at all. It is particularly obvious to know the chess engine is floundering when it constantly sways its evaluation between 0.01 and 0.02 between different variations. This means that there is typically no advantage to be gained between choosing moves that gain a +0.02 or +0.01 advantage. This is where human evaluation takes over.

However, if the computer evaluation changes by more than 0.5 is where you must sit up and take note because it typically means that either you or your opponent has overlooked the position and either of you has made a slight concession/weak move.

In addition, in totally winning positions, chess engines may give you the best lines but as a human player under time pressure, if you know the position is winning, then you look for forcing moves to maintain your advantage.

Does the engine evaluations really matter for example, if you know the endgame is winning so you trade down to a winning endgame?

No, it does not (unless the engine is screaming checkmate in x number of moves). A difference between a +7.5 and a +8 advantage is going to matter little because the game is practically won.

So the next time you let a chess engine annotate your game, remember its flaws and its uses.

And one more thing, no player ever plays like a chess engine so there is no point beating yourself up over it if you miss a variation that changes by say, 0.02.

In the end, one must note: Chess engines are after all programmed by humans and humans do err.

Revealed: The Secret To Winning At Chess

2010-07-09T19:16:00.009+10:00

The secret can now be revealed and it is:

"You beset your opponent more problems than he/she can solve."

I know what you're thinking: "No kidding, Captain Obvious."

But how do you give your opponent more problems?

That's the beauty of chess. There are so many ways one can do it. Below are some of the common ways:

- giving your opponent a permanently weakened pawn structure
- forcing your opponent to make concessions in terms of either tempo, space or exchange (and in converse, increasing yours in reverse)
- frustrating your opponent by either creating blockades or making patient defensive moves to repel his/her attacks
- forcing your opponent's pieces to go to bad squares
- stretching your opponent's piece mobility and range till they over-commit (eg. by attacking on 2 fronts)
- creating tactical mayhem on the board especially against a player who is tactically weak
- mastering and adopting the art of prophylaxis
etc. etc.

Sounds simple isn't it? But it's one that is very hard to accomplish and even harder to get it right.

And remember, as Saviely Tartakower eloquently put it,“No one ever won a game by resigning”.

Onwards! :)

Self-Training Motivation

2010-07-02T09:13:00.006+10:00

Why do players like myself constantly make excuses to justify that our time that we've set out to do for our chess training seems to take a back seat?

Chess, like it or not, is as much a game of memory and as well as a test of how your brain's cognitive abilities.

In order to improve our chess skills, we need to build small little memory building blocks of certain tactics/endgames (psychologists refer to this as "chunking") and from there, we memorise (internalise) these combinations and ideas and commit them to long-term memory.

Basic techniques like deflection, skewers, blockade, forks etc. needs to be remembered and used effectively if we are to get better at chess.

And the problem is that as we move up the rating chain, it requires more and more effort on our part to make a smaller gain. We need more time to learn and grasp new ideas, concepts and the unfortunate thing is that not many of us can be like Bobby Fischer, who can simply pick up a book and remember everything.

And this is what makes chess improvement so hard to do for adult working players. We have so precious limited time to invest in this sport.

Chess is indeed an easy game to learn but a hard one to master.

Quick Observations From King's Tournament

2010-06-28T08:47:00.003+10:00

After following the games on the King's Tournament, I noted a few observations:

1. Magnus Carlsen is the man to beat when it comes to the Candidates Final next year - he can play all positions and almost all openings equally well.

2. No opponent should ever play 1.d4 against Teimour Radjabov again unless they are totally prepared to face his King's Indian Defense.

3. For a 40+ year old guy, Gelfand still has some fuel left in his tank and can teach those young whippersnappers a thing or two.

The Death Knell For Correspondence Chess?

2010-06-24T14:44:00.006+10:00

ChessCafe's CC Chronlicles

http://www.chesscafe.com/chronicles/chronicles.htm

"To be truly competitive in today's CC (top twenty percent and higher), I recommend that you use the latest versions. Though the great leaps in performance between generations are over, so you may not need to have the latest and greatest. It is often more important to learn how your present software works and how to get the most out of it." - CC GM Bo Bredenhof, June 23, 2010

Seriously? I didn't know people could use computer chess engines in CC and I cannot believe that ICCF turns a blind eye to this open admission of computer "cheating" by a reknown CC GM. I've thought they were strictly forbidden. But then I'm not in the elite 20%. Such a disclosure is pretty damning about the current status of correspondence chess.

Then of course, we get into that huge debate on opening theory. So when does book theory stop and unaided analysis begins? Someone with Rybka 4's opening book can run well into over 30 moves without the player having to make one of his own.

I think computers have pretty much killed correspondence chess.

As Hudson says it in the movies Aliens, "Game over, man, game over."

Book Prices In Australia

2010-06-23T00:25:00.001+10:00

One of my main pet peeves of living in Australia is the extremely high prices of books.

I'm not kidding.

For example, here a copy of Garry Kasparov's My Great Predecessors costs A$65.95 (and this is a discounted online price) from Borders Australia while Book Depository UK (yes, the UK) sells it for A$31.70 (including shipping).
That is more than halve the price of what is essentially for the same book.

As much as I would like to support the local book retailers here, such a high markup makes reading close to unaffordable if you're an avid reader like me. This is why I turn towards my local libraries for books.

This is because Australia has a ridiculous parallel importation restriction on books. A report last year by the Productivity Commission found that in general, books here are currently 27 per cent more expensive than in the US and 13 per cent more expensive than in Britain.

War Of The Machines - Rybka v Ippolitch in TalkChess

2010-06-16T14:35:00.010+10:00

For a week now, I've been monitoring the ongoing war that has been literally taking place in cyberspace.

The Venue:
TalkChess.com

The Issue:
Moderation And Censorship

The Summary:
It all started when Vas Rajlich accused the makers of Ippolitch that it was a clone of Rybka. Subsequently, the forum owners ICD, asked Graham Banks to censor any mention of Ippolitch despite the fact Ippolitch has never been proven to be a clone of Rybka. Vas Rajlich himself, has never put forward any proof to his allegations.

Make no joke, Ippolitch is an extremely strong chess engine (since superseded by Firebird). In the software world, the strongest chess engine has the potential to reap millions of dollars in sales. It's a dog-eat-dog world.

Graham Banks sought fit to remove all mentions of Ippolitch on the forum without informing the forum moderators. As a result, Jeremy Bernstein, a long time forum moderator resigned as a form of protest and has opened up a new forum at Open Chess.

For people who are interested in the Rybka controversy, I would suggest Wikipedia.

Curious note: Rybka v1 was thoroughly analysed and was pronounced a "clone" of Fruit (an open source engine) in spite of Vas Rajlich's denials to the contrary.

Chessvibes also did an article once on this chess engine controversy.

At The Request Of V Smirnov

2010-06-09T23:45:00.003+10:00

Since Vladimir proposed this, so I'm making a special blog post. This is for you. :)

The picture on the right is NSW Chess President Bill Gletsos (right) shaking hands with Cassettari (who was awarded the Koshnitsky Medal).

PS: Bill is going to kill me for this.

Chessbase Fritz Trainer: Valeri Lilov - Sicilian Kan Review

2010-06-02T00:44:00.020+10:00

First off, I wish to categorically state that I have no beef with Lance Martin, the reviewer at ChessCafe. I've made my feelings known about his review and while I disagree with his review and in some instances, made my apologies known to him, I still stand by my review of Seirawan's DVD and simply put it down to a difference of opinion. I'm not a highly rated player nor do I pretend to be one. All my reviews have simply been of the standpoint of one from a patzer.

I've recently acquired one of Chessbase's other offerings (I've been dragging my feet on reviewing Daniel King's other Powerplay DVD on PP12: Hedgehog and I apologise for the delay)

Valeri Lilov's Sicilian Kan (see my pix on right - ok, I took the pix like this because I can't find room on my computer table and had to prop the DVD on my printer instead).

This Chessbase DVD is again typical of other Chessbase DVDs. There's no accompanying leaflets (typically non-related promotional materials from Chessbase on subscriptions to Chessbase Magazines) this time round on this DVD.

This Fritz Trainer comes in a plain DVD box with just the DVD inside (see 2nd image below). It is essentially a no-frills DVD.

The back of the DVD categorically states that Lilov, despite his young age is a famous quality online chess coach. I first came across his name when I still had a subscription to Chesslecture.com (I've since stopped my subscription because I was suffering from "chess information overload" - not easy when you have a job and trying to play chess at the same time). In his Chesslecture.com videos, Lilov's voice (you don't actually get to see the person just hear the voice played over a picture of a chessboard) was clear. I don't expect this to change.

Anyway, onwards with the review.

This DVD highlights 20 games.

I'm going to start comparing this DVD amongst other things with Lance Martin's review at Chesscafe, but also with Johan Hellstan's magnum opus, Play The Sicilian Kan.

Looking at the list, I began to heave a huge sigh (not of relief).

The first thing that comes to my mind is - if this is an opening repertoire DVD - then where are the annotations (typically, you would see the annotator field filled in)?

Without opening the DVD movies, I decided to look through the first game. Nope, no information. 2nd game, no information there either. In fact, ALL of the highlighted games exhibit no useful information at all!

And I don't mean not just useful information but no annotations. To have an idea, here's a screen capture of one of the games.

No words, no annotations, no Informant symbols, not even one "+=" sign in sight!

I'd noticed that this has been a trend of many of Chessbase's Fritz Trainer Opening DVD products. I'd really really wish that they put in some form of annotation. While I enjoyed watching the videos, it's frustrating when you have to open a separate chess program and key in all the relevant info mentioned by the commentator. This is especially more so considering it's a basic opening repertoire DVD.

The main lecture consists of some 21 videos listed as follows:-
01: Introduction:
02: A model game: Spassky,B - Fischer,R
03: The Bb4 idea: Saeed,I - El Taher,F
04: The best formation: Wang Zili - Yakovich,Y
05: How to fight an early Nf3 and e5: Hector,J - Movsesian,S
06: Plan with b5 & Qb6 - Main line: Kundin,A - Roiz,M
07: Plan with b5 & Qb6 - Main line with Bxe3: Timman,J - Sokolov,I
08: Plan with b5 & Qb6 - Deviations: Milu,R - Sulava,N
09: Plan with Bd3 - d7-d5 idea: Akopian,V - Svidler,P
10: Plan with Bd3 - Drago-Najdorf setup: Almasi,Z - Anand,V
11: The Hedgehog: Karpov,A - Bellon Lopez,J
12: Maroczy Bind - Plan with Bc5: Vallejo Pons,F - Epishin,V
13: Maroczy Bind - Plan with Bb4: Erdogdu,M - Navara,D
14: Maroczy Bind - Plan with Bb4 II: Ehlvest,J - Ivanchuk,V
15: Maroczy Bind - Sacrifice of e4: Hector,J - Csom,I
16: Maroczy Bind - Plan against Bd3-h3: Kamsky,G - Gurevich,I
17: Maroczy Bind - The Hedgehog Enhanced: Torre,E - Karpov,A
18: Maroczy Bind - The Sacrifice on e4 for Black: Morozevich,A - Svidler,P
19: General Plan No.1: Gross,D - Votava,J
20: General Plan No.2: Reschun,S - Stanec,N
21: Outro:

With a total video running time of almost 4.5 hours.

In the intro, Lilov explains that he has been playing the Sicilian Kan because it is a dynamic and flexible opening that can transpose into a few other Sicilian variants. Lilov gives a quick overview of the basic difference between the Kan, the Paulsen and the Taimanov (although the Taimanov is a totally different move order and leads to a different idea of the style of play).

One of the things I've always liked about the Kan is that it is as Hellstan in his book mentions, it is more of a system than an opening. Black really can go into typical positions based more on the ideas and plans rather than pure rote memorisation of move orders. One of the bad things I've disliked about the Kan is its slow development.

The first game highlighted by Lilov serves to bring an idea behind the Kan. While the line 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Nc3 Qc7 6. Be3 is a very seldom played line, it does bring into mind one very uncomfortable fact. Because White is literally begging Black to play 6... Bb4 (as Dan Heisman would say, White is "Asking for Trouble"). White will find himself having trouble trying to regain the initiative because of Black's uncomfortable pin and target of the square c3.

I felt that once this idea has been communicated, Lilov should have moved on.

Lance Martin in his Chesscafe review felt that after

....7.Nde2 Nf6 8.a3 Be7
he was not sure if Be7 was worth the tempo.

First off, why did White played such a move like Be3 if it was bad? I think this is one point that Lilov only mention much later but one that probably should have been emphasised.

6. Be3 is a very popular move for other Sicilians but not for the Kan. It is the precursor to the dreaded English Attack because White was thinking of doing Qd2 and O-O-O with the typical kingside pawn pushes.

By playing Bb4, Black critically delays the English Attack and forces White to spend a few precious tempi to cope with this threat. In so doing, White often has to make a few "adjustments" which either impede his opening development or make concessional moves.

I know I'm going a bit into theory but that is part of the gist of the Kan move order.

The first lecture I have to say is good but could have been better. It left me with a somewhat good impression but I'd say that a better game should have been selected here and the whole game shown instead.

Lilov explains in a very clear manner and tends to be quite succint in his explanations. So kudos to him for it.

The next couple of lectures was between average to good but the game that turned this review around is on game 7.

In this game position: Timman - Sokolov, Lilov suddenly says that why should Black allow White to win a pawn with Ng6, instead he said,"It looks more suitable to me that Black should play Kf8." and concluded with, "and that's an equal position."

*smacks forehead* at this point, I was truly gobsmacked and I nearly fell out of my chair.

I may be rated only 1400+ but I know a LOSING position when I see one. I'll give you a couple of minutes to think over on why Kf8 in the above diagram leads to a practically lost game for Black. :) Highlight between the brackets if you want to know the answer quickly [Oh dear me, does Black really want to tell the White Knight,"Hello! I got a nice juicy square on e6 for you."]

This really ruined the entire experience for me for this DVD and at this point on, I had to start to question every part of Lilov's opinion and judgement.

I have a minor quibble on game 11. Lilov here attempted to explain the Hedgehog structure but unfortunately a 15 minute video is simply insufficient to explain such a complex structure in so short a time. Daniel King attempted to have a go at this in his Powerplay DVD but even that was still not enough time to explain it comprehensively. For people who are interested in this structure, I suggest Mihail Suba's and Shipov's treatments on the Hedgehog in their books. Lilov is struggling a bit here because he tries to educate the user on the Hedgehog but crams too much information and most of it in brief blurbs. To the user who is unfamiliar with the Hedgehog, he/she will find this lesson confusing.

Now comes the thing which every Sicilian Kan player is interested in - how to treat the Maroczy Bind. Lance Martin in his Chesscafe review accurately points out and I agree with him that Game 12 is a very unsual treatment of the Maroczy Bind and Lilov inadequately points just what is so dangerous with this formation. For those who are new to the Maroczy Bind, look up Hellstan's book - Game 33, page 251. Alternatively, you can look up Wikipedia or do a net search for this.

I would say that the target audience rating of this DVD is between 1500-1800.

Presentation style: 7/10
Material: 5/10
Length: 4/10

Overall: 5.5/10

I gave this low marks on material and length because:

a) Material was lacking in many parts when it comes to further explanation. The horrible mistake on game 7 just left a terrible aftertaste.

b) The length of the video in quite a number of the videos like those based on the Hedgehog was inadequate and seemed discordiant with the rest of the video - some of the choices of the game are a tad suspect.

I'm quite disappointed with this DVD, sad to say. It's definitely not one of Lilov's more memorable efforts. I really want to like it. :-(

Rybka 4 Is Not As Strong As You Think

2010-06-01T17:23:00.004+10:00

Someone in Chessbase has a wicked sense of humour when it comes to advertisement of the latest Rybka 4 engine.

If you scroll down towards the end of the page, you would have seen this picture.

What's wrong with this picture?

Rybka4 is analysing the position and shows that Black's best move is ......

20 .....h6

For those who are unaware, this position is Game 4 of the 2010 World Chess Championship between Topalov and Anand. In this game, both Anand and Topalov criticised this move as being weak because it gives White an avenue for a dangerous attack/ Knight sac on h6 (which is what happened in the end).

Interesting, eh? :)

The Nakamura-Schulman Video

2010-06-01T13:44:00.004+10:00

I've got a query about the Nakamura-Schulman reaction.... well, here's the video on Nakamura's face when he realises that he's lost against Schulman in the US 2010 Championship.

Chessvibes incidentally put a poster on their website of this encounter. Double ouch!

Crashed And Burned

2010-05-26T11:00:00.002+10:00

I lost as White last night against Egon Cardenas (ACF rating: 1256) playing a slightly offbeat variation of the Ruy Lopez.

Egon has certainly improved by leaps and bounds and kudos to him for a well fought game.

Despite having an advantage, I blew it away by breaking the cardinal rule of "Always bring all your pieces to the party".

Sigh.

Grade Matches Commences....

2010-05-25T08:34:00.002+10:00

It's that time of the year again, and the NSW Grade Matches are starting in ernest.

I'll be playing for Norths in the U1600. Tonight, surprise, surprise, I'll be playing against the lads from Ryde Eastwood. Whatever happens, I'm looking forward to playing again. That's one of the thing about being members of 2 chess clubs. You end playing against the other club one of these days.

I doubt I'll win today but I'll try my best as I need to shake off the "rustiness" from being away from chess for too long.

A couple of updates.

The Manly Leagues Chess club is no more (no they've not decided to call themselves the Womanly Leagues Chess club either). Instead, they were forced to shift base camp to the suburb of Freshwater and is now called the Harbord Diggers Club.

US 2010 Championship Final: Open Mouth - Insert Pie

2010-05-24T09:26:00.009+10:00

As the US2010 heads towards the final, 4 GMs, Hikaru Nakamura, Gata Kamsky, Alexander Onischuk and Yuri Schulman qualified.

Given that these are 4 extremely strong GMs (on their day), Hikaru Nakamura sought fit to mention, "Whoever beats Yuri (Schulman) will win the tournament. Me, Gata, and Onishuck will try to draw each other, and beat Yuri." - not subtly implying that Schulman, being the weakest (ratings wise) amongst the 4 will be a punching bag for the other 3.

Nakamura must be extremely pleased when he was drawn with Schulman having the White pieces.

Now he must have really regretted his words because he just got burnt to a crisp and came crashing down in 26 moves!

That was a nice miniature, Nakamura! Thanks for showing us how not to handle the French Defense. By the way, there's a pie waiting for you outside the playing room.

Tournament: U.S. Championship 2010
Round: 09
White: Nakamura, Hikaru
Black: Shulman, Yuri
Date: Mon May 24 2010
Result: 0-1
1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 c5 5. a3 Bxc3+ 6. bxc3 Qa5 7. Bd2 Qa4 8. Nf3 Nc6 9. h4 cxd4 10. cxd4 Nge7 11. h5 Nxd4 12. Bd3 h6 13. Kf1 Nxf3 14. Qxf3 b6 15. Qg3 Ba6 16. Qxg7 Bxd3+ 17. cxd3 Rg8 18. Qxh6 Qd4 19. Re1 Qxd3+ 20. Kg1 Rc8 21. Bg5 Qf5 22. f4 Rc2 23. Rh2 Qd3 24. Qf6 Rxg5 25. Qxg5 Qd4+ 26. Kh1 Qe3 0-1

Anand's Secret Team

2010-05-20T16:02:00.007+10:00

From the Chessbase interview with Anand, it turns out that aside from his own team of helpers, Anand also received help from:

a. World #1 rated player: Magnus Carlsen
b. 13th World Champion: Garry Kasparov
c. 14th World Champion: Vladimir Kramnik

and...........

d. Godfather Don Vito Corleone

And this photo is irrefutable proof. :)

(speaking of which, Topalov must really be a much "well loved" guy that he's got 2 ex-World Champions and #1 rated player working with his opponent - I can't even remember the last time that has happened)

Quiz: Do You Know Your World Chess Champions?

2010-05-18T06:37:00.007+10:00

How well do you know your World Champions? :)

I've come up with a quiz. Now try to figure out who they are - answers can be found by highlighting between the brackets.

To make things easier, I'm limiting the Chess Champions to the 15 Classical World Champions (WCs). In other words, the answers to the quiz are amongst the following:

1 Wilhelm Steinitz 1886–1894
2 Emanuel Lasker 1894–1921
3 José Raúl Capablanca 1921–1927
4 Alexander Alekhine 1927–1935
5 Max Euwe 1935–1937
6 Mikhail Botvinnik 1948–1957
7 Vasily Smyslov 1957–1958
8 Mikhail Tal 1960–1961
9 Tigran Petrosian 1963–1969
10 Boris Spassky 1969–1972
11 Bobby Fischer 1972–1975
12 Anatoly Karpov 1975–1985
13 Garry Kasparov 1986–2000
14 Vladimir Kramnik 2000–2007
15 Viswanathan Anand 2007–present

Ready? Here we go (Googling the answer is for wimps):

Q1. When he was young, this WC's home chess set had a missing white bishop so he used a toy lead soldier in its place on the f1 square instead. He often blundered this toy soldier away as well in his early games.
A1. [Mikhail Botvinnik (Source: Achieving the Aim - Mikhail Botvinnik)]

Q2. This WC once exclaimed,"So great is the conviction nowadays in the advantage of the 2 Bishops (over 2 Knights)". He proceeded to prove his doubters wrong with a win using 2 Knights over 2 Bishops over another WC.
A2. [Vasily Smyslov - His defeated opponent was Max Euwe (Source: My Best Games of Chess 1935-1957 - Vassily Smyslov) ]

Q3. The famous "double bishop" sacrifice was often attributed to this WC but surprisingly, this sacrifice was actually played years before he did it.
A3. [Emanuel Lasker (Source: Chessgames.com - the famous game was Lasker-Bauer, Amsterdam 1889)]

Q4. This WC proposed this chess variant (using a 10x8 board) while he was world champion.
A4. [José Raúl Capablanca (Source: Wikipedia - José Raúl Capablanca)]

Q5. This then 18 year old WC created a huge stir when he beat his then more famous GM opponent in classical time controls using only 15 minutes of his own time.
A5. [Viswanathan Anand (Source: Daniel King - How Good Is Your Chess). He beat Soviet GM Gennady Kuzmin in Frunze 1987 (http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1017948).]

Q6. This World Champion had a favorite souvenir made by one of his fans - it was a chess knight made out of onyx and in the eye of the knight, a miniature chess board and on it, the World Champion's 5th game position in his WC match win.
A6. [Tigran Petrosian (Source: Vik Vasiliev - Tigran Petrosian - His Life And Games)]

Big Board Match: North Sydney v St George

2010-05-13T15:20:00.003+10:00

The annual "grudge" match was on again. On Tuesday night, the players from St George travelled to North Sydney (Norths) for the annual Big Board match.

The majority of the players from St George turned up and although the games are scheduled to start at 7.30pm, unfortunately, the pairings did not happen until a good 45 minutes later.

In the end, a whopping total of 50 boards was finalised.

My opponent was Graham Allison (1368). There was nothing fascinating about the game. I can only say that I made a few blunders, he made a few mistakes. And in the end, as Tarrasch said,"I was the next to last person to blunder", which was rather unfortunate for Graham and he resigned on move 63.

This was my first OTB game for over a year and I was pretty disappointed with my play despite my win. I got into a winning position and miscalculated... badly and my opponent failed to capitalise on it.

My brother-in-law Steven won his game in his typical 1.d4 opening while my friend's son Dylan won his game in a very nice style with a neat tactical combination by beating a pin with a counter pin.

My board was among the last to finish. In the end, North Sydney emerged with nice little 30-20 victory over St George. This was a slight improvement over last year where North Sydney (Norths) 28.5-19.5 (only to get subsequently clobbered by St George in the return match with 33.5-12.5 *ouch*)

The Grade Matches are due to start in a fortnight's time and I've planned to participate.

I realised that my OTB play has deteriorated beyond comprehension. I seriously need to pull up my socks before then.

I Think A World Champion Knows Better

2010-05-12T10:58:00.008+10:00

Oh dear.

Here's a very "thinly" veiled criticism by GM Anish Giri commenting for Chessbase on the final WCC game between Anand and Topalov:

"46.Qxg2 Bxg2. At this point, some people got very nervous, screaming that they had found a draw. The calm World Champion, however, had seen everything in advance."

I'll give you one guess who GM Anish Giri is referring to - it's the GM who stated on her blog that Anand had blundered with

"40...Kg7" (see picture)

The comments have since been "sanitised" to:

"Although 40...Kh7 is a cleaner and more precise, 40...Kg7 also wins after I looked at it again 41. Nf5+ Kh7 42. Rg3 Rxg3+ 43. hxg3 .... -+"

Ouch.

Congratulations To Anand

2010-05-12T02:42:00.002+10:00

World Champion successfully defended his title and won the crucial last game against Topalov.

In a 1.d4 opening, Anand chose the Lasker variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined. Topalov again overpressed and once Anand broke through with 30....f5! And when Anand found the counter-intuitive move 34... Qe8! The chess engines started foaming in the mouth.

Not bad for a champion who was once called a "coffeehouse" player. Credit to Topalov for battling out the 12 games. They were great to watch and for once, there were no sheningans in Bulgaria.

Starting Over Knightmares

2010-05-07T10:09:00.004+10:00

I'm intending to play for North Sydney against St George next Tuesday at Norths RSL.

As I've not effectively played for more than a year, rustiness has indeed crept in and playing silly moves without much afterthought is going to be a problem for me.

In the meantime, I've not been doing much chess wise. This weekend I'll be busy as I've got relatives over for a short visit and will be having dinner with them.

The problem with being so long out of playing chess is that you've really forgotten all your lines.

Playing on freechess (FICS) didn't help matters as I lost game after game due to silly errors like leaving my pieces en-prise and falling for 1-2 move tactical tricks (shows how much I've backslided).

About Kramnik And His Book

2010-04-27T16:39:00.005+10:00

While the World Chess Championship (WCC) continues on in Bulgaria, I would like to talk about the previous 14th World Chess Champion, Vladimir Kramnik.

I was watching a bit of Kramnik's Chessbase DVD,"My Path To The Top". Kramnik talks in depth on his first entry into the elite, then match preparations for his WCC title matches in this Chessbase DVD.

I hope for one day to see Kramnik putting out a new autobiography book. And I would like to have read his annotations since his last book in 2000. His one and only book, "My Life And Games" was one of the drearest book ever published (no offense) and the annotations stopped before his WCC match with Kasparov.

I came across his book by chance over the weekend. Looking at the book and comparing with the Chessbase DVD and other resources like Informant and New In Chess, I just don't understand it.

I have enormous respect for Kramnik. His annotations are simply superb and he shows a profound understanding of deep theory and calculation but the book was one of the few books that can put an insomniac to sleep.

When chess readers read an autobiography, they would rather it be filled with interesting materials, the thoughts, the ideas, the plans, essentially what it is like to be in the super-elite GM chess world - not endless reams of variation after variation.

Botvinnik started with his 100 Selected Games, a bit dry but nonetheless informative. But it was Mikhail Tal who paved the way of how autobiography books should be treated. Karpov and Kasparov went annotation crazy in theirs and while Kasparov's treatment in "Modern Chess" was interesting, it was not in the same league as Tal. Anand came close with his book,"My Best Games Of Chess" which won the BCF Book of the Year award.

Since then, no other World Champion has managed to eclipse Tal. The fact that Tal's book still stands today (in spite of computer chess engines' evaluation) is a testament of how important it is to communicate with the reader.

Kramnik is a very deep thinker and from the Chessbase DVD, this trait comes across very evidently. And I think it is an enormous pity that he has not put out another chess book in the last 10 years.

Recognising Eureka Moments

2010-04-24T22:32:00.011+10:00

Do you often get the ... "Wait a minute, there has to be a combination here." but the life of you, you just cannot find it over the board?

Here's a small little snippet of a position I played a few days ago on FICS.

My opponent White, just played 30. Qc2

It was at this moment that something in my mind clicked about the position and that little voice in my head then said, "There's something in here."So I began calculating....

1. If it is White's turn to move, what is White likely to do?

My king and queen are currently not under threat. Neither are my pieces with the exception of the e4 pawn and possibly, the c6 pawn once the Knight on c5 moves. The Knights are likely to take the e4 pawn first and coupled with the a-pawn push, White would be winning.

I need to find something and fast.

2. Can I stop White's threats of taking the e4 pawn with any pieces?

No, the pawn is being attacked 3 times. The only way to defend is f5 but my exposed King would be quite vulnerable along the b2-g7 diagonal. I can take the chance but I don't like it.

3. Let's look at the safety of the White king and queen now

I looked at the White King's position, it's extremely vulnerable along the dark square diagonal of g1-b7 but that diagonal is defended by the pawn chain of e3 and d4. I'd notice my bishop targetting the rook on a1 so if my Bishop can plonk itself on d4, I would be an exchange up then. So how do I remove this pawn defence?

Once I saw this, I found the combination. All I need to do now is to recheck any variations that might interfere with my plan. Seeing none, I looked to see if there are other good moves I can make but could not find any. So I played....

30....Nxe3 31. Rxe3 (forced as other alternatives are poor eg. 31. Qxe4 Qxe4 32. Nxe4 results in 32. Nc2 forking both Rooks and I would be the exchange up with a very active bishop and 2 rooks - Black is winning) Bxd4 32. Rae1 (see diagram below)

And the pin along g2-a7 diagonal decides matters - the White Rook on e3 is going nowhere. So, I take my time 32... Qxc5 33. Qxc5 Bxc5 and the game quickly finished.

I admit this was one game I got lucky. I didn't see the 30th move until it presented to myself. In an actual game, I would have to see this move well ahead in advance.

However, one good thing arising from this is that once I recognise the pattern, I can now "lock" this useful idea and store it into my "brain" database (and my PGN database of games) of tactics I can possible use in the future.

And it is only by consistently building "chunks" of tactical patterns, that will help create ideas and help formulate plans in the future.

Chessbase Fritz Trainer: Yasser Seirawan - My Best Games Review

2010-04-23T01:26:00.018+10:00

Before I start my review, a couple things about Chesscafe's review:

Chesscafe's reviewer, Lance Martin, recently reviewed this DVD and gave it a whopping thumbs down of 1 star.

Unfortunately, I am not familiar with the reviewer and I'm sure he's a competent reviewer. However, I have a couple of problems with his review.

He gave Shirov's My Best Games in the Grünfeld Defence 4 stars and proceeds to say,"It is moves like this that let us understand why people devote their lives to this endeavor. We may not see chess the same way that Shirov does, but the fact that all chess players have certain moves or positions that they will remember for the rest of their lives makes this game worthy of our time and effort. So is this DVD."

I find this comment rather ironic.

The problem is that Shirov has already covered this game in his earlier excellent DVD, Endgame Fireworks and a duplicity of material is rather unfortunate in this instance. I find it strange that for someone who has 48 Fritz Trainers, he forgot to mention that Shirov had already covered this too in an earlier DVD?

In addition, endgame expert Karsten Müller also covered this very same game in one of his Endgame DVDs as well. I may not have as many DVDs as Lance Martin but I know repeated material when I see one.

While he praises Shirov to the skies, he took a rather dim view of Seirawan's DVD in which Seirawan too display certain finesse in terms of technique (Seirawan may not live on Planet Shirov but he is still a strong GM in his own right).

Enought of Chesscafe, it's time to start my review (and also try to answer Lance's criticisms in the meantime). Note that this review is based on my personal preferences as a patzer. So, YMMV.

Seirawan's My Best Games is not any different from other Chessbase DVD products (see my review of Powerplay 11: Defence as a guide to the packaging etc.).

In this DVD, GM Yasser Seirawan traces his days as an early chess professional.

Chesscafe reviewer, Lance Martin first proceeds to take offence with the DVD with the comments,"Thus, we have to take this DVD for what it is: a chess autobiography from one of the highest rated American chess players in history. It begins with his first win over a GM when he was sixteen years old. If we are interested in the games of a junior chess player, then the DVD is worth watching."

With this statement, Lance Martin shows he is sloppy and doesn't bother to verify his facts. Seirawan was born in Damascus in 1960.The first game illustrated was against GM Arthur Bisguier in 1975 which makes him fifteen years old not sixteen (Seirawan even mentions his age for this game in his annotations). And I find that his statement about this DVD being the games of a junior chess player might make people misinterpret that the illustrated games are not of a good quality.

The list of games on this DVD

Of the 22 games covered, Seirawan's only showed 1 game when he was 15 years old. The games listed are:

Seirawan-Bisguier 1975
Weinstein-Seirawan 1977
Timman-Seirawan 1978
Seirawan-Grefe 1978
Darby-Seirawan 1978
Seirawan-Larson 1979
Seirawan-Miles 1979
Zaltsman-Seirawan 1978
Marjanovic-Seirawan 1979
Jhunjhnuwala-Seirawan 1979
Seirawan-Barbero 1979
Gligoric-Seirawan 1980
Van der-Wiel-Seirawan 1980
Seirawan-Korchnoi 1980
Seirawan-Timman 1980
Kovacevic-Seirawan 1980
Seirawan-Tal 1980
Seirawan-Rivas 1980
Seirawan-Korchnoi 1981
Seirawan-Hort 1981
Timman-Seirawan 1981
Karpov-Seirawan 1981

He illustrates 2 of his wins in the World Junior Championship in 1978. As you can see, by 1979, Seirawan was matching wits against the world elite. 3 of his illustrated wins in 1980 was at the famous Wijk Aan Zee tournament where he was joint first with GM Walter Browne among a group of GMs including Korchnoi, Timman and van der Wiel. These games are nothing to be sneezed at.

Stopping any silly typical Sicilian sacrifices on e6

First off, Seirawan is very comfortable with the Chessbase interface and uses arrows and highlighted squares where appropriate to illustrate his thoughts well.

In addition, as this is a chess autobiography, it makes sense to have games when Seirawan was young. If Seirawan thinks that this game is one of his most memorable, then he has every right to include it. I think the Chesscafe reviewer was being overtly critical in his review.

I can easily give 2 counter examples. Kramnik's My Path To The Top Chessbase DVD and Anand's My Career Part 1 DVD both include games when they were very young. Does this mean that they're no less any important to them or they're of an inferior quality? Far from it. In fact, these games helped to illustrate how their chess skills have changed with time and how they've improved as a player to become part of the world elite.

As a result, I find it quite unfathomable that Lance would harp on this since he has some 48 Fritz Trainers. To me, this format has not differed in anyway from any of the other autobigraphical DVDs put out by Chessbase.

Lance then compliments Seirawan,"It was a wonderful win for Seirawan and he does an expert job of annotating it." and then proceeds to tear down the presented material and that Seirawan's annotations are far too brief.

Really. Which is which? If he is talking about there not being enough variations of the listed games, then I agree fully with him.

Cracking open a rock solid defence

But what he conveniently forgot to mention was that Seirawan's annotations are highly personal and different. Seirawan doesn't give you reams and reams of variations (ala Chess Informant style - really, if I wanted that, I let Fritz work its magic or look up past issues of Informant) but what he does communicate through his annotations are his thoughts and ideas. And it is is these thoughts and ideas that are worth their weight in gold. He quoted a game where Bent Larsen gave him a big hug for giving him a wonderful illustrative game about knowing where to put his pieces. He also showed a game which he classified as a turning point for him where he produced a technical win.

A typical annotation by Seirawan on one of his games

Although this DVD contained all of his wins bar one, it doesn't mean that Seirawan is only interested in beating his chest. On the contrary, in some of his games, Seirawan's acknowledged he had overlooked moves or made inferior moves but that both he and his opponent had missed in their analysis.

Lance complains that "Seirawan does not delve into the rationale for many of his moves." I find it quite the opposite. Seirawan is not interested in presenting the entire game and explaining each game move by move. Rather in every game, Seirawan concentrates on a few points where he explains or illustates a particular concept or idea that was important to him and how he goes about accomplishing his objective.

How Seirawan's opponent could have capitalised on his inaccuracy

Some of his ideas and plans are quite deep and original where the outcome is not apparent till a good 7 moves later as shown in Zaltsman-Seirawan. He also explains how he learns and improves his chess skill with each game and how during that time, adjournments helped to improve his game.

I'll give you an example, in Van der-Wiel-Seirawan, Seirawan explains how he exploits his opponent's mistake to move his pieces to squares where they are more effective and then proceeds to destroy White's seemingly rock solid position through a series of combinations. While this short was only 6 minutes long, he didn't had to make any more comments than was necessary and for a patzer like me, it was easy enough to follow.

In his later games, Seirawan starts to go into details on why he plays the moves he did to get to positions that he wanted that he can best use his strengths to win.

No, it's not what you're thinking, Seirawan is actually
making a very good point about the Keres Attack :-)

I would say that the target audience rating of this DVD is between 1200-1800.

Presentation style: 9.5/10
Material: 8/10
Length: 6/10

Overall: 8/10

This is not a training DVD like Daniel King's Powerplay series nor is it a repertoire DVD. Instead, it is more of a very personal autobiography. Think of it like you having a nice conversation with Seirawan in person as he recounts his story over a nice cup of coffee. Seirawan's presentation style is calm, clear and concise. He is never boring and interjects most of the games with a personal viewpoint, making the material very fresh and lively. This DVD is perfect to play when you're tired of doing exhaustive chess tactics or opening repertoire or training sessions. The material is light in that Seirawan doesn't give you variations upon variations of analysis. Instead, he focuses more on main plans and strategies. In so doing, Seirawan has given us an insight into a GM's mind at work.

Our Own GM Rogers On USCF

2010-04-22T11:04:00.003+10:00

Sorry for another short blurb:

Australia's first GM Ian Rogers just wrote a humorous and light hearted article for USCF on the upcoming World Chess Championship in Sofia:

A Couch Potato's Guide to Topalov-Anand (a must read)

Quote: "Here is a guide to making the most of the battle between the defending World Champion and the villain from Toilet Wars 2006."

I almost choked on my coffee after reading that. LOL.

ChessCafe Review - PP12 and Yasser Seirawan's Chessbase DVDs

2010-04-22T09:27:00.004+10:00

Sorry, this is just a short blurb.

I had intended to do a couple of Fritz Trainer reviews (which some of my friends at my local chess club had kindly lent me) and others I had purchased on my own.

Today, Chesscafe's reviewer, Lance Martin, gave the following ratings on ChessCafe:

PowerPlay 12: The Hedgehog - 2 stars
Yasser Seirawan: My Best Games - 1 star

Frankly, I was floored by the poor ratings that were given to these 2 DVDs. I have seen some real stinkers by Chessbase but these 2 DVDs whilst not the best of the Fritz Trainer series, they are definitely not the worst nor are they anywhere near the mediocrity that pervades other interactive chess DVDs.

I have in my possession both software and I intend to do a review on both of them some time in the next week.

The Bulgarians Are Just A Misunderstood Lot

2010-04-20T09:20:00.007+10:00

When it comes to handling PR with respect to Anand+entourage having problems with travelling to Sofia, you would have thought that they be more sympathetic but not so, judging by recent comments from the Bulgarian chess president.

It's nice to note that FIDE is also having problems with flights to Sofia, including the second arbiter and the appeals committee:-

Interview With FIDE Deputy Chairman Georgios Makropoulos

I loved how the Bulgarians like to spread mistruths (such as no World Chess Championship has ever been delayed - yes, it has - remember Fischer-Spassky?).

Maybe the Bulgarians are just a really misunderstood lot. And that Topalov and his manager Danailov and the Bulgarian Chess president are not representative of their country when it comes to hospitality.

And I thought the shenaningens ended in Elista with Kramnik, silly me.

PS: Just so you know how hard it is to get to anywhere in Europe at the moment, my company has nearly all its sales staff still stuck in Germany and they're not expected back till a week later at the earliest). Eurostar is fully booked that it's not funny and alternative rearrangements to allow staff to drive to non-affected countries and fly from there have not been met with much success either.

Photos Of San Francisco

2010-04-13T03:58:00.009+10:00

My wife and I arrived in San Francisco during a period where it was pouring nearly every day.

San Francisco coastline with the Bay bridge in the distance

The San Francisco coastline was cloudy most of the time with a few exceptions of a few days of sun which we made full use of by doing the tourist thing and keep snapping pictures like a Japanese tourist on vacation. ;-)

San Francisco's most famous landmark - the Golden Gate bridge

A closeup of The Golden Gate bridge

Where weak local chess players are sent to
and forced to read Eric Schiller's books everyday
Just kidding - it's Alcatraz Island :)

One of the many gulls around Fisherman's Wharf

While my wife went to do her shopping, I can't help but head down to the Mechanics' Institute in downtown San Francisco.

The Mechanics' Institute

It's not the most noticeable place if you drive past it but it's impossible to miss when you're on foot. I respected the privacy of the libraries which are on the first 2 levels so I decided against taking photos of the libraries (even from the outside). Do give the library a tour, there's a free tour every Wednesday at noon.

If you head up to the top floor and walk down the corridor from the lift and make a left turn, USA's oldest chess club beckons.... :)

Hallway to USA's oldest chess club

The hallway is adorned with a few pictures and I can't help but take a picture of these 2.

Eagle-eyed observers will recognise the GM in the left picture giving simuls. Yes, it's none other than the recently passed away 7th World Champion Vasily Smyslov.

Inside the chess club

I refrained from taking more photos because there were some social players having a few games and I didn't want to disturb them. Sorry!

Mechanics' Institute @ San Francisco

2010-04-01T08:36:00.008+11:00

Well, I'm right now typing from one of the 3 terminals in the Chess Room at the Mechanics' Institute in San Francisco.

There are a few social players right here in the Chess Room playing a couple of social games. I played 1 or 2 games to a few of the players. Nothing fancy.

The Mechanics' Institute is located in a nice little building sandwiched (somewhat) between a few other buildings right here in the financial district in downtown San Francisco. It's located at 57 Post Street.

Unfortunately, I can't upload any pictures of the Chess Room as yet but suffice to say, it's a very cosy location and the chess tables are nicely setup on both sides of the room of 2 rows each.

Beautiful pictures adorn the walls of the Chess Room with pictures of Spassky's and Tal's visits among them. The Chess Club here is the oldest chess club in USA.

Tonight apparently is blitz night but unfortunately I can't play as I'm due to leave tomorrow at 7 am, I need to turn in early to get some much needed sleep.

The library occupies the first 2 levels of the Mechanics' Institute. A day pass costs US$10.

If you have a chance to pop by in San Francisco, do give this building a look in. The library is beautifully decorated and it's a very quiet and idyllic place considering it's smacked right in the middle of downtown.

The lower level houses books which members can borrow books while the upper level of the library houses the reference section.

There's quite a bit of history associated with the Chess Room and the pictures lined up both outside and inside the Chess Room tell quite a story.

Visiting The Bay Area

2010-03-25T09:24:00.005+11:00

Last week, I proceeded to continue work on another 1.e4 Black opening repertoire and using Chess Position Trainer to familiarise myself with move orders. It's something that I've been meaning to do for a long time but just had not have the time to do it.

I'll be heading off to the USA over the next few weeks to visit friends and taking a much needed break. I'll be mostly in San Francisco from next week onwards and onto Atlanta with short stopovers in New Zealand.

I am quite tempted to pop into the Mechanics' Institute at San Francisco but it will have to depend on whether my wife feels up to it. She's about 75% recovered from her ankle surgery.

Chessbase Fritz Trainer: Powerplay 11 - Defence Review

2010-03-21T14:54:00.017+11:00

GM Daniel King is well known among Chessbase with his Powerplay series and his commentaries on playchess.com.

Today, we'll be looking into one of his Fritz Trainers DVD. Powerplay 11 - Defence.

This DVD is a "bare-bones" DVD comprising of just the DVD and the cover. This suits me just fine since it's the material on the DVD inside that matters not the fancy presentation or leaflets etc. accompanying the DVD.

As is common with his other Powerplay DVDs, the material in this case concentrates on one aspect of chess - here, it is on the art of defence.

A total of 39 short video clips make up this DVD. Some of these video clips last between 2 min and 25 min. In all, the DVD has about a total of 2.5 hr video running time (English only).

Please note that GM King also presents in German as well so German viewers are also able to follow his lectures.

The DVD is presented into King's usual format, the test positions are given during his introduction. A total of 12 Test positions are covered. His main material coverage is as follows:

Premature castling
Highlighted games: Marcelin - Shirazi

Delayed castling
Highlighted games: Topalov - Ponomariov, Sveshnikov - Kasparov

The advance of the f-pawn
Highlighted games: Bareev - Filippov, Kozlov - Yemelin, Karpov - Kortschnoj

The h4/g4 advance
Highlighted games: Spassky - Petrosian, Kapnisis - Skembris, Morozevich - Ivanchuk

Passive Play
Highlighted games: Lamorelle - Fressinet

The weakness of the back rank
Highlighted games: Arlandi - Nunn, Kasparov - Karpov

The process of elimination
Highlighted games: Kramnik - Anand, Illescas - Andersson

In his introduction, King explains that defence is not a particularly positive title because "no one likes to defend in chess." Actually, this title is not about discussing tricky defence techniques but more about how to identify situations where one can fall into a defensive or passive position. But he thinks that the title,"How to avoid going on the defensive" is probably too much of a mouthful to put as a title. I would agree. :)

As I mentioned earlier, in this DVD, he gives his customary test positions in the introduction. In these test positions, King wants the viewer to setup the board and engage in some hard thinking on what candidate moves to play and to not analyse from the computer screen. Or as King says, "to let the ideas flow through your fingers".

With respect to the test positions, the maximum benefit from this DVD IMHO is to analyse the test positions, calculate the variations/responses and after going through the main chapters, to go back to these test positions and see if you might want to change any of the positions/moves before going to the test solutions.

The test positions range from positional play to strategic play, from complex middlegame positions to endgame play. In all, 10 test positions are highlighted but one game will be discussed in 3 separate videos. Calculation is of the utmost importance here. The viewer is definitely going to get a good brain workout. Oh and don't forget to close the notation window (so you don't inadvertently look at the answers).

As always, King's presentation is at a comfortable level and is clear in his explanations. He does not rush things and takes the time to explain the moves and possible side moves. He also makes very good use of highlights and arrows to explain his ideas.

King also highlights important parts of a good defence - which involves a good amount of careful calculation, the potential of creating counter-attacking possibilities, when to trade and when not to trade. He shows you typical scenarios and how to overcome them and how not to be afraid of "ghosts" (as they say in chess).

The presentation material is excellent but the scope of this topic is too big to present in under 3 hours.

One game I would have definitely like to see him cover was the incredible game, Kramnik - Anand, Belgrade 1997 where Anand displayed an incredible array of defensive skills but that game would've probably taken up over an hour to explain. :)

IMHO I would say that the target audience rating of this DVD is between 1200-2100.

Presentation style: 9/10
Material: 8/10
Length: 5/10

Overall: 7.5/10

This is not to say the DVD is poor. It's quite the opposite, the material is excellent but I feel that more material could have been covered to reinforce certain points. I come away from this DVD learning some new things about the art of defence but I also felt the coverage was light and not as comprehensive as a whole if you compare with some of his earlier Powerplay DVDs. If you are a player who constantly gets into trouble or falling into passive positions, this DVD will really help to open your eyes.

The Strong Prey On The Weak

2010-03-17T14:17:00.007+11:00

.... and that has been the way of Mother Nature since time immemorial.

I have never stopped using FICS (freechess) to play blitz games. Over the course of many months, I come to notice a few regulars (recognisable by their nicks) and looking back on my games with them, I'd noticed a trend.

For these opponents who beat me at blitz games, they tend to beat me on a regular basis. When I look back on these games, I'd noticed how strong their positional and situational sense are. They rarely if ever, overlook a tactical shot but what did grab my attention was how often and regular that they "know" where to put their pieces ie. on the best squares.

Every move they make tends to hold certain value. It may be either taking away a square, preparing a combination, covering weaknesses in their defence. In other words, they are constantly making moves to improve their advantage or reduce your advantage.

I was very surprised that at blitz speed, they have an incredible innate sense of awareness and understanding of the position. And it is the mastery of this technique that is essential to be acquired so one can get better at chess.

I have a regular opponent (A) on FICS, so far our mutual score reads something like +1,000,000-0=0 (j/k) in my opponent's favour. When I play against A, in one game, he can beat me in a very nice little combination and in the next game, using his superior knowledge of positioning to outplay me and in another game, display better endgame technique.

It's literally quite amazing to see the skill required to become a good chess player (class A or above player).

So how does one get better at chess?

Unfortunately, there is no quick elixir for this problem. To get better at chess, one needs to put in the hard yards. And that involves chess study. Lots of chess study. And the chess study must involve all aspects of the game, from the opening to the endgame, from tactical training to understanding and adopting appropriate strategies to the given situation.

There are plenty of good chess material out there that can do just that. You can use Silman's books, or play through any World Champion's annotated games or use software like Convekta's Training courses or as some fellow bloggers have done (turn to ICS - International Chess School). There is no one road to chess mastery as long as you balance all aspects of your chess ability.

After all, nobody likes being the rabbit all the time.

Onwards! :)

Chess Position Trainer 4 Preview And Help

2010-03-11T10:33:00.006+11:00

Stefan Renzewitz, the creator of the free Chess Position Trainer needs your help.

Stefan has produced one of the best chess opening trainers in the market (don't get me started on transpositions in Chessbase *grin*).

He has a technical preview of the upcoming software Chess Position Trainer v4 (Technical Preview) available and would like help in finding potential bugs.

A word on Chess Position Trainer - it's an absolute gem of a software that is very effective in building up and learning your opening repertoire quickly.

If you've never heard of Chess Position Trainer before, I strongly urge you to give it a try. It makes opening repertoire preparation very much easier. Chess Position Trainer can also be used to for endgames and tactics training.

Don't just take my word for it, you can reviews of the current versions here:

http://www.chessville.com/misc/ChessPositionTrainer32.htm

http://roman-chess.blogspot.com/2009/08/chess-position-trainer-test-your.html

http://keystor.blogspot.com/2007/03/few-mini-reviews.html

As a chess patzer myself, there's not much point in shelling out lots of moolah for Chessbase or Chess Assistant if all I want is for opening training.

Chess Position Trainer Information:

Website: www.chesspositiontrainer.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chess-Position-Trainer/111176928709

The documentation and software is available for download at their website. If you need to get your feet wet, there are free tutorials
on how to use it as well as to apply it to things like tactical training:

http://www.ndchessnut.com/cn_pages/Classroom/PDF/CPT_Lesson1.pdf
http://www.ndchessnut.com/cn_pages/Classroom/PDF/CPT_Tactics.pdf

The technical preview v4 can be obtained from the link below:

CPT Technical Preview v4.0

PS: I don't make any money out of this - just hate to see a good software not getting the publicity it deserves.

Find The Next Move

2010-03-07T08:26:00.005+11:00

In this game, my opponent, Black just played 1.... exf4.

How would you evaluate this position? White with a slight advantage? Equal?

How should White continue?

Hint: The continuation is not easy to see but you know that when the Knight+Queen is about, there's always tactical shots waiting. Think about it for at least 5 minutes.

Answers can be found by highlighting between the brackets

[2. ... e5!! and Black must lose a piece. The threat is no matter what Black does to take the pawn, the followup is 3. Ne7+! as the Knight is immune to capture due to potential mate on h7. The Black King can escape via g6 but the attack for White by then is utterly crushing with 4. Qxh7 and 5. Nf6.]

In Between Work And Chess

2010-03-01T15:31:00.002+11:00

It's really hard to split your time between work and chess and family as I found out to my detriment.

In the meantime, I've been hanging out at Norths Chess watching the club competition. My brother-in-law Steven made a short draw with Jack Ruan last week. I plan to go see him in action tomorrow again.

My wife is still recuperating from her ankle surgery. She can walk upright now (slowly) and is trying to walk without the use of crutches but she has gone back to work (Thanks to all for their well wishes). We're hoping that she recuperates fully as we're planning to travel to the USA in 3 weeks' time.

I've got a few Roman's Lab DVDs from my father-in-law as well as working through some of chesslecture.com videos (yes, I do subscribe to them) as well as a couple of Fritz Trainer DVDs that I purchased some time ago (Daniel King's Powerplay 11 - okay - I know 12 is out and Viktor Bologan's DVD).

I spent much of last weekend working on a few endgame problems (using Mueller's FCE book and his Chessbase Trainer). I've also tried to concentrate and work at creating an opening repertoire database but it's been far less fruitful than I would have hoped. I'm still tossing between Chessbase Light and Chess Position Trainer. Bummer. Both software have their pros and cons and I'm finding it hard to pick one.

On other good news, my office working hours till 7pm is about to change once daylight savings kick over in April - which means my working hours will fall to 5.30pm once again ie. more time for chess at night. :D

In the meantime, I've elected to not play in either Ryde-Eastwood nor North Sydney club championships.

Norths Club Competition

2010-02-03T17:48:00.007+11:00

Apologies for the lack of updates.

I've signed up for the North Sydney Chess club competition.

I'm still undecided as to whether I should play. The past month has been hectic as my wife suffered a broken ankle and is currently hospitalised (having been taking her to do the MRI scans/doctors) and I've not taken any time to study chess intensively. So it looks like if I do play, I'm going in totally without any preparation at the moment.

In the meantime, my bathroom cistern is leaking and I've tried replacing the washers but to no avail. The plumber is coming tomorrow early morning to have a look.

Yep, this new year has not been going well for me. Oh well....

In the meantime, here's an interesting tactical puzzle of a game I just played. White is of course absolutely winning but what's the quickest way to victory?

White to play and mate in 4. Highlight between the brackets for the answer.
[1. Rf8+!
If ..... Rxf8 2. Qxh8+! Kxh8 3. exf8=Q+ Kh7 4. Re7#
If ..... Kh7 2. Qxh8#]

Afraid Of Ghosts?

2010-01-05T23:55:00.007+11:00

Why do we mentally block out some moves? Because it looks dangerous?

Take the following position:

White to play. What is White's best move?

The surprising move White made was 1. Qf1! Walking into a potential pin of the Bishop on c4.

I could not see the continuation. The idea of walking into a pin is so alien to me that it seems counterintuitive. But if you look closely, there are a couple of ideas.

White wants to apply pressure and take control of the f-file and plans to transfer the Rook to f3 where it can control the weak d3 pawn horizontally and perhaps even play Rg3 at the opportune moment.

If the f7 pawn can be moved then White's control of the f-file would prove problematic for Black.

White also has the idea of blocking the Black queen's diagonal and eyeing the d1 Rook. Once this diagonal is blocked, Black's ominous looking Bishop suddenly need to move and the pin no longer works.

For some reason, my brain automatically blocked out this good move. One thing that stops me from playing this move is that my calculative abilities are still not up to par and this little exercise showed up my weakness in the ability to understand the position.

Oh, and just in case you're wondering who's White?

It's none other than the 2nd World Champion Emanuel Lasker. :)

So the next time when you're considering what move to make, take a step back. And challenge any assumptions. You may be surprised by what you can find.