WCC At The Halfway Point: Getting Painful To Watch

I hate to be Vladimir Kramnik right now. Something has seriously gone very wrong with his match preparation.


Kramnik was outcalculated in Game 3.

In Game 5, he missed the tactical trap with Ne3 (see above picture). The sudden realisation that he was lost and had fallen into Anand's trap was a huge blow.

And now in Game 6, instead of playing for a draw to recover, Kramnik decided not to go for the defensive to consolidate. And the worst possible thing happened. He got ground down by Anand in a positional skirmish that would normally have suited him to a tee.

Anand now has a 3 point lead at the halfway mark. If this was a 24 game match, this result would still have allowed Kramnik sufficient time to recover but in a 12 game match, it's very hard.

He's getting outfought, outthought and outprepared at the board.

Tomorrow is a rest day and Kramnik needs to recover from this serious setback quickly. Never in my wildest dreams would I expect to see this result. In case anyone gets any wrong ideas, I am actually rooting for Anand and hopes he wins this.

Kramnik would need to turn himself around psychologically and go all out now in the next 6 games if he wants to harbour any hopes of regaining the crown.

No Rest For The Weary

The last week, I've been concentrating specifically on endgames and endgame technique. I've no time to rest now.

The final round of the Ryde-Eastwood club championship is upon me. I have to postpone the game between Steven and I this Wednesday and we would need to reschedule for this postponed game. This is due to the Ford Memorial Round 7 which coincides on this Wednesday as well.

About the Ryde Eastwood club championship, 6 players including myself will play a single game each for a period of 5 weeks to see. The participants are (ACF ratings stated):

Arthur Huynh (1835)
Bill Gletsos (1829)
My brother-in-law, Steven (1789)
Lorenzo Escalante (1716)
Joshua Christiansen (1662)
Me! (1500)

As for the Ford Memorial, this week's game got moved to Wednesday. My opponent is Horst Bleicher (FIDE rated 1832, ACF rated 1472). He has so far beat Henning Muller (1845), Tom Tomas (1629), Greg Matthews (1248) - definitely a player not to be underestimated.

A total of 62 players took part but it appears that 4 players have since dropped out. I'm placed #29 (smacked right in the middle!) on the list so anything above 4.5/9 is considered a good result.

Last week, Vladimir Smirnov taught me a little idea which is ingrained in my memory now. I would like to thank him for his generous input and advice. He has been great in helping lesser rated players and the local Sydney chess scene would be a lot poorer without his help.

I leave you now with a nice little puzzle from Volokitin's Perfect Your Chess.

White to play and win.

Answer as usual can be found by highlighting between the brackets

[1. Rd5!!

If 1... Qxd5 2. Qe8+ Kh7 3. Nf6+ gxf6 4. Qxf7#

If 1... exd5 2. Qxf5 naturally

If 1... Qf4 2. Rxa5 and Black is a whole piece down.


This move actually forced an instant resignation by Black.]

Nosce te ipsum

The phrase "Nosce te ipsum", which in Latin, is translated generally as the common phrase "Know Thyself".

One of the hardest things to do as a chess player is the ability to recognise, acknowledge your own faults and weaknesses and to work hard to remove them.

All chess players suffer from one deficient aspect of the royal game one way or another, be it, a 1200 player or an elite 2700 grandmaster.

Looking back at the 20 odd games I've played over the board, I've identified 3 main weaknesses.

1. Weak in opening
2. Weak in positional play
3. Weak in time management


1. Weak in opening

I am very unsettled in openings. I tend to lose my way quickly when players diverge from the main line. Concepts and ideas are far more important than rote move orders. I need to address this seriously but I can only gather that mastering an opening is going to take time. Two-thirds of my losses have come from poor opening play.


2. Weak in positional play/seeing positional ideas

Knowing where to put the pieces -so to speak- so as to maximise their effectiveness. I can see tactical shots but in order to know where to put my pieces, I need to be more conversant in tactics and in the art of defence and strategy. I am planning to scour my local library for such books and doing more tactical puzzles. I have also been leafing through GM games.


3. Weak in time management

Like many before me, I have a tendency to make moves too quickly. Dan Heisman, writer of ChessCafe's Novice Nook articles once said,"Never make a bad move quickly". This summarises my Achilles Heel.

I am now trying to make a mental reminder to myself during a game to pace myself against my clock. I've been doing this at home with my own digital clock albeit with some success. This has a rather calming effect on me and I find that I think far better and tend to choose better moves if I spend more than a minute of thought. This also highlights to me that my thought process is not as efficient as it is. Quite a number of times, a better move seems to prop up after I finished searching through my primary branch (ala Kotov's method) in my head.

Ford Memorial Round 8

Last night was a scheduled postponed games night but I was informed by Norman Greenwood that Frank Low is having scheduling problems so we agreed to move forward our round 8 game to last night.

Frank sacrificed a minor piece to open up my uncastled king and placed my position under severe pressure - the opening was a Pirc Defence: Classical.

I subsequently made 2 errors which allowed him to retake the position but I subsequently regrouped after he made a unnoticeable mistake (he was under severe time pressure by then) which allowed me to take home the point. I was pretty sure I was lost at one particular point in the game and after letting Fritz do its handiwork, sure enough, Fritz pointed out a mate in 7 at that location.

I was lucky.

Because of the schedule, I 've yet to play round 7 but have played round 8. So far, I'm now at +4-3=0.

Losses:
Karel P Hursky (2013)
Sarkis Nalbandian (1734)
Gordon Miller (1588)

Wins:
Robert Laurie (U/R)
Owen Roach (1458)
Anthony Pickering (1769)
Frank Low (1575)

I definitely need to improve. My opening theory sucks. I can no longer get by just remembering the first 4 moves in any opening. I'll never survive in this way. My remaining 2 games will be as White.

Next week is the start of the final round of the Ryde Eastwood Club Championship and it clashes with my Ford Memorial game so it looks like I may have to postpone my Ford game, which is a bit unfortunate.

Another Tactical Puzzle

Have a look at this position.

Black has come under enormous pressure and played Nf7 in desperation.

Find White's best move.

White to play and win.

Answers can be found by highlighting the brackets.

Answer [
1. Rxh8+ Nxh8
2. Qxd6!! Qxd6
3. e7 and

Black must have give up the Black Queen else
4. e8=Q+ loses either the Knight after
5. Qxh8 or the Black Queen as
4.... Kc7 loses to the Knight fork with b5+]