Breaking Point

The Ford Memorial 2008 has started so I thought I took the time to relook at my past games. I've so far been involved in only 2 competitions - the Ryde-Eastwood club championships and the NSW Grade Matches.

While I was busy poring through my old games, I'd notice particular annotations I made on my scoresheets. In between some of the variations were personal comments I injected to relive the mood of the game at that time.

I notice one particular oddity. Players around my level (including myself) have a propensity to collapse at the critical moments especially under sustained pressure to the verge of breaking point.

This appears to be a far more common weakness than I realise.

Be it due to time-trouble or mental fatigue, the psychological warfare being engaged in the end tends to prove too much and mistakes inevitably started to show.

I also noticed that when faced against higher rated opponents, they steel themselves a lot better in the face of an onslaught.

But why then are so few chess books being written on the psychological aspects and mental training of chess?

Perhaps all along, we've not been 100% correct in our chess education during our formative years. One should not just solely concentrate on improving the calculative and combinatorial abilities. Instead toughening your mental strength should also be a core part of a person's training.

Not All Booked Up

In this day and age, it gets progressively harder to get better at chess if you do not 'book up'. When I mean 'book up', I mean learning not just your major opening lines but also knowing them well enough to know the nuances, strategies and plans that comes with the opening.

'Seasoned' opponents knows how to find every nook and cranny to exploit every new nuance in your opening in an attempt to gain an advantage if you do not know your openings back to front.

I'm still learning the King's Indian Defence, and admit that I've got a long way to go before I can truly say that it is part of my repertoire.

How do people learn new openings?

I cannot say for others, but I've always been interested in mainline opening knowledge.

So when and how did I start playing the KID then?

I can't pinpoint the exact moment which this took place (idea of learning another opening) but it's probably around like 2 months ago. At that time, the Nimzo-Indian/QID was part of my original repertoire but I felt that I needed to understand how to handle the dark squares of the royal game. In addition, I wanted to learn how to handle dynamic positions. I felt the KID 'seemed' like a good defense that gave plenty of scope for attacking ideas.

That was what got me started on the KID.

When I first started to learn this opening, I was very intimidated by the amount of theory of this opening.

I've only started examining the main Classical lines with e5, Nc6, Nd7 and thought it was very strange to lock up the center position. Fortunately or rather, unfortunately, the Bayonet Attack does not hold the same terror it did (which originally forced Kasparov to give up the KID) once Black players knew how to equalise.

I've yet to fully understand the nuances of this defence, really. I'm currently reading through Gallagher's Starting Out: The King's Indian by Everyman but the progress has been slow and painful. I keep losing to Steven despite numerous tries against it. Oh well.... that only shows I've not fully understood how to play it yet.

I still have not decided what to play against 1. e4 but of late, I've been looking at 1. e5 as a solid response and am looking to play the Ruy Lopez as Black if given the chance.

I'm not a good move memorizer so anything beyond like 6 or 7 moves and I start to lose my way and tend to go out of book.

So how do you acquire your opening knowledge/repertoire?

Ghosts And Fallability

While playing games be it, OTB or over the internet, I noticed a few 'ghosts' cropping up in my gameplay.

One of these flaws was that I have a tendency to not play the best moves after getting in a few nice moves. In other words, after making a series of good moves, I followed it up with an impulsive move which usually leads to the start of my downfall.

I will highlight this in this game here (see 1st diagram).

White has a slight edge here having a passed pawn and more active pieces. With correct play, White should be able to convert this.

But I was disturbed by the doubling of the Rooks on the h-file. I definitely do not want Black to play Bxf3 leading to a doubling of my pawn structure and even worse, allowing Black to crash through the Kingside which has become porous (with 1... Bxf3 2. gxf3 Rxh3) - my Queen had gone on a temporary excursion to wipe Black's a pawn off the board - hence the awkward position.

I looked first at 1. Re3. Not bad, this protects the Knight and indirectly the h3 pawn as well. It also provides some cover for my King should it decide to go to the e-file.

Then.... I looked at 1. Rxe4, sacrificing an exchange with Rook for Bishop and pawn after 1. Rxe4 dxe4 2. Qxe4. The more I looked at it, the better it seemed. First, I had broken up Black's pawn control of the center. The Knight is excellently posted on f3, protecting all the necessary squares of h4, g5 and e5. The Queen on e4 stops all tricks of Black pushing the g-pawn.

So the exchange sacrifice went ahead.

1. Rxe4 dxe4
2. Qxe4 Re8 (see 2nd diagram)

Hmmmm.... what now? Black realises that there is no way through on the h-file but decides to plant his Rook on e8 (?).

I half expected Black to contest the d-file with 2... Rd8 instead after which 3. Re1 (wisely avoiding the trade but having to give up the d-file). At some point Black cannot wait to trade off the Queens so that Black's Rook can be dominant.

I needed temporary control of the d-file but I needed to do something better. So I hitched upon a move that encompasses 2 different ideas.

So I played 3. Qg4 (see 3rd diagram)

Attacks the undefended Rook but more importantly, it allows my Rook to invade the 7th rank at d7 and attack the c-pawn and the Black Queen - a double attack and the c-pawn will fall.

3.... Rh6
4. h4! Rb6
5. b3 Ra8 (see 4th diagram)

In this position, I played

6. hxg5.

A mistake. See? Mistakes are now starting to creep into my play. I was concerned with

6. Nxg5 Rg6 (a Rook pin)

It is so unnatural to allow a pin unto yourself and I thought it was an uncomfortable pin that might cause me problems later. However, I failed to see that

7. Rd7 any Black Queen move
8. h5! and e6! are very strong replies and there was nothing to be afraid of.

6.... Rxa2
7. Rd7 Qe8
8. g3 (forced) Re6
9. Rxc7 Qd8? (see 5th diagram)

I had a chance to clarify things with 10. Qxe6! Qxc7 11. Qh6+ and achieve a winning endgame with such a pawn majority.

And now my ghosts are starting to haunt me.

10. Rxc5?? (see last diagram) A blunder of humongous proportions!

What I saw was that Black didn't seem to have anything after 10.... Qd3+ but there was something critical I missed.

Can you see how Black can win in this position?

My opponent didn't see it either and lost in a few moves later.

Answer can be found by highlighting between the brackets.
[ 10. .... Qd3+ 11. Kg2 Qe3!! and the White Rook on c5 is lost 12. Qd4 does not work because of Rxf2+ and the Knight is lost and the Queens are coming off in the next move.]

Chessbase's Anand DVDs

Ok, I admit it. I have a soft spot for the current undisputed world champion Viswanathan Anand.

The Indian super-grandmaster is hard to dislike. No one can deny that Anand has been a good ambassador of the royal game and his conduct OTB has always been above reproach.

I have always had a liking for Anand's rather direct and unpretentious play.

And guess what Chessbase decides to do?

Viswanathan Anand: My Career Vol. 1

Viswanathan Anand: My Career Vol. 2

Which means I have a good idea of where the money for my Christmas presents are going.... much to the dismay of my wife.

And yes, I hate Chessbase. They're evil. ;)

Speaking of Anand, I do wish he releases an update to his book: Vishy Anand, My Best Games.

The period spanning 2000 onwards (where the book stopped) has been very scant on details while Anand has won quite a number of tournaments since then, sometimes with incredible play.

Take for example, this Tal-style lesson in the art of sacrificing material he gave to young Sergey Karjakin at the Corus Wijk aan Zee tournament in 2006 or this killer Knight lesson to Magnus Carlsen at Linares-Morelia 2007.

The Openings You Dread

As a player who is taking up the King's Indian Defence vs 1. d4, I was surprised to learn from chess forums that some 1. d4 White players really dislike the typical KID player.

After some digging, I found that it is because a typical KID player is one who plays not for the material of the pieces but plays for the initiative, which usually results in unclear, dynamic play and sometimes absolute chaos can result on the board if White chooses to take on Black tic for tac.

What of Kramnik's infamous Bayonet Attack? Sadly, that line has gone out of fashion as Black players started to devise counter-plans to achieve equality (partly in due to the modern 7.... Na6 variation), taking the whole sting out of a queenside attack.

I know at my club, some 1. d4 players absolutely dread the Nimzo-Indian Defence because the darn thing is so hard to crack and right from the 3rd move, Black is threatening to unbalance the game with 4... Bxc3. If you throw in the Rubinstein, the Saemisch, the Leningrad, Romanishin then suddenly the Nimzo-Indian starts to look really really daunting.

As for 1. e4 players, some players dread the French Defence, it's rock solid and allows Black a transition to the middlegame. White sometimes play the f4 variation to stifle Black and attempt to put Black out of his misery but there's still plenty of play on both sides. The Winawer and the MacCutcheon variations offer Black plenty of counter play as well.

How about the Najdorf Sicilian? Bucket loads of theory and play is governed by move memorisation that it's downright scary.

Using computers for openings is next to impossible. A dated study done by Chessbase shows that computers are strange beasts when it comes to openings (hence the need for opening books) - see inset.

What openings do I dread? Well.... none at the moment. I play all kinds of openings so I'm not that disturbed by the different types of opening play.

Do you have an opening that you absolutely hate facing?