Contrary to popular stereotyping, the Sicilian Defense does not involve putting a severed horse's head in your opponent's bed the night before the game. It's not that I'm averse to using any possible tactic in order to win a Chess game, but publicly acknowledging you're aware of the horse's-head theme, and then using it, might be injurous to future defense proceedings in a court of law. Dammit. Please ignore that I just said that.
I've tried playing the Sicilian before, and came to the conclusion that even when I can make it work, it just looks plain ugly. I suppose there's a reason for that; unlike the delicious subtlety of the French where you build a "tortoise-shell" like pawn structure then explode with energy on the counter-attack, the idea in the Sicilian is to take the game to White from the get-go and launch an attack from the outset. Both players attack simultaneously and 'thrice blessed is he who gets his blow in first'.
I've determined to learn the Scheveningen system of the Sicilian, and not least because I happen to have a book on the subject by some guy called G. Kasparov. The Najdorf is too critical for my talents just yet, the Shveshnikov / Kalishnikov / Pelikan too wild, and Dragon players have always struck me as being 'one-trick ponies' - fianchetto the King's Bishop then play Rc8xNc3 and pretend to understand the resultant complications.
Sicilian ScheveningenBlack's ideal setup
This is Black's ideal, and in practice probably unattainable, setup. The Nc6 plans to travel via a5 to c4 next. As (formerly) a 1. e4 player, I always enjoyed locking horns with the open Sicilian directly, employing such ideas as the Keres Attack (early g4), the Wing Gambit (again Keres idea with d4 and Bd3 before formalising the gambit with a3), the surprisingly fierce 6. Be2, and h3 in response to ... a6 in the Najdorf. As a youth I stumbled upon the basic idea against the Shveshnikov over the board; Ndb5-a3-c2-e3 and lock onto the weakened d5 square for all you're worth. Mostly I want to play the Sicilian to learn what I'm missing.
In reality as compared to the ideal position, Black will probably face some weakening of the King-side by being forced to play ... g7xf6 and the Queen's Bishop might well end up on d7 rather than b7; White has stock combinations based on B/Nxe6. For a long time the "Maroczy Bind" was considered a refutation to the Sicilian, and it was one of those setups that you so often hear talked about without ever getting a discussion of the underlying idea. It turns out that by building a brick wall with a pawn on c4, White's strategy is to hold up Black's attack down the c-file. In return, Black has many dark-square weaknesses to exploit in the White camp.
My FICS experience is that many amateurs prefer to avoid mainline open Sicilians, opting for the Grand Prix Attack (early f4), or the Alapin / Morra-Smith lines with 2. c3, so time spent examining those ideas may be more profitable in a practical sense than drudging through theoretical lines in the Scheveningen. And then of course there's the King's Indian Attack to consider, which my team-mate Mejdanblues has more or less made his own to the point that in some circles it is now referred to as the KIA-Blues Attack.
Investigating the Slav Defense is starting to remind me of why I stopped bothering to read philosophy. It's not that it isn't interesting, indeed it's a fascinating subject; but sooner or later you come to realise something. Try this for an excercise. Invent a philosophy. Go ahead, make it as far-fetched and whacked-out as you like.
"The smell of green apples is the essential nature of beingness". Discuss.
Now research the literature. Guaranteed, someone, somewhere, at some time has made their academic career postulating the idea you just randomly invented. And so it is in the Slav defense. Everything, it seems, has been tried for both sides, and the evaluation of any given idea has continually oscillated between "good for White" and "winning for Black".
White will be trying to play e4 at a moment when it cramps Black's game. Black will try to develop the "problem child" of the QP game - the Queen's Bishop - in a manner that doesn't fatally weaken the Queen's side. Or not. Sometimes Black feigns with 2. ... c6 then voluntarily follows with ... e6.
Black can try and hold the strong-point formation c6-d5-e6, or temporarily surrender the centre with ... d5xc4 planning the normal QP freeing manoeuvers ... e5 or ... c5. ... Bb4 is often a good idea pinning Nc3 to retard e4. That's if the Bishop doesn't go to d6 supporting ... e5, or simply sit on e7 awaiting events.
White might try to exploit Black's weakened Q-side (even at the cost of a pawn), taking the c-file at some judicious moment with c4xd5; or he might try a King-side attack with Ne5 followed by g4, or even g4 without direct support. Alternatively he may simply try rolling through the centre with his pawns. Anything goes, or so it seems.
Please don't infer from my tone that I find the Slav distasteful; quite to the contrary in fact. It is just this idea of endless possibilities that makes it so interesting, and no doubt contribute to it's continual popularity at all levels of play. There aren't so much variations to learn as ideas to master, which is the way we like things. Like philosophy, there's infinite opportunity for creative invention, and who's to say any given idea is wrong?*
I've played a few of those evil unrated blitz games using the Slav now; not knowing much more than is laid out here it's already proved reasonably successful. There being so many possibilities, it just leads to an interesting game of Chess. I like that.
* - Oh right, this is Chess, not academia... there's the small matter of an opponent who wants to tear you to pieces as much as you do him...
After 1. Nf3 d5 2. c4, Black has three basic ideas to follow in the Reti proper - that is if the game is not to transpose into and English, Catalan, or Indian system.
Seizing territory by 2. ... d4 we will deal with later; White can enter a reverse-Benoni type position or play for a "super-fianchetto" of the Queen-side with 3. b4.
Black can strong-point the Queen's pawn, either by 2. ... c6 allowing the Queen's Bishop to develop outside the pawn chain when the Reti takes on it's true character, or by 2. ... e6 when the QGD and Catalan ideas come more into play.
Lastly, the pawn can simply be captured. 2. c4 is a psuedo-gambit the same as after 1. d4 d5 2. c4, and the Reti borrows the same ideas from the QGA to ensure the gambited pawn can be recaptured, in three different ways.
The simple fork 3. Qa4+ looks Catalan-like, while the more exotic 3. Na3 aims to post the Knight strongly at c4. Both of these methods retain the possibility of developing the King's Bishop either along the f1-a6 diagonal or at g2.
The third method of regaining the pawn compounds the motifs of pinning the a7 pawn to the Rook at a8 with a Zwischenzug: 1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e3 b5 4. a4 c6 5. axb5 cxb5 6. b3
Black takes the gambit pawnWhite regains it by 3. e3
Now after 6. ... cxb3 7. Bxb5+ followed by 8. Qxb3.
Teamleague 39 is scheduled to begin in early June which gives me about 6 weeks to gain complete mastery of four new opening systems...
This post, which introduces Reti's Opening, is largely a "paraphrasing" (no, really, not plagiarism!) of the chapter "My System of Opening" from Reti's "Masters of the Chessboard".
The hypermodern school's approach to the opening is sometimes summarised along the lines of holding back the centre pawns and controlling the centre with pieces from the sides. It is a mistake however, to think that hypermodernism objects to occupying the centre with pawns; the real point is to plan for the occupation at a time when those pawns will not become fixed targets for attack.
Reti states that in order for White to maintain an advantage, Black must not be allowed to bring about a closed position by placing interlocked, strong-pointed pawns in the centre, without disadvantage to his control in territory. Reti's system therefore is to first restrain ... e5 by 1. Nf3, and then to target the d5 square using c4 and Bg2.
Reti's Opening - Basic PositionBlack has followed Lasker's system of defense
This for our purposes can be considered the 'basic position' in the Reti Opening at the successful completion of the first phase of White's plan, illustrating the function of White's minor pieces. Nf3 and Bb2 restrain ... e5 while c4, Bg2, and Nc3 target the strong-pointed d5 square. The next phase of White's plan is to prepare and push through e4.
As we are interested in ideas rather than variations, I wont give the specific move order to arrive at this position, but along the way, Reti notes the following:
1. After ... c6, b3 is neccessary to protect the QBP - we'll look at the tactical justification of the psuedo-gambit c4 in the next post.
2. The Queen's pawn should go to d4 if Black plays ... e6 confining the Queen's Bishop before playing ... Bf5 (or ... Bg4); at d3 it is reinforcing e4 against the combined force of ... d5, ... Nf6, and ... Bf5.
3. Reti prefers ... Be7 to ... Bd6 for Black; on d6 it blocks the d-file should it become opened.
4. h3 is a preparation for e4, precluding ... Bg4 as a response.
So ends Teamleague 38 as far as Team Current_Affairs' participation is concerned; it's now down to the playoffs for the top two sides from each section.
As I mentioned previously, I swindled our Great Dictator into taking my board in the final round and a fine job he did too. What he describes as "possibly the most boring game of Chess ever played" I call "putting points on the scoreboard" - half a point anyway. When Plebusan does condescend to enter battle, he usually gets some business done. There's leadership by example for you.
On the whole, the team had a rough trot this season after a promising first round. For myself, I'm relatively happy with my performance over the four games I played, first saving a lost game after falling for an opening trap, then winning with Black against a lower rated opponent, drawing a game I should have won (by missing a simple tactic!), and fairly confidently drawing my fourth game.
The draws were all against players rated about 150 points more than me, so while I didn't exactly set the board on fire I made significant improvement on the previous two seasons and I'm starting to feel a little more in control of my game again.
There's talk of our dropping back to the U1800 section next season. On the one hand this might be a good idea simply from the point of view of our players regaining some confidence since we'll be one of the stronger teams in U1800 rather than the weakest team in U2000. On the other hand I'm always one for the idea of playing stronger opposition; the more they beat you the more they teach you how to win and I think my experience in Teamleague over three seasons bears this out.
Either way, next season I'll probably face similar strength opponents as this season since our higher boards have been losing rating points while I've been gaining them so the board order will have to change around a bit. We have a fairly flat rating profile across our team, but a lot of teams stack their side with high rated top boards and low rated bottom boards to bring the team average under the section limit.
A masthead saying "This account has been suspended" has appeared in a few of my older posts. This is in the place-holder for replayable games linked to chesspublisher.com and seems to be an 'issue' with chesspublisher, not my blogger account. 'Issue' is the euphemism IT people use when they mean "there's a problem here but I haven't got the vaguest idea what it is", but I suppose it means I'll have to look around for another way to post games if the situation doesn't magically resolve itself soon.
One motivation for building a whole new opening repertoire from scratch is that having been fairly monogamous to the few openings I know for so long, there are whole vistas of the Chessboard I haven't visited yet.
In saying I know these openings, I really mean that having taken an interest in a particular opening years ago, I then proceeded to scour my book collection for all games in that opening and then played through only those games in which the side playing my opening won. This excercise will be a radical change in direction for a number of reasons.
No more 1. e4 and pushing for an open game come what may. Nor facing 1. d4 and having a vague notion about the basic ideas of the QGD and NimzoIndian then making the rest up as I go along. As to meeting 1. e4, I've never really known what to do. I used Alekhine's defense when I was younger, later contenting myself with 1. ... e5 and letting White call the shots, until finding a home in the French Defense a few years ago.
Giving up the French will be my only sorrow in all this; the idea of having a "cramped" position that withstands White's initial onslaught then explodes with energy on the counter-attack has always been attractive to me. Having a restrained position early in the game has never concerned me provided there are clear long term plans to follow, no doubt a function of the fact that the hypermoderns gave me the clearest understanding of how to conduct a game as a whole.
The first reference material for the new repertoire will be Reuben Fine's "The Ideas Behind The Chess Openings". Short, simple, lucid explainations of the basic ideas - if sometimes a little outdated now.
As White I'm going for the Reti, English, and Catalan systems. They appear to be somewhat inter-related and transpositional between each other, and I should be able to avoid most mainline King's Indian, Gruenfeld, and Queen's Gambits for the time being. I have Reti's "Masters Of The Chessboard" as a primary reference for his opening, Imre Konig's "Chess From Morphy To Botwinnik" for the English, and I'm still looking for something more solid on the Catalan.
Against 1. d4 I want to learn the Slav defenses primarily because it's a popular and solid opening, and I've never been there before. Still looking for a good reference on the ideas (as opposed to just the moves), it's something to do with not locking in your Queen's Bishop, except for when you do...
A defense to 1. e4 is the big problem, I've never been comfortable facing it because I'm fearless against anything playing it. It's never bothered me to have a crack at the Sicilian as White but this is most likely ignorant bliss. I'll be learning the Scheveningen from Kasparov's "Sicilian ... e6 and ... d6 Systems", and also investigating Hedgehog defenses from Mihail Suba's "Dynamic Chess Strategy", which I think will suit my temperament well.
With a little erudition, I can perhaps update my opening knowledge from being 100 years out of date to being only 30-50 years behind the times.
I won't labour the same old story, many hard fought and well played games for little result. As I played early, mine is in the previous post.
The final round of Teamleague 38, being a hex-format, is 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4, and 5 vs 6 with colours reversed for position. The Great Dictator has deigned to take my spot next week (at my request), he's had only one game this season, and I'm itching to get on with building a 'proper' opening repertoire. The prospect of my finishing the season undefeated, nor entering a battle for the wooden spoon, had anything to do with the decision.
To conclude, a mention of Jaberwock's sterling efforts this season as chief TD in trying circumstances - despite the pesky gremlins and their server fetish a fun tournament was enjoyed by all.
A man walks into a gypsy's tent at a fete. She gazes into her crystal ball and starts laughing uncontrollably, so he whips out a baseball bat and whacks her. The police are called. "Why did you do that?" they ask. "I've always wanted to strike a happy medium." he replies.
I burned too much time from lack of opening knowledge in this one. The general plan with 5. ... Nh5 was to get the two Bishops or repeat with something like 6. Bd2 Nf6 7. Bf4 etc., but did I really dare open the h-file for him and run to the Queenside?
By move 13 I'd used over half an hour against 2 minutes to my opponent, but my freeing plan was by then clear; 13. ... h6 was the last move that caused me concern, it all seemed so hackneyed at the time but I was more worried about 14. e4 than 14. g4 which "the plan" considers irrelevant as allowing 14. ... Nd5 giving Black equal share of the play.
There are a lot of French Defense games like this where Black forgoes castling, but his King can wander to whichever side of the board seems safer. 16. ... Nb4 is not a real threat, more so a demonstration that White's space advantage amounts to nothing - White's 15. Nxd7 is only superficially attractive exchanging the powerful Knight for the 'bad' Bishop. I don't really want to play ... f6 making swiss cheese of my Kingside.
29. ... Qf6 is an error only in the sense that, in time trouble, I didn't notice that with the b-pawn pinned after 30. e5 Qxf4 White can 'win' the exchange (for pawns) with Bc6, but even there White has an uphill battle to prove an advantage with doubled pawns and so many pawn islands.
In the end, it was White who was running through time trying to find an advantage against my solid position, and who offered a draw with the clocks at about 3 vs 2 minutes. Naturally I accepted; it's one of those positions in which whomsoever tries to push too hard runs a serious risk of losing.
Rybka never sees the game as being more than 0.5 in anyone's favour. Maintaining the balance without risk of winning; better than rolling the dice and losing. Frank Marshall finally learned that "half a point is better than none" too. 2.5/4!!
First problem: team intelligence reports that my opponent plays the MacCutcheon variation of the French Defense. This is also my preferred response to 1. e4, so what to play against myself? It also raises the question of why I play this variation. It's a perfectly reasonable and interesting line, but the simple truth is it's probably the charm of it being the defense an amateur used to defeat a world champion (Steinitz). All well and good, but not really a solid strategy for selecting a primary weapon against e4!
At first I considered a tricky little line Mapleleaf had shown me some months ago called the "Haldane Hack". It starts 1.e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. Qh5?! and proceeds with a series of cheap tactical threats and unsound attacks. Sounds flakey and it probably is, but it's very difficult to meet over the board. Black's best defense is to play an early ... g6, and French players hate doing that. I spent a day or so researching it, but ultimately couldn't convince myself to commit to playing it. It's a real "All-In" move costing material for dubious returns.
Finally I settled on trying the Reti Gambit (to the French, not the other one!) where white gets a solid game although no real great hope for an advantage. It has other advantages in that it's fully sound but fairly uncommon (I've faced it only once or twice in hundreds of French games myself), Black will be unlikely to retain the pawn (certainly not with good position), and it gives White clear long term objectives to pursue.
I only really had one model game for the 4. exd5 exd5 line but there are worse guides to follow than Lev Aronian, and I was able to use a few ideas present in that game. I should've recaptured the Queen with the Bishop, but that's no big deal; next White sets about either opening the d-file and getting his Rooks there first, or artificially isolating the Black d3 pawn. The latter occured and despite the cramped appearance, the game has a hypermodern character that I'm comfortable playing. It was afterall Reti ("Masters of the Chessboard") and Nimzovitch ("Chess Praxis") who first explained Chess to me in a manner I could really understand.
I was particularly happy with my 18th and 19th moves. 18. c4 is a "now or never" thrust which only appears to weaken d4. I reasoned that White will actually get more value out of d5 than Black can from d4 from which there are no fixed targets and defense of d3 is masked. The sleeping Bishop at b2 suddenly dominates the board immediately threatening Bxf6 and Nd5+ so Black choses to eliminate it in exchange for his own erstwhile powerful Bishop.
19. Ne4 is another of those moves that used to cause me deep psychological trauma - it involves moving a perfectly strong well protected pawn from f3 and artificially isolating it on e4. As occured in the game, the idea is the dynamic plan of activating the Rook to chase after Black's weak f7 and c5 pawns. The more gratifying is that Rybka was largely in agreement with my strategy so far.
25. ... g6 I can only assume was a miscalculation that after 26. Nd5+ Kd6 would win at least an exchange for a pawn, and so I spent several minutes convincing myself that the unprotected Rook on e4 didn't have a Zwischenzug before snapping off the f6 pawn with a solid advantage and the prospect of more to come.
What followed unfortunately was some weak play (on both sides) in the Knight ending. I maintained an edge, but it all evaporated when this happened...
SimianChatter(1818) vs cytrus(1961)White to play and win!
There can be no excuse. I'm familiar enough with the Pawn Breakthrough tactical motif, after 46. c6 bxc6 47. bxa6 the c6 pawn interferes with the King's return to the corner. An elementary tactic in this sort of position. Rybka gives 46. c6 b6 47. Nf4+ Kd6 48. bxa6 which amounts to much the same. I said at the begining of this blog that "95% of all games below Master level are won by tactics". They're botched that way too, and I proved it here.
It was almost one of my better games against strong opposition. On a positive note, I'm 2/3 this season, already doubling my score for the previous two seasons combined. By teamleague's formula, my performance rating this season is 2127. I could almost rest on that laurel and neglect to mention to anyone that 3 games isn't enough for an accurate calculation...
Let's start by unashamedly saying the team's result was 1-3 but could so easily have been 3-1.
gambiitti again showed himself to be perhaps our best prepared player, winning a piece for a couple of pawns against his 200 points stronger rated opponent. It was never quite "defending the indefensible" as there was compensation for the lost piece in the shape of passed pawns, but these are the sort of games gambiitti will surely be converting once he's settled into the cut and thrust of Teamleague.
Hypermagnus it seems was more disappointed with his performance than were any of his team-mates. Personally I put the blame on 1. b3?? in a position where 1. b4!! (the Orang-Utan opening!) immediately gives White a flumoxing bind over the board. The chosen move simply allows Black to steer the game into too many normal type positions.
What can I say about Mejdanblues game? We've come to expect this sort of thing from him now. Giving away a 250 rating point advantage, and playing with the Black pieces, he yet again established a won position when the gremlins decided to attack.
Having already taken it upon themselves to crash the FICS server by taking a pick-axe to one of it's hard disks, the little green monsters chose this game to demonstrate their creative programming talents. A piece and position up in Zeitnot, Mejdan repeated the position once too often to gain some time on the clock. His opponent didn't claim the draw in the repetition position, and Mejdanblues wisely moved his King the other way to create a unique position invalidating triple repetition claims.
After a couple of minutes staring at his desperate situation, Mejdan's opponent tried pressing the 'draw' button... and the gremlins terminated the game as a draw by repetition. FIDE rules require the claimant to write the move creating the triple repetition on their scoresheet, and call the arbiter to verify the claim. FICS simulates this rule by allowing the player to type "draw " at the console; in effect the server is the arbiter and makes the move and declares a draw before the opponent can make a move out of the triple repetition position. It turns out the server isn't quite programmed as advertised in the "help draw" documentation.
My own game ended as a draw in a Knight ending. There were a few things about my play I was quite pleased with, and one or two that were not so good. Full analysis to follow...
I know you're all hanging on the edge of your seats waiting from the round 4 review - there was so much drama I hardly know where to start, and gremlins that crashed the FICS server extending the round, as well as getting up to a little extra mischief...
Meanwhile the boss wants us to work an extra shift this week, and just when I had one of my "Grandmaster training sessions" planned, too. The rotten cheek. At least due to the server crash and extension of round 4 I'll be available to play round 5, although it'd be nice to see all the new guys get as many games as possible, and the Great Dictator has only deigned to dirty his hands once so far...
As to the report and (as is blogger's privilege...) a post on my own game, they'll have to wait a couple of days so I can properly do them justice. Yes, this post is just the cliffhanger. Ooh, these suspenders are killing me...
Not much to say about round 3 unfortunately, except that it gives me an opportunity to use the word "Zwickmuhle", and there being nothing else to report I wont pass up on the opportunity.
Zwickmuhle (there's an umlaut over the 'u') literally means "double mill", or in Chess a "windmill" attack, although in German it has conotations of a conundrum or "catch-22" situation. Usually it involves a repeated discovered check motif where the uncovering piece chops its way through all the material within it's reach. In this position the Black Knight finds 3 White men on the points of it's f3 wheel. Sadly, our guy was on the wrong side of this Zwickmuhle, but they are always pretty to look at, so...
Our Guy vs Their GuyBlack to move "Zwickmuhle"
White has just played 1. Rg1 to prevent immediate mate and play continued 1. ... Nxh4+ 2. Kh2 Nf3+ 3. Kg2 Nxd4+ 4. Kh2 Nf3+ 5. Kg2 Nxg1+ etc. White could also have lost with 4. Kf1 so the Zwickmuhle is not strictly 'forced', but if you're going down anyway, you might as well illustrate the theme.
Hypermagnus' plan to play unusual openings was trumped this round when his 2200+ opponent opened 1. h3 again proving the point that any starting move is good at amateur level.
I sat out this round but will be on board 3 in round 4 with Mejdanblues coming in on board 4 as our substitute for chestutr.
Oh, you wanted the team score for this week? In round figures, we scored a round figure...
It started just over six months ago as "100 Days To Chess Improvement" and since I didn't want my 100th post to be about Teamleague 38 round 3 (for reasons that will become apparent when I write it) I thought I'd take this opportunity to review my journey into the blogosphere and think about where it's going.
I've picked up a few regular visitors to my "Public Chess Diary", and I'd especially like to thank those of you who've taken the trouble to leave the comments that have started appearing lately. Feedback is always welcome from any visitor, please consider signing off with your FICS handle, or your own blog or (non-commercial) website address - talking with Mr Anonymous is still nice, but well, you know...
I suppose the big question is "did it work?", "it" being the systematised tactics training excercise I undertook at the beginning of this blog.
When I first came to FICS about 6 years ago I was able to maintain a 1900ish rating, this came off the back of being bored on the train and casually working through the first half of "The Encyclopaedia of Chess Middlegames". My blitz (5 12) rating peaked about 18 months later at 1618 which I largely put down to a side effect of manually relaying GM games. Something must have gone in, I guess. The following couple of years of playing haphazardly and doing no study at all saw these drop to the mid-1700's and 1300's respectively.
I can say I've completed Reinfeld's "1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations" in that I've worked through them all, many of them numerous times, but I haven't quite continued on as intended and reached the point where I can go through the entire book in an hour or so visualising the key lines of the solutions. Much of my tactical vision is back, combos do leap out of the board at me again now.
It's a qualified success. My blitz rating was recently (briefly) active at 1613 and my standard is finally the right side of 1800 again. It's not a 'J' curve yet, but we've just about got a 'U' and proceeding in the right direction.
I did make a start on the next phase of improvement, "How To Analyse", which has stalled somewhat. Analysis is the chore of playing Chess. It has however improved naturally even from the bit of tactics work I've done. Having good recognition of tactical patterns seems to act as memory pegs which hold the position in place down the tree of the key variations at least. It still needs a lot of work and I will return to it eventually, but there's something else I want to do first, which may also aid analysis in the way tactics have.
I want a proper opening repertoire. This is a surprisingly big step for me, because I always heeded the advice that opening theory is useless to amateur players. I've come to the conclusion that what this really means is that the rote memorisation of opening lines is pointless at this level, which I still think holds true. Many players it seems have a couple of pet lines and model games and spend their life trying to re-enact them. They get 'out of book' and then the blunders - tactical and positional - abound.
What I intend to do is look at systems. What type of middle and endgame position arises from certain types of openings, and what positional ideas and tactical motifs are common to them? Until now, my notion of playing the opening has been to get the pieces out then hope I can make something of it. I have absolutely no idea what happens in Queen's pawn games, and only that King's pawn games "tend to be more tactical". I can push the King-pawn, but I've never really studied any specific opening. I've simply survived as long as I have by dint of trial and error experience.
There'll be no opening lines, no fixed order of moves. Just ideas of the nature "if I've played this move, I'm working towards this freeing move. I'm creating this kind of pawn structure which will be good in a Bishop ending but bad with Rooks". I want to know what all this Slav / semi-Slav / Meran / anti-Meran business is about. I want to be able to start a game, and after the other fellow pushes his first pawn be thinking "my first plan is to achieve..." not "ok, so I know a couple of the next moves, let's see where he takes the game".
I want a proper opening repertoire. After any first couple of moves I want to be able to know where the game is heading, and take a part in steering the course. The next phase of improvement is to be able to say "I know what the basic specific ideas and plans in this opening are. I know what sort of moves and manoevers I need to make to achieve my objectives and undermine his. I know what sort of middlegame might arise, and I know how to prepare for the likely endgames.".
Let's take a look at the game gambiitti came within a whisker of holding last week. After a superb opening (see Black's 7th, 8th, and 9th moves!) gambiitti made a time-trouble error which left him with a Rook vs 2 Knights + pawn material deficit.
I'm impressed with the way gambiitti handled the defense and kept fighting, but I want to offer a couple of ideas based not on good moves, but on effective use of the psychological factors present in this game.
Move 25 is the point at which White needs to make the new plan. The Bishops are on opposite colours. If we can trade all other pieces the one pawn minus should be drawable. If the pawns come off, 2 lone Knights can't force checkmate. The White King is already better placed to take a fighting part in the game. Clear up the situation on the Queenside first, those pawns look easier to exchange off. The ultimate solution if we can get some pawns off and exchange a Rook is to sacrifice the other Rook for any remaining pawns. Especially given Black's subsequent play, I think it is perfectly legitimate here to ask "do you know the technique for mating with KBN vs K?". It's easy if you know how, but not something you'll be able to discover at the board if you haven't practiced it. Not an awful lot to go on, but now let's consider the psychological factors.
Up to this point, Black had been moving very quickly - using just a few seconds on each move. This tells us he is playing reactively and is more likely to play against White's plans than to construct an active plan of his own. Furthermore, see what happened when he did finally start to use time at move 25. In the next 10 moves or so, Black achieves next to nothing while the active White Rooks penetrate his position. This tells us that he hasn't been able to make a plan for how to win this position.
By move 35 he's happy for the Rook to sit passively on a8, the Bishop is being pushed around by the Rooks, the defense of both the Knight and f7 is becoming awkward, and White is coming dangerously close to forcing a repetition by alternately attacking these weaknesses.
gambiitti(1829) vs gile(1735)After 37. ... Nd6
gambiitti(1829) vs gile(1735)After 43. ... g5
This position has a number of important features. The Rook is ideally placed at a6 where it cuts off the King. It will take a few moves to pass the 3rd rank - frustration! White has won a pawn and now has a majority on the Queenside. Should the Bishop ever leave the a3-f8 diagonal, a4! creates a passed pawn which will draw Black pieces away from the Kingside and allow the White King entry to harrass the pawns there. As happens in this game, they always seem to automatically capture en passant after a move like a4, which is bad for the attacker. Black needs to keep pawns on the board, and that b4 pawn can ultimately become a distant passer when the White pawns are won - b3 is a target that can distract White from his active defense.
44. f5 is a tempting, threatening looking move that the desperate defender should always avoid! As the pawns become more separated, the chore of maintaining them becomes ever more difficult. It is not a question of 'if' but 'when' this over-extended pawn will be lost. 44. fxg5 is the move in accordance with our principles - pawns must be exchanged! - and after 44. ... hxg5 45. Kg4 with the idea of playing h4, White is getting very close to several of the unwinnable ending scenarios.
Some More Rules For Desperate Defense.
7. Force the attacker to make plans and decisions - they often find the wrong one.
8. Moving to and fro without the attacker being able to make progress is frustrating for him and can lead to repetition by alternately attacking two weaknesses, or lead to a rash and bad move on his part.
9. Keep your own pawns close together so they can mutually protect or be protected by a single piece. Advance them only if exchange is certain (or at least quite likely), or else leave them where they are and say "come get me" - put the onus on the attacker to work out a way to win them!
10. Keep fighting! The most important point! Make threats, cheap tactical threats if needs be, positional threats with passed pawns, and threats to exchange down to unwinnable or difficult to win positions.
Sometimes you find yourself in a hopeless position and your opponent makes good moves and obviously has a plan of campaign. Those games you just resign and move on to the next one.
I may never be a Grandmaster, but one area of Chess my patzering about has made me expert in is defending hopeless positions, such as I had in Teamleague round 1 and gambiitti had last week. Let's delve into the bag of dirty tricks and look at what can be done to salvage a botched game - I randomly guesstimate that 2 out of 5 bad positions can be saved using these techniques at amateur level.
The first and most important thing to understand is that as soon as you realise the game has turned against you, you must make a solid plan and be aware of all the drawing potentials the position holds.
Making a plan is probably the only similarity between playing these positions and the way you would normally play.
SimianChatter(1785) vs Evilthunder(1931)
After 17. ... Re8 Time to make a plan!
Suddenly it dawns on White that the trapper has been trapped. Initially we can get 3 pawns for the piece as the Black d-pawn must fall too - formal material equality - but our h-pawn is weak and playing g3 to defend it provides Black with new targets on our third rank. It will be better to lose that pawn on h5 doubling Black's h-pawns, extracting some enemy blood for it's life. Any small concession we can get from the opponent is a step closer to our goal.
We will have pawn majorities on both wings and one or two protected passed pawns. These features will be our major trumps. The major pieces must come off, since the Black Rooks can do more damage than their White counterparts - if they succeed in penetrating to the first or second rank we are dead. This goes contrary to the general principal of not exchanging when you're down in material, but we need to force Black into a position where he can only win by promoting a pawn and then finding an endgame in which no promotion can be forced.
Next we must make full use of the psychology which affects players who have a won game but have to grind it out in a long ending. To win a mutually well played game of Chess it is said you must cross the precipice of defeat. To save a hopless position you must do this several times.
SimianChatter(1785) vs Evilthunder(1931)After 43. Ne5 The Precipice!
43. Ne5 offers Black the opportunity to win in two different ways, either by exchanging off the Knight, or by going for the g-pawn with 43. ... Kg3. Both methods require careful calculation on Black's part. The former allows White scarey looking connected passed pawns, and the later commits the King deep into territory which for a few moves will leave it away from the main play - there may be a nasty race where White wins a Bishop on d7 and maybe even gets the Knight back in time to stop the g-pawn after which the Queenside pawns might get exchanged off and the Black King is too distant to help.
In such situations, as occured here, the stronger side will usually prefer to avoid any risk and wait for a cleaner opportunity to win. By playing a 'safe' move however, Black affords White the opportunity to eliminate the g-pawn. That this is achieved at the cost of two White pawns is immaterial. The fight is now transferred to the Queenside where White still holds a pawn majority, has an active King and Knight against the Bishops (i.e. the forces on that side of the board are about equal), and the Black King will need a few moves to return to the fray.
In Chess, it is normal that the defender is required to calculate more accurately than the attacker. In these situations things are reversed; accurate analysis will only reveal to you more ways to lose and become disheartening. It requires a certain amount of bluff and bravado to defend bad positions, and put the onus on the attacker to accurately calculate a winning line. As often as not, they will go for a safe move and wait for an easier chance. This spells opportunity for the defender.
A broader effect of White's resilience is that the longer he can put up resistance, the more frustrated Black will become at not being able to finish off the game. And frustration will cause oversights and errors. In the previous post on this game I gave a diagram where Black missed a simple mating tactic that would have won the game (another precipice!). There are several times where White shuffles back and forth a bit without Black making progress - this is frustrating! If the stronger side is not making progess the weaker side is. If your opponent is becoming frustrated by having the better position in a game of Chess, he deserves no sympathy whatever!
Some Rules For Desperate Defense.
1. Make a new plan as soon as you realise the position has gone bad.
2. Pawns must be exchanged. This can be done at a loss if you have more pawns.
3. Decide which pieces need to be exchanged and which to be retained. Minor piece endings are harder to win than major piece endings are.
4. Resilience will cause your opponent to become frustrated and make oversights and errors. Be ready to pounce.
5. Keep whatever pieces (including the King!) you have left as active as possible. A passive piece defending a pawn is probably better exchanged off for an active attacking piece.
6. Use bluff and bravado - put the onus on the attacker to accurately calculate winning lines. Advanced passed pawns and out-of-play pieces give a fearful impression. The more resistance you have given, the more effective you will be persuading your opponent to wait for a simpler opportunity.
In the end it was a narrow 1.5-2.5 loss for team Current_Affairs against TeamTsubasa in round 2 after a drama filled final game.
HyperMagnus was true to his word in playing unusual openings, in this round after his opponent was more than an hour late he assayed the "unplayed agreed draw" variation, sportingly eschewing the solid and forcing "win by forfeit" line.
Gambiitti had a cracking start to his first real Teamleague game, including forcing his opponent to play 7. ... Qd8, 8. ... Nb8, and 9. ... Bc8 leaving all the Black pieces in their starting positions! I coined the term uberantisteinitzian to describe such a position of moving pieces to the back rank when it's not part of a good plan. Gambiitti's own 9th move offered an elegant pseudo Queen sacrifice to complete the manoeuver.
Things get difficult in Chess when you have a bind on the position but time-trouble conspires to prevent you finding the variation that consolidates your advantage. I don't normally detail too much about our team's defeats, but this game has a special interest for me - White's position became objectively lost but in the next few moves Black set about demonstrating he had no idea how to win the position and in the next 30 moves White made considerably more progress from the weaker position than did his opponent.
Bitter experience has given me plenty of practice playing such games, where correct analysis will only reveal more ways you could lose, but there are ample practical opportunities to exploit. As a twin with my game against Evilthunder from round 1 I might do a future post on this game, looking at the art of positional swindles, encouraging your opponent to make bad decisions, and the psychology of saving games against players who are reticent to make commital moves from a superior position.
One truth of amateur Chess is that more points and half-points are scored by continuing to fight than by playing in perfect accordance with the position, and by virtue of that gambiiti got dangerously close. "Schach ist Kampf!".
My round 2 game in Teamleague 38 was a danger game for several reasons. I had the Black pieces against a lower rated opponent (the first time I've had a lower rated opponent in any Teamleague game), and looking at his history through the WatchBot site he's improving rapidly - by about 100 points in the last couple of months. Further, he has an excellent record playing Queen's Pawn openings with the White pieces.
I'd first wanted to play the freeing ... Ne4 manoeuver at move 8 but decided Bf4 was a good response and wanted to get my King tucked away first. At move 11 I had another long look at it (more than 12 minutes) only to find I still can't analyse very well, and wondering about Bxe7, Bxe4, with Ne5. As is evidenced by the lack of posts on the subject, I haven't done much work on "thinking like a Grandmaster" lately! In the end I was wasting too much time looking (or should I say "staring blankly") at it and ended up with the attitude "play it and be damned!". If it was wrong my opponent would have to spot a trick I hadn't seen, and there's always the hope that given the time I'd spent he'd trust me that I had it all worked out. Chess at this level has far too much in common with poker.
As it happens, Rybka is happy to play ... Ne4 at moves 9, 10, or 11, but starts looking at other things with deeper analysis.
I was happy to see 14. e4, as I thought that both the exchanges and pressure on the isolated Queen's Pawn could only improve my game. It only remained to get my Bishop and Rook into the game to be certain I was fully equal at the least, and after some to-ing and fro-ing with the Queen I succeeded in this.
20. ... Qf6 was my first tangible threat of the game and although my opponent permitted Bxh3 at the next move I decided against it because after gxh3 Qxf3, Re7 I've given up my defense of f7 and the Rook is established on my second rank to start chewing through my pawns. Instead I chose ... Rd8 with the idea of ... Rxd4 with mating threats if the Rook came to e7, or to work on the d4 pawn if he defended the Bxh3 threat. Rybka coldly snaps off the h3 pawn on move 21 with the Rook still at a8 and advantage to Black, but I'm happy with my decision to develop and build the pressure, and more so for the promising sign of having looked further than the obvious combination to see if there was a sting in the tail.
At around moves 23-30, I found myself in a unique situation for me in Teamleague. I'm a solid pawn up in a good position and I only have to find a suitable plan to bring home the full point - those over-extended White Queen side pawns look the likely target. On the downside, I'm playing on my 45 second increments after all that wasted time in the opening. The general purpose ... h6 and repeating positions were obviously not optimal moves, but gained time on the clock while I steeled myself to play 30. ... Re8.
Playing moves like 30. ... Re8 cause me deep psychological trauma. Moving a piece from an apparently well protected square where it's putting pressure on a significant weakness in the opposing camp into a self-pin on an unprotected square seems contrary to all general principles of good play. But that is the point. General principles are subordinate to specific considerations. With the Rook on d8 I can't take the Queen side pawns with the Queen because White has the removal of defender combination Rxe6! winning a piece.
3 pawns up my opponent spared me playing out the Queen ending with the pseudo-resignation of allowing mate-in-1, but with 2 or 3 outside passed pawns and a protected King, even I should be able to find a win there.
With the match score standing at 1-1, both our new lads (HyperMagnus and gambiitii) have White in their games. HyperMagnus is "threatening" to play bizarre and obscure openings in his games. I for one am all for it, I still don't believe knowning opening theory is an advantage below master level, and I don't think players at this level can really refute 'unsound' openings - certainly not ones they're not familiar with, and not over the board.
Thanks to a 'perfect' game first time up from gambiitti who won without moving a piece, and draws from HyperMagnus and me, team Current_Affairs (lowest rated in our section) secured a 2-2 draw with the highest rated team MonkeyClub2000 in round 1.
It's good to see HyperMagnus playing competitively again - the more so because he's on our team! - his use of the Birmingham Defense was inspired, and I don't just say so because that's where I grew up! The 1. e4 a6, 2. d4 b5 defense was so named because GM Tony Miles used it to beat GM Karpov at a tournament in Birmingham, England. Hyper's opponent tried a plan of quickly fianchettoing his King's Bishop which allowed ... f5! immediately hacking at the centre.
My own desperate rear-guard action has most gratifyingly produced several spoils of battle; not only half a game point (boosting my overall Teamleague tally by 50%), and some ratings points (almost 1800 again...), but also and most valuable, the virtue of hanging in there and hoping against hope has netted the team a precious half a match point to kick off the season, in a round in which only one team had a decisive result, and that by the narrowest margin of 2.5-1.5.
Everything to play for! Roll on Round 2!
Teamleague 38 Round 1 is well under way, and it befell me to get things started for team Current_Affairs. I despise the use of the word 'luck' in connection with a Chess game, but if it is possible, it must be said I had my fair share in this one.
It's the St. George / Yugoslav (depending where you come from) attack against the Sicilian Dragon, and I settled in for my first long think after 14. ... Qa5. It's a sad truth, not to mention the challenge of playing Chess, that when players start making their own decisions, they invariably make bad choices. 15. Nd5 uncovering an attack on the unprotected Black Queen and threatening the Zwischenzug Nxe7+ is a standard tactic in many variations of the Sicilian, but as is apparent here, it doesn't work in the Dragon!
Naturally I should have suspected a counter-trap, but I spent most of the time convincing myself White is good after 15. ... Nxd5 16. Qxa5 Nxe3 17. c3 Nxd1 18 Rxd1. Rybka gives 17. Qxa7 as an improvement on that line, but either way White is fine.
[Aside: I've installed a couple more engines lately, Rybka 2.2n2, Fruit 2.3.1, and for old times sake Colossus Chess 2008b in nostalgia for Colossus Chess 2.0 on the Commodore 64. They're all older (freeware) versions, but rated around 2800 so good enough for my purposes!]
After 17. ... Re8 the White Knight is trapped - something I should have been alert to after the game with mrundersun - it can't use d5 because the Bishop on e3 is unprotected. It's time to take stock and decide what I can do to make a fight of it instead of resigning right out of the opening again.
Objectively White is lost, but I can get about 3 pawns for the piece and one of them is already passed. I say 'about' because it's difficult to count them accurately. I'm winning the d-pawn as in the game, but my h-pawn is problematic. The real idea of pushing it to h5 was to weaken and double Black's h-pawns in hope of capturing them later, my back rank looks too weak to recapture with the Rook immediately. Fortunately my opponent allowed me to simply exchange it off.
This is the strategy with which I have salvaged many a hopeless "pawns for a piece" blitz game; try to keep exchanging pawns until the opponent finds himself in an unwinnable ending. Black's a-pawn can become a non-entity if he should find himself left with only it and his White-squared Bishop, the famous 'impotent pair' that can't force promotion. One implication of this is that White can use an uneven exchange rate: so long as the g-pawn comes off it can be paid for with the White f- and g-pawns, then the four Queen-side pawns can be squandered provided they buy the life of the Black b-pawn.
So there's the plan I will stick to for the remainder of the game. Oddly enough, in a practical sense at least, Rook exchanges actually get the defender closer to the objective. Black succeeds in gaining only one more pawn exchanging the Rooks off when although the two Bishops dominate the board, they cannot by their nature be used to barrage the White pawns, and with the remaining King and Knight staying active, fighting defensive possibilities abound. Had a Rook arrived on my second rank, doubtless the c-pawn would have fallen and I would have resigned... but he kept giving me a glimmer of hope.
42. f4, Ne5, g4, f5 is a typical idea in this sort of game, putting the onus on Black to accurately calculate whether he can stop connected passed pawns after taking the Knight or clean up with the commital ... Kg3. The result this time was mutual annihilation of the King side pawns and so now I only have to eliminate b6.
One last position in the game is worth a closer look.
SimianChatter (1785) vs Evilthunder (1931)Position after 57. a4
The a-pawn has been held back until now because the King needs the entry square a4, but it is just here when White appears to be forcing through the last phase of the defensive plan that the position is most hopeless! After 57. ... a5+! the White King must of course advance but it was (fortunately!) not until after the game that I realised the intended 58. Kb5 Kc7 59. c5 fails to exchange the b-pawn due to the small detail of 59. ... Bd3#. 59. Ka6 is of course hopeless, and 40 fighting moves come to nought!
57. ... Bxd5 doubtless expected the 'automatic' reply 58. cxd5 and a won pawn ending (mate in 24 apparently), but 58. a5 secures the exchange of the b-pawn and the draw with it.
It's not a win, but it is at least a result. The error was to deviate from my plan of "prising open the h-file then sac, sac, mate" as Fischer describes this attack, and trying to out-tactic an opponent who obviously knew the theory better than me. It was after that however, a triumph of formulating a defensive plan and seeing it through to the end.
Once more into the breach...
Lead again by our great and intrepid dictator Plebusan, team Current_Affairs this week begins a new assault on the under-2000 section in Teamleague 38. This season sees the welcome return of a seasoned warrior in chestutr, the recruitment of new talent in gambiitti, and the scalping of former Teamleague supremo HyperMagnus to play our 1st board! Here's the full line-up:
1. HyperMagnus (2066)
2. Mapleleaf (1882)
3. gambiitti (1829)
4. Plebusan (1783)
5. SimianChatter (1758)
6. chestutr (1763)
Naturally enough you'll be surprised at my call-up to the team after my +1-10=0 performance in the previous two seasons, instead of being dragged out the back of channel 41 and shot (it would have been a mercy killing) - as first reserve I should get a crack at some 1800-ish opposition without our esteemed leader being tempted to chance me on board 1 or 2 again against the 2000-2100's.
I've had a bit of a break from FICS, Chess, Blogging, and work over the Christmas - New Year period, but it hasn't taken much to get back into it all what with the Corus Chess Festival now in full swing, and bills to pay...
There was a point, or pet theory at least, that I had intended to make in the last post. It involved quoting from a table I once saw out there in Internetland that showed the results of passing all the World Champions' games through a strong Chess engine and finding the percentage of coincidence between each champion's moves and the engine's first choice. For all the joys of Google, do you think I can find the damn thing when I want it?
From memory (I guess I'll update this if I stumble across the data I've misplaced...) pretty much all the champions in modern history played the "Fritz move" 80% +/-5% of the time. One interesting thing about this table that seemed to have a lot of people flumoxed was that Tal's coincident percentage was about the same as everyone else's - not the highest, but certainly not the lowest either. Tal by his own admission played many "unsound" sacrifices!
So the story goes, in the post mortem to one of his games, a young Garry Kasparov showed a sacrifice he had wanted to play but said he couldn't calculate all the consequences. "My boy, first you sacrifice, then you calculate!" was Tal's response.
As with any great magician, we become so dazzled by Tal's magic that we're distracted from noticing his consumate technique - the decoy tactical motif taken to a new level. It is not so often that Tal's opening knowledge and endgame technique are commented on, mundane as they are in the shadow of his middlegame wizardry. Yet noone becomes World Champion without total mastery of these mechanics of the game in addition to their stylistic expression.
One thing that the game in the last post shows - granted it's a very small data sample, but don't let that get in the way of a good story - is that it was Crafty trying to find Tal's moves, not Tal trying to find the machine's, and Crafty needed help! Crafty always came round to Tal's point of view eventually, but it had to be taken further down the game tree to realise that the wild attack and sacrifices were good for more than a draw.
"First I move my pieces to the centre of the board. Then I sacrifice them." - Mikhail Tal.
Let's interpret this statement in the context of Tal's high coincidence with computer moves. He begins the game with solid opening theory. Then he makes a sacrifice that, for the purposes of this argument we'll assume to be "unsound". His opponents can do one of two things. They can play sound moves and refute the sacrifice, or they can fail to find the defense - play unsound moves themselves - and get splattered. My 2700 rated version of Crafty falls into the second category - at least under tournament conditions with limited calculating time!
So how is Tal's "Fritz coincidence" so high? He only plays one unsound move per game, a very small minus percentage! The rest of his moves are perfectly sound, either more correct sacrifices in accordance with the position, or falling back on his World Champion class technique if the game steers towards an ending, or didn't permit even him to make sacrifices in the first place.
Today we're going to start looking at some master games, with the main idea of identifying as many tactical motifs as possible in them (rather than attempting a 'comprehensive' analysis at this stage). Who better to begin with then than Mikhail Tal - let's try and see if we can spot where he uses 'smoke and mirrors' and where he has a solid foundation for his 'wild' attacks.
We'll start at the point that things get really interesting, 12. Nf5. Black has grabbed a pawn leaving his King in the centre, his Black squares weak, and a couple of tempi behind in development.
Tal vs Uhlmann, Moscow 1971Position after 12. Nf5
This Knight is a true "Trojan Horse"; it has been left as a gift just outside the citadel and it's capture flings open the gates for the entry of the attacking army. The motif in our vernacular is clearance of the e-file.
A computer should be ideal for analysing such a highly tactical situation, so it's interesting that Crafty gives this position about -2.5 (in Black's favour) at depth 10, but suddenly swings to +0.4 at depth 11. After 13. Re1+ (Crafty prefered an immediate 13. Qd6) it's back to -2, and it's not until depth 15 that it starts to see an advantage for White!
After 13. ... Nge7 the absolute pin on e7 and half-pin by the Bb5 are exploited by 14. Rxe7+ Nxe7 now Bd7 is pinned and (more importantly) barraged 15. Qxd7+ barraging Ne7 15. ... Kf8 16. Bxe7+. 13. ... Kf8 14. Qd6+ exploiting the weak black-coloured entry square leads to the same ideas, so Be6 is forced.
Tal vs Uhlmann, Moscow 1971 Position after 14. Qd6
Now the Black pieces are almost wholly immobilised. The King has a noose around His neck. There are absolute pins on Nc6 and Be6. Ng8 blocks Rh8 defending mate at e7. 14. ... Qxc2 15. Rac1 x-rays Nc6, a barrage allowing White to exploit the unprotected Ra8 and/or mate starting with 16. Rxc6 (i.e. 16. ... a6 17. Rc8 double check and mate), and other Queen moves also unprotect c6 permitting Bxc6+ immediately.
14. ... Rd8 and 14. ... Rb8 can be captured on the spot, again due to the absolute pin on Nc6, while 14. ... Rc8 15. Rad1 principally threatening 16. Qd8+ Rxd8 17. Rxd8# and Black can resign or play 15. ... Qxe1+ giving up a lot of material.
Of the available Pawn moves, Black chooses 14. ... a6 attempting to break the stranglehold by challenging the absolute pin on c6. At this point, it takes Crafty until depth 13 to see that White is not losing (giving 0.00), and perhaps more interestingly gives the game continuation to the end and beyond with white having only +0.5. We shall have to see...
White's forces, save for Ra1, are now at their maximum potential, and the fire needs some more fuel! If 15. Rad1 Black gets enough material for the Queen after 15. ... Qxe1+ and should be able to consolidate and win. Tal takes a new tack with 15. Bd2 Qxc2 16. Bb4.
The absolute pin on c6 is sacrificed for the final onslaught, a deep penetration at f8 with an x-ray attack on the unprotected Ra8.
Tal vs Uhlmann, Moscow 1971 Final position after 19. Qxa8
Here Black resigned, and in view of Crafty's assessment (after 14. ... a6), let's try to understand why.
First, note that the Bishop is immune to capture due to mate in 2 by Qd8+ and Qd6#. Black presently has a slight material advantage of B+N+2P vs R, but some of this will have to be returned to stave off a mating attack. White's ideas to continue the attack revolve around Ba5+ (trying to decoy the Knight to the mate in 2 threat again), but here ... b6 is a defense that will make the win a grind, and Rac1 - again with the absolute pin on the Knight! The Rac1 idea is why the e-Rook was used at move 18 (the "which Rook?" problem).
The black-squared Bishop will again be redeployed via c3 to a new line of attack, probably after provoking ... b6 as above to undermine the protection of c6.
Starting it's analysis at the final position on my fairly fast PC, it takes Crafty around 15 minutes to get to depth 13 and decide that White really does have a winning advantage (+1.9). At depth 14 (after nearly 30 minutes analysis) it's at +2.13 giving the line 19. ... Qe4 20. Rac1 Bd5 21. Ba5+ Kd6 22. f3 Qe3+ 23. Kh1 Nxa5 24. Qxa5 Nf6 25. Qc7+ Ke6 26. Re1 f4 27. Qxf4 Qxe1+ 28. Rxe1+ Kd7 29. Qg5 Rg8 30. Qd2.
Black is trying to build a shelter and run his King to safety, but it's still under constant harassment. Whether the players saw this over the board or simply had an intuition of the position's potential, there's not many who would relish trying to defend it against Tal.
It's time we collectively slap our foreheads and cry "Bombaclot!".
Working backwards for no better reason than that's the way I decided to do it, here are the solutions to the Holiday Puzzles.
Puzzle #6
After 1. Bg2+ d5#, it's Professor Black who wins and no amount of philosophising about the en passant rule will change the result or reveal God's phone number. If you still don't believe me you can read about it on FIDE's web site.
Puzzle #5
The easy part - Black's last move must have been ... Ka7-a8. Slightly trickier, White's only possible move before this was Nb6-a8 discovered check (with h2 blocked, the Bishop has no other way to legally be there). So technically Black's last move (for full points) was ... Kxa8.
Puzzle #4
1. Any legal move, Any legal move
2. Any, Any
3. Any, Any
4. Any, Any
5. Any, Any
6. Any, Any
7. d7# (the only legal move!)
This genre of problem is called a "no-brainer", because Chess is a Zugzwang (move-bound) game, both sides MUST move alternately, and in this position whatever choice either side makes, it must be mate on move 7... I hope you didn't spend too long on it!
Puzzle #3
Ah, the "mate-in-zero"... the clue was outside the board - it's the only diagram I've published on this blog without the board co-ordinates showing. Flip the board around and the pawn on *f4* mates the Black King on *e5*. I know, you hate me for that one. I hate myself for using a trick that cheap too.
Puzzle #2
There's only one way to play half a move in chess. We took this photograph after White had played Ke1-c1, and before he completed Queen-side castling with Ra1-d1#. Please don't get mad with me, I only work here...
Puzzle #1
This one's a gentle introduction to the 'proof game' genre of Chess problems. I promised no tricks, and I stand by that! But the Knight on b8 won't tell you it started life as the King's Knight on g8.
1. Nf3, d5
2. Ne5, Nf6
3. Nc6, Nfd7
4. Nxb8, Nxb8
No-one said they had to be sensible moves!
Like many practical Chess players, I've never taken more than a passing interest in the art form of Chess compositions, those fiendish "Mate in X" type things. The reason is common to a lot of players; at some time we've seen a problem posed as "mate in 2", spent an hour or so searching for the solution, only to find the key move is some bizzare counter-intuitive absurdity that leaves us cold.
By now you'll have realised that the holiday puzzles I've presented are just that, apart from #1 which is a simpler example of the 'proof game' genre, the others are really Chess jokes. But a funny thing happened on the way to the theatre... while I was scouring my book collection and the Internet for suitable material I came across a couple of web sites that are outstanding introductions to understanding how compositions work.
The first of these will already be familiar to many and is penned by Tim Krabbe. It is an eclectic mix of historical Chess records, Chess oddities, and compositions - from the sort of jokes I have presented to serious and studious compositions from tournaments. Yes indeed, problem composers have their own tournaments for composing and solving, and Master titles are bestowed independently of 'over-the-board' titles.
The real find however, was the blog of Greek problem composer Alkinoos. The first major obstacle to penetrating the world of compositions is knowing their language. Just as in regular Chess we can identify within a position various strategic and tactical motifs, compositions too have their themes. Do you know what a Grimshaw Intersection is? Pawn Albinos and Pickaninnies? The difference between a pure mate and an ideal mate? Understanding these things gives you an insight into the mind of the composer, so you're not simply trying moves at random until you stumble onto the key.
In practical Chess we talk about mainlines and side variations, in compositions too there are phases of play which may or may not be present, and these help guide us through the tricks and traps the composer is illustrating in the position.
Where compositions have little practical value to the player of Chess - aside from encouraging the habit of thinking laterally - studies can have immense value. Composition positions are often quite irrational; ideally it can be shown they could arise from a series of legal moves but usually it's highly improbable that they would. Studies on the other hand, look like normal endgame positions. The task is usually given as "White to win / draw" without a set number of moves, and the solution will frequently unlock some secrets of that type of endgame.
If you have an interest in Chess problems, or (and especially if...!) you never have but would like to expand your horizons into this fascinating field, you can do far worse than to start at Alkinoos' "Hello" page and click through the "newer post" links at the bottom of each page for the best tutorial on problem solving I have seen.
Reti, 1921White to play and draw
This study is a classic - famous to the point of being a cliche, but it is still about the best example of how Kings work in a Pawn ending.
Sicilian Scheveningen
