skip to main |
skip to sidebar
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...
Sicilian Scheveningen
