Our round 4 opponents TeamFuego are the current U2000b section leaders, having won all 3 of their previous matches. Our line-up this round will be 1. bash 2. SimianChatter 3. Plebusan 4. Mejdanblues.
It's looking like my game will be postponed a week to the adjournment session, so this weekend should be an ideal opportunity for me to play some 45 45 practice games with no pressure on.
Although, as you have seen, my results have yet to show signs of improving, I can feel some benefit of my '100 Days to Chess Improvement' excercise. When I see problems posted on various blogs, I can usually solve them now, instead of just staring blankly and wondering what the pretty move will be when I look at the answer. I see the side variations in Fred's book as well as the main solution. I feel more 'solid' in my appreciation of what is happening on the board.
I've gone down fighting against +200 rated opponents in this Teamleague, seeing tactical possibilities that someone would only have pointed out to me after the game in the previous tournament. This leads me to wonder if I should consider an opening repertoire of gambits at this stage, and come out fighting instead of just losing that way! It is true that most games below master level (ie. even 2000-2300 rated 'expert' players) are won and lost through fairly simple tactics. I think I need to 'mix it up' from the start rather than wait to get squeezed by these higher rated opponents.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Kings Are Always X-Rayed And Can Never Be Pinned
This is inferred from our definitions of X-Ray Attack and Pinning but while I'm preparing a more comprehensive discussion of pinning for a future post I thought I'd make this simple and obvious point here. Where x-ray attacks generally force the directly attacked piece to move (tempo-winning), a pin is usually exploited by compounding an additional motif.
Reinfeld position #489
White to move
If the Black King in the diagram were a different piece, say a Bishop, it would merely be the 'blocker' in a pin after 1. Ra7. Black would have a move in hand to use keeping his pieces defended. As it is, after 1. Ra7+, the King is compelled to move removing a defender of the Rook. Annihilating it's other defender by 2. Rxh7, White wins a piece.
I realise that what I'm saying in this post is almost so trivial as to be not worth mentioning, but that's a part of the point too. If all the mechanics of Chess were so automatically apparent to us, we wouldn't still be patzers.
Reinfeld position #489White to move
If the Black King in the diagram were a different piece, say a Bishop, it would merely be the 'blocker' in a pin after 1. Ra7. Black would have a move in hand to use keeping his pieces defended. As it is, after 1. Ra7+, the King is compelled to move removing a defender of the Rook. Annihilating it's other defender by 2. Rxh7, White wins a piece.
I realise that what I'm saying in this post is almost so trivial as to be not worth mentioning, but that's a part of the point too. If all the mechanics of Chess were so automatically apparent to us, we wouldn't still be patzers.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Teamleague 37 - Round 3 (part 2)
1 game point, 0 match points from this round. 'Nuff sed.
As to the World Championship Match currently being played... anyone else notice that Anand is bucking the conventional wisdom by trying (and succeeding!) to win with Black and draw with White?
Go Vishy!
As to the World Championship Match currently being played... anyone else notice that Anand is bucking the conventional wisdom by trying (and succeeding!) to win with Black and draw with White?
Go Vishy!
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Teamleague 37 - Round 3 (part 1)
With 3 of our games played so far in this round blackk has put in a workman-like win, while Mejdanblues was not so lucky this week. Mapleleaf plays FM Maras later today, and would have been needing only a draw to win the match for us if I had not made such a botch of my game against dzomba. As it is, Mapleleaf will now need to come out swinging to level up the match score.
So what went wrong? In short, I got the better of the complicated tactics only to make a mess of the simple things. But first to the pre-game preparation.
Our "team intelligence" indicated that dzomba plays the Moller / Arkangel defence to the Ruy Lopez (eco C78), and I spent some time researching that. My conclusion was that it's a very attractive variation for Black, with ... a6, ... b5, and ... Bc5 initiating early counter-attacking possibilities. I might even take it up myself. It's been played quite a bit at the top level over the last 15 years or so and I found games involving the likes of Shirov, Topalov, Short, Adams, even Kramnik. Anand has played it on both sides of the board, and had some good results with the White pieces, so I concentrated on those games.
Immediately before the game, I went through "1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations" for about an hour ('rehearsal'), and then about another hour looking at "The Encyclopaedia of Chess Middle Games". The objective of this was to practice finding tactics in unfamiliar positions, so having warmed up the 'pattern recognition circuits' with 1001, I used ECM to crank up the 'search and calculate algorithm'. This worked quite well, and I'll continue to do it for future games.
I got through the opening reasonably well thanks to Vishy, although I rather suspect I mixed up the myriad of sub-variations. Sometimes White plays h3 preventing ... Bg4 with d4, sometimes h3 is omitted in favour of the more conservative d3. At move 15. ... cxb6 is something of a concession by Black who would naturally rather play Rxb6 but then the discovered attack d5 will be strong. So White has invested a pawn for the two Bishops on an open board and a very active position.
My pawn on c3 is interesting, it looks like a straggler but has a blessed life. It can't be taken with unprotected knights at c3 and c7, and at move 18 Crafty momentarily considers snipping it off before more soberly looking at ... Qc7 and ... Qf6 with about -0.5 to -0.6 advantage to Black.
By move 23 the Black castle is all but unprotected by pieces, and I've forced the first weakening of it's wall. Then, oh dear! blinded by my own tactical geniusity I played 24. Qxe5??. The justification of this move is the game continuation, but I finally noticed I'd left Bb3 en prise about 10 seconds after playing it and nearly thumped at the 'resign' button there and then. Fortunately, it looks like Bxh6 might be a mating attack after ... Nxb3 (actually it isn't even close for so many reasons) and my opponent went for the 'safe' exchange win with ... Nd3 whereupon I breathed a huge sigh of relief and uncorked my combination. Crafty has Black still winning comfortably after 25. ... Kxf7 26. Qf5+ Qf6 (Rh4 is unprotected... oops!) but I got lucky again when he recaptured with the Rook. All-in-all I benefitted from playing some 'weak aggressive' style poker. 24. Bc2 maintains a small plus for White.
Finally, I had seen 37. Bd2 defending the mate-in-1 threat but didn't have the courage to play it. My reasoning was that the pin by say ... Qb2 would be ugly although obviously I can defend the Bishop as often as it's attacked with Queen and Rook. As it happens, Bd2 is wrong because of ... Qa7+ with ... b4 and ... Ba6+ and is actually no better than the move I played in the forlorn hope of making threats with my King-side pawns while rounding up the b-pawn. As you can see, dzomba had the necessary technique to force the pawn home.
It's not the most terrible game I've played, I made a fight of it. I at least found some tactical possibilities, even if they did mostly turn out to be furphys. It's still accuracy of analysis I need the most work on at the moment.
Good luck with the game tonight, Mapleleaf.
So what went wrong? In short, I got the better of the complicated tactics only to make a mess of the simple things. But first to the pre-game preparation.
Our "team intelligence" indicated that dzomba plays the Moller / Arkangel defence to the Ruy Lopez (eco C78), and I spent some time researching that. My conclusion was that it's a very attractive variation for Black, with ... a6, ... b5, and ... Bc5 initiating early counter-attacking possibilities. I might even take it up myself. It's been played quite a bit at the top level over the last 15 years or so and I found games involving the likes of Shirov, Topalov, Short, Adams, even Kramnik. Anand has played it on both sides of the board, and had some good results with the White pieces, so I concentrated on those games.
Immediately before the game, I went through "1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations" for about an hour ('rehearsal'), and then about another hour looking at "The Encyclopaedia of Chess Middle Games". The objective of this was to practice finding tactics in unfamiliar positions, so having warmed up the 'pattern recognition circuits' with 1001, I used ECM to crank up the 'search and calculate algorithm'. This worked quite well, and I'll continue to do it for future games.
I got through the opening reasonably well thanks to Vishy, although I rather suspect I mixed up the myriad of sub-variations. Sometimes White plays h3 preventing ... Bg4 with d4, sometimes h3 is omitted in favour of the more conservative d3. At move 15. ... cxb6 is something of a concession by Black who would naturally rather play Rxb6 but then the discovered attack d5 will be strong. So White has invested a pawn for the two Bishops on an open board and a very active position.
My pawn on c3 is interesting, it looks like a straggler but has a blessed life. It can't be taken with unprotected knights at c3 and c7, and at move 18 Crafty momentarily considers snipping it off before more soberly looking at ... Qc7 and ... Qf6 with about -0.5 to -0.6 advantage to Black.
By move 23 the Black castle is all but unprotected by pieces, and I've forced the first weakening of it's wall. Then, oh dear! blinded by my own tactical geniusity I played 24. Qxe5??. The justification of this move is the game continuation, but I finally noticed I'd left Bb3 en prise about 10 seconds after playing it and nearly thumped at the 'resign' button there and then. Fortunately, it looks like Bxh6 might be a mating attack after ... Nxb3 (actually it isn't even close for so many reasons) and my opponent went for the 'safe' exchange win with ... Nd3 whereupon I breathed a huge sigh of relief and uncorked my combination. Crafty has Black still winning comfortably after 25. ... Kxf7 26. Qf5+ Qf6 (Rh4 is unprotected... oops!) but I got lucky again when he recaptured with the Rook. All-in-all I benefitted from playing some 'weak aggressive' style poker. 24. Bc2 maintains a small plus for White.
Finally, I had seen 37. Bd2 defending the mate-in-1 threat but didn't have the courage to play it. My reasoning was that the pin by say ... Qb2 would be ugly although obviously I can defend the Bishop as often as it's attacked with Queen and Rook. As it happens, Bd2 is wrong because of ... Qa7+ with ... b4 and ... Ba6+ and is actually no better than the move I played in the forlorn hope of making threats with my King-side pawns while rounding up the b-pawn. As you can see, dzomba had the necessary technique to force the pawn home.
It's not the most terrible game I've played, I made a fight of it. I at least found some tactical possibilities, even if they did mostly turn out to be furphys. It's still accuracy of analysis I need the most work on at the moment.
Good luck with the game tonight, Mapleleaf.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Teamleague 37 - Round 2
Go team!
~or~
"Your absence brings us great joy!"
While I was away on my intensive GM training weekend, Current_Affairs defeated Team_Tsubasa 2.5 - 1.5, with wins to Mapleleaf and blackk, and a draw by Plebusan in the last game to secure the match points.
With bash taking a break in round 3, Mapleleaf will play board 1, I'll be on board 2, blackk on board 3, and Mejdanblues board 4.
~or~
"Your absence brings us great joy!"
While I was away on my intensive GM training weekend, Current_Affairs defeated Team_Tsubasa 2.5 - 1.5, with wins to Mapleleaf and blackk, and a draw by Plebusan in the last game to secure the match points.
With bash taking a break in round 3, Mapleleaf will play board 1, I'll be on board 2, blackk on board 3, and Mejdanblues board 4.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Teamleague 37 - Game 1
My first 'problem' came at move 12. The idea of the previous two moves had been to continue 12. ... Ne4 here but I became worried about the consequences of 13. Bd3 Nxd2 14. Bxh7 Kh8 - an illustration of the weakness in my analytical ability mentioned in the previous post.
The played move was alright (the position even slightly favours Black), but 12. ... Ne4 13. Bd3 Bxg5 14. hxg5 Qxg5 15. O-O-O h6 would have been better, and Crafty gives lines involving 13. Nf3 and 13. Nxe4 as optimal (-0.4 to -0.5 range).
Around this time, I had decided that playing ... h6 would only be useful to a) halt the march of White's h-pawn on h5, or b) to prevent the loss of my h-pawn to a barrage on b1-h7 (maybe with Ng5). At move 13 Mapleleaf suggested ... h6 to kick the Bishop and control g5, and we spent some time analysing 13. ... h6 14. O-O-O hxg5 15. hxg5 - White's h4 has little meaning if the Bishop intended to retreat!
squib (1978) vs SimianChatter (1831)Position after 13. ... h6 14. O-O-O hxg5 15. hxg5 (analysis)
Black's defensive idea is to play ... g6, ... Kg7, ... Rg8 and take flight with the King, while White builds the attack with Bd3, Rh3, R1h1 constantly threatening an orgy of sacrifices in a mating attack. We concluded that White's pawn on g5 helps Black's defense more than White's attack (blocking access to g5 from his pieces) even though it is captured with tempo, and I think White's attack is certainly easier to play than finding the accurate defensive moves for Black, especially 'at the board'.
Crafty nuts the whole idea by simply playing (from the diagram) 15. ... Bxg5 16. Kb1 Bh6 (eval about -1.3) and giving 13. ... h6 14. Bxe7 Qxe7 etc. Damn machines.
Around move 15 it was probably a good idea to get my Queen off the central files and out of fire of the Rooks before commencing to roll my centre pawns. The position is looking like Black has played a successful French Defense; The d- and e-pawns are preparing to wreak havoc and the 'sleeping' Queen's Bishop is about to spring to life. I like playing the French when that happens.
At 17 simply ... Nxf6 would have saved a lot of headaches, but unfortunately I'd already hit on the idea of provoking b4 with ... Nc5 then open the a-file with ... a6 and not be concerned with pawn structure or their number if my major pieces could storm the bastions.
21. ... Rf4 is the losing move, 22. Ng5 threatening the fork at e6 leaving no time to exploit the weakened castled position while I was dreaming White would play Nd6. After 21. ... Rg6 Black's position is still favourable (around -0.3 to -0.4).
This game reinforces that it's time for me to learn the next basic Chess skill - the analysis of variations.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Teamleague 37 - Round 1
It's great to see 16 teams entered in the U2000 section of Teamleague 37, we've been split into 2 groups for a 7-round round-robin, to be followed by a play-off between the groups.
Team Current_Affairs final starting squad with fixed ratings is:
I've only time for a quick wrap-up of round 1 (so no one thinks I'm shirking!), I'll publish some analysis of my game when I have a little more time.
With Monkey Club fielding 1900+ players on all boards it was a tough first round for everyone and I think the 0-4 result doesn't reflect the quality of the games. Mejdanblues especially played a terrific game, as always punching well above his weight against an opponent rated 250 points higher. He certainly had drawing opportunities in a tricky, highly technical endgame (N vs B, Pawn, then Q), and possibly even winning chances.
I wasn't altogether unhappy with my own game. I ran through '1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations' for 45 minutes or so before the game, and I can work through 150-200 positions in that time now. It's interesting to notice 'Chess Vision' starting up within the first 20 or so problems doing this. Rehearsing known positions (as opposed to solving them) seems to warm up the parts of the brain that do pattern recognition during the game.
So I was seeing the board quite well, but my ability to accurately analyse and assess variations is still sadly lacking. Now I feel my tactics are improving, it's time to begin the next phase of this excercise and start on my analysis skills. This is done by taking complcated middlegame positions, writing down all the variations you can see, and then comparing them to GM annotations, as described by Kotov in 'Think Like a Grandmaster'.
My time management, which is usually quite good, was also a bit off in this game - too long spent in the opening and early middle game left me playing on my increments for the last few moves.
Team Current_Affairs final starting squad with fixed ratings is:
- bash 2139
- Mapleleaf (Deputy Captain) 1872
- SimianChatter 1802
- Plebusan (Captain) 1775
- blackk 1728
- mejdanblues 1661
I've only time for a quick wrap-up of round 1 (so no one thinks I'm shirking!), I'll publish some analysis of my game when I have a little more time.
With Monkey Club fielding 1900+ players on all boards it was a tough first round for everyone and I think the 0-4 result doesn't reflect the quality of the games. Mejdanblues especially played a terrific game, as always punching well above his weight against an opponent rated 250 points higher. He certainly had drawing opportunities in a tricky, highly technical endgame (N vs B, Pawn, then Q), and possibly even winning chances.
I wasn't altogether unhappy with my own game. I ran through '1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations' for 45 minutes or so before the game, and I can work through 150-200 positions in that time now. It's interesting to notice 'Chess Vision' starting up within the first 20 or so problems doing this. Rehearsing known positions (as opposed to solving them) seems to warm up the parts of the brain that do pattern recognition during the game.
So I was seeing the board quite well, but my ability to accurately analyse and assess variations is still sadly lacking. Now I feel my tactics are improving, it's time to begin the next phase of this excercise and start on my analysis skills. This is done by taking complcated middlegame positions, writing down all the variations you can see, and then comparing them to GM annotations, as described by Kotov in 'Think Like a Grandmaster'.
My time management, which is usually quite good, was also a bit off in this game - too long spent in the opening and early middle game left me playing on my increments for the last few moves.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Oh No! Not This One Again!
Here's one of those positions that I have some sort of psychological aversion to solving. I don't know why, but every time I come to it I think "Oh no! Not this one again!".
Reinfeld position #871
White to move
Maybe because the solution is an ugly little bush of variations. Maybe because the first time I attempted it my solution was... different from Fred's. Maybe because it's the sort of position that's likely to arise in practice but it looks like White doesn't deserve to be winning it.
Who knows? I have some prejudice about it. I just don't like it.
The solution is really quite straight forward, we just put a gun to the King's head and march him to an out-of-the-way place where we can bludgeon him to death. It involves visualising a few mate threats where Rooks and the Knight combine, probably this is my aversion, it's obviously something I'm not too good at.
1. b4+ Kxb4 (1. ... Kb6 2. Rb7+ Ka6 3. Ra1#) 2. Rb7+ Kc3 (2. ... Kc5 3. Rb5# Crafty prolongs the death-agony by playing 2. ... Rb6 3. Rxb6 Kc5) 3. Ne4+ Kc2 (3. ... Kc4 4. Rd4#) 4. Rbb1 and 5. Rdc1# will follow.
Reinfeld position #871White to move
Maybe because the solution is an ugly little bush of variations. Maybe because the first time I attempted it my solution was... different from Fred's. Maybe because it's the sort of position that's likely to arise in practice but it looks like White doesn't deserve to be winning it.
Who knows? I have some prejudice about it. I just don't like it.
The solution is really quite straight forward, we just put a gun to the King's head and march him to an out-of-the-way place where we can bludgeon him to death. It involves visualising a few mate threats where Rooks and the Knight combine, probably this is my aversion, it's obviously something I'm not too good at.
1. b4+ Kxb4 (1. ... Kb6 2. Rb7+ Ka6 3. Ra1#) 2. Rb7+ Kc3 (2. ... Kc5 3. Rb5# Crafty prolongs the death-agony by playing 2. ... Rb6 3. Rxb6 Kc5) 3. Ne4+ Kc2 (3. ... Kc4 4. Rd4#) 4. Rbb1 and 5. Rdc1# will follow.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
ZwischenZugZwang!
Reinfeld Position #621Black to move
The solution to this problem is really neither a Zwischenzug (the 'expected' re-capture isn't delayed, it's never made!), nor is it a proper Zugzwang (Black already has a direct mate-in-1 threat), but it is an amusing if unusual sort of an interference. So I decided to call it ZwischenZugZwang, because it's a bit like both and not quite like a normal interference.
It's readily apparent that 1. ... Kg7 and 1. ... Kh8 fail to 2. Qxe5+, while 1. ... Rf7 gives up the mate threat. If the King steps onto the f-file, then 2. Rf4+ defends, so the answer must be 1. ... Qf7. But how? after 2. Bxf7+ Kxf7 3. Rf4+ again.
We have a mate threat, so the Queen is expendible. 1. ... Qf7 2. Bxf7+ Kf8 ZwischenZugZwang! Hiding behind the enemy Bishop, all the checks are prevented and 3. ... Rh1# is unstoppable.
Praxis Practice 3
I really haven't played as many practice games as I should have liked in deference to concentrating on the work of properly learning more basic tactics, so it was good to have the following training game (at 30' + 30") against our team captain yesterday.
The first big decision is at move 6, whether or not to allow the Bg5 pin. It will be more useful for White after Black castles, but after 6. ... h6 White might try to exploit his pin on the King-file by 7. Re1+ Be6 8. Bf5.
10. ... c5 is probably trying to be over-active, offering to allow the isolated Queen's pawn and thoroughly smash the symmetry when Black could just sit tight and plan to chop wood down to a "dead draw". Suprisingly, crafty starts to favour ... c5 at depth 10.
By move 18 I've managed to develop a nice space advantage on the Queen-side, though unfortunately it took me a minute or so to notice White's tactical threats against my castle (based on Bxh6 removal of defender / annihilation of defence ideas). So while 18. ... Nd7 is quite ok, it's a bit of a nervous move. In truth I was dreaming about weak back rank motifs based on ... b3, Bb1 (unprotecting Re1) Bg4 threatening the Queen and Rxe1 mate which anyway will fail to the Bh7+ defence. This "explains" 20. ... b3, yet another move that's playable, but chosen for the wrong reasons!
The same applies to 22. ... Kf8. 22. ... g6 forcing exchanges was fine, but I wanted to play a waiting move first, simply not noticing the self-pin I introduced on my f7 pawn eliminating the possibility of 23. ... g6 due to 24. Bxg6. I had assumed that after 23. Re3 threatening to barrage the e-file I could just start exchanging, but I hadn't even considered The Great Dictator's obvious actual move.
And so came 23. Re5. My first reaction was "Oh my God! I'm dropping the d5 pawn, and the other Queen-side pawns will follow like ripe cliches!". Pleased I am to report then that at least one good thing came from this game. I succeeded in overcoming my natural tendency to panic in such situations for long enough to see that I can still leverage White's weak back rank to defend the pawns tactically.
Finally at move 27... of course I'd like you to believe I had it all worked out to the minutest detail after 28. Rxd5 Re2 29. Ra5 Rxb2 30. Rb5 Rc2, and in fact Black is winning in that line. My reasoning in such end games is that you don't need more pawns, you just need promotable pawns. I was actually acting on the assumption that I'd likely be sacrificing my Rook for the a- or d-pawn to get connected b- and c-pawns on the 6th rank (turns out not to be necessary), although I had seen far enough that 30. Rc5 going after my c-pawn too was overly greedy and losing for White. Crafty wants to play 28. f4 =, but exchanging Rooks as played seems a somewhat simpler draw, neither King will be able to force penetration into the enemy camp.
The first big decision is at move 6, whether or not to allow the Bg5 pin. It will be more useful for White after Black castles, but after 6. ... h6 White might try to exploit his pin on the King-file by 7. Re1+ Be6 8. Bf5.
10. ... c5 is probably trying to be over-active, offering to allow the isolated Queen's pawn and thoroughly smash the symmetry when Black could just sit tight and plan to chop wood down to a "dead draw". Suprisingly, crafty starts to favour ... c5 at depth 10.
By move 18 I've managed to develop a nice space advantage on the Queen-side, though unfortunately it took me a minute or so to notice White's tactical threats against my castle (based on Bxh6 removal of defender / annihilation of defence ideas). So while 18. ... Nd7 is quite ok, it's a bit of a nervous move. In truth I was dreaming about weak back rank motifs based on ... b3, Bb1 (unprotecting Re1) Bg4 threatening the Queen and Rxe1 mate which anyway will fail to the Bh7+ defence. This "explains" 20. ... b3, yet another move that's playable, but chosen for the wrong reasons!
The same applies to 22. ... Kf8. 22. ... g6 forcing exchanges was fine, but I wanted to play a waiting move first, simply not noticing the self-pin I introduced on my f7 pawn eliminating the possibility of 23. ... g6 due to 24. Bxg6. I had assumed that after 23. Re3 threatening to barrage the e-file I could just start exchanging, but I hadn't even considered The Great Dictator's obvious actual move.
And so came 23. Re5. My first reaction was "Oh my God! I'm dropping the d5 pawn, and the other Queen-side pawns will follow like ripe cliches!". Pleased I am to report then that at least one good thing came from this game. I succeeded in overcoming my natural tendency to panic in such situations for long enough to see that I can still leverage White's weak back rank to defend the pawns tactically.
Finally at move 27... of course I'd like you to believe I had it all worked out to the minutest detail after 28. Rxd5 Re2 29. Ra5 Rxb2 30. Rb5 Rc2, and in fact Black is winning in that line. My reasoning in such end games is that you don't need more pawns, you just need promotable pawns. I was actually acting on the assumption that I'd likely be sacrificing my Rook for the a- or d-pawn to get connected b- and c-pawns on the 6th rank (turns out not to be necessary), although I had seen far enough that 30. Rc5 going after my c-pawn too was overly greedy and losing for White. Crafty wants to play 28. f4 =, but exchanging Rooks as played seems a somewhat simpler draw, neither King will be able to force penetration into the enemy camp.
Bombaclot!
There's been a few things I've wanted to blog recently, but unfortunately working 12 hour shifts has put paid to extra-curricular activities beyond sleep. The up-side is that the job I'm doing - covering for a guy who got burnt by a furnace - only requires 20 minutes per hour actual 'work', and the other 40 'monitoring', so there's a fair amount of time for pondering Chess tactics.
The down-side is that after a couple of 12-hour shifts my poor little pre-evolved monkey brain runs into trouble of the "how does the horsey move again?" kind. The last shift of last week I was back to my normal job. At 2am I wanted to work out if a job would finish by 4am. 50 units to go. Cycle time 2 minutes per unit. Two fifties are one-forty, that's 2 hours twenty minutes.
Dream-logic had crept into my waking mind. It's a perfectly sensible calculation - we do temporal arithmetic in base 60, so 50 + 50 is 1'40". I just had to take a few minutes to work out where the calculation was going wrong, which were the number of units to make, which were the time to make them, when to stop converting between time and units. Bombaclot!
I know a smattering of words from about 20 different languages, although sadly English is the only one I can hold a conversation in. My favourite word from any language I've ever heard is 'bombaclot', it's meaning is so expressive and self-explainatory.
My favourite tactical motifs to play and to solve are decoy and interference. With other motifs, you see the key move and say "Aha! of course!". With decoy and interference, you see the key move and still say "huh?", it's not until the point arrives that you slap your forehead and say "Agghhh! how could I be so stupid?".
A girl I once knew lived next door to a Jamaican gentlemen. Now and again, we'd hear something in his apartment go crash! followed by the inevitable forehead-slap and the cry "Bombaclot!".
The down-side is that after a couple of 12-hour shifts my poor little pre-evolved monkey brain runs into trouble of the "how does the horsey move again?" kind. The last shift of last week I was back to my normal job. At 2am I wanted to work out if a job would finish by 4am. 50 units to go. Cycle time 2 minutes per unit. Two fifties are one-forty, that's 2 hours twenty minutes.
Dream-logic had crept into my waking mind. It's a perfectly sensible calculation - we do temporal arithmetic in base 60, so 50 + 50 is 1'40". I just had to take a few minutes to work out where the calculation was going wrong, which were the number of units to make, which were the time to make them, when to stop converting between time and units. Bombaclot!
I know a smattering of words from about 20 different languages, although sadly English is the only one I can hold a conversation in. My favourite word from any language I've ever heard is 'bombaclot', it's meaning is so expressive and self-explainatory.
My favourite tactical motifs to play and to solve are decoy and interference. With other motifs, you see the key move and say "Aha! of course!". With decoy and interference, you see the key move and still say "huh?", it's not until the point arrives that you slap your forehead and say "Agghhh! how could I be so stupid?".
A girl I once knew lived next door to a Jamaican gentlemen. Now and again, we'd hear something in his apartment go crash! followed by the inevitable forehead-slap and the cry "Bombaclot!".
Saturday, September 20, 2008
100 Days in Review
Teamleague 37 Round 1 will be played in 2 weeks, so it's time to review my '100 Days to Chess Improvement' while there's still time to make some last-minute adjustments.
Did I put in enough effort, do enough work? The answer to that question will always be "No!", no matter what I've done. On the surface, I've added about 100 points to both my standard and blitz ratings. One point a day. If I can keep that work rate up I'll be a Grandmaster in 2 years. You all believe that will happen too, right?
I'm reasonably happy with my progress studying tactics. Ideally I would like to have 'completed' all 1001 positions and now be able to do a rapid review of the entire book, visualising each solution in a couple of seconds. I am at this stage with about 600-700 of the problems.
I had originally hoped to reduce the tactical motifs to the fewest possible basic ideas, but I have come to understand the opposite is more useful. "Did you know that Eskimoes have 70 different words for snow?". Of course they do, they live in it and naturally notice and name subtle differences. The same should be true of a Chess player. So we have a 'pin', and the term 'absolute pin' (a piece is pinned to the King) is also common. But a Bishop pinning a Knight to the Queen is a different sort of a pin to a Rook pinning a Pawn to a Rook. Perhaps the next objective should be to find a name for 'Knight pinned to Queen by Bishop that can capture a Pawn creating a mate threat' and such like. The point is to be able to describe a position by expanding the 'Chess vocabulary' in a way that is more descriptive and meaningful than by saying "everything is a double attack".
I am getting much better at deliberately naming the tactical motifs present in the problems although this has not yet fully extended to practical play, I still have to remind my internal dialogue to do it.
My board geometry and visualisation skills have noticeably improved. I can put the book down, wander off to do something else and conjure up quite an accurate representation of a position in my mind's eye. Before yesterday's game I did review problems for half an hour or so and was seeing the board quite well. Today I had not done that and found it much more difficult to 'read' the board. Un-solid... like words floating round on the page when you don't wear your reading glasses.
I'm more confident with my solutions to problems. To begin with, I checked the answers even on the second or third review. Now even at the first review I can say "here's the solution; Black might try this, but it doesn't work because of...".
There are a couple of Bette Noir problems that I stumble on every time, no matter how often I look at the solution. Some of them are sadly simple, I'll start noting them down to try and find the psychological blockage with solving them.
I had hoped to have time to review some strategy. I'd earmarked one of "Chess Praxis" (Nimzovitch), "Masters of the Chessboard" (Reti), "Pawn Power in Chess" (Kmoch), or "The Middle Game" (Euwe and Kramer) to work through again before Teamleague starts, but there won't be time now. Maybe I can spend next Sunday afternoon whizzing through "Judgement and Planning in Chess" (Euwe) or "Modern Chess Strategy" (Pachman), but I think doing such a quick rehash will be of limited value.
What to do about openings? My only Chess teacher who hasn't been dead for 50 years, a Master strength player who guided me when I was a teenager, told me that no one below 2300 need study openings beyond "sortez les pieces" ("get your pieces out!"). I still believe this is sage advice. Anyone who has had the pleasure of watching FlorinC(FM) play P-R4, P-R5, R-R4 in the opening, or DonConchi play the 'King Attack Opening' 1. e3 2. Ke2 3. Kd3 against strong computers and win will understand the folly of "opening theory".
Teammate Mapleleaf did some excellent work in the last teamleague providing us with a database of our upcoming opponents' opening preferences. I think I'll use that to get a basic idea in the systems they play then aim to duke it out in the middle game.
I'd wanted to apply my new-found tactical vision to playing through master games. I've always loved playing through master games and absorb the strategic ideas quite easily, but I haven't done it much lately. Rather than do it for pure entertainment I need to start applying the same technique as playing a real game, and review the tactical problems before I start.
Is the monkey ready for Teamleague 37? "So place the board that the sun shines in your opponent's eyes." I'll take any help I can get...
Did I put in enough effort, do enough work? The answer to that question will always be "No!", no matter what I've done. On the surface, I've added about 100 points to both my standard and blitz ratings. One point a day. If I can keep that work rate up I'll be a Grandmaster in 2 years. You all believe that will happen too, right?
I'm reasonably happy with my progress studying tactics. Ideally I would like to have 'completed' all 1001 positions and now be able to do a rapid review of the entire book, visualising each solution in a couple of seconds. I am at this stage with about 600-700 of the problems.
I had originally hoped to reduce the tactical motifs to the fewest possible basic ideas, but I have come to understand the opposite is more useful. "Did you know that Eskimoes have 70 different words for snow?". Of course they do, they live in it and naturally notice and name subtle differences. The same should be true of a Chess player. So we have a 'pin', and the term 'absolute pin' (a piece is pinned to the King) is also common. But a Bishop pinning a Knight to the Queen is a different sort of a pin to a Rook pinning a Pawn to a Rook. Perhaps the next objective should be to find a name for 'Knight pinned to Queen by Bishop that can capture a Pawn creating a mate threat' and such like. The point is to be able to describe a position by expanding the 'Chess vocabulary' in a way that is more descriptive and meaningful than by saying "everything is a double attack".
I am getting much better at deliberately naming the tactical motifs present in the problems although this has not yet fully extended to practical play, I still have to remind my internal dialogue to do it.
My board geometry and visualisation skills have noticeably improved. I can put the book down, wander off to do something else and conjure up quite an accurate representation of a position in my mind's eye. Before yesterday's game I did review problems for half an hour or so and was seeing the board quite well. Today I had not done that and found it much more difficult to 'read' the board. Un-solid... like words floating round on the page when you don't wear your reading glasses.
I'm more confident with my solutions to problems. To begin with, I checked the answers even on the second or third review. Now even at the first review I can say "here's the solution; Black might try this, but it doesn't work because of...".
There are a couple of Bette Noir problems that I stumble on every time, no matter how often I look at the solution. Some of them are sadly simple, I'll start noting them down to try and find the psychological blockage with solving them.
I had hoped to have time to review some strategy. I'd earmarked one of "Chess Praxis" (Nimzovitch), "Masters of the Chessboard" (Reti), "Pawn Power in Chess" (Kmoch), or "The Middle Game" (Euwe and Kramer) to work through again before Teamleague starts, but there won't be time now. Maybe I can spend next Sunday afternoon whizzing through "Judgement and Planning in Chess" (Euwe) or "Modern Chess Strategy" (Pachman), but I think doing such a quick rehash will be of limited value.
What to do about openings? My only Chess teacher who hasn't been dead for 50 years, a Master strength player who guided me when I was a teenager, told me that no one below 2300 need study openings beyond "sortez les pieces" ("get your pieces out!"). I still believe this is sage advice. Anyone who has had the pleasure of watching FlorinC(FM) play P-R4, P-R5, R-R4 in the opening, or DonConchi play the 'King Attack Opening' 1. e3 2. Ke2 3. Kd3 against strong computers and win will understand the folly of "opening theory".
Teammate Mapleleaf did some excellent work in the last teamleague providing us with a database of our upcoming opponents' opening preferences. I think I'll use that to get a basic idea in the systems they play then aim to duke it out in the middle game.
I'd wanted to apply my new-found tactical vision to playing through master games. I've always loved playing through master games and absorb the strategic ideas quite easily, but I haven't done it much lately. Rather than do it for pure entertainment I need to start applying the same technique as playing a real game, and review the tactical problems before I start.
Is the monkey ready for Teamleague 37? "So place the board that the sun shines in your opponent's eyes." I'll take any help I can get...
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