Any move is at least as good as resigning!

This is of course old stuff but it is new to me. I still think Chernev's "Logical Chess Move by Move" is a great book. I am not trying to make fun of a truly classic book. Anyhow, something odd seems to be going on in the very first game in the book. Black builds up a scary looking attack and white approves of the attack by resigning.

I should be a well known fact that any move is at least as strong as resigning. In this game white appears to have a move that is even better than resigning:

A Morning Stoyko Session

My plan is to pick positions from "New York 1924" so I hopefully can learn something from Mr Alekhine's annotations. The position above was maybe a bit dull but the game itself very thought provoking.

Your job is to help Capablanca find his 16th move as black:

My Chess Goals for 2011

Here are the draft list of my Chess Goals for 2011

• 50+ Slow Games
• Read three or more chess books
• 50+ Stoyko Exercises
• Study 100+ Annotated Mastergames
• Play few corr games
• Do 50+ Guess-the-Move Exercises
• Write a weekly Training Report
  

The Twenty Minute Exercise

The Stoyko Exercise or The Twenty Minute Exercise as Heisman calls it is interesting and useful. The idea is simply to deeply analyze any foggy position for twenty minutes. The inventor himself claims to have gained 100 points every time he did the exercise. Should that be 10% true, then I am a happy patzer!

So, I picked a Capablanca game almost at random and started at a random move. The position looked "obvious" and Mr Fritz agreed that I indeed found the best move. Mr Capablanca did not(!) but he on the other hand found the proper continuation.

Ergo: I suggest that you try the exercise for yourself. Al you need is a print-out which can be half hidden at your messy office desk allowing you to practice chess while pretending to be productive (from your boss' perspective)

I will take advantage of the sad fact that I have not studied the Classic games very well. So, I will probably pick the games/positions from the New York 1924 Tournament and hopefully learn something from Mr Alekhine's annotations.

Summing up T47

We are out of the tournament but it was fun. Thank you, Team Mates! I have skipped a few team tournaments for practical reasons but the comeback with the Dreadful Knights was a delight.

I scored 1.5/3 which was decent or better against a 1400-, 1600- and a 1700-player. My performance score turned out to be 1429 which is lower than expected but probably a good approximation of my playing strength.