Chess Tweets

Lots of useful Chess tidbits at Twitter. Almost daily advice from Dan Heisman for example. This one, for example, is interesting:


"If I gave a pill to a 1400 player so that he/she memorizes MCO-15, what would their new playing strength be? Most properly guess 1400-1450" 


Follow @danheisman !! (or @farbrortheguru)

The Never Ending Story

The Shredder App on my iPhone is becomming my archrival. It suffers the typical problems most engines do when it comes to mimicing bad chess but still it can be a fun opponent.

The search for a nice app for annotating chess games on the iPhone is still ongoing. Any suggestions?

My Name is Paddy. I'm a Blunderer!

Sometimes I overcome blunders easily! Yesterday I  played a training game and blundered badly. After just nine hours playing with the kids, watching a funny movie and enjoying a glass of wine with some great cheese, I was able to see some interesting moments in the game.

As part of my new approach to playing, I will go for sharper games. Of course I missed a lot of good moves both when playing and when analyzing the game but there are great learning experiences in that as well.

How? Well, the idea of annotating your own games often feels overwhelming and too demanding. "How on earth am I going to find all the errors in my games? I'd better spend the time on shopping for opening books instead!" Totally off the target! You annotate your own games in order to improve you own chess. That is the main purpose and not primarily to make perfect annotations (whatever that is?).

My ambition to play a completely new repertoire had a fairly short lifespan. I decided to make some changes before trying the stuff in a single game. Embarrassing? Not really! It was a sort of well researched decision and furthermore just a minor change.

The training game had a few interesting moments and offered a few nice insights. I think I tend to overestimate the winning chances for the side with the initiative. After working for some hours with the game, I asked Mr Houdini for a few evaluations and they were not as optimistic as my own.

To read useful advice cannot hurt but quite often the full, if you like, force of the advice is hidden until you can apply the advice in a for yourself relevant situation. Sometimes two or more "advice" have to fertilize each other. Take for example Lasker's "when you see a good move then look for a better" and "the best way is not always the fastest". Let's try to tie all loose ends in this post together with one curious observation from the training game.

Look at the position after Black's 19th move (see below). White has to regain material but how? Qxc7 is obvious but look at the sneaky Qc6! A pretty neat move and it all comes together! One single discovery made the whole annotating effort to a soothing experience and I just might have transformed a few pieces of knowledge to something remotely similar to a skill. Something to be used in a future game!

(How do I set the initial diagram position using Aquarium?)

Team League Games

A member of our team at Schemingmind kindly shared his thoughts on a few games from the last season:

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
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	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H

SteveWest - petrs

1/2-1/2, 2011.

[#] 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.f4 The Austrian attack - sharp weapon against the Pirc. It is not so popular nowadays and frankly, I do not why. It has a lot of potential to make troubles to Black. 4...Bg7 5.Nf3 c5 6.Bb5 Bd7 7.e5 Ng4 8.Bxd7 Qxd7 9.d5 dxe5 10.h3 e4 11.Nxe4 Nf6 12.Nxf6 Bxf6 13.O-O O-O 14.Be3 Qd6 15.c4 Until now we were still in the theory. My next move is a "novelty". Later I found a game when Black played 15.... b5 15...b6 The intention of this move is to cover c5 pawn. Unfortunately it leads to a passive position. ..

[15...b5 16.cxb5 Bxb2 17.Rb1 Bf6 looks interesting.]

16.Rb1 Nd7 17.Ng5 Bg7 18.Ne4 Qc7 19.Qf3 White has nice attacking position and my destiny was to wait for the final strike. There is no reasonable counterplay for Black now... 19...a5 20.b3 Nf6 21.f5 Nxe4 22.Qxe4 Qe5 23.Qxe5 Bxe5 24.Rbe1 Rfe8 25.fxg6 hxg6 I remember one note of GM Jusupov who told about this type of pawn exchange that it is usually better to take back with a pawn from the other file - which means h-file in this case (not f-file pawn). Do not ask me whether there is anything behind this "rule" - even GM Jusupov admited he does not know ;) Definitely in this position taking by h-pawn seemed good for me - I did not open the f-file for White rooks and kept the position closed. But still passive for me. 26.Bf4 Bxf4 27.Rxf4 Rad8 28.Rfe4 Kf8 29.g4 Rd6 30.Rf4 Kg7 31.Ref1 Rf8 32.Re1 Re8 I was surprised by accepting my draw offer. White is better now and the only question is whether he would be able to open the king's side to make his rooks even stronger. [1/2-1/2]

Generated by Aquarium

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H

petrs - SteveWest

1-0, 2011.

[#] 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bd7 Although I know it is one of possible moves, it was new for me... I decided to continue in my development - it should not be wrong. 6.Be2 f6 7.O-O fxe5 8.Nxe5 Nxe5 9.dxe5 Qc7 10.Bf4 Ne7 11.Re1 The pawn on e5 could be potentially weak. The rook on e1 could cover it later. 11...O-O-O 12.Nd2 Ng6 13.Bg3 Nxe5 14.Bg4 But the pawn on e6 is weak too! 14...Bd6 15.Bxe5 Bxe5 16.Nf3 Bd6 17.Bxe6 Bxe6 18.Rxe6 Rhf8 If Black wanted to exchange my rook on e6, he should do it by move Rhe8. This way he loses tempi and will create a weak pawn for himself. 19.Qd3 Rf6 20.Rxf6 gxf6 21.Qf5 Kb8 22.Qxf6 Rf8 23.Qh4 At this stage of the game I wanted to play without any risk - Black could possibly strike on h2 or f3 squares. 23...Re8 24.Re1 Rxe1 25.Nxe1 Rooks are out of the board. Now I was pretty sure I will win the game. 25...Qb6 26.Qf6 Qc7 27.Qh8 Qc8 28.Qxh7 Qe8 29.Nf3 Qe2 30.Qb1 b6 31.a3 c4 32.Nd4 Qe4 The last chance of my opponent was to keep queens on the board... I like to say "the rest is the matter of technique" ;) 33.Qxe4 dxe4 34.h4 a6 35.h5 Kc7 36.g4 Kd7 37.g5 Ke8 38.Kg2 Be5 39.f3 e3 40.Kf1 Kf7 41.Ke2 Bf4 42.g6 Kf6 43.Nc2 Bh6 44.Nxe3 Kg5 45.Nxc4 b5 46.Nd6 Kxh5 47.Nf5 Kxg6 48.Nxh6 Kxh6 49.Ke3 Kg5 50.Ke4 Kf6 51.f4 Ke6 52.f5 Kf6 53.b3 a5 54.a4 bxa4 55.bxa4 Kf7 56.Ke5 Ke7 57.f6 Kf7 58.c4 [1-0]

Generated by Aquarium

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H

assegai - petrs

0-1, 2011.

[#] 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Be3 This move leads to one of the sharpest variants of Pirc defense. 4...Bg7 5.Qd2 O-O

[5...Ng4 is not a good move. Black loses tempi on catching dark-sqaured bishop and does nothing for its own development.]

6.f3 c6 7.O-O-O And it is clear. There are opposite castles on the board and this fact makes future plans easy. White will play on the king's side while black on the other. Usual question is: "Whose attack will be faster?" 7...b5 8.a3

[8.g4 b4 9.Nce2 Qa5 10.Kb1 should be more prefferable for White. The play for Black could be connected with moves like Be6 and pressing the White king. The move 8.a3 is passive and causes that initiative comes to Black quickly.]

8...a5 Attack! 9.Kb1 b4 Although the pawns are not really supported by pieces on the queen's side, I felt that I need to push pawns further. And really - White pawns in front of his king will be brake up within a few moves. 10.Na4 bxa3 11.bxa3 Na6 Openning the b-file for rook. 12.Ka2 Rb8 13.Ne2 Be6 White king is like on windy hill - there is no place to hide him. 14.Ka1 c5 Trying to open the long diagonal a1-h8 to bring the dark-squared bishop into the game. 15.c3 Bd7 16.Nb2 cxd4 17.Nxd4 Nc5 18.Qf2 Na4 One of the few defenders of White king will be eliminated from the board now. 19.Nxa4 Bxa4 20.Rc1 Qc7 The rest of the game is only about finding a way to White king... 21.Bd3 d5 22.h3 Qd6 23.Qa2 dxe4 24.fxe4 Bb3 25.Nxb3 Qxd3 26.Bf4 Nxe4 [0-1]

Generated by Aquarium