Chess Files

The Chess Files

The answers are out there.

By Jim Eade

Alex Sunshine recently asked, “What do you recommend for a player who already knows the basics?”  The more I thought about my initial answer, the more I thought it was incomplete, and I will return to this theme in subsequent columns. 

I’ve always maintained that the best way to improve early on in your chess development is by systematically drilling yourself on tactics.  You must be able to spot forks, pins, skewers etc., if you are to have any hope of surviving chess combat.

However, Alex was asking a different type of question.  How do you develop your strategic (or positional) chess understanding?  The classic work in this area is “My System” by Aaron Nimzowitsch (1886-1935).  His play was considered odd, even ugly, and he had to battle to get his ideas understood by his peers.

His work was broken into three sections: 1. The Elements 2. Positional Play and 3. Illustrative Games.  My first copy of this book has not survived the years.  It is now in the public domain and multiple publishers have come out with new editions, so it can be purchased fairly inexpensively.

Some of Nimzowitsch’s ideas have not stood the test of time.  He was in love with a concept he called “Overprotection” but today’s theoreticians consider it to be too eccentric.

Most of his insights, however, are thought to be as valid today as they were when he first proposed them.  His writing style was very personal, and could leave lasting impressions on players of all ages.  I still recall his description of a passed pawn calling it “was a dangerous criminal, which had to be kept under lock and key.”  I don’t think it would’ve been as memorable if he had simply written that you should try to prevent a passed pawn from advancing.

The importance of restraining a passed pawn led Nimzowitsch to develop the concept of the blockade.  A blockade is used to prevent a pawn’s advance.  If a pawn cannot advance it is immobilized, and Nimzowitsch demonstrated how, if you can’t move your pawns, your pieces will have trouble moving too!

He provided the following example from one of his own games.

Classical theory taught that you should not move knights to the edge of the board, because it limits the knight’s mobility.  No wonder people shook their heads when Nimzowitsch played 1. Na4.  He correctly saw that he needed to prevent the pawn on c6 from advancing to c5.  Today’s masters would spot this move immediately, but they didn’t understand it back in 1912!

As always, you can send your chess questions directly to me at jimeade@comcast.net.

Chess Files

The Chess Files

The answers are out there.

By Jim Eade

The U.S. Chess Trust is a 501 (c)(3) organization, which means donations are tax deductible.  Do we need a chess charity?  In the spirit of full disclosure, I am the Trust’s President, but my answer remains an unqualified yes.

The Trust was a co-sponsor with the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) of the Second Koltanowski Conference on Chess and Education last November.  The conference brought together teachers, researchers and other interested parties from all parts of the country and included speakers from other countries.  The key finding from this conference was new research showing that playing chess builds character.

The Trust also supports American players in the World Youth Championship, the Collegiate Final Four, the World Junior, and the U.S. Blind Championship.  We also support a scholarship program that is based on a combination of academics and chess.

We help sponsor the Denker Tournament of High School Champions every year, which awards a scholarship to UTD.  This year’s winner was Atulya Shetty of Michigan.  We also help sponsor the Barber Tournament of K-8 Champions, which was won this year by Tommy He of Texas.

The Trust sends chess sets to Title 1 schools nationwide and to Americans serving in our armed forces overseas.  We also sponsor scholastic memberships in the United States Chess Federation for qualifying schools.

I urge you to visit our web site: www.uschesstrust.org, and check out this year’s Scholar-Chessplayer award winners, or write to us at:

US Chess Trust

PO Box 838

Wallkikill, NY

12589

As always, you can send your chess questions directly to me at jimeade@comcast.net.

The Chess Files

The Chess Files

The answers are out there.

By Jim Eade

Thanks to the generosity of Tibor Weinberger, the Mechanics’ Institute of San Francisco held the Third Imre Konig Memorial on September 22-23. The event, which began as a way to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the death of International Master Konig, the first really top rated player to reside in San Francisco, was held as a seven-player round-robin, featuring a rapid chess time control of Game in 30 minutes, with a 15-second increment from move one.

The invited players consisted of the top six rated players from the Bay Area: Grandmasters Sam Shankland, Nick de Firmian, Vinay Bhat, Jesse Kraai and Walter Browne, and International Master Daniel Naroditsky.  It was won by Shankland and Naroditsky with four out of seven.

The real story, however, might be the return to play by Walter Browne.  Browne, born in 1949, and the past winner of six US Championships has been fighting ill health the last several years.  He recently completed a new book: The Stress of Chess: My Life, Career and 101 Best Games.

My question was, “Is it worth it to keep playing chess, if you find it stressful?”  According to Browne, the answer is: “If you’re competing, you’re a winner, regardless of the result.”

Browne stills has a few tricks up his sleeve as can be seen from his game against Bhat in this event.

Browne played 31…Rxd5, and after 32. Rxd5 Rxe6+, which is the move that Bhat said surprised him.  Bhat was forced to play 33. Re5, and after 33…dxe5 34.Bxe5, Browne was a pawn up.   The game ended in a draw, but, if you’re still catching the younger generation by surprise at this stage of your career, you should by all means keep playing!

The Chess Files

The Chess Files

The answers are out there.

By Jim Eade

It has been so long (1986) since a team from the US has beaten a team from Russia that you could be forgiven for wondering whether it would ever happen again.  It has.  Although the US team ultimately finished in 5^th place in Istanbul, where it was originally seeded, it scored a 9^th round win over Russia.

In the Olympiads, teams are comprised of four players each.  The US team scored wins on boards 1 and 2, the Russians won on board 4 and the board 3 game was a draw.  Kamsky’s win over Grischuk on board 2 was not too surprising.  Grischuk is rated slightly higher, but Kamsky has been one of the world’s top players for many years.  Players of that caliber are all capable of defeating one another on any given day.

I was somewhat surprised by Nakamura’s win over Kramnik on board 1.  Kramnik is a former World Champion, who is still at the top of his game.  Upon further reflection, however, I realized that Nakamura is now firmly planted in the world’s top ten, and he has established himself as a world title contender.  Should anyone be surprised when Nakamura beats anyone?  Not anymore.

The only real surprise was the way their game ended.  I cannot recall a similar piece configuration as the one presented below:

Black resigned in this position, because White will play Ne4+ forcing the Black king to, and trapping it on, the h-file.   Checkmate would then be inevitable.  If you can find another game that ended with three minor pieces against one, please write to me about it at: jimeaade@comcast.net.

Defeating the Russians is always a newsworthy event, as is defeating past World Champions.  September 6^th, 2012 was certainly a day to remember for US chess.

Unlikely Olympian

The Chess Files

The answers are out there.

By Jim Eade

The Chess Olympiads (the world’s most prestigious team tournament) is going on this month in Istanbul.  One of the most improbable participants is a teen aged girl from Katwe, one of the slums near Kampala, Uganda.  Her story is told in the “Queen of Katwe” by Tim Crothers (Scribner, October, 2012) and if you can read it without crying, I will be surprised.

She is Phiona Mutesi, whose world revolved around not the pursuit of happiness, but the pursuit of a single meal a day.  The crushing poverty and sheer cruelty of her daily existence is nearly unimaginable, although Crothers does a first rate job of forcing you to try.  Could chess possibly make a difference in her life?  The answer is an unqualified yes.

Robert Katende escaped those same slums through a combination of faith and soccer.  He returned to them as an adult in order to make a difference in those children’s lives.  They came more for the free bowl of porridge then for anything else, but they came, and some of them stayed.  Robert knew he needed more than soccer to hold on to these children and he began to teach them chess.

A handful of the kids took to the game, and one of them was Phiona’s brother.  She followed him one day, and learned the moves from a girl less than half her age.  To the astonishment of all, she began winning championships even when playing against the “big girls.”  In 2010, she travelled to Siberia to play in her first Olympiad.  Before chess, she had never been in a car let alone an airplane.

Yes, chess can transform people’s lives, but the real story is Phiona’s and Katende’s.  The girl who became a champion, and the man who made it out, but chose to go back and make a difference.

Phiona had the White pieces in this position from one of her games in the 2011 Uganda Championship.

Notice how the White king is sheltered from checks by the Black rook by Black’s pawn on b5.  White threatens checkmate with 1. Rd8#.  If Black captures the rook, 1…Bxd7, White simply plays cxd7 and Black cannot prevent White from getting a new queen on d8.

The Chess Files

The Chess Files

The answers are out there.

By Jim Eade

Many people wonder why some players improve quickly, while others don’t seem to.  Chess is a game of pattern recognition.  Some people absorb these patterns easily, and some don’t.  Patterns come in many forms in chess from opening pawn configurations to final mating sequences.  Until a player becomes quite good indeed, the primary road to chess success is spotting tactical patterns.

Tactics involve the preparation or prevention of threats.  These threats usually involve winning material, but they can also range from as minor as disrupting your opponent’s pawn structure to a direct threat against the enemy king.  The fastest way to make progress in chess is to become proficient in tactics.

One of the most common tactics in chess is the fork, which is a direct and simultaneous attack on two or more pieces by a single piece.  Knight forks have decided many a chess game, because knights usually attack pieces that are more valuable, and because these types of forks can be devilishly tricky to spot.

The key to finding the solution to today’s diagram is to spot the potential knight fork on d7, where the knight would be attacking the black king and queen simultaneously.  Unfortunately, the d7 square is covered by black’s bishop in e6.  Is it possible to deflect the bishop’s attention elsewhere?

The best way to build up your tactical muscles is through repetition.  Nowadays, there are lots of useful software programs to assist you in acquiring tactical pattern recognition.  However, the old fashioned way of solving a bunch of diagrams in a book is also extremely useful and less expensive.  You can pick up a book by Fred Reinfeld, such as “1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations” which was written over 50 years ago, and find it just as instructive today as it was back then.  There is no mystery to improving your pattern recognition.  It is the same way you get to Carnegie Hall: Practice, practice, practice.

Solution: Deflect the bishop away from the d7 square by playing 1. Nxd5.  If Black plays 1 …Bxd5 then 2. Nd7 forks the Black king and queen.

Chess Files

The Chess Files

The answers are out there.

By Jim Eade

White moves first in chess, and that is an advantage.  Many people have compared the advantage to having the serve in tennis.  The question is: what do you do, if you don’t have a good serve?

Cole Erskine is an experienced tournament chess player, and he is very happy with his opening systems as Black, but he is less than comfortable with his openings as White.  I can relate.  As Black, you can prepare a response to White’s most common opening moves, but as White you have to prepare against any number of possible Black defenses.  If you put in the work, you will get an advantage, but who has time to put in that much work?

Edgard Colle (1897-1932) many time champion of Belgian, solved this problem by adopting the same set up as White, regardless of what Black played.  Today’s diagram illustrates his typical opening configuration.   White plays the central pawns to d4, e3 and c3.  The knights are developed to f3 and d2.  The light square bishop is placed on d3, followed by castling. California’s greatest chess organizer, George Koltanowski, advocated for this system for decades.

The primary problem with this configuration of pieces is the lackluster prospect for the dark square bishop on c1.  White has a hard time getting that piece to an effective square.  That is why I prefer what is called the London System.  White develops the bishop first by playing 1.d4 and 2.Bf4 and then arranges the pieces according to the Colle System.   This secures all of the positive attributes of the Colle, without suffering its drawbacks.  If you want a decent opening system as White, without having to spend hours of study time to perfect it, I recommend the London System.