This round 3 game features a Slow Slav, which as the name implies normally does not have a lot of fireworks. However, close study reveals a game more like a stand-up boxing match, where each side jabs repeatedly at the other and looks for small openings. At first it seems that Black wants to keep the position more imbalanced to seek winning chances, then White does the same. However, White overreaches and Black had one opportunity on move 26 to win material and significantly imbalance things. After that the game heads for a draw, although the dynamic balance and a need by both sides to watch their weak points is what causes it, rather than a stagnant position.
An examination of training and practical concepts for the improving chessplayer
27 December 2022
Commentary: 2022 U.S. Women's Championship, Round 3 (Cervantes - Lee)
Evaluation generated by HIARCS Chess Explorer Pro |
26 November 2022
Commentary: 2022 U.S. Women's Championship, Round 2 (Krush - Foisor)
This commentary game directly follows Eswaran - Lee from round 1 of the U.S. Women's Championship. I find it particularly valuable to look at similar but divergent games - this one again features an English with an e3/Be2 and b3/Bb2 structure against Black's Semi-Slav type setup. Black is the first to diverge from the previous game, pursuing a more assertive central strategy while White deliberately hangs back and waits to see if Black will over-commit. The conflicting central positional strategies merit close study, particularly the decisions around moves 16-20, as well as the clash of minor pieces and their exchanges. White ends up with the two bishops and eventually what could/should be a won ending, but the "all rook endings are drawn" saying again proves itself valid.
Evaluation generated by HIARCS Chess Explorer Pro |
20 November 2022
Ronaldo v Messi: "[Chess] Victory is a state of mind"
As highlighted at Chess.com, there's a new Louis Vuitton campaign featuring Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi playing chess, with the tag line "Victory is a state of mind". Aside from the positive exposure for chess, it's good to see that they have a correctly set up board, featuring a position from a real game (Carlsen - Nakamura, Norway Chess 2017). As mentioned in "Chess imagery in popular culture" this is unfortunately rather rare; my favorite from that remains the Avengers headquarters with a colors-reversed chessboard.
12 November 2022
Commentary: 2022 U.S. Women's Championship, Round 1 (Eswaran - Lee)
This first commentary game from the 2022 U.S. championships features FM Ashritha Eswaran vs. FM Alice Lee. I found it interesting because of the themes surrounding White's chosen opening setup, technically an English Opening but one that could be reached from different move orders. Instead of classical development, White goes for an early g-pawn thrust, which works well but results in complications that lead Eswaran astray. Move 14 is critical in that respect, with sacrificial tactics for White that could have lead to an advantage.
Also interesting is to compare it with their 2021 game in the U.S. championship, in which Eswaran chose to fianchetto and play a King's Indian Attack setup.
Evaluation chart generated by HIARCS Chess Explorer Pro |
06 November 2022
Current study lineup
I haven't been doing much recently that has been blog-friendly, in terms of being post-able. I have, however, been more active than usual, playing a number of informal games and currently working through several parallel longer-term study projects:
- My Best Games by Victor Korchnoi
- A re-view of Typical Mistakes by 1600-1900 Players from GM Nicholas Pert
- The Fabulous Budapest Gambit by GM Viktor Moskalenko
- Analyzing games from the recently-completed 2022 US Championship, focusing on the Women's event
30 October 2022
Book quote: The Empty Copper Sea
From Chapter 7 of The Empty Copper Sea by John D. MacDonald:
I saw her in a little while, trotting back and forth in the dining room, wearing a crotch-length tennis dress with a sailor collar and a little white yachtsman’s cap. Another waitress had joined her. A couple of construction workers—off at four—came in for beers. Somebody started the juke. I watched Michele. She had absolutely great legs. I felt guilty at the way I was going to try to booby-trap my question. Not very guilty. Anticipatory guilt, the kind that Meyer calls chessboard guilt, when you realize that the weaker player is making a frail response to a standard opening, and you are about to ram your bishops down his throat.
16 October 2022
Training quote of the day #40
Genna Sosonko, from the Preface to My Best Games by Victor Korchnoi (2011 edition):
His uncompromising nature, motivation and eagerness for a struggle are well known. These qualities, together with imagination in chess, are usually typical of youth, and with age they normally fall away. Experience is accumulated, novelty loses its attraction, and there is hardly anything to excite the imagination or to urge one on, as in one's younger years. With Victor Korchnoi, this has not happened. He is still searching, analysing, preparing for tournaments and playing.
Korchnoi often says about himself that he was never a child prodigy: both the master title, and that of grandmaster, as well as his further ascent up the chess hierarchy, were achieved by him with considerable difficulty, accompanied by rises and falls...there are two qualities that distinguish Korchnoi among his many colleagues: his boundless love for the game, and his absolute honesty in analysis.
10 October 2022
Book completed - Petrosian: Move by Move
I recently completed Petrosian: Move by Move by IM Thomas Enqvist. Normally as part of my chess study I am always going through a games collection, along with doing tactics puzzles and working on at least one other chess resource (opening, middlegame or endgame). Games with insightful master-level annotations can help with all phases of your game, including both technical and thinking skills, along with broader ideas like chess psychology.
Although ideally one can study games with annotations by the player(s) themselves, in order to get a full picture of their actual thought process, the thorough type of presentations of games in the "move by move" series do a similar job. They can also be more objective, as sometimes a player is inclined to present their "best games" without sufficient self-criticism.
In this book, IM Enqvist has immersed himself in former World Champion Tigran Petrosian's games and career and provides some interesting context to each game, as well as excellent commentary. While each game is instructive on its own, there are also some general lessons/insights that I would highlight from the whole collection.
- Petrosian's games show the high value of repressing your opponent's counterplay. One observation I read a while back from a master trainer mentioned the tendency of Class players to always want moves to "do something" - in other words, make an immediate threat or have an obvious purpose on the next move. This often contributes to the common mistake of focusing on your own threats/intentions and missing those of your opponent. There is just as much benefit - oftentimes more - in taking away threats and opportunities from the other side.
- Petrosian's maneuvering play provided many examples of the strategic value of improving your worst piece on each move, including sequences where pieces were shifted to their best possible squares on the board. Often there was no grand strategy associated with these short-term maneuvers, but they set him up for success time after time.
- The value of strategic patience and a lack of hurriedness, along the lines of the above types of non-forcing maneuvers, is also seen consistently across Petrosian's games. Enqvist does point out in some games where Petrosian could (and perhaps should) have played more actively, so sometimes this quality of patience was perhaps taken to an extreme. However, Petrosian as a world-class player was also quite capable of seizing the moment to open up games with sacrificial attacks and brilliant tactics.
- Some of Petrosian's less-than-ideal play was deliberate and psychologically based, for example baiting opponents into attacking him by entering positions/variations not well known to them. This goes against the "play against the pieces" mentality which is usually advised for improving players, but in reality these psychological gambits can be effective in tournament/match play where you can get inside a well-known opponent's head.
- Certain qualities to Petrosian's games were quite instructive for me, in particular his use of exchange sacrifices, rook play and pawn play.
08 October 2022
Book quote #2: The Turquoise Lament
From the Epilogue of The Turquoise Lament by John D. MacDonald:
It was a warm and windy Bahama night, and the Busted Flush lay at anchor in the lee of a tiny island in the Banks shaped like a crooked boomerang.
I had Meyer crushed until he got cute and found a way to put me in perpetual check with a knight and a bishop. We turned off all the lights and all the servomechanisms that click and queak and we went up to the sun deck to enjoy the September night, enjoy a half moon roving through cloud layers, enjoy a smell of rain on the winds.
02 October 2022
Book quote: The Turquoise Lament
From Chapter Ten of The Turquoise Lament by John D. MacDonald:
"Who is Howard Brindle?"
"If that's not a rhetorical question, and if that is your starting point, I agree. But you're not going to find out tonight. The chess board is over there."
By the time Nurse Ella Marie Morse came on duty to look after him during the hours of the night, I had the game won. He had slowly worked me back into a cramped position, pressing me back against my castled king, smothering my queen side, but he had failed to see a sacrifice that gave me a very damaging knight fork and put me a piece ahead. I was trading him down to an end-game defeat, and he resigned when the nurse arrived, saying something about possibly the fever had damaged some brain cells after all.
10 September 2022
"When Intuition is Wrong" - article
"When Intuition is Wrong" by FM Cats4Sale on Chess.com [edit: now deleted for whatever reason, but the quote below is the most important] is a helpful reminder of a common phenomenon:
Often times it happens that you play a chess game of which you're proud of your performance that was fueled by intuition, only to think up later with a level head that, in fact, you could've done better.
Ego-stroking yourself about your wins is dangerous for improving players, as it means you may be deluding yourself about the quality of your play. The antidote, however, is simple and should be a core feature of your chess practice: analyzing your own games. Some people make the mistake of only analyzing losses or only taking a superficial look at wins. An objective, open-minded approach to both is best and will strengthen your play that much more.
A personal example that immediately came to mind was a game that I was particularly proud of early in my tournament career, in which I beat a 1700 player for the first time. At the time, I felt that I had undertaken some brilliant maneuvering with my pieces, but in looking at it afterwards, it was more the case that my opponent had missed a relatively unusual long-range bishop move (Bg2-h3) that ensured he lost his pinned Nd7. With additional passage of time, I also can see my lack of understanding of central play and the resulting missed opportunities to open it to my advantage, due to stereotyped opening play and a desire to be a "positional" player and avoid playing moves like d4 or e4.
Intuition is a very important component of chess mastery, but needs to be balanced with concrete calculation and understanding. If you win a game because both you and your opponent missed a key idea that could have saved them, I think it is OK to still feel good about the win - but that does not mean you should ignore the opportunity to learn that key idea, for the next time.
30 August 2022
Commentary: U.S. Women's Championship 2017, Round 11 (Paikidze - Yu)
I try to pick commentary games based on thematic reasons and this next one features a Slav, so helps reinforce the material in The solid Slav Defence. It's also very interesting on its own, as this was the last round of the 2017 U.S. Women's Championship and IM Nazi Paikidze (White) was tied for the lead with WGM Sabina Foisor. Jennifer Yu (then with a 2196 rating, now an FM at 2297) goes with a solid main line Slav and Paikidze chooses the 4. Qb3 variation, which as can be seen in the game is not directly challenging, but gives White a slight initiative into the middlegame. Some of the key takeaways from the game:
- Black made the strategic error of opening up the game for White's pieces on move 14, rather than sticking with a more solid semi-open structure.
- White's initiative lasts for around another 10 moves, but she misses a chance to play more actively with 21. Nd5 - the idea of a strong/dominant knight on d5, either staying there or forcing a trade advantageous to White, is a recurring theme.
- Black takes over the initiative around move 26 and masterfully works to gain space and penetrate White's position. For some time, the game is objectively equal according to the engine, but White is clearly under pressure and the best moves eventually become only moves in order to stay level. Move 35 is critical in this respect.
Evaluation chart generated by HIARCS Chess Explorer Pro |
13 August 2022
08 August 2022
Video completed: The solid Slav Defence
I recently completed the FritzTrainer "The solid Slav Defence" by GM Nicholas Pert. It provides a total repertoire for Black against the Queen's Gambit; you can see the summary of the main variations below. GM Pert as part of the introduction shares how he started playing the Slav shortly before gaining the GM title. He used to play the Dutch, he narrates, but was struggling with it against the stronger GMs. He now plays the Slav as main weapon - not just to draw, but to go for the win. As a result, he presents attacking plans for Black in most of the variations, rather than drawish lines. The idea is to get equal, even if sometimes messy positions, but aiming for chances to play for a win. This includes in the Exchange Slav, which has a very drawish reputation, but turns out to have some surprising resources for Black.
Summary of major variations covered:
A couple of things to highlight on the repertoire choices:
- The central part of the repertoire is the Classical Slav with 4...dxc4 (not 4....a6, ...g6, ...e6 etc.) 5. a4 Bf5; the most theoretical content is in the line with 6. Ne5.
- In the Slow Slav (4. e3), Pert chooses the classic treatment with ...Bf5 instead of ...Bg4.
- With the 3. Nc3 line, ...Nf6 is selected (in contrast to IM Andrew Martin's "Sharp Slav" with ...dxc4). However, the main line in the variation involves a modern Black gambit, so it's certainly not boring.
Some general commentary and observations:
- In addition to the games presented in each line, which include variation notes that go beyond the video narrative, a model games (100) database is included. This is a sign of a serious product that guides you in further research and study, not just presenting a canned repertoire. GM Pert is also candid about the need to do further study on your own, especially when there are messy positions like those in the main line after 6. Ne5.
- Included are a number of GM Pert's own games, which allows for better explanations of the thinking and decision process involved. This is especially true because he has played both sides of the opening. As well as top-level GM clashes, games presented include wins against lower-level opponents, which is important to show how to exploit mistakes - not just always showing the "theoretical best" play.
- In addition to his repertoire choices, Pert highlights some other playable lines for Black that can be investigated, for example 8...O-O instead of ...Nbd7 (his repertoire) in the old main line Slav (with 6. e3). He also explains the benefits of his chosen repertoire line, which by postponing castling allows for greater flexibility in response to some of White's standard ideas, for example if White goes Nxg6 followed by ...hxg6, thereby opening up the h-file for Black's (uncastled) rook.
- GM Pert usefully highlights the tradeoffs involved in his repertoire choices and the ideas and plans in the positions. Logical mini-plans for piece development are consistent and knowing the usual best squares and typical maneuvers for a piece goes a long way towards achieving a true understanding of the opening and being able to give yourself a good position in practice.
- Similarly, it's useful to have him explain why some seemingly attractive lines aren't played, for either tactical or positional reasons. This is very helpful for comprehending the position at a deeper level, and provides the general benefit of being exposed to new and different ideas in chess.
- GM Pert's explanations come from personal familiarity, study and use of the opening in tournament play over-the-board. This gives the product a certain depth and foundation of practical knowledge that I think is lacking in most theoretical opening treatments. For example, this is a contrast with GM Erwin L'Ami's Stonewall Dutch FritzTrainer - it's a top-level product, but he doesn't actually play the defense as Black, so there's a different, more detatched and theoretical feel to it.
- The "Test Questions" at the end run through various middlegame positions from different games/variations, which is a great way to see how the typical setups and plans work, along with explanations given for why GM Pert evaluates different continuations the way he does. It also reinforces the tactical options available in certain lines.
- There are relatively few negatives to report, mainly the occasional (normal) verbal slip in saying an incorrect square or move during the narration, although the board shown is correct, and a few on-the-fly corrections made when presenting the game lines.
30 July 2022
Commentary: U.S. Women's Championship 2021, Round 10 (Paikidze - Yip)
This commentary game closes out my personal review of games of interest from the 2021 U.S. Women's Championship, featuring the title-clinching win by IM Carissa Yip over IM Nazi Paikidze. This is one of those games where I assess psychology and meta-strategy played a large role.
What do I mean by "meta-strategy"? This has to do both with a player's opening selection and the type of game they want to play versus a particular opponent - really, these are synonymous things - rather than "pure" best play considerations. This type of strategic approach is often seen in top-level match play, when surprise is a factor and opponents have both a deep study of each other's games and recent practical experience. In tournaments where preparation and a player's recent games are a factor, such as the double round-robin championship format, "meta-strategy" can also enter into play.
The key to understanding this game's context is the round 7 loss by Paikidze, playing as Black in a similar Modern Defense / quasi-Hippopotamus setup. If you look at the linked analysis, it shows that Paikidze got a good game, but floundered in the middlegame and then had a somewhat traumatic ending where she could have saved a draw. Yip's selection of the Modern and then her adoption of a full Hippopotamus formation was likely a surprise and psychological shock for her opponent, both in terms of her not being prepared for Yip to use the defense, and also recalling the recent trauma of the loss. Beyond the surprise factor, the Modern/Hippo for Black is specifically designed to "turtle up" defenses via control of the 5th rank, then counterattack when the opponent overreaches. A more generally respectable version of this strategy can be seen in the Hedgehog formation.
Essentially this is exactly what happens in the game, as Paikidze plays directly into Black's strategy, with White's move 22 leading to the position breaking open and the appearance of game-winning tactics in Yip's favor. For me, this was an excellent illustration of how manipulating your opponent with "meta-strategy" can pay off on the board. Is it something that can and should be done every game? No. Can it be a successful strategy occasionally, including at key moments in a tournament? Yes.
Evaluation chart generated by HIARCS Chess Explorer Pro |
29 July 2022
"Enter the inner sanctum of elite chess" - FT Weekend article
The Financial Times has periodic chess coverage and released an FT Weekend article "Enter the inner sanctum of elite chess" on the recent 2022 Candidates tournament in Madrid. It does an excellent job of reportage from the event's "backstage" and captures the unique flavor of it, in an accessible manner for both knowledgeable chessplayers and those with no expertise in the game.
My only minor gripes are the poetic (?) techno-lyrical references to the "Machine" (computer analysis), along with the atrocious board diagrams the FT for some reason insists on using, which appear to have been generated by a 1970s computer program.
02 July 2022
Commentary: U.S. Women's Championship 2021, Round 9 (Krush - Nemcova)
This game features another ambiguous opening classification, since the database will tell you it's an English Opening (A10 ECO code), but one look at the board on move 7 will tell you that it's a Leningrad Dutch. GM Irina Krush as White kept her full intentions in the opening hidden until that point, but after her opponent WGM Katerina Nemcova committed to a full Leningrad setup, there was no reason not to play d4 and control the e5 square, especially after having done the early b3/Bb2 development.
From there Krush gains an small opening advantage, thanks to Black neglecting her development in favor of some premature demonstrations (7...Ne4 and 8...c5) that do not actually challenge White. Krush masterfully rides this advantage into the middlegame, although she seems to deliberately choose solid over sharper possibilities, in keeping with her general opening posture. Black's strategic weakness on d6 becomes the key feature of the game, leading White eventually to gain tactically. That said, it's worth observing that even when behind and under pressure, opportunities often present themselves - see move 31 - for the worse-off player to rally. Normally this is a feature of long endgames as well, but Krush never lets her opponent back into the game after entering a R+B v R endgame, which is instructive to see.
I did not post an evaluation chart this time, because the one generated was misleading and displays Black achieving equality (and more) around move 22, whereas longer engine analysis shows a persistent White plus. This sometimes happens with the "snapshot" type evaluation function of various programs/sites, so you should always be somewhat skeptical of anything insta-generated by a computer, until you can perform your own analysis.
01 July 2022
Book quote #2: Pale Gray For Guilt
From Chapter Seven of Pale Gray For Guilt by John D. MacDonald:
Meyer came over on Christmas morning with a cumbersome vat of eggnog and three battered pewter mugs. We had a nice driving rain out of the northwest and a wind that made the Flush shift and groan and thump. I put on Christmas tapes because it was no day to trust FM programming. Sooner or later daddy would see mommy kissing Rudolph. Meyer and I played chess. Puss Killian, in yellow terry coveralls, sat and wrote letters. She never said who they were to, and I had never asked.
He won with one of those pawn-pressure games, the massive and ponderous advance that irritates me into doing the usual stupid thing, like a sacrifice that favors him, just to get elbow room on the board.
30 June 2022
Book quote: Pale Gray For Guilt
From Chapter Two of Pale Gray For Guilt by John D. MacDonald:
Meyer came out of a long and somber contemplation, hunched like a hirsute Buddha, reached a slow ape arm and picked up his queen's bishop and plonked it down in what at first glance seemed like an idiotic place, right next to my center pawn. A round little lady who was one of his retinue that week beamed, clapped her hands and rattled off a long comment in German.
"She says you give up now," said Meyer.
"Never!" said I. I studied and studied and studied. Finally I put a knuckle against my king and tipped the poor fellow over and said, "Beach-walking, anyone?"
26 June 2022
Video completed: A sharp Slav vol. 1
I recently completed Andrew Martin's "A sharp Slav, vol. 1" 60-minute ChessBase video. This particular Slav Defense variation - responding 3...dxc4 after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 - I've in fact always played, but was never fully satisfied with the different lines I used previously. Martin focuses on the aggressive 4...b5 response to anything (normally 4.e3 or 4. e4) except 4. a4, which I believe is the correct way to play. Here's the full contents list:
One of the reasons 4...b5 has been demonstrated as preferable is super-GM Hikaru Nakamura's use of it. He in fact is featured in the first model game, which contains an unusual and possibly busted sideline for White (4. e3 followed by 5.a4 b4 and the strange-looking 6. Nce2). The general point of 4...b5 isn't to hold onto the extra c-pawn forever, but to chase the knight on c3 and make White have to work hard to recover the pawn, while Black can play actively and develop. The first game (Mamedyarov-Nakamura) is a great example of this. White in fact had several options to secure a draw, but passed them up and Black won with sharp play (going back to the title of the video).
The essential soundness of this aggressive approach with the queenside pawns is illustrated by the next model game provided, featuring Botvinnik as Black in 1933 (using an older line for Black), as well as the remainder of the lines in all main variations (4.e3, 4.e4 and 4. a4). Martin looks at them in a fair amount of (rapid) detail, while pointing out common themes/ideas, including things like Black's need to watch out for tactical threats from White on the long diagonal after playing ...Qd5.
There are a lot of similarities between the various lines, whose differences hinge largely on where White chooses to put the Nc3 after it is attacked. White's 4. e4 would seem to be the obvious choice, seizing the center, but unlike with the 4. e3 variations, the Nc3 no longer has e4 available to go to; that is a significant trade-off, as the knight is not very happy either retreating to b1 or a2, having to lose significant time to get back in the game.
Some other commentary on the contents:
- This is not a repertoire for Black (or White), as Martin presents multiple options for variations, and within them as well. He usually signals what he prefers, but he also mentions which ones he considers playable if not preferred.
- Martin presents each game somewhat quicker than normal, I would say, which I expect is due to the limited total time format. I found myself going back several times in each individual video to review particular lines, rather than being able to keep up in real time, but that's not a terrible thing necessarily.
- It's very helpful to see the full games in each case. This is not an opening theory product, rather one that's intended for training, familiarization and understanding. In addition, this is not an opening where either side is going for an early knockout blow, so it's important to see how the middlegame (and sometimes endgame) can flow from the opening.
- Favorite quote: "4. a4 might be played by cowardly opponents who do not want to brave the complications after ...b5."
19 June 2022
Commentary: U.S. Women's Championship 2021, Round 8 (Eswaran - Tokhirjonova)
One finds that analyzing master-level games often leads to multiple insights. This one, at 148 moves, is no exception. A few top-level takeaways:
- The game's opening could be classified several different ways, which to a purist would be horrific. This however helps illustrate how openings are often fluid, rather than rigid constructs. One of the things that has helped increase my strength over the years is a less-rigid view of opening play and an acceptance of the fact that your opponents will follow "proper" book lines much less often than opening book writers imply. Understanding different opening structures and their characteristics is much more important than adhering to a specific move order - except, of course, when you can play some useful tricks with different move orders.
- Positional advantages - in this case, White gets one out of the opening - are nice to look at, but in themselves are not decisive. They can evaporate, as White's does, after which Black finally seizes the initiative.
- Patient maneuvering can be the key to winning without the presence of forcing play. Here this was evident in both the middlegame and endgame phases, with White first losing an advantage, then getting herself trapped into an unfavorable rook exchange, which was decisive.
Evaluation chart generated by HIARCS Chess Explorer Pro |
12 June 2022
Book quote #2: Darker Than Amber
From Chapter Four of Darker Than Amber by John D. MacDonald:
Digging through the broad bin she had come up with short brown shorts in a stretch fabric and a sleeveless orange blouse which she did not button, but had overlapped before tucking it into the shorts so that it fitted her torso very trimly. Barefoot, she danced alone on the lounge carpeting, half of a dark drink in her hand. The dance was mildly derivative of the frug-fish-watusi, moving to a new place, facing in a new direction from time to time. Meyer and I had dropped the desk panel and we sat on either side of it, playing one of those games of chess where, by cautious pawn play by both of us, the center squares had become intricately clogged as the pressure of the major pieces built up, and each move took lengthy analysis. While he pondered, I watched Vangie. She gave no impression of being on display.