Temposchlucker

 Plans are based on moves that are irreversible: a pawn move or a piece trade. Whenever a piece is exchanged or a pawn is moved, you have to reconsider your plan. The motivation for a pawn move lies in changing the piece activity. Piece activity comes in two flavors: Increasing the activity of your own pieces Restricting your opponents' pieces In order to get the hang of pawn moves, you must develop an eye for convergence squares. A convergence square is a square which can act as a pivot point for pieces. White to move r3k2r/ppq1n1pp/2nbbp2/2p5/2PpPP1N/3P4/PP1N2BP/R1BQ1RK1 w kq - 0 12 e4 is a convergence square for the white pieces (bishop and knight) e5 is a convergence square for the black pieces (bishop, knight, queen) Both squares are currently blocked. The manoeuver 1.e5 fxe5 2.f5 clears e4 while blocking e5 permanently. The cost is a pawn, but it takes black 4 tempi to redeploy his pieces to active squares. I read somewhere the rule of thumb that a pawn is worth 3 tempi. Stoc...

 A  plan starts with an irreversible move by the enemy. That is a piece trade or a pawn move. Ssegwanyi, A. - Karjakin, S What came before. 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.Nf3 Bb4 7.c5?!  A premature pawn advance which is the start of an idea. 7... O-O first bringing the king into safety 8.Bd3 After 8.Bd3. Black to move rnbq1rk1/pp3ppp/4pn2/2Pp4/1b1P4/2NB1N2/PP3PPP/R1BQK2R b KQ - 2 8 8...b6!  The first micro plan (sentence) is to saddle white with more pawn islands than black. The exchange is more or less forced. 9.cxb6 axb6  10.O-O  After 10.O-O. Black to move 10... Bxc3! Black tears the b and a pawn apart. Now white has two weak pawns on an open file. This is the next micro plan. 11.bxc3 Ba6! Forcing the exchange of the bishops. Not only gets black rid of his bad bishop, but of the defender of c4 too. This is the third micro plan. 12.Bg5 Nbd7 13.Bxa6 Rxa6 14.Qb3 After 14.Qb3. Black to move 14...Qa8 The fourth micro plan is to pressurize ...

 The word The previous post was about chess words. It consists of mini decision trees of one move deep. Very much like the IF THEN ELSE constructs in programming. It is important to look at the most principled variation first. If you sac a bishop on h7, you must first consider the potentially worst case scenario: that he takes it. If the worst case scenario works, then you can look at the next variation. If it doesn't work, you are wasting your time anyway. The word consists of the conceptual pattern of the move (system 1) and its logical consequences (system 2). The sentence A chess sentence is the logical narrative that describes the plan. In the beginning was the Word. But where is the beginning of a chess sentence? According to GM Smirnov you must reconsider your plan every time a piece is exchanged or a pawn is moved. These moves have in common that they are irreversible. A plan is a sentence. In an unfamiliar situation you can start at any word in the sentence, based on the s...

 In general, I'm pretty easy going when it comes to investigating the details of a puzzle. I consider chess to be a language, and I'm in the process of learning the words. Learning words is about coupling the pattern of a word to its meaning. When there is a clear pattern, and a clear meaning, and the frequency of occurrence is high enough, the word is worth learning. On the one hand this means that I reject complex Shakespearean constructions in archaic English, but on the other hand I try to make the most of simple constructions in plain English which show themselves when fiddling around. An example: White to move r2qr1k1/1p2bppp/p2p1n2/5N2/N1P1Pp2/1PB4R/P3Q1PP/6K1 w - - 1 21 A typical Vukovic situation. 4 attackers versus 3 defenders, can I sac a piece and get access to the black king before the black pieces spring into action? First the main line: 1.Nxg7 Kxg7 2.Qg4+ The black knight is pinned absolutely, so g4 is momentarily a save square. But why is 2.Qh5 not equally good?...

 This is the method: Select problem positions with patterns you need to absorb. Don't waste much time with trying to solve a problem yourself. It is about the new patterns you haven't absorbed yet. Solving it yourself is about patterns you already have absorbed. Full understanding is the core of the method. Ignore the details that aren't transferable to other positions. Describe the scenarios in plain language. Clear the square, double attack, annihilate the defender et cetera. This is about conceptualizing the scenarios with the aid of system 2. System 1 looks over the shoulder of  system 2. More precise: both system 1 and system 2 are focussing on where your attention is. Fiddle around with Stockfish to unearth more details of the position. Use spaced repetition to memorize the positions. Speed is taboo. Once memorized, solve the positions with your eyes closed. The last step is my latest discovery. It will clear your head and cement the patterns. You don't need to ...

 While adopting a new strategy, I realized I must change my attitude towards the game. Usually my approach is a bit overambitious. When I accepted the draw in the previous post, we were only at move 27. But I already had somewhat overextended myself mentally. That is no problem when you end before move 35, but I realize that grinding out an endgame until move 80 will become problematic in this way. Hence I must play simpler chess. The game of the previous post was a typical "Bent Larsen moment". By looking overambitious for tactics, I missed the simple positional approach. I looked in the wrong direction. I drained my energy by looking for tactics that weren't there. I adopted the same opening with white that I play with black lately. These types of positions have a tendency to lead to more or less beneficial endgames (which I screw up anyway), so I must learn to manage my mental energy.  The pawns will play a bigger role in my positional approach. So I skimmed through my...

 Yesterday, my 100 points higher rated opponent offered me a draw in this position. White to move n2r1rk1/4q2p/5bp1/pBNbpp2/8/P3P3/1BQ2PPP/2RR2K1 w - - 1 28 I thought for 10 minutes and accepted the draw. The reason that I accepted the draw was that I looked for tactics, but couldn't make any of them work. I was inclined to play 28.Nd7, but I knew that would not work. Today I looked at the position with Stockfish, and it deemed the position as +2.78 for white. The move that I considered scored +1.30, which is giving a lot away. Stockfish confirmed that there is indeed no winning tactic here. Stockfish proposed 28.Qa4 This example made me realize that I need a strategy for this type of positions. When I know that there is no tactic OR I simply am not smart enough to find one OR I cannot make a tactic work, I must make a positional move without further ado. Absorption of more tactical patterns will not help me here. The past 4 months I looked whether it would be possible to make posi...