Temposchlucker

Some cc-players play rather quick. For cc-games, that is. So I have a few results from my experiment already. The active placement of my pieces in a Rubinstein-Zukertort set up is neutralized by 90% of the opponents. I was surprised by all the different approaches to the problem. It made me think of what I once found out about how you can win a piece in tactics. If you chase a piece, it will move away everytime you make an attacking move. Ad infinitum. You can only win a single piece when it hasn't enough space to flee. So method one is the trap. Mate being a special instance of a trap. Method two is to attack two targets at the same time. Be it a double attack, fork, pin, skewer etc.. Only one of the two targets can be saved at the same time. If you position one piece well, it can be neutralized by one contra-move. Comparable with the fleeing piece. Only when your opponent hasn't enough space, it can happen that he cannot play a contra-move. Method two is to make a multipurpos...

In an attempt to place the white pieces as active as possible, I came up with a Colle-Zukertort system-like structure. So I fired up 15 cc-games with 1.d4 to test it. I have never played 1.d4 before so it will be interesting anyway. I feel to be on another planet. The Colle-Zukertort system is frowned upon by higher rated players since is is unambitious for white. It is interesting of course to see why a theoretical active placement of the pieces is known as a passive setup. That must have something to do with the fact that I have only taken my own pieces into account. Further I like to introduce the term relative piece activity , which indicates my piece activity in comparison to the activity of the enemy pieces. If I talk in the future about piece activity, I mean this relative piece activity. Next to piece activity I introduced the term steerability of a game lately. An open game leads to tactical opportunities for both sides. This makes it difficult to steer it in the direction y...

My list of questions for analyzing a position consists of only one topic: What is the future of this piece? My experiences in the Corus tournament show that this question works. Even in the battlezone it helps you to get answers. The background of this question is piece activity . How can I get my pieces more active and my opponents less? The upcoming posts will probably focus on this question. I will be thinking out loud, so I ask you beforehand to bear with me. What is the difference between piece mobility and piece activity ? Piece mobility can be calculated by counting the squares where a piece can go (quantity). It is a static feature of a position and you look only one ply deep with it. Piece activity takes the quality of the squares into account. What is the value of the area of activity? For instance covering the squares around the opposite king or covering the center has more value than to cover your own territory. There are other elements like flexibility and coordination ...

If you wondered what happened to Margriet, she scored 2/8. Previous year she had a blunder streak (10 lost pieces in 14 games, although she managed to score 8/14) so she played in a very cramped way. Although she didn't blunder this year she played unusual passive which costed her six games. I trust she will get past this psychological barrier. To be honest, I'm already afraid of her. Behind the chessboard, that is. Ninth game 4.5/9 I played the GPA and was an exchange up. The problem was that black had a mate threat if I would try to cash in, and he would lose a piece if he tried to break out. 1/2 - 1/2 Eighth game 4/8 I tried to ape Karpov with the Queens Indian defense against 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 I soon equalized. The balance was never broken: 1/2 - 1/2 Seventh game 3.5/7 I played with white the Alapin Diemer gambit against the french defense. I score bad with this gambit lately, so it will be the first one I will replace with a more solid opening. Black defensed correctly withou...

Today we have a rest day at Corus. A nice moment to brainstorm about openings. Don't expect much cohesion. Gambit play. Four years ago I decided to commit the youth-sin of playing gambits. The reason for that was to gain tactical experience. Usually a grandmaster is granted a year in his chess-youth to commit this sin. Since my development is slower than a grandmaster, my chess youth lasted longer. It took me four years to learn what can be learned from gambits only. Get subtle. But now it is time to move on. I never developed a special affinity with gambits. I played gambits because it was a logical thing to do at that stage of my development. Yesterday I played 6 fast games against a 1950 player. I won 2 of them by tactical crushing him and I lost 4 due to well positional play from his side. It convinced me that my tactical skill is at a 2000 level already. But tactical means are blunt by nature. When opponents keep a keen eye at their pieces, they won't lose them to you with...

Sixth game 3.5/6 Today I played the fourth Scandinavian of this tourney against the highest rated and top-placed player of the pack. After long manoeuvring he was slightly better but in heavy time trouble. He offered a draw( the first draw offer in these six games from both me and my opponents!) which I happily accepted. I haven't been in time trouble in a single game. What a relief! Tomorrow we have a rest day. Fifth game 3/5 Today I played the kings gambit with the white pieces. He decided to get me out of book with the Nimzowitch countergambit. What he didn't know is that, however it is seldom played, I have a 100% score against the Nimzo. He thought that if he was out of book in this rare variation, I would be too. Which was not the case. When I was out of book I played a nice trick which costed him a full rook. So he resigned at move 11. You can find the game here . Fourth game 2/4 I blundered my queen away at move 12. I had a great positional overview of the game today....

I have studied a lot of positional problems lately. I have been able to compress my list with questions I have to ask myself in order to analyze a position to one item. I solve 90% of the problems correctly. Which is qiute opposite to what I'm used to. At PCT 30% correct wasn't uncommon in the past. Today I got a position where I reached the end of the line though. Until today my one and only question was: What will be the future of this piece? Of course I know exactly what I mean with this. This question remembers me where to look at. It is about piece activity. And piece activity is about outposts, open lines and targets. I have to ask it for every piece, even the opponent's. During the process of answering this question, the right proceeding reveals itself. The only trouble is that I have limited experience, so that I cannot know that if I do the move that logically arises from the thoughtprocess, it will get me the result I hoped for. For instance if I decide that to...

Do you recognize the pattern in the picture above? Tip 1: it's a stereogram, so you have to focus about 40 cm behind your screen. Tip 2: it symbols what I have been fighting the past 4 years. The picture above is one of the best stereograms I have ever seen. But since I have looked at stereograms for about 3 hours on the web, I have difficulty to get my usual focus back:)

About 8 years ago I started with chess after a break of nearly 20 years. I read quite a pile of books from Euwe. That was the first time I encountered information about positional play. I tried to apply the advice of Euwe in my games, which for 90% didn't work. When I obtained the bishoppair after a long struggle of 20 moves, meanwhile deteriorating my position, I had to flee for his omnipresent knights to protect my precious pair. Most of the time I could only make a move or two before I lost the pair. If I tried to make a plan, that was simply ridiculous! If my opponent wasn't willing to cooperate, how on earth could I implement a plan? Where is the ship going, when there are two captains that steer by turns for 5 minutes? That lead me to the conclusion that it was way too early for positional play. So I forgot all this stuff and just started to play. Accepting any position as a given fact, only influenced by the position of the planets and the rating of my opponent. I'm ...

Today I finished my 70,000 problem at CTS. In order to get sharp tactically for Corus. Thanks for your patience.

My play is changing drastically. I'm playing faster now, which is a very good thing. I have no longer problems with quiet positions. Improving piece activity gives the clue in those positions. Since I no longer try to force matters in positions that aren't really suited for tactics, my games become longer. I was used to big squiggly lines in my games from +1.7 to -1.7, but now they tend to be from +0.17 to - 0.17. It's evident that I have to learn a lot to decide a game with subtler means. Those do or die tactics give me just much too many draws and losses on time, so it is really time for subtler means. New tools have to be found, and the technique to use those new tools have to develop. A new tool I tried to use yesterday was the "favourable trade". Of course I always try to weaken the opponents pawnstructure by trading pieces, as everybody does. But that's not what I mean. A gross part of the games of Capablanca are won just by a good knight against a bad b...

Please all give a warm welcome to our newest Knight: Underpromoted Knight!! If I reshuffle de things I have found so far, I get the following list: A. Tactics A1. Trap (one target) Special case: mate A2. Duplo attack (two targets) Double attack Skewer Pin Discovered attack Break communication etc. B. Positional B1. Piece activity (80%) Outpost Weak square Weak color complex Open file Open diagonal Active bishop B2. Target creation. (5%) Trade Minority attack Backward pawn B3. Favourable endgame (10%) Double pawn Isolani Pawn islands Bad/good bishop Bad/good knight Bishops of different color (outside) Passer B4. Rest (5%) Once you see that the main goal in the opening and the middlegame (and even the endgame!) is piece activity, it becomes evident that it is nonsense to see tactics and positional play as opposite. The are complementory. If the pieces become active enough, tactics become inevitable. Of course there are sometimes tactics when the pieces are passive, but that's always ...

Since we Knights are are all tactical monsters, we can have a problem if there are no tactics. If there are no tactics, we have to find a positional move. If I use the 80/20% rule, I can find the right positional move in 80% of the cases by asking myself only two questions. This is true for both PCT and Bent Larsen's Good move guide. These two questions are: 1. Is there an outpost I can conquer? 2. Is there an open line which I can conquer or can I open such line by a pawn push? You have to know the main idea behind these questions, which is piece activity . MDLM had a 3rd step to implement his new acquired tactical skills into his OTB play. If I leave the things out I do anyway and the things that look nonsense, then only two topics remain. I made them bold: 1. Make a physical movement. Initially I shuffled my legs but found that they got tired in long games. Now I shift around in my chair, move my arms up and down, or wiggle my toes (5 seconds; total time: 5 seconds). 2. Look at ...

In a game I encountered the following interesting position. Black (me) to move. My checklist revealed within a few minutes that after white plays 18. e4 , I'm left with a bad bishop, and white has a beautiful outpost at d5. To prevent this passive position I planned to trade the bisshops or at least to activate mine. It still costed me 40 minutes to find an acceptable move. I'm astonished how quick the balance swayed in my direction after only a few moves. You can find the complete game here . [White "Ma"] [Black "Temposchlucker"] [Result "0-1"] [BlackElo "1711"] [ECO "A47"] [Opening "Neo-Queen's Indian"] [Variation "2..b6 3.e3 e6"] [WhiteElo "1654"] 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.e3 b6 4.g3 Bb7 5.Bg2 c5 6.c3 Be7 7.O-O O-O 8.Nbd2 Qc7 9.b3 d6 10.Bb2 Nbd7 11.Rc1 Rac8 12.Re1 e5 13.dxe5 Nxe5 14.Nxe5 dxe5 15.c4 Bxg2 16.Kxg2 Rcd8 17.Qe2 Nd7 18.Nf3 e4 19.Nd2 f5 20.Nb1 Qb7 21.Nc3 Ne5 22.Red1 Nd3 23.Rc2 Bf6 24.Na4 ...

I'm still working on a checklist which assists in analyzing positions. It is a very pragmatic list. Everything I'm used to, like looking for tactics, is not on the list. So aren't the questions which I ask from the perspective of the opponent. If I know what I want, I can hold the same reasoning for my opponent, so no reason to make a distinguished item of it. I check the checklist against a series of positional problems. Yesterday I was still very happy since there were only 3 items left on the list. I like my lists simple and clean, and 3 items are perfectly managable during a game. On the list were the following questions I had to ask myself about a position: Are there good squares for my pieces? (home, outpost, keysquare). Related to this, what has my opponent as defenders and I as attackers for that square. Are there weak pawns? (target). Related to this, what has my opponent as defenders and I as attackers for that pawn. Which pawns can be pushed? Which (half-) open f...

Everybody has different area's where he is bad. This diagram from Polgar's brick took me an hour to solve for the first time. Mate in two -white to move. Yesterday I found it 20 seconds. Solution[ 1.Bb1 ]