Understanding the Leningrad Dutch

Terminology.
The Leningrad Dutch with reversed colors = a variation of Birds opening = Polar Bear
The Bird has a terrible reputation. According to GM Henrik Danielsen that is caused by the fact that there is no reliable theory about the Bird available. He has found new lines, which make it a strong system. This system, which he plays with both black and white, he has called the Polar Bear. Possibly because the opening is slow and strong. From now on I use the term Polar Bear for both black and white.

Beyond this specific opening.
The research of this opening will yield results that can be used outside this opening in two ways. First the pawn structure bears resemblance with both the KID and the closed Sicilian. A good understanding of the Polar Bear will be of great value of understanding those openings.
Second it is a positional opening pur sang. Study of this opening will help me to grasp positional ideas in general.

Before the main position.
I fired up about 20 cc-games with the Polar Bear System with both white and black. The main position as showed in the diagram below is surprisingly often reached. This means that he who knows how to play this position has the best chances to win. The deviations I have encountered so far are well manageable and don't look equal to the main line usually. That is a big plus. It will take some time to find your way in attempts to deviate early but that looks doable.

The main position.
See diagram






















Black to move.

From a gambiteer's point of view, white looks a little worse in the position above. He has played an incredible amount of pawnmoves, giving the initial advantage away, he has less space while 3 of his pawns have moved only one square forward and the knight on a3 looks somewhat offside. The development of Bc1 and Ra1 looks a bit problematic.
While playing this position though, there seem to be hidden resources in it. A position like this is ruled by positional themes. That forces the concrete move order and variations a bit to the background. You must know what is going on positionally. It took me quite some time to get an idea where the hidden power of this position originates. I'm sure there is much more to learn, but this is a primal attempt to formulate a few ideas.

White has less space. According to Seirawan, a lack of space is only a problem when you have a lot of pieces which want to make use of it. By placing a knight on a3 and a bishop on the flank white has enough space in the center for manoeuvring the rest of his pieces. The pawns of white restrict the opponent's pieces much better. Blacks pawns only prevent Nc4 and Nd4
The white pawns prevent Nb4, Nd4, Ne4, and render the moves Na5 and Nh5 as useless from an immediate attacking point of view. The long diagonal for white is already pretty soft while its black counterpart bites on granite.

Whites goal in this position is to play e4. He can play Qc2, Qe1 and Qa4 to assist e4 and he can play Nh4, Ng5 or Nd2 to do the same. So usually white can achieve e4 at will. If white manage to do so, there arises a very important position. e4 and f4 form a mobile pawn duo that act as a lid on a can. By removing that lid, all of a sudden white can add 5 extra pieces to the equation.
f5, often played as a pawn sac, frees bishop c1 and rook f1.
exd5 frees bishop g2 and rook a1-e1 (that's why Qc2 is the best way to force e4)

Bf4 can under certain conditions work together with Nb5 or Nc4. If black decides to close the center, white can use his kingside pawns for an assault on the black king, since the white king is often quite safe at h1.

You can find more theory of this position given in a nutshell here and here.

What to do with your pawns?

At the moment I'm working my way through the blitz (3 min) games of GM Henrik Danielsen for the second time. It gives a good insight how a grandmaster thinks when he has no time to think:)

I can follow the tactics quite good. Sometimes he has looked one or two moves further, but most of the times it concerns relative easy to spot tactics. He is quite accurate and fast. But the gap between him an me doesn't seem totally unabridgable in this area. As I said earlier.

What is miraculous though is that he instantly knows what to do with his pawns. Partly this can be attributed to the fact that he is very well versed in his openings. But in the middlegame he is very fast too. Here I notice a very wide gap between him and me. It is quite obvious that his pawnplay makes his life much easier. How to improve in this area?

The general idea of the LeningradDutch and the Polar Bear is that you develop your pieces behind your pawns and that you shoot through the holes in your pawnshield. In this way you can hardly expect that you cross the middle of the board. But when that happens, the enemy position often seems to collapse, while the why remains a mystery.

When a pawn makes contact with an enemy pawn, there are the following options:

• You neglect the contact or reinforce your pawn.
• You push the pawn.
• You take the enemy pawn.

What are the criteria for the choice?

I haven't decided yet if I like the positions from the Leningrad or not. It is too early to say. I'm used to gambit play. The aspect that I like the most of a sacced pawn is the open lines it creates. It no longer stands in the way. The fact that it speeds up my development is useful, but not paramount. With a positional approach, you don't open lines by saccing usually but by trading pawns.

With the Leningrad you keep the tension. When the dam breaks your pieces flood into enemy territory. I want to learn to play that way. Only after I learned how to conduct such game, I can decide whether I like it or not.

Doing penitence.

In all my last 3 games at the club I missed a tactic. By showing it to you I'm doing penitence. Hoping that Caissa will have merci with me in the future.

9 november






















White to move

However I actually was looking at a move like Nxg6, I didn't see I could just play it. The strange thing is, my 1925-rated opponent didn't see it either. A typical case of problems with visualising a chain of attack alternating with a chain of counterattack. Cost: 0.5 point.

16 november






















Black to move

Allthough I looked at Nxb3, I didn't see I could just play it. Again a typical case of problems with visualising a chain of attack alternating with a chain of counterattack. Cost: 1 point.

22 november






















White to move

My opponent has just played dxc4. I played Nxc4, missing that he then could win a piece with a simple tactic. Cost: at least 0.5 point since I had just declined a drawoffer. White is somewhat better here.

How to play a positional move a tempo?

Right now I'm studying the blitz games of GM Danielsen for the second time. In this position he played Na3 à tempo with the following intrigueing comment: "if he takes on a3, he becomes weak on the black squares around his king."























White to move

This is all the more intrigueing, since usually he is the first to inflict his opponent with a double pawn with the words "I have won many, many games because of that double pawn"
Rybka would have played Na3 either.

This raises the question "how do you learn to get such positional ideas a tempo?". You can do tactical exercises till the cows come home, but this kind of ideas you will not learn. I have studied my own games, without ever getting the idea. I have studied master games without ever getting this idea.

This means that such ideas must be told by a grandmaster. There can't be no other way. Via a video, a book or a coach. Or maybe by solving positional problems with solutions checked by a GM.

Exhibition

May I invite you to a guided tour in the Museum of Deviant Art?
Here you find all futile efforts from white to avoid the main line Leningrad Dutch and deviations in the Polar Bear by black. The Polar Bear is an invention of the Icelandic grandmaster Henrik Danielsen.It is based on the Leningrad Dutch with reversed colors. In a later stadium I intend to add the correct way of playing. If you can help me with that I would appreciate it. The source is my internet games.

Cat.no.1 "Pre-Trompovsky"
Oil on canvas

1.d4 f5 2.Bg5






















Black to move

2. ... Nf6 would be wrong because Bxf6 would clog up your kingside pawns.


Cat.no.2 "Trompovsky"

1.d4 f5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Bg5






















Black to move

3. ... g6 is wrong because Bxf6 clogs up your kingside pawns

Cat.no.3 "Post-Trompovsky"

1.d4 f5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Bg5 Bg7 5.Bxf6 Bxf6 6.e4






















Black to move

I played here 6. ... d6, but I didn't like the position after 7.e5 dxe5


Cat.no.4 "Hindrance of castling #1"

1.d4 f5 2.Bg5 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.exf5 Bxf5 6.Nf3 Nf6 7.Bc4






















Black to move

It is not clear what is the best way to deal with this kind of hindrance.


Cat.no.5 "Hindrance of castling #2" 1.d4 f5 2.Bf4 Nf6 3.e3 g6 4.Bc4






















Black to move

Ditto.

De following paintings are from our collection "Polar Bear" inspired by the Icelandic artist GM Henrik Danielsen.

Cat.no.6 "There's a hole in my pocket #1"

1.f4 d5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.g3 Bf5 4.Bg2 e6 5.O-O Nf6 6.d3 Be7 7.c3 h6 8.Qe1 b5 9.Nh4 Bh7 10.e4 dxe4 11.dxe4 Qd3






















White to move

Not exactly where you want your opponents queen.

Cat.no.7 "There is a hole in my pocket #2"

1.f4 d5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.g3 Bf5 4.Bg2 Nf6 5.O-O e6 6.d3 Bb4 7.c3 Be7 8.Qe1 O-O 9.Nh4
Bg4 10.e4 dxe4 11.dxe4 Qd3






















White to move

I played here 12.h3, what is not the brightest move, to say the least. But I should have avoided this position in the first place of course.

Studying the Leningrad Dutch

Me and someone who knows how to play the Leningrad












The main line of the Leningrad Dutch runs as follows:

1.d4 f5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.O-O O-O 6.c4 d6 7.Nc3 c6























White to move.

The main idea for black is to force e5, for instance by playing Qc7 first.

When black arives at this position unscathed he is fine. All the nice things you can do from here are fine of course, but the bane of a patzer like me is 99% of the time: how to punish uncoöperating opponents who are not willing to understand that resistance before this position by is useless?

So I intent to post about opponents who commit the heresy to deviate from this main line early. First I treat two irritating gambits.

Irritating wing gambit at move 2.

1.d4 f5 2.g4






















Black to move

This can't be good of course, yet I have encountered it once long ago and lost. It looks a bit like a wing gambit on the kingside. I would choose for the simplest positional continuation:
2. . . . fxg4 3.h3 g3!? 4.fxg3 Nf6 5.Nc3 d5 6.Bge e6 and black is ready to press on the weak g3 square with Bd6.

If white wants to avoid g3 he can play 3.Bf4 Nf6 4.h3 d5 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Nb5 e5 7.dxe5 Nh5 8.Bh2 g3 9.fxg3 a6 10.Nxc7 Qxc7 11 g4 Qb6 and white is in trouble.

Or white can play 3.e4 d5 4.e5 Bf5 and black is fine with being a pawn up.

Irritating Staunton gambit at move 2.

1.d4 f5 2.e4






















Black to move

2. . . . fxe4 and now white has two possibilities:

A. 3.f3
B. 3.Nc3

The mainlines are given. The order of the moves can change which gives a bunch of variations, but the idea's are the same.

A. 3.f3
If you like to defend you can accept the pawn of course. But this does look way too much alike the Alapin Diemer gambit which I play myself. So if there is a decent way to decline I would prefer that.
3. . . . d5 4.fxe4 dxe4 5.Bc4 Nf6 6.Ne2 e5! 7.c3 Nc6 8.O-O Bg4 and blacks position is acceptable.

B. 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 c6 5.f3 d5 6.fxe4 dxe4 7.Bc4 Bg4 8.Ne2 Nd7 9.O-O Nb6 10.Bb3 Qd7 and black is ok.

I haven't encountered these gambits in internet games yet. I publish this because that helps me to remember how to play. Secondly to discourage possible gambit players to play these variations since they prove to be futile. My next posts will probably cover my first experiences with the Leningrad Dutch in cc-games. Focussing on irritating early deviations that took me off guard and how to play them well.

Garding your holes.

I just finished a crazy Albin Counter gambit. I already thought I was lost, but I could schwindle my way out. My opponent obviously wasn't used to such crazy tactics. You can find the game here. Clearly not susceptible for repetition.

Today I won all six 10-minute games on FICS with the Leningrad. Which is very promising with a quite unknown system. It is definitely an interesting system. Your pawnstructure is full of holes, and your pieces are garding those holes. This combined effort makes that you gain a lot of space. Which is unique with black against d4. Your starting point is to prepare e5 followed by a central thrust. When the center is blockaded, you can switch to a kingside attack. I think it is a unique method to learn to play positionally. I expect a few ugly losses too. The moment you are not able to protect a hole, an enemy piece will appear there and you will be in trouble.

I played the system with white too, which is called the Polar Bear by GM Henrik Danielsen. His videos are very helpful, his approach somewhat chaotic.

Thanks for the advice, guys!

This weekend I processed an enormous amount of data. One the conclusions is is that 1.d4 is a slow opening. The only way to speed things up seems to be that black manages to play e5 and/or f5 at some time. So I decided to quit on the QID, Nimzo- and Bogo-Indian, the Benko, the Benoni and the 2.c5 idea's. Of all these idea's I have either trouble to motivate my opponents to play the bookline, or to punish white when he plays passive.

I found 4 openings that manage to flick in an early e5:

• My beloved Fajarowitsch, which has two problems: it provides no answer for Nf3, and I can't imagine that I will still play it when I reach 2200. In contrast with more solid gambits like the KG.
• The Albin Counter Gambit. I fired up 6 cc- games with it. The first results don't look promising. The gambit seems to do nothing else than to stir up things, but it has no solid positional basis, in my opinion. Confusion for the sake of confusion simply doesn't work by everybody.
• The KID. You need to make a lot of difficult manoeuvres in very little space in order to be able to play e5 and f5. I found no new ideas beyond what I allready have tried in the past.
  
• The Leningrad Dutch.

The latter looks the most promising. I found a lot of new knowledge on videochess.net so I decided to give it a try. The opening is slow because of the amount of pawn moves, but since the manoeuvres in the KID take up a considerable amount of tempos too, that shouldn't be decisive.
It goes for the throat of the white king, and that is familiar territory. I fed Bookup with a database of the games of GM Danielsen with the Leningrad and I fired up another 6 cc-games with it. I hope the opening will meet my demands.

1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 now what?

I'm in doubt.
You probably have noticed that the games I show you are always very sharp. At our club however, there is a great contingent of players who consider me to be a very passive and careful player. That are the ones who play 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 with white against me.

In the past I have tried the following against this:

The classical Dutch.
This opening is very slow, with a lot of pawn moves (f5, e6, d6, b6) leading to an awful lot of manoeuvring. Tried it for years because Euwe recommended it. So boring that I quit chessplaying for 20 years.

The Leningrad Dutch.
I couldn't handle all the holes in my position like g5, f6, e6 and the vulnerable diagonal a2-g8

The Kings Indian.
Although I had actually considerable success with it, I never felt at home in the crampy positions that I reached. After a few years of trying, I abandoned it.

The Pirc.
Even crampier than the KID and a whole bunch of theory to learn.

The Benko gambit.
I would really love to play this, but 98% of my opponents deviate early from the 5 moves you need and where the book starts.

(Modern) Benoni.
I dabbled around for two years with c5 to lure my opponent into a Benko gambit via move order tricks. To no avail.

The Döry.
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.c4 Ne4 followed by f5. A transposition to a bad Dutch defense.

The Fajarowitsch variation of the Budapest gambit.
I'm pretty succesful with this, but it works only with the move order 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 Ne4. Knight f3 by white rules out blacks e5.

Nimzo-, Bogo-, Queens-Indian defense.
The past year I have dabbled around with this. I actually settled for the QID. But the QID is used to sit the game dead until your opponent makes a mistake. The opponents who play Nf3 and d4 are mostly lower rated than me. What they tend to do is sitting the game dead themselves, waiting until I start the action. But with the QID you can't be the first who comes into action. If you open a diagonal for your own bishop, you open it at the same time for your opponents bishop. I'm used to openings with which I can punish passivity. But the QID simply doesn't allow that. Last friday at the club I ended up in time trouble against a 200 points lower rated opponent and lost.

What must I do? Leave the QID? What else? In desperation I fired up 6 cc-games with the Albin Counter gambit. Which isn't as bad as it's reputation, giving the new outings of Morozewitsch lately.

Is a pin a tactic?

At the moment I'm investigating duplo-moves. There are 3 of them:

• Double attack.
• Discovered attack.
• Pin/skewer.

I'm focussing on double attacks and haven't thought about the other two yet. So far I haven't reached conclusions worth mentioning. A discussion at Blue Devil's site caused me to write a little attribution about pins.

Everybody seems to use his own definition of tactics. That is not very handy. Definitions are meant to make communication easier, not more difficult. A definition in itself is not true or false. It is a consent between people and a matter of preference. I use the following definition:

A tactic gains wood in a forced way.

I consider the king as wood and mate as a trap.
According to this definition, not every duplo-attack is a tactic. Take for instance the following double attack:






















Black to move.

White has just made the duplo-attack Qg4. It attacks the two targets knight g6 and bishop b4. We don't call this a tactic. We even don't call this a double attack. So I think it is a good idea to call it not a duplo-attack either.

The reason for this is twofold:

• One of the targets is well protected.
• The value of that one target is lower than the value of the attacker.

The same is true for the pin. There is no difference between a pin and a skewer other than the difference in value between the two targets. This meets usually the second point of the list above: The value of that one target is lower than the value of the attacker. If the first point of the list is met too, that is to say the pinned piece is well defended, then there is no tactic nor a duplo-attack.

In the following diagram you see a pin that is both a tactic and hence rook c1 is a duplo-move:





















Black to move.

Despite the fact that the value of the knight is lower than the rook, it is still vulnerable to the duplo-attack Rc1. Because it is insufficient defended. Rook c1 truly attacks two targets simultaneously. Black needs two mono-moves to escape from both attacks.

Chess Tempo

Dogfight. . .

Today I signed up for the tactical trainingsite Chess Tempo. That is a site which is inspired by CTS, but with a somewhat different solution for the time constraints. They have an option standard rating, which calculates your rating based on if you find the correct solution or not. No matter how much time you use for it. Today I did a relaxing 225 problems. Much to my amazement I found my rating stablizing around 1880. That is strange. Why would my rating stop to grow when I have infinite time per problem? The answer is that after a few minutes you feel the urge to move on and make a move. Sometimes that move is wrong. I have a correctness of 79%. Weird. I never expected that.

A nice and clean win straight from the opening

Today an important win against 1781 with little or no errors according to Rybka. The Scandy rocks! You can find the game here.

Count your attacks

Precondition: No tactical niches like traps or promotion.

Positional moves.
A move that doesn't attack a target and is based purely on positional considerations I wil call a positional move.

Mono-moves.
When one target is attacked with a move the move is called a mono-move. The defender can always do something about it. But that will cost him a move. A move that defenses against only one attack I will call a mono-move too.

Duplo-moves.
When two targets are attacked simultaneously with one move, there is a great chance that there is no move that meet both attacks. Since mono-moves are much more common than duplo-moves.
A move that attacks two targets simultaneously is called a duplo-move. The only way to gain wood in a forced way is by a duplo-move. A move that defenses against two attacks I will call a duplo-move too. In stead of counting your beans you should count attacks.

Difference between tactical problemsets and games.
Tactical students, like we all are, have a distorted picture about reality. First, a tactical problemset is always about duplo-moves. Otherwise it wouldn't be a tactical problemset. Secondly, you jump in the middle of a position. To evaluate that position, beancounting often will be necessary.
In real games it is different. Positional moves and mono-moves are the bane of the game. With positional moves and mono-moves there is no necessity to count beans. When a piece is attacked you have to defend it immediately. Otherwise you will lose wood. At the utmost the defender can postpone the defense by means of a counter attack. Bottomline is that there will always come a moment that the defender will have to defend his piece. That's why you will always know, after a series of positional moves and mono-moves, that every piece is well defended. Otherwise you would have lost it already. Any beancounting will tell you that. So there is no need to count your beans.

Duplo-move-awareness.
Only when the first duplo-move is played, attacking two pieces simultaneously, one of the pieces can become underdefended. If the defender has only a mono-move to his disposal, he is in trouble.

During the the game, you can replace the whole beancounting stuff by "duplo-move-awareness". Before the first duplo-move is played, there can't simply be no unbalancies in the form under-defended pieces.

Blunders.
If there is an unbalancy in the form of under-defended pieces before the first duplo-move, there are two posibilities:

You have blundered. You have forgotten to answer a mono-attack with a mono-move. You have answered an attack with a positional move. If you blunder, you deserve to lose.

That leaves only one other possiblity: if your opponent has blundered by answering a mono-attack with a positional move and you didn't notice it. That is the only situation where beancounting can give another answer than one would expect. Then again: you deserve to lose. That's not the kind of chess that is useful to talk about.

Beware!
If we forget about blunders, you can simply know that all pieces are well defended. The pieces will be protected exactly sufficient, or they will be overprotected. The price you have to pay for this knowledge is that you have to be aware of all duplo-moves before they are played.

Know your duplo-moves.
In order to see the duplo-moves coming, you must know them well. There are 3 kind of duplo-moves:

• Double attacks
• Discovered attacks
• Pins/skewers

I will deal with these duplo-moves in a separate post.

Dear reader,
I hope you can look through the dullness and semi-intellectual highbrowedness of these posts. What I'm describing is almost too trivial for words. But that is what I'm after! Triviality. Since triviality means ignoring the irrelevant. And ignoring the irrelevant is relieving your short term memory. These posts are about finding out what is irrelevant. Which worries in my game can I let lose without being punished for it. Which phantoms can I prove to be unreal. So I don't have to worry about them anymore in the future.

An answer to Glenn

Glenn commented on my previous post (in blue):

(Tempo said:) what point are you making with the quiz-questions?
My point is that to evaluate the tactics in a given position one must evaluate the tactics in the given position. Shortcuts must be used with extreme caution. That subtle differences in the position make a significant impact on the usefulness of counting for the position.

Beancounting is valid when there are no duplo-moves around. That equals the statement above.

My last example illustrates that in the original position the (accidental) fact that the Q was at f2 instead of g4 was an important characteristic of the position to make Nxd4 playable. Start with the Q at g4 instead and the "counting" aspects of the position stay the same (same number of attackers and defenders of d4) but the evaluation of Nxd4 changes quite a bit but for subtle reasons.

When you create positions where duplo-moves do play a role you stress that beancounting isn't valid when there are duplo-moves around. To which I agree.

I believe that your statement:
(Tempo said:) This means that this position can be judged in a glance without any necessity to see the move sequences before the minds eye ... is, at best optimistic and possibly just incorrect.

Beancounting is incorrect when there are duplo-moves around. So there we agree again.
The study of beancounting in this position in extenso has made that I understand this position very well. So when you make some slight modifications in the positions, by toying around with duplo-moves, I now can see in a glance what the effect will be. That is new. In the past I had to re-evaluate the whole position. It is this difference that I'm interested in.

Could we have predicted or expected the move via counting? If counting should not apply in this position or for this capture how can we know? What changes in the position by moving the Queen from f2 to g4 to alert us that in one position it works and in the other it does not?

No, we cannot predict or expect the moves when there are duplo-moves around. Only in the very beginning of studying beancounting I toyed with this idea. But I abandoned it as soon as I discovered the role of duplo-moves. Given Glenn's comments I obviously must have made the impression that I thought otherwise.

Don't get me wrong -- there is some value in counting as a technique. But in the immortal words of Lewis McClary: Things that are different are not the same.

The value of beancounting I would summarize as follows:
Within the 4 restraints (take with lowest piece first, no queens in front of rooks or bishop, victim is not a pawn defended by a pawn, no duplo-moves around) you don't have to worry about the actual sequence of the captures, since it doesn't change the outcome. In that way it reliefs the short term memory, which then can be used for more important tasks, like thinking about possible duplo-moves.

(Tempo said:) It was my hypothesis that a grandmaster solves this kind of positions without calculating. I believe that is actually not possible to solve this kind of position without calculating.

Even a grandmaster has to calculate the duplo-moves, of course. Please look at the green text above to what I mean with this hypothesis. Glenn, I hope you don't feel ridiculized by my comments. That is not how I meant it. I'm very grateful with every contribution since it forces vague thoughts to cristallize. For instance in reaction to another comment of you on my previous post, I came up with this little gem:

"The only point of worrying for both sides are the duplo-moves. Those are the only ways to gain or lose wood by force. No duplo-moves: matter stays equal if you count it or not."

This means that it might be possible to go beyond counting. My next post will be about that.

Now, where was I ?

The whole beancounting stuff started with this position below. I wanted to know what the effect is of bishop b5. While I investigated this position I noticed that my mind was filled with visualising the move sequence while bookkeeping for both sides. The invention of the beancounting method was meant to relief the load of the short term memory. I obviously succeeded in that. The next question is of course, what is the effect of the bisshop on b5?
Can I simply say that due to the duplo-attack Nc6 is pinned so black has one defender less for d4 hence white can simply take on d4? If so, I have found a way to judge this position without visualising one single move and without any burden of the short term memory. That's the holy grail I'm after. I got a bit carried away by the beancounting stuff. But it's only a little part of the equation.























White to move.

Let's see if black can save his victim.
If white plays
1.Nxd4, black must answer
1. ... Nxd4. That is is only chance to hang on his wood.

Let's see if that is enough. White has invested 2 pawnpoints. If
2.Bxd7 takes away a defender of the knight while getting the investment back.
2. ... Rxd7 It's hard to think of another move since there is no viable duplo-attack for the black knight.

Which means that the knight is lost, which means that black must abandon his pawn on d4 at move 1.

Conclusion:
Beancounting without the bishops shows that d4 is just enough defended.
Bb5 is a duplo-move which pins a defender, hence white will win the d-pawn.

This means that this position can be judged in a glance without any necessity to see the move sequences before the minds eye and without being a burden for the short term memory.
It was my hypothesis that a grandmaster solves this kind of positions without calculating. What is proven is that it is allowed to draw conclusions about this position without any calculation (in the usual chess sense).

At the moment I need these heavy narratives. As Blue Devil pointed out, that are only the training wheels for the moment. Once this kind of thinking becomes a habit, there will come a moment that I don't need them any more. That's what I'm after.

In the next post I will have a closer look if the Nxd4 move loads up another duplo-attack (discovered attack).

Find the duplo-moves

Duplo-moves are the technique par excellence to gain wood.
There are 3 duplo-moves:

• double attack
• discovered attack
• pin/skewer

If these duplo-moves are not around (and there is no trap), you cannot gain wood.
Ask yourself these questions:

• Are there duplo-moves around?
• Are the targets in place? If not, put them in place.
• Are there defenders of the attacking square(s)? Remove the defenders.

Let's have a look at another problem of Glenn:























White to move.

• Are there duplo-moves around? Yes, B or Q d5 double attack on R and K
  
• Are the targets in place? Yes
  
• Are there defenders of the attacking square(s)? Remove the defenders. Nxc6 followed by Nxd5 undermines the d5 square

If after 1.Nxc6 bxc6 2.Nxd5 the black king moves to h8:

• Are there duplo-moves around? Yes, pin with Qa3 the black knight on d6.
  
• Are the targets in place? No, play Nxe7
  
• Are there defenders of the attacking square(s)? No.

I guess it's just a matter of doing a lot of problems, identifying the duplo-moves and creating narratives based upon them.

Provisional conclusion (Part V)

continued from part I, part II, part III, part IV and the Intermezzo. . .

The problem with investigating while blogging is that you don't know beforehand where your investigation is going to lead you. After a little detour along the beanfields we are back at duplo-moves again. Beancounting works fine as long as there are no duplo-moves around. The beancounting method reliefs the short term memory when both players pile up on one piece. So that is a little success. But it is a small area, yet it works well within the given constraints. Since one of the constraints is "as long as there are no duplo-moves around", the question arises "how do you know if there are duplo-moves around?".

In the past we have done a lot of work on the recognition of duplo-moves, for instance by the identification of the potential targets of a duplo move. See attempts like my rake-scanning and Christian's Target Feature Count. So to me it is an old question.

I have partly found a work-around in the past months. By focussing on concrete positional plans it proves often to be possible to avoid the complex tactical positions alltogether, so that I get around the question of duplo-moves.

I found that emulating a grandmaster meant "knowing what can be neglected without changing the outcome". Beancounting fell into this scheme because you can neglect the actual order of the captures. Everytime you find something to neglect, you have found a method to keep your short term memory free from loading.
Concrete positional plans fall into this category since they neglect an enormous amount of moves without being punished for it.

So if you want to improve, concrete positional play is the way to go. Since that is about moves that usually are counted in 0.3 pawn-points or less, you have to be good in tactics first! Otherwise you cannot achieve what you want without drawbacks. After 4 years of intensive tactics training, I'm ready for this step.

No matter how good these idea's are, you can always be bitten from behind by a duplo-move that you didn't notice in time. Let's see if we can find something new about duplo-moves now we have given a lot of topics a new place. You never know. It is a problem that we have to solve anyhow sooner or later.

Duplo-moves are the main technique to gain wood in a forced way. There are other methods, like traps and pawnpromotion. But these I like to see as niches. I find it convenient to ignore them for now. The "real meat" consists of duplo-moves.

A duplo-move attacks two targets at the same time. A target can be a piece or a square. The targets can be inline or not. The duplo move can make use of one or two attacking pieces. You find more details here.

I take one of the positions Glenn came up with.























White to move.

3 duplo-moves jump into your eye:

• Discovered attack Ng5 or Ne5
• Knight fork e5
• Pin Q vs Nf6-Be7

1.Rxe7 is a typical prelimanary move which puts the targets in place.With ordinary beancounting the N on d7 was well protected by 3 pieces. But:

• Due to a duplo-move (the pin), you can't count the N on f6 as defender of d7.
• Bxd7 puts the black queen and rook in the line of fire of another duplo-move, the discovered attack
• Qxd7 puts both the queen and the bishop in a knightfork (another duplo move)
  

All defenders of d7 were compromised by a duplo move. So you can use the beancounting, but you have to subtract the defenders that are compromised. In case d7 had an extra defender in the form of Rd8 or so, d7 would be defended enough. The same is true for h7, the Nf6 is compromised as defender by the pin.

Maybe I should have a look at the other examples of Glenn, to see if we have a tendency here.

Intermezzo

Glenn put up an interesting question on his blog.

To create a grand unified theory of counting for captures in chess it should be either applicable in general, or, if that is not possible, then we need to be able to at least distinguish the cases where it can be relied upon from those cases where it can not. Otherwise, we are left with something that can be applied only in situations where it works but we have no way of knowing which those are.

He put a few diagrams on his blog with the question what the exact role of beancounting is in relation to these diagrams. While analysing the positions I noted that there are 5 different area's that together can describe the majority of all tactical positions.
That are:

• Duplo-moves
• Trap
• Chains of defenders
• Extended beancounting
• Counterattack chains

Duplo-moves and traps.
Only the first two techniques can yield you wood. Logically the vast majority of problems from tactical problemsets fall within these two categories. From these two, duplo-moves are the most common by far. All 4 diagrams of Glenn are based on duplo moves.

Chains of defenders.
Chains of defenders is a new discovered area, about which I have written only little in the past. Defenders defend a piece or a square. Undermining the defenders transits through the chain and becomes undermining the piece or the square. The undermining move is a duplo move, aimed against the defender and the subject of protection.

Extended beancounting.
Beancounting comprises only a very small area of tactics: where you build up pressure against a piece. It helps you to avoid the necessity for visualisation, thus keeping the short term memory free for more useful tasks. It typically tells you if a piece is well defended or not. Most of the time there are few attackers and few defenders, so you don't need a counting method, you see it in a glance. But if there are many attackers and defenders, this is the method to settle for.
Extended beancounting - yet to invent - is meant for situations where the victim is not a piece but a square. You build up pressure to conquer a square. That can be for a positional reason, you want to have an outpost or invasionsquare, or for a tactical reason, a duplo move needs the square.

Long trade sequences should in principle always end up with equal material. Only when there is a duplo move involved you can gain wood in a forced way.

Counterattack chains.
Counterattack chains have a lot in common with long trade sequences, so a new to develop version of beancounting will certainly play a role in the treatment of those. Since counterattack chains are even more challenging for the short term memory, it must be possible to get a big advantage in this area.

Answers to questions.
Glenn:
Could we have predicted or expected the move via counting? If counting should not apply in this position or for this capture how can we know?

I think I have given Glenn a clue to when to apply beancounting. The application is obviously fairly limited. When there are duplo-moves around, the outcome of the beancounting cannot be trusted.

Behind the question of Glenn lies implicit another question of course:
How can we find the key move?

The answer is: find the duplo-move and work back. I have put a lot of effort in this, without reaching a definite breakthrough though. But the answer lies within the 5 areas I described above.

Pull on the chain (part IV)

continued from part I, part II and part III. . .

Beancounting revisited.

Let me try to reformulate my method of beancounting in more understandable english.
Goal of the beancounting formula: To evaluate if you should start a sequence of capture and recapture.

• If you start to capture or in this case you evaluate whether to capture or not, start with your piece with the lowest value and work upwards. Your opponent will do the same.
• Situation: You have attackers and start to capture. The opponent has a victim and defenders of that victim.
  
• Take the sum of the value of your attackers. If there are more attackers than there are defenders, then there is no need to take the value of all your attackers. Since not every attacker will be involved in the trade. Add up the value from as much attackers as there are defenders. Example: 5 attackers, 3 defenders = take the sum of your 3 lowest valued attackers.
• Take the sum value of all the pieces who take part in the defense.If there are more defenders than there are attackers, there is no need to take the value of all your defenders. Since not every defender will be involved in the trade. Add up the value from as much defenders as there are attackers. Example: 5 defenders, 3 attackers = take the sum of the 3 lowest valued defenders (start with the victim!).
  
• If the value of your opponents pieces exceeds the value of your attackers you can safely start the capture sequence.
• If your first attacker has a lower value than the victim you will gain wood with the very first move. After that you can stop the sequence and re-evaluate if there is any reason to continue with the capture sequence.
• Your opponent will stop to recapture when he sees that he cannot hold his victim. So you will never gain more than the value of the victim.

I have written down all possible captures and found that this very simple formula above gives a wrong answer in only two cases. These cases are the only two exceptions I have found:

• When a queen is in front of her rooks or her bishop, the rear piece has no direct access to the square of the victim. This makes that the formula above cannot be applied. This is common knowledge of which everybody is aware (don't put your queen in front of your rooks). In stead of complicating the simple rules above you have to think for yourself here. Don't worry, it concerns probably less than 1% of the cases.
• When the victim is a pawn defended by a pawn. This is the only case where your opponent can stop the sequence short and it costs you wood. The reason for this is that if your attacker is at least a light piece (value=3), the sum value of the victim plus its first defender is only 2. Again not something to worry about. Since you will not have the inclination to take a pawn that is protected by a pawn with a light or heavy piece without good reason anyway.

It's all very simple and logical. And easy to apply in practice.

Chains of capture.
We have found how the beancounting formula can be applied in situations where there is more than one theatre of action. Now I want to investigate if the application of the formula can be
extended to positions where there are chains of captures on both sides. I don't know beforehand if this is going to lead somewhere so please bear with me. This is the startposition which I composed:























Black to move.

Move 1.
Black plays the best move according to Rybka 1. ... Nxe3
How should white proceed?
Of course we see in a flash according to the beancounting method that the white bishop on e3 was well protected. A grandmaster wouldn't have counted his beans faster:)

There are 2 moves to consider for white:

• Immediate takeback with 2.fxe3
• Counterattack with 2.Nxc6

The material balance is restored after both moves. After Nxc6, both sides attack the queen. At first sight, the sequence of captures of white is longer:
Nxc6-Nxd8-Nxe6-Nxf8 collected 20 points of wood, investment 1 knight.

For black: Nxe3-Nxd1-Nxc3 collected 15 points, investment 1 knight.

But this kind of beancounting doesn't work this way. Let's see what happens.

Move 2.

2.Nxc6

Black has 3 choices:

• Retract the knight, e.g. with 2. ... Nd5
• Takeback the white knight with 2. ... bxc6
• Continue the attack with 2. ... Nxd1

Move 3.

Theoretically white has 3 choices:

• Retract the knight, e.g. with 3.Ne5
• Takeback the black knight, e.g. with 3.Rxd1
• Continue the attack with 3.Nxd8

Since white is a queen behind he must of course opt for 3.Nxd8

Now black has 3 options:

• Retract the knight with 3. ... Nxb2
• Takeback the white knight with 3. ... Rxd8
• Continue the attack with 3. ... Nxc3

Move 4.

White has 3 options:

• Retract the knight with 4.Nxb7
• Takeback the black knight with 4.bxc3
• Continue the attack with 4.Nxe6

Now black all of a sudden wins a piece with 4. ... Ne2+ 5.Kh1 fxe6
Wow, where does that came from?

This kind of positions I find difficult to handle in practice. There are two things killing me when I try to find the solution by projecting both chains before the minds eye:

• Every ply adds 3 possibilities, so the total amount of possibilities adds up to 15 moves between which you have to decide.
• I have to alternate my attention between two different sides of the board, and doing two book keepings.
  

Maybe it's just me, but especially the alternation in attention between the two chains is a very weak point.

If I look at the moves, which time and again have 3 options (retract, takeback and continue), there seems to be an indication that there is some kind of system hidden in it. Let's see what we can find.

Black takes first. White counterattacks and and restores the material balance. Although the chain of black is shorter, he can end his chain with a duplo move: 4. ... Ne2+
This move accoplishes two things:

• It saves the black knight.
• It checks the king.

The duplo move is an in-between move, which wins a tempo. Since white hasn't restored the material balance, he loses a piece.
So the parameters of generalisation are:

• The lenght of both chains.
• The values of the pieces in the chain
• Are the pieces in the chain protected (beancounting!)
• What influences the decision to retract, to takeback or to continue the chain
• The availability of a duplomove along the way. This decides if wood is going to be won.

I will try to work this out. I don't want my posts too long so. . .

to be continued. . .



To stop the train,
in cases of emergency,
pull on the chain,
pull on the chain,
penalty for improper use,
five pounds.

When every bean counts (part III)

continued from part I and part II. . .

To illustrate the beancounting method working on multiple squares I designed the following position:






















White to move.

c5 and g5 are two black pieces under attack. Beancounting shows that both pawns are well protected. 1.Ne4 is a duplo-attack which adds an attacker to both c5 and g5, winning one of them. A move that can be evaluated without a single visualisation of move in the mind. Thus keeping the short term memory free for other things.

The to theatres of war c5 and g5 can be evaluated seperately. The bean counting of c5 doesn't interfere with the beancounting on g5. Let's see what happens if the two theatres do interfere:






















White to move.

It is still possible to treat the two theatres c5 and e5 separately. The black knight on d7 counts as one defender of c5 and separately as one defender of e5. The duplo-attack with 1.Nd3 will yield white a pawn. This is all very plain and simple. Now let's see if we can complicate matters a little more by introducing chaining. When the takebacks form a chain in space over the board.

Thinking about it, the subject is complicated enough to deserve a separate post.


to be continued. . .

Stretching the limits (part II)

continuation from part I. . .

In general: a duplo attack can only be parried by a move with a "duplo-effect".

An "ordinary move" with no such duplo effect can only lead to postponement of the execution of the duplo attack.

Since moves with a "duplo-effect" are not common, this gives a sort of stability to the material evaluation of a position. If you have two attacks and your opponent can only make "ordinary moves" he can only parry one of the two attacks, or he can use the tempo for a single counterattack, which only postpones the execution.

If you have 5 attacks ongoing while your opponent has only 3 attacks ongoing, and he can only make "non duplo effect moves" or "ordinary moves" or "mono-effect moves" or as I will call them from now on "mono-moves", he can only postpone the execution of the 2 extra attacks. But with mono-moves he will never be able to prevent it.

This may look far-fetched, but it is what I found time and again during the study of complex middlegame positions.

So far, the beancounting method only applies to trade sequences on one square. Typical of trade sequences is that they consist of mono-moves. If a duplo move could be made during a trade sequence, the beancounting method would not work.

We Knights are all specialists in duplo-moves. Since that is what the circles are all about. Duplo-moves and traps. So we don't have to be afraid that we wouldn't recognize a duplo-move when there is one:)

The power of the beancounting method is that it eliminates the need to worry about the move order. It eliminates the need to visualize the sequence before the minds eye. It prevents the short term memory from overloading. It's my hypothesis that the beancounting method can be stretched beyond trade sequences. As long as there are no duplo-moves around!

First I will try to describe the ordinary trade sequence in terms of attacks.
Take the following diagram:






















White to move.

White attacks the pawn on d4 three times. How does that compare with a duplo (triplo) attack?

A duplo attack is stretched out in space. It is a tempo or time problem for the defender. He can only parry one attack at the same time. The defender can only save the day if he finds a move that does two things at the same time.

In the 3-fold attack in the above diagram, the attack is stretched out in time. In space it can be seen as just a single attack. Beancounting shows you that the mono attack will not yield fruit in this case.

Reformulation with this new knowledge:
A multi-fold attack of a single piece can be seen as a mono-attack. Beancounting decides if the piece is well protected or not.
A duplo attack consists of 2 mono-attacks. Only a duplo-attack against two unprotected pieces will yield you wood. As long as the defender cannot find a duplo-move.

Summary:

• If a mono-attack is against an unprotected piece or against a protected piece can be found by beancounting.
• Only a mono-attack against an unprotected piece counts. Since an attack against a protected piece will never be succesfull.
  
• If you have 5 mono-attacks ongoing, while the defender has only 3, all mono-attacks are executed until you have 2 mono-attacks while he has zero.
• Mono-moves can only act as a means of postponing the final execution.
  
• If you have 2 mono-attacks more than your opponent you will gain wood. Since he can adress only one mono-attack at the same time. Or he must find a rare duplo-move.
  

This shows that the beancounting will work when applied to trades on multiple squares. That was the first step to make.

Hello, are there still any readers out there who made it to the end? Hard to imagine. Maybe I should flick in some Cum-Sums to attract more readers.

to be continued. . .

Captures, attacks and threats (part I)

This is my first attempt to unite our new formula for beancounting with the law of conservation of threats.

My formula in short:

• Take the sum of the value of the attackers. From as much attackers as there are defenders.
• Take the sum of the value of the defenders. From as much defenders as there are attackers.
• If the value of the defenders exceeds the value of the attackers then you will gain wood. But not more than the value of the victim (due to the fact that the opponent stops retaking when you threaten to gain more than the value of the victim)

Preconditions:

• There is no queen involved which is standing in front of her rook(s) or her bishop.
• The victim is not a pawn defended by a pawn.

The most clear definition of my formula is stilll under construction, so please bear with this description, please.

The power of this formula is that you get rid of the element of sequence and order. There is no longer need to see the whole sequence before your minds eye. I have the feeling that it must be possible to give this formula a broader application than just a trade sequence on one square. I hope I to stretch this idea so that it will be possible to use it for multiple capture-sequences on different sides of the board.

I am a bit uncertain about the best word to use, threat or attack. In the past I used the word threat, but attack might cover it a bit better. For now I think I settle for attack.
An attack is one move before capturing.
Before you can capture a piece you must attack it first.

Now let's see how that works:






















White to move.

White can with every move attack the black bishop. But black can withdraw his bishop after every attack. This can go on to eternity (move 50, that is). Only when white can make a duplo-attack, he can gain wood:






















White to move.

If white moves 1.Qc6, he will gain wood. With 1 move white creates 2 attacks simultaneously. Since black can only parry 1 attack at the same time the next move he will lose a piece. All elemental tactical motifs are based on either a duplo attack or a trap.
(In the position above 1.Qg2 would trap the knight.)

A counterattack only postpones the execution of a duplo attack (unless one of the attacked pieces is involved in the counterattack):






















White to move.

If 1.Qc6 then black can postpone the execution of the duplo-attack by 1. ... Bf4+. But when the white king has moved to a save place, the attacks are still waiting to be executed. That is what I called (half tongue in cheek) the "law of conservation of attacks."

In order to get rid of a duplo attack the move that accomplishes that must do something "double" to. Must do two things at the same time:






















If white starts a duplo-attack with 1.Qd5, black can escape from this duplo attack (for the moment) by 1. ... Ng3. This move has two effects: It withdraws the knight from the attack and it defends the bishop.

In general: a duplo attack can only be parried by a move with a "duplo-effect".

An "ordinary move" with no such duplo effect can only lead to postponement of the execution of the duplo attack.

To be continued. . . .

Alltime high

Amateurs do it the difficult way.


My new rating has just been published: 1765, a new alltime high!

I had written a long comment on Blue Devil's comments on my previous post when the internet connection failed and sent it into bloglivian. So I decided to make a post of it. Text of Blue is italic.

If it works, then you still have to check to make sure there aren't in-between moves, refusal to capture (stopping the sequence short), etc..

I'm trying to unify my Law of conservation of Threats with this beancounting. This should take care of in-between moves. I suggest you have a look at it too.

The refusal to capture is taken care of by my formula in an implicit way. If my fomula gives you the green light you will gain wood. No matter if he refuses to take back. I think you will have no problems to know when to stop taking back yourself.

My coach just saw the results of counting problems without actually doing the bean counting.
That is another matter. I expect that when we become seasoned beancounters we will start to emulate the same behaviour. It all starts with the realization that it is simple.

I think this gives us an idea about the kind of character you must have for being a grandmaster. Always be prepared to take an empyrical law for granted. Not worrying about the details and if it is actually true. The past nine years I have tortured my short term memory with visualisation of trade sequences since my intuition told me that this empyrical law of beancounting wasn't so simple below the surface. Lacking the superficiality you need to be a grandmaster. I bet they use tons of unchecked empyrical guidelines for themselves, thus neglecting almost every skill what is needed to be a real amateur. Maybe I must make empyricism my inner god in stead of logic. DK would love that.

If we're gonna just be pragmatic, then Heisman is probably sufficient.

I found in Heisman's articles no solution for stopping the sequence short other than the warning "beware!".