Temposchlucker

. . . The tournament in Groningen went quite well for both Margriet and me, with each 3.5/5 I don't want to spend too much time on blogging or publishing my games, because I want to digest what I have learned in Groningen in order to adjust my preparation for Corus. In general it can be said that my play has changed in the following way: in stead of throwing the sink at my opponent from move one I develop quietly and play the middlegame as positional as I can. When the exchange of pieces start, at the end of the middlegame, there all of a sudden appears a moment that I can shift gears, sacrifice a few pawns and mate the hostile king. Time and again these attacks seem to appear at the end of the middlegame 'out of the blue' lately, just by playing positionally. There is another phenomenon I noticed. My attacks used to be as 'lean' as possible. That is to say, when I sensed that there are tactics in the air I started to execute them as soon as I could. Now I let the t...

. . . Tomorrow I start with the Schaakfestival Groningen as a warming up for the Corus tournament at the end of januari. I'm in the compact group, 5 games in 5 days at a pace of 40/120,SD/30. If there are readers out there who visit the tournament (you never know), I would be delighted to shake hands. I'm the only participant with a rating of 1819 in the compactgroup, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find me. Otherwise you have a chance at the Corustournament, where I play in the Tienkampen. As preparation I have read a lot about positional play. I intended to do some positional exercises too, but every exercise raised so much questions that I ended up reading in stead of exercising. So I don't feel quite ready, but I am in the best shape to learn something (with a lot of buzzing questions in my head and half-formulated answers). I skipped the opening preparation totally, which is quite liberating.

. . . The essence of my previous post boils down to the following question: How can you shorten the time to market from the first acquaintance with a theoretical idea to the practical application of that idea? Tactics first. It all begins with tactics. With mastering tactics to a certain degree, every application of an idea is doomed to fail. But after mastering tactics, the remaining speed of development depends solely on the tempo at which you digest theoretical idea's. This speed can differ enormously between persons. I'm a quite slow digester since I need to process an enormous amount of raw information before I dare to draw any definite conclusions. People who care less about the correctness of their conclusions usually develop at a much higher speed. Then a hunch. Take for instance the famous idea of Philidor that pawns are the soul of chess. For about a decade I hadn't the slightest idea what he was talking about. I hadn't even the beginning of a clue. The fact t...

. . . Lately I found myself writing the following as comment to a post of BDK : Now that you are rubbing that old wound again. . . What if it has nothing to do with circles at all? If I look back I made my greatest progress when I entered a new area. When I started with tactics I didn't repeat them. Yet I gained 250 points. I entered the (to me) new area of positional play last year. I gained another 70 points. If I count my latest winning streak which isn't processed by the rating committee yet, I can add another 80 points. Virtually I'm above 1900 now. What if you simply can't avoid to memorize patterns when you enter a new area? What if plateauing simply means that you ran out of new area's? Not because they aren't there but you simply don't know how to get access? For me, there is no proof that repetition is the key to improvement. I didn't improve when I repeated problems. I improved when doing tactical problems only once for the first time. It ...

. . . There seems to be a simple reason why it is difficult to make progress in chess. For tactics you have to learn to love variations, for strategy and endgames this addiction to variations tends to impair your sight of the big picture. The approaches seem to mutually exclude each other. If you see the big picture but you miss the tactical skills to obtain what you want, it is time for tactics. When you start to train tactics you sharpen your eyes to see concrete variations. Once you are skilled in tactics, you have lost your sight to see the big picture. Usually only a coach can help you to overcome this paradox. The problem is that all chessauthors share this addiction for concrete variations. Watson even devoted a whole book to the subject of concrete variations vs general schemed thinking. In the mean time, books are flooded with concrete positions, giving us a hard time to look behind them. If you look at my diagrams, you can see that I often try to get rid of the concrete varia...

. . . I'm going through a huge development lately. Due to my new openings and my new playing style I can enter an endgame almost at will. During my gambit years I reached an endgame once every 100 games or so. Before I entered an endgame in those gambit games usually one of the following happened: When I was better I had to offer a draw since I was in time trouble. When I was equal I offered a draw due to endgame phobia. When it was refused, I lost since I managed to screw up the balanced position soon. This has dramatically changed. I don't have timetrouble anymore. My last 8 games were all endings. I'm not afraid for endings anymore. I'm not afraid anymore to refuse a draw in an equal position. I have a lot more energy during the games since I have to calculate less. Hansen's book has given me an idea what I'm after. Most lower rated players don't know this. So they cooparate happily towards their own demise. Lower rated usually choose one of the followi...

. . . From Fine's book basic chess endings (hattip to Ed): When you are two pawns ahead, the win is routine. The straightforward advance of the pawns will net considerable material gain, usually a piece. With a piece to the good you can then capture more pawns, then more pieces, and finally mate. The theory of ending proper is concerned to a large extent with the conversion of an advantage of one pawn into a win. The basic principle is that one pawn wins only because it can be used to capture more material. Straightforward advance will as a rule not do the trick (as with two pawns). The chief devices to be used in the winning process are forcing an entry with the king, keeping the opponent busy on both sides (outside passed pawn) and simplification. Now that's an eye-opener! If it was written on page 3 in stead of page 572 I wouldn't have hesitated to call Fine an excellent endgame teacher! But nevertheless!! It invites to go even one step further and to integrate the ide...