Answering DK

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Update: A nice positional win today at Corus here.

DK wrote in a comment:

there was a time in the past that this would have been a private email, not a public post, but time and again you say you prefer this. here it is. my god, its even spell checked: ----------

Now that I have dispensed an obligation—the sending of extensive Caro-Kann material to you—I turn to a very different subject: the proffer of a question if not an implicit critical remark. So there I am—first supporting then a something else…

I was as once gladdened then surprised at your remark here that you were going to study the Caro-Kann. I hope that i am not reading too much into it, but having deliberately held off from any study of the opening for a VERY long time as a matter of principle, now that I am doing so, am employing a rigorous approach. In fact, you might laugh, but a student of mine who is a candidate to be an International Master ASKED me about organizing his opening study, asked me about how best to approach it. Yes, I coach him—I give him coaching in organization and effectiveness, and he is on hand for me in my chess. It has not been an equal trade for a LONG time, but he has become a friend, believe in him greatly, and the little help and assistance he has given has been truly invaluable to guiding my chess development. That said, I believe that at your level you should already have had an opening repertoire mapped out or established by now, and if you either have not or are deviating at times as you describe here yet already have one, is a sign of weakness, or disorganization. Ok, I said it.

I believe that at a certain point you make decisions. Good or bad, you say: ‘To 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc, I will always play 3.e3.’ I am not talking ten or twelve moves out, but fundamental chess decisions that go to the bedrock of ones own stability, and sense of definite certainty. Now, whether this is a good decision or not, and I am not sure as I still very much WANT to play 3.Nf3, this provides STABILITY, AND allows me to KNOW my own territory with more predictability. I am not sure if I need to revert back to 3.Nf3, but did a LOT of prep against it, and it became a zoo of variations. A fucking smoke belching Greek monster with twenty seven heads spinning round and round. Similarly, early on found that I hated to play against g6, so adopted 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 and 3.Bg5 as my anti-indian approach. My coach suggested this instead of 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 as it was ‘more classical’. I only play this, and am very, very glad to have this established. Against the Dutch, only play 1.d4 f5 2.Bg5. Kasparov played it. The main thing is a coherent approach. For me it all started to come together when I gave up the Catalan, Reti, English, and KIA as Wht, the Reti and only played 1.d4 each and very time. I found that against higher rated opponents, always did better. It clearly fit me. It solidified when as Blk I gave up the Benko and a medley of variations to only play the Slav. And in the Caro-Kann only, each and every time ONLY play the Bronstein-Larsen variation 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.cf3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nf6 5.Nxf6 gxf6. I don’t want to sound or be dogmatic. Everyone must find his or her own lines. But whatever they may be, apart from the individual decisions, there is very great value in making decisions upon a coherent approach to the openings taken as a whole, and sticking with them till when and if such time comes as you may no longer go forward with them. But I am not gonna wake up one day and say: ‘now I will play the French’, or the KID, etc. That aint gonna happen. I am too systematic for that, and encourage you to get this resolved. Its getting too late not to.

DK, thanks for your concern. I appreciate that you feel free to write as you do.

When I identified that tactics were a weak point of mine, I rigourously replaced my openings by gambits. On every opening I had a gambit prepared. I have played gambits solely for 7 years. I have enjoyed it very much. I have learned a lot about the initiative, the value of a pawn, the value of an open line and so on. I even invented a few gambits of my own. I got nerves of steel, the weirdest positions don't scare me anymore, Kd1 or Kf1 are common for me in the opening. I ate Queen sacrifices before breakfest in order to be prepared to play gambits. But I never became a gambit afficionado. Allthough I enjoyed it, I never became convinced that it is the right way to open a game. Gambit play is quite alien to my character (I never take risks if it can be avoided). I employed gambits in a disciplined way as a method to improve my main weakness (i.e. tactics).

After 7 years of playing gambits I felt that my main problems with tactics were fixed enough for the moment. A year ago I identified another issue that now has become the most weak : positional play. In order to fix that I am replacing my gambit repertoire by positional openings. Exactly according my plan from 7 years earlier. Now with the Caro Kann I have about completed my positional repertoire. Once I have fixed my positional weakness within a few years I hope to be ready to choose my final opening repertoire. Since I don't know what kind of player I am it is way too early to make that choice now.

I have the secret hope that due to my thinking about the center there will come one day that I can invent my own openings. Or possibly choose the already existing one that fits my ideas. Right now I'm far from that ideal. But once my positional skills are no longer on the bottom of the list of weaknesses I will reconsider my openings again, that is for sure.

Learning a new opening to the degree that I dare to play it in a rated game is in itself no big deal. The Polar Bear took me about 3 months, the Caro Kann 3 weeks, the Closed Sicilian (which I don't play anymore) about 3 days. Depending on how alien the ideas of the opening are to me.

DK, I hope that this reassures you. BTW thanks for the suggestion to study Botwinnik. I will certainly do.

Corus: Tempo 3/5 Margriet 4.5/5

Spacecenter

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Thinking about the center due to a comment of Blunderprone has opened a Pandora's box of thoughts and ideas. To name a few:

• The importance of space
• What you can do with that space
• The blocking of your pieces
• Center pawns being pinned
• Manoeuvring in the space behind your center pawns
• Different values of diagonals
• 3 diagonals through the center (per bishop)
• 3 diagonals ending up in the neighbourhood of the enemy king
• possibility to change the pawnstructure vs being blocked
• possibility to block
• possibility to open lines
• if your pieces protect each other they stand in each others way
• battle for central squares
  

Definitively the center is an asset of its own. Its not implicitly derived from piece activity. In the middlegame I managed to share a whole lotta types of moves under the same noumer piece activity. I'm trying to do something equal with the list above. I'm not very far in this process yet but the common noumer flexibility seems to cover at least a few of the topics above.

On another note I'm doing well at Corus. Sofar I have scored 1.5 out of 3. If I can maintain 50% I will consider the tournament to be quite succesful. The rating in my group spreads from 1780 to 1905. Every game has been a positional battle and I like it. It looks more like study than competition!

Margriet is doing even better with 2.5/3.

Going to war

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Tomorrow the Corus tournament begins for us with the nine-round events. After the tournament in Groningen last Christmas I wasn't satisfied with my 3. ... Qd6 of the scandinavian. Allthough I wanted to focus solely on positional play I couldn't but help to study the Caro Kann. The book of Houska has given me enough understanding to dare to give it a try tomorrow.
I will play for the first time in group four and I hope to manage to uphold myself in that group, but it will be tough, I guess. Margriet will be playing in group 8.

First thoughts about The Center

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BlunderProne pointed out that there is a vast hiatus in my rantings about the game:

Missing in the battle of the piece placement is the need to control the center. This oversight could be explained by the fact that back in the Steinitz’s day ( and Tarrasch), controlling the center with pawns was the main idea while an augmentation of that included indirect control with pieces on the wings through the hypermodern movement. So the question is whether this meme is something to included for piece battle or pawn battle. I believe its ultimately a piece battle issue since I view pawns in the opening and middle game as a “supporting cast” member in the play. In studying the old games, controlling the center was the first priority for both piece and pawn placement. The battle of the center dictates where the players will create secondary weaknesses as they take resources and time to defend or attack the central squares. If one is allowed to “win” the center, then the conversion to a permanent advantage could be realized either through a direct attack on gaining material or checking the King. Under these circumstance, the second player tends to create further weaknesses in pawn structures or inherits a cramping position with much less mobility.

Indeed I haven't given the center a single thought. I must admit that I have only a very vague notion of why the center is so important. Can the importance of the center be derived from my 3 battles (battle of the pieces, battle of the pawns, battle of time) or has it a meaning of its own?

Parts of my theory of piece activity are among others: a safe home for your piece (outpost or from a distance) and a pathway into enemy territory (open lines). Sofar I identified the following issues that are related to the importance of the center:

• Open lines. The open lines don't seem to be of equal value. Some diagonals and some open lines are more important than others. Maybe the most important lines go through the center. On what depends the importance of a line?
  
• Space. If you have a pawn on d4 and e4 you have a lot of safe space to manoeuvre your pieces behind them from one flank to another.
• Piece placement. They say that pieces are best placed in the center. Of knights that is easy to understand, due to their short range. But for the bishop matters are less clear to me. If a bishop is called a monster it usually stands on a long diagonal.
• Control of squares on the enemy side. Pawns on e4 and d4 stretch their influence into enemy territory. But so do pawns on a4 and b4. Why are the center pawns more important?
• The king is safer on the flank. Why?

Now that I have your attention

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When BDK wrote about his latest blunder some time ago a few issues crossed my mind. Since he was focussing on a new approach to his game, that is to say, he intended to pick up his old approach again (CTT), I tried to draw his attention with a few jokes. The message that I had something to say obviously didn't come across.
Since I have no inclination to help people who don't want to be helped, I didn't simply say what I had to say. I never do. But since everybody has the right to be awoken when he signals it, I continued to poke him with hints. As I always do. To no avail, btw.

When BDk wrote an excellent post about lack of chess vision as the main cause of blunders, he covered 90% of the matter, so what I had to say started to look somewhat obsolete.
Due to the law of inertia I continued to poke though. What especially triggered me was his call up:

Fellow patzers: when it is your turn to move, do not waste your time thinking about pawn structure, whether to exchange your Bishop for his Knight, or similar strategic jambalaya before doing a basic safety check.

Well, as you can read in the comments of this post, my latest poke crossed the line of funnyness into the area of insult. Which can always happen with my way of demeanor, ofcourse. But I can never deny someone's right to be awoken when he seems to call me.

Ok, 'nuf said, so what's up?

It is a common thought that there is an imperative relationship between a low rating and blundering. There is not. Not imperative, I mean. Even when I had a low rating, I never have blundered much. There are lots of low rated players who don't.
The cause for blundering lies in [lack of] chess vision, as BDK pointed out brilliantly. But here I talk about the cause behind the cause. Why some people are blunder prone, while others aren't. The idea that blunders are inherent to a low rating prevents the research after these deeper causes.

It must have something to do with habits. Habits tend to become invisible when you think that everyone has the same problem. My attitude in life is one of safety first. Check and double check. No pun intended. These habits, which I can't help, prevents me obviously from blundering much.

During clubevenings and tournaments I noticed a habit which the greater part of the D-players have in common (but not all of them, as said). When the games start at 8 pm, most of the D-players are sitting at the bar at 9 pm. I never understand that. How can you loose a game and have still 1.5 hours left on the clock? That simply can't be.

It's my take that the habit we are talking about here is impatientness. Since the A-players use up all their time in general, the question arises why aren't they impatient? Have they overcome their habit or are impatient players spud out in a Darwinistic manner and just not able to reach the higher ranks due to their habit?

There seems to be a correlation between the length of the game, rating, impatientness and being blunderprone (Sorry, BP). Whether and how this is causal I leave to you. I just wanted to put these invisible habits under your attention.

Another point I want to make is that there is a great difference in level between the level of your blunder and the level of your average chess skill. As BDK pointed out that has to do with chess vision. If you look not at a certain part of the board or look with a biased mindset, you simply do not see what's there. This implies that measures that repair your blunderprone-ity will have no effect at your average chess skill. Since the difference in level of both is to big.

This leaves the question if the raise of your overall chess skills has a causal relation to the level of your blunders. In other words, do grandmasters make subtle blunders in stead of gros blunders? If so, their blunderprone-ity might have nothing to do with impatientness after all since they play longer games and are hence less impatient. Hence I might be talking nonsense.

The 3 battles

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Due to positonal study my chess thinking is evolving.
At the moment I have identified three battles in chess.

The battle of the pieces.
The main ingredient is piece activity about which I have written a lot in the past. Piece activity consists of 4 elements:

• A safe home or outpost, where the pieces can stand without getting harassed by pawns. (sub-battle for a good outpost)
  
• A pathway or open line, leading into hostile territory. Pieces try to dominate the open line. (sub-battle for the open lines).
• Bridge head or invasion square or focal point, where pieces try to infiltrate into enemy territory. (sub-battle for invasion squares)
• Targets. A piece needs targets to attack. Usually a weak pawn or the enemy king. (sub-battle for inducing weaknesses.)

The battle of the pawns.
If you look closely to the 4 elements of piece activity, then you see that it are pawns that play the decisive role in the 4 sub-battles of piece activity:

• It are pawns that tell you which square is suited for an outpost.
• It are pawns that determine which lines and which diagonals are open and which are closed.
• An invasion square lies behind the influence of hostile pawns.
• It are the pawns that decide on which pawns are weak.

If you have to decide which pieces are good and which are bad, you will find that you base your verdict on the pawnstructure. The pawns dictate which bishop is good, which is bad and which is active (like in the church, a bad bishop can be very active).

There is little known about the battle of the pawns. Thusfar I have identified the following area's of interest:

• Volatility. As long as the pawns aren't blockaded or restricted, the pawnstructure is volatile. In this case it is impossible to formulate final verdicts on which piece is better, since it can change with every pawnmove.
• Pawnbreaks. A lot of openings have thematic pawnbreaks. These pawnbreaks tend to change the assessment of the piece activity dramatically.
• All pawnmoves influence the piece activity.
• The exercise what do you want for Christmas is based on the pawnstructure. Since the best places for the pieces are based on it.
  
• Pawns can become targets in their own right when left alone by their brothers.
• The idea to improve your worst piece is based on the position of the pawns, since the pawns both make that piece bad and dictate which square is best. Hence which pieces should be traded off is indicated by the pawns.
  
• Endgame residu. What are the leftovers from the middlegame? From time to time you have to ask yourself: if I think away all pieces, is the resulting pawnendgame won? This tells you when it is time to trade off pieces in order to reach a beneficial endgame. This is a common idea. Most people tend to inflict you routinely with double pawns, backward pawns, isolated pawns and pawn islands. I think this endgame residu tends to be overrated. Since your decisions in the middlegame should be based on middlegame considerations. Only when there is no conflict with the middlegame considerations you can make moves that solely leaves a beneficial endgame residu.

The battle of time.
Thusfar I found 2 area's of interest: tempo's and the initiative.

Unit of measurement.
Time in chess is measured in tempo's. What you actually measure is the distance from the initial position of a piece to the position where the piece exerts the most activity. Hence it is a measure for development. Counting tempo's can be usefull in the opening. Once all pieces are deployed, there is no longer a necessity to count tempo's. Nimzowitch talked in this context about the difference between falling asleep during your work or after your work.
But often even in the middlegame tempo's can start to play a role again. Due to pawnmoves, there is a continuous change in the assessment of the piece activity. So from time to time you have to ask yourself which is your worst piece. And count the amount of tempo's you need to put it on a more active square.

During the development phase you can play the trick that you trade an undeveloped piece for a fully developed one, which will give you an edge in the race for tempo's.

The Initiative.
The initiative is based on the forcing character of a move. Forcing moves are of course checks, captures and threats. I assume all forcing moves fall in one of those three categories. Threats can have a wide range from very gross to very subtle.

The chance that you can get the initiative is influenced by the activity of the pieces, the availability of targets, the availability of outposts etc.. Hence by the pawnstructure! Besides that, it is important who is to move.

When the game starts, white has the premove. If he developes in the most efficient way, black will not be able to fully equalize. Hence white will reach the middlegame as first. And the first forcing moves will be of whites hand. The fact that there is a slight difference in scorings percentage between white and black is the statistical outing of this phenomenon.

The core of the matter lies in the amount of tasks that you complete. Most moves serve a single purpose, hence perform a single step towards the completion of a task. The art in the battle for the initiative is to find multipurpose moves, which perform two steps of two tasks at the same time with only one move. A multipurpose move can serve two attacking tasks, or an attacking task and a defending task, or two defending tasks at the same time.

A forcing move requires a reaction. Usually such reaction is possible. Only if there is a lack of space, the reaction can become problematic.

If the forcing move is a multipurpose move, there can be a problem to meet both threats at the same time with only one move.

Non-chess battles.
Besides the 3 chess related battles there are other battles to be fought. For instance the whining about blunders, which is a battle against yourself. Blundering is mainly based on the problem of an undisciplined mind. Allthough the outcome of such non-chess battles can influence the result of your games, I don't think a chessblog is the appropriate place to talk about these matters. The treatment room of a shrink sounds more suitable:)

Out of the comfortzone

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If I remember well it was Wormwood who advocated to train out of your comfortzone. Since I associate WW with a person who is often right for the wrong reason (=ideal mindset for fast chess improvement), I always listen to him carefully. When he writes something, that is, which isn't very often.

The idea of training out of your comfortzone stemms from physical training, if I'm not mistaken. I'm always a bit sceptical when transiting idea's from the physical area to the brain area. Yet there seems to be something in it.

At the moment I'm busy with the positional exercises of Aagaards excelling at positional chess. My score is 0% after the first 5 exercises, because the way of looking at a position is quite unfamiliar to what I'm used to. I notice that my mind is not at ease. I frown upon the given solutions, allthough they are probably right. I seek distractions, like writing this post and such kind of things. I'm definitely not in my comfortzone.

Yet I belief there is no better way than to continue. Especially because the way of thinking is alien to me I feel that I learn alot. For instance that I'm overfocused on piece activity and the initiative, while I tend to be blind for certain pawnweaknesses.

Trying to understand the mysterious solutions of Aagaards book forces me to formulate new narratives and new knowledge. Most of this you will not find in books. Take for instance the following example.

From a random book I have learned that a backward pawn is weak when it can be attacked. Today I learned by seeing it myself that when a pawn is adjacent to another, but it cannot move forward because it is restrained, it can be weak too. Since it cannot move into the save coverage of its brother.

Such new knowledge I'm forced to formulate in order to explain to myself why a certain solution of Aagaard actually works. That's a very priceless exercise. But it feels uncomfortable, for some reason. Yet I will continue.

Opening distraction

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Allthough I don't want to spend time on openings before Corus I can't simply help to worry about it. After some research I'm convinced that the Scandinavian 3. ... Qd6 which I have adopted lately and the Taimanov Sicilian aren't the openings for me. Remain the French and the Caro Kann.

Actually I want to learn both systems. I don't know if I'm right, but I have the feeling that if I learn the idea's of the French first, that will be of great help when starting with the Caro Kann. Is there anybody who can confirm this?

In the mean time I will have to fall back on my old 2. ... Nf6 Scandinavian against 1.e4 for Corus. But since I'm playing at a higher level now I'm no longer happy with the involved gambitlines.

The actual preparation I intend to do when I'm not distracted by blogging and openings is solving the positional problems of Aagaards excelling at positional chess.