Tata steel chess tournament. 2011

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America shows its resourceful diplomacy to the world.

There is still little time to seriously analyze games so I probably do best by talking about matters I do find time for. I noticed a degradation of tactical performance and of visualizing long lines in my head during my games. Last week I started to do tactical exercises again at Chess Tempo for half an hour a day. Already my performance starts to improve. I almost feel sharp again.

My play is still lousy. As a tactician my adage was piece activity. For some reason my application of positional knowledge in my games tends towards passivity. That has a lot to do with the will to keep the complexity of a game below a managable threshold. It is an old trap to approach positional play with static concepts while dynamism always bites you from behind. I always fall for that one.

I'm preparing for Tata.