Again we are making a giant leap forwards. Invasion and King assault are best described by the battle of the LoA's. They are geared around the lines of attack (LoA's). And are perfectly described by the PoPLoAFun system
- PoP = point of pressure
- LoA = line of attack
- Fun = function of a piece
But there is a vast area of different tactics, which are geared around tempo's. The battle of the tempo's, so to speak. From the previous post:
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White to move
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r2q1rk1/pb2bppp/1pn1p3/2ppN3/3PnP2/1P1BP3/PBPN2PP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 1 11
The first step is to write out the tree of analysis:
Purple = white, green = black
This is typically what system 2 must work out in order to find out that 1.Nxe4 wins a pawn in all circumstances. When I wrote the tree of analysis down, I was actually rather discouraged. How on earth am I going to abstrahere a simplified logic from this?
But after a few hours, I started to see matters from a different standpoint. How can I describe this from the viewpoint of tempo's?
The Colle-Zukertort is geared around the powerful bishop Bd3. This means, that you must always be alert that it is not going to be blocked by a black piece on e4. Hence white has placed 2 attackers that must keep e4 clear.
And normally, that would be enough. White has a local superiority of 2:1 on e4, as Robert pointed out. So what makes black think that he can get away with Ne4?
Blacks hope is based on the battery Bb7 - Nc6, which are ready for a discovered attack. 1.Nxe4 Nxe5 wins a tempo. This tempo adds all of a sudden an extra defender to e4.
This means, that only if white finds a move that wins a tempo too, he can win a pawn.
1.Nxe4 Nxe5 2.Nxc5 does the following:
- it attacks the undefended Bb7
- it defends Bd3, so black cannot free his Ne5 without giving white a free tempo
- it takes a pawn
After 2. . . . Nxd3 3. Nxd3 white has saved his Knight AND dealt with blacks attack on Bb2.
Doing two things with one move is paramount.
Conclusion
This blog started 19 years ago with the notion that when 14 year old prodigies become grandmaster, there must be a trick involved. For long I thought that this trick was "tactics". My attempts to master tactics helped me to a certain degree, but after the initial gain of 250 rating points, I plateaued again. Serious scrutiny has now finally revealed the real trick: we are talking about a subset of tactics: the tempo battle.
The area that prodigies master and I do not. Where they see the solution or can find it with logic, while I have to calculate it.
Even the simple tactic of this post has a tree of analysis that costs a considerable amount of mental resources of system 2, time and energy, and is error prone.
But even this simple example takes a few hours of study before I have unearthed the simple yet subtle logic behind it. Only now I can hope to educate system 1 with it. Because I need simple logic for that.
The art is to prune the tree of analysis by logic.
It took me about 5 hours to simplify and generalize the logic of this position. It sounds something like this:
ReplyDeleteThe balance is disturbed. White has a 2:1 supremacy on e4. Normally he can win a pawn there.
Blacks only chances are to use the fire power of his battery Bb7 - Nc6. They can deliver a discovered attack, which can add an extra defender to e4 with tempo. A discovered attack is a dual purpose move that restores the balance.
White can only neutralize the dual purpose move by making a dual purpose move himself: Nxc5.
It is important to define what a legitimate purpose is. Does it make a difference whether blacks Bb7 is protected? Nc5 protects Bd3. Which is a way to escape with tempo for blacks Ne5. It eliminates further escapades of the black knight if you can take it while escaping with your own knight.
It is clear that I need to investigate this even further. But it is evident too that this position is about tempos and dual purposes. It is about developing an (vultures) eye for the tempo battle. I talked a lot about this in the past. But I could never get past the confusion. Now is the time.
BTW CM Can Kabadayi has written a book about multi purpose moves, which I am going to study.