Assault
The chess clubs have begun! I play at two clubs. So I'm getting feedback from my OTB games again. This picture emerges:
- I suck at the opening
- My middlegame is great
- I suck at the endgame
- I suck at the kingside attack
In the opening I tend to give my opponent too much opportunities. I don't feel at ease at all in the opening.
This is my remedy:
I analyze all my openings, and add a solution to my opening database. Usually one move at the time. I register my openings in the chess openings wizard, and I will train them before my next tournament. Which will be in december. If this works remains to be seen. But at least this approach has a minimal time investment.
In the middlegame I often manage to adjust the mistakes I made in the opening to some degree. Usually I can build up a lot of pressure. There still is a lot of work to be done in the middlegame though.
- Activate my pieces
- Restrict my opponents pieces
- Exchanges
- Development
I'm working on those with the aid of some courses at Chessable
With the transition to an endgame or a king assault, I usually let them slip off the hook. That is what my opponents tell me too.
There are two areas of investigation here:
- The transition to an endgame (60% of the games)
- The kingside assault (40% of the games)
Capablanca said that we should start with the endgame. Well, I restarted with 100 endgames that you must know from Chessable, but this time in the right way, based on logical narratives. With this training, the problem is not covered at all, The training is necessary, but in order to study the transition to the endgame, I must study pawn structures. I have the courses, but not the time. That is to say, I must make choices in order to keep enough focus.
Given the general course of my past 10 games, it seems to be more adequate to focus on the king side assault first. So that is what I'm going to do. It is important to not try to swallow too much at the same time.
What I noticed in my games, is that my pieces are well placed in the middlegame, but they don't coördinate. Learning to assault the king in Vukovic style, I must learn how to coördinate my pieces.
ReplyDeleteLogic begins at the end. Without knowing where you are going, you cannot devise a logic narrative how to get there.
ReplyDeleteBut it is important to be precise about the current end. You can work towards an ending of a good knight versus a bad bishop. That is something different than being able to convert such endgame into a win.
For the sake of logical reasoning, it suffices to know what is desirable and what not. The problem how to convert a won endgame into a win can be solved later. Losing a bunch of endgames between a good knight and a bad bishop is just a luxury problem.
The same is true for an assault of the king. No matter how much mate patterns you know, when you don't know how to get there, it is of little use.
Rudolf Spielmann: "I can comprehend Alekhine's combinations well enough; but where he gets his attacking chances from and how he infuses such life into the very opening - that is beyond me."
Hence there is work to be done between the middlegame and the mate. Your pieces can be active like hell, but without knowledge of how to convert it into an attack, it is of little use.
That is what Vukovic' the Art of Attack in Chess was about. But even Vukovic declared that it was still a work in progress.
The object of investigation is how to convert piece activity into an attack. For that, I must know more about how the pieces cooperate.
The following game is from Botvinnik one hundred selected games, M. M. Botvinnik, Dover, © 1966. The book is in English Descriptive notation, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first read through this game a long time ago, GM Botvinnik’s specific comment after White’s 11th move really stuck with me.
I found the game score in the ChessTempo database and also on chessgames.com (with interesting commentary).
Sokolsky, Alexey (2639) vs Botvinnik, Mikhail (2640)
Date: 1938
Event: URS-ch sf, 1/2 final ch URS Leningrad RUS
Round: 1
Result: 0-1
Opening: Gruenfeld Defense, Three Knights Variation, Burille Variation (D94)
Problems: 137880218, 137880225, 161916244, 165245470
1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. d4 g6 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. e3 O-O 6. Be2 e6 7. O-O b6 8. cxd5 exd5 9. b3 Bb7 10. Bb2 Nbd7 11. Qc2
It is gradually becoming apparent that White has no plan of play whatsoever, and is occupied only with the “development” of his pieces. Perhaps this was sufficient fifty years ago, but in our day, when at the sixth to eighth move every master formulates his plan for the middlegame, there is no “better” way of getting a cramped and passive position than by aiming only at development.
Even now White could still occupy the central e5-square with his Knight, which would lead to a struggle with double-edged possibilities. In a move or two, this will prove impossible, and the control of the central squares passes to Black.
11...a6 12. Rac1 Rc8 13. Rfd1 Qe7 14. Qb1 Rfd8 15. Bf1 c5 16. dxc5 bxc5 17. Ne2 Bh6 18. Ba3 Ng4 19. Qd3 Nde5 20. Nxe5 Qxe5 21. Ng3 Qf6 22. Nh1 d4 23. Qe2 Ne5 24. exd4 cxd4 25. Rxc8 Bxc8 26. Re1 d3 27. Qd1 Bg4 28. Qa1 d2 29. Rxe5 d1=Q 30. Re8+ Rxe8 31. Qxf6 Be2 32. Ng3 Bg7 33. Qc6 Bb5 34. Qc1 Qxc1 35. Bxc1 Re1 36. Be3 Ra1 37. a4 Bd3 38. f4 Rb1 39. Kf2 Bxf1 40. Nxf1 Rxb3
Interesting tactics in the middlegame, beginning with Black’s 17th move.
It is interesting that Botvinnik commented this after move move 11. White cannot get the upperhand on e4 or e5 anymore, while black has the pawn break c5 which cannot be prevented because black has the upperhand on c5. Thus being able to alter the center structure at will.
DeleteThen it develops into a mobile pawn storm by the hanging pawns on b5 and c5, thus showing that the white pieces don't coordinate, despite being "developed".
This is the transition I'm talking about. From developing and conquering the center, to transiting into an endgame.
The other transition is into a kingside attack, the "assault". Again, a mobile pawn storm seems to be the base, which has as main goal to free the own pieces and to cramp the opponents pieces.
You cannot just "develop" and hope for the best. At our level even that might work though, since most people even forget to develop seriously.
You must have some picture of the end, so you can think backwards and re-engineer the logical narrative towards you goal. With no goal, you can only reach it by accident, when the opponent plays without a goal too. Which is generally the case at 1800.
Any goal at our level must come from rote memorization of opening variations. Which is doomed to fail without understanding the why behind your variations.
The classical “line of demarcation” (for the beginning of the transition between opening and middlegame) was that ALL the pieces were “developed.” Development was defined as all (or at least, most) of the minor pieces and the Queen had advanced from the back rank, the King was castled and the Rooks were connected. At this point, ones whole army was available to throw at the enemy position, and so active operations could commence against the opposing forces.
DeleteModern chess dispenses with the static definition of the transition to the middlegame. Rather, the apparent motto is Bobby Fischer’s axiom, “In order to get squares, you have to give squares.” Attacks and defenses to those attacks begin from the very first moves; action is followed by reaction in a chain; either player can initiate attacks forcing counter-attacks. Pawn structure is a secondary or tertiary consideration to purposeful (planned) activity. The initiative and greater space are prized possessions.
An example is the Parham Attack. [Master Parham was eulogized in the most recent issue of Chess Life, the monthly magazine published by the US Chess Federation.] It arises on the second White move: 1. e4 e5 2. Qh5. This early Queen sortie violates classical opening principles, but it “works” (at least for Master Parham). Here’s the game score given in the eulogy:
Parham Attack (C20)
Bernard Parham (2103)
Romeo Soriano (1865)
Scarborough Peace Games, 08.10.1996
1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 d6 3. Bc4 g6 4. Qf3 Nf6 5. Ne2 Bg7 6. Nbc3 0-0 7. d3 Be6
8. h4 Bxc4 9. dxc4 Qd7 10. Bg5 Qe6 11. 0-0-0 Nbd7 12. Ng3 h6 13. Bd2 b5
14. cxb5 a6 15. b6 cxb6 16. h5 b5 17. Nd5 Nxd5 18. exd5 Qf6 19. Qa3 Nc5
20. Qe3 Na4 21. Ne4 Qd8 22. hxg6 f5 23. Rxh6 fxe4 24. Qh3 Rxf2
25. Rh8+, Black resigned
[I am well aware that the Grunfeld Defense is a sound well-established opening. That does not change my thesis regarding modern opening play.]
The preceding Sokolsky-Bovinnik game is another case in point. After 1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5, Black is not content to “develop” most of his pieces and only then try to find some point of attack in the opponent’s position. Instead, he immediately poses questions to White, who apparently is in a classical frame of mind. White tries to transpose into a more classical approach with 3. d4 but Black insists on a more modern (Hypermodern?) approach with 3… Bg7, putting pressure on the center from the long-range Bishop. If you look at the first 11 moves of this game from this modern viewpoint, you’ll see that Black is forcing the idea of attacks and defenses from the very beginning, whereas White is trying his best to just “develop” all his pieces and only then try to start active operations. Unfortunately for White, by the time he gets everything ready, it’s already too late: Black has gained the upper hand in the center and his pieces are much better coordinated to concrete operations.
It’s interesting to use GM Stockfish to evaluate each individual move in this opening. Black is consistently behind in points (ranging from 0.10-0.30) until the middlegame proper with both players attempting active operations. There were several alternatives throughout the opening and transition stage that White could have played that would have maintained the balance of position—but he didn’t.
Perhaps the modern approach is best illustrated with quotes from General George S. Patton:
Delete"A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week."
"Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable."
"Nobody ever defended anything successfully, there is only attack and attack and attack some more."
"Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash."