Temposchlucker

 Plans are based on moves that are irreversible: a pawn move or a piece trade. Whenever a piece is exchanged or a pawn is moved, you have to reconsider your plan. The motivation for a pawn move lies in changing the piece activity. Piece activity comes in two flavors: Increasing the activity of your own pieces Restricting your opponents' pieces In order to get the hang of pawn moves, you must develop an eye for convergence squares. A convergence square is a square which can act as a pivot point for pieces. White to move r3k2r/ppq1n1pp/2nbbp2/2p5/2PpPP1N/3P4/PP1N2BP/R1BQ1RK1 w kq - 0 12 e4 is a convergence square for the white pieces (bishop and knight) e5 is a convergence square for the black pieces (bishop, knight, queen) Both squares are currently blocked. The manoeuver 1.e5 fxe5 2.f5 clears e4 while blocking e5 permanently. The cost is a pawn, but it takes black 4 tempi to redeploy his pieces to active squares. I read somewhere the rule of thumb that a pawn is worth 3 tempi. Stoc...

 A  plan starts with an irreversible move by the enemy. That is a piece trade or a pawn move. Ssegwanyi, A. - Karjakin, S What came before. 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.Nf3 Bb4 7.c5?!  A premature pawn advance which is the start of an idea. 7... O-O first bringing the king into safety 8.Bd3 After 8.Bd3. Black to move rnbq1rk1/pp3ppp/4pn2/2Pp4/1b1P4/2NB1N2/PP3PPP/R1BQK2R b KQ - 2 8 8...b6!  The first micro plan (sentence) is to saddle white with more pawn islands than black. The exchange is more or less forced. 9.cxb6 axb6  10.O-O  After 10.O-O. Black to move 10... Bxc3! Black tears the b and a pawn apart. Now white has two weak pawns on an open file. This is the next micro plan. 11.bxc3 Ba6! Forcing the exchange of the bishops. Not only gets black rid of his bad bishop, but of the defender of c4 too. This is the third micro plan. 12.Bg5 Nbd7 13.Bxa6 Rxa6 14.Qb3 After 14.Qb3. Black to move 14...Qa8 The fourth micro plan is to pressurize ...

 The word The previous post was about chess words. It consists of mini decision trees of one move deep. Very much like the IF THEN ELSE constructs in programming. It is important to look at the most principled variation first. If you sac a bishop on h7, you must first consider the potentially worst case scenario: that he takes it. If the worst case scenario works, then you can look at the next variation. If it doesn't work, you are wasting your time anyway. The word consists of the conceptual pattern of the move (system 1) and its logical consequences (system 2). The sentence A chess sentence is the logical narrative that describes the plan. In the beginning was the Word. But where is the beginning of a chess sentence? According to GM Smirnov you must reconsider your plan every time a piece is exchanged or a pawn is moved. These moves have in common that they are irreversible. A plan is a sentence. In an unfamiliar situation you can start at any word in the sentence, based on the s...