Temposchlucker

 Finite amount of LoAs There is a finite amount of lines of attack. This already cuts down the amount of things to think about drastically Moving target All LoAs are geared around the king. That is because a LoA ends near to the king. But when the opposing king hasn't castled yet, you don't know where to aim your attackers to. Only in rare cases you are able to force the king to stay in the middle. This means that when the target hasn't stabilized, you can only go so far when it comes to placing your attackers. Once the king has castled, you can go all out. Pawns The role of the pawns is paramount. Their effect is twofold. They drastically cut down the amount of LoAs that are usable They increase the approach time of both attackers and defenders, but in an unbalanced way Pawns come in two flavors. Your own pawns and your enemies pawns. Pawn breaks can alter the LoA landscape in a moments notice. All of a sudden, other attackers, other defenders and other squares become rele

 The following diagram is intended to show that the amount of LoAs is finite. I left out the knights to keep the amount of arrows in check. A line of attack ends near the opposing king. An assault on the enemy king must make use of a LoA. This way, you can prune the things you have to think about. The pawn landscape cuts down the amount of LoA's to consider even more. As you can see, the pawns are limiting both your own attackers AND can prevent the defenders from reaching the LoAs. We must grab any opportunity to get rid of thing to think about. Hence, focus on the LoAs and the typical scenarios that belong to the battle of the LoAs! White to move r4rk1/pbqn1ppp/1p1bpn2/2ppN3/3P1P2/1P1BP3/PBPN2PP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 1 Here the line of attack b2 g7 looks very blockaded. But that is an optical illusion. With moves like Nxd7 and dxc5, the long diagonal is cleared all of a sudden. While Bxf6 removes a defender of the focal point h7. Look at the same time at the black defenders that are bl

 The past weeks I have been busy to evaluate my conclusions and to ponder about how to continue. I get to the same conclusions over and over again, so I will give it a go. The problem is, that I hypothesize a sweet spot in my approach, while I have no idea whether such sweet spot actually exists. My focus is the area where a kingside attack is prepared. On the one hand it is easy to get lost in the myriads of variations which can be used to describe a kingside attack, on the other hand it is easy to debit some trivialities that are too general to be useful. Like "a knight on f5 is worth 4 points", or "a pawn on e5 is worth an extra piece". The problem is that I don't get much help from chess authors, who tend to choose for one direction or the other. In order to try to focus on the sweet spot and not to get lost into the variations, I will try to base my conclusions on the lines of attack. After all, we know that a line of attack ends on a square in the vicinity

 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 course

 60% of the games are decided by an endgame, while 40% is decided by an early mate. The area of interest is: what happens when that point of decision hasn't been reached yet? What are the strategic goals for that stage? It seems that that stage is governed by the following: Increase your piece activity Restrain your opponents pieces The battle for the lines of attack Create an invasion square I formulated the following question: Currently I try to solve the following conundrum. I found two rules:   The pawn structure dictates the piece placement (Seirawan) Pawn moves are dictated by piece placement (Kabadayi) How to combine this? After some investigation I found that they meant the same. It is about optimizing piece activity and creating an invasion square. White to move r2q1rk1/pp1nb1pn/2ppb2p/4p3/2P1P3/1PN1BPP1/P2QN1BP/R4RK1 w - - 0 14  What's going on? Nc3: restricted by c6. Can you get rid of c6? No Nc3: blockaded by e4. Can you get rid of e4? Yes Ne2: restricted by e5 and

 A few years ago I did the course "100 endgames you must know" from Chessable. I quitted halfway. The reason for that, is that I learned the moves, but not the understanding. The Movetrainer of Chessable invites you to do so. But that is a stupid use of the Movetrainer. What we learned from the post of July 21th, is the power of logic. Two totally different positions could be solved with the same logic: "chase the slowest piece (the king) into a duplo attack". This means that logic is the answer to the transfer conundrum, how to transfer knowledge that is learned in one position to another position. To formulate the logic in a position costs more energy than just to learn the moves. But the moves fade from memory within two years, while logic last much longer, often even for life. When you only have learned the moves, you can be helpless if the position is even only slightly different. White to move 6k1/5R2/6K1/8/8/8/8/6b1 w - - 0 1 Here again, you need the end posi

 I'm investigating positional play from the opening to the invasion. A lot about the conquest of the center remains unclear. But from time to time a tip of the veil is raised. For instance how to fight to increase piece activity. Black to move 6k1/5ppp/2n5/1pp1p3/4P3/1PP5/2B2PPP/6K1 b - - 0 1 Pawns have the ability to restrict pieces. The pieces need manoeuvering room. This implicates that pawn moves are dictated by the position of the pieces. In the above position c3 is restricting the activity of the knight. 1. ... b4 undermines the pawn c3. And after 2.cxb4 Nd4, the active knight dominates the game, while the white bishop is severely restricted by its own pawns. Creating an outpost by undermining. Another clear position: Black to move r5k1/1b3ppp/3p4/3Pp1b1/1q2P3/N2B4/1P3PPP/Q4K1R b - - 0 21 The move 1. ... f5 might feel counter intuitive, since it frees the white bishop. But whites king position is unsafe, while blacks king is perfectly fine. Furthermore, the white pieces don&#