Temposchlucker

 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&#

 We talked a lot about backwards thinking versus trial and error in the past. Now I learn to use the logical narrative, it becomes more and more a replacement of trial and error. Which feels really good! Black to move 5k2/5pp1/7p/3pn3/1r5P/4K1P1/1PR2P2/1B6 b - - 0 42  Pancevski, F. vs. Van Kooten, L., Hoogeveen 2013 The logic narrative revealed a new idea. The pieces are too fast to chase. But you might be able to chase the king into a fork with the rook. Here fore you need to know two patterns. Here you see where you need to chase the white king to in order to get a knightfork And it helps to see that there is a mate in the position too. Black to move This gives a clear idea what you need to learn from this position. The logic: chase the king into a knightfork because it is slow Pattern 1 : the position of the king where it can be forked Pattern 2 : the mate This prunes the tree of analysis drastically. From the patterns you can reconstruct backwards how to chase the king. UPDATE Her

 From "Secrets of Practical Chess" by GM John Nunn: Nunn describes a friendly match of 100 rapid games where he beat a 2300-rated player by 88-12:  "I thought that I would see lots of advanced strategic concepts in these games but actually all I have learnt is LPDO" ... During the remaining games I saw what he meant. Most of the games were decided by relatively simple tactics involving undefended pieces, when the LP would duly DO. Nunn was back then, let's say, 2600 rated (to keep matters simple). 88-12, rapid, mainly simple tactics. Okay, let's apply some caveman mathematics.  88 / 12 = 7.3 Hypothesis: every 300 rating points means 7.3 times as much patterns of simple tactics absorbed. Me 1700; Cook 2300, Nunn 2600 => Nunn has absorbed 7.3 ^4 = 2840 times as much patterns absorbed than me. The picture below shows it beautifully. Every strategy letter in the picture has a set of simple tactics attached. I must work on the total amount of tactics, but even