Temposchlucker

 A close inspection of my last post revealed that I probably mix up two things. The plan of a tactic is revealed by its last scenario. The main study task is twofold: discover all scenarios in the chain of the logical narrative discover all the effects of each scenario I mix this up with my observations of the games at the Tata Chess tournament.. Essentially that works the same, but the end of the scenario-chain is not the gain of wood, but an assessment of the resulting position. Which I called the plan. Back to tactics. The last post was about the first point, discovering all scenarios, and especially the last scenario. But during my training I discovered that point two is a problem too, seeing all the ins and outs of a single scenario. Let me give an example. Black to move 5rk1/p3ppbp/1q1pb1p1/1N3r2/2PB1Qn1/1P4P1/P3PPBP/R4RK1 b - - 0 1 Parligras, Mircea vs. Nielsen, Peter Heine This is a problem of my database, and Chessable presents it to be on a spaced repetition basis. I thin...

 When I look at the videos of the Tata Steel chess tournament that is currently playing, I notice that I need the plan in order to work out the tactics. Without a plan, I am stuck in trial and error. geometry => conceptual geometry => scenario => plan => think backwards   Black to move 6k1/Q5b1/1B2q3/1P2p3/4Pn2/2Np2p1/P5PN/7K b - - 0 1 Alexander Grischuk vs Fabiano Caruana (not from the tournament!) 42. ... Qh6 43. Bg1 scenario 1 threaten mate in 1. Binding the white bishop 43. ... Qh3 44. Qf2 scenario 2 threaten mate in 1. Luring the pawn away, Binding the white queen 44. ... Qxh2+ 45 Bxh2 scenario 3 Luring away the overloaded bishop 45, ,,, gxf2 scenario 4 promoting the pawn The plan combines the 4 scenarios. When you discover the plan, you reached a higher level. From there, you can work backwards and debug your combination. The goal is to get a sense of how to combine scenarios to a plan. You figure it out. I know it!

 I like my views holistic. Because that helps to reduce vagueness. If any author wants me to play an active move, than a holistic view helps me to reason what he might be talking about. In order to build up a holistic view, I realized that I must start at the beginning. Sorry for the kings on the board. But the best program for arrows on the board (Lucas chess) doesn't allow for positions without kings. What is specific for the endgame? there is an extra attacker on the board (the pawn) there is an extra target on the board (the promotion square, the 4th sitting duck) there is a special line of attack (LoA) This terminology gives new meaning to the term "activity". Piece activity can now be measured in terms of influence on these three points of application. This gives rise to the possible scenarios: to attack the pawn to clear or block the LoA It introduces the battle for promotion. The past two weeks I did a lot of research in order to decide how to approach the endgame...