Chess Praxis

Tactical repeats

2008-07-07T13:14:00.000-07:00

It's funny how certain combinations can show up again and again in games. Sometimes, I remember having the feeling that using such combinations was cheating - I didn't really win that game, I just used that old trick again. I wonder if there is something to that sense though. We can begin to rely on specific tactics in certain kinds of positions. If you've got a trick that the opponent seems to fall for over and over again, you can get lazy and fail to develop a greater sense of the nuances of the position(s).So here's a good case in point. I was black here, and this is just the sort of position where I developed a pattern in 2007 of always striving to nab the a-pawn.
14...Nc4
15.Bc1 Nxa3
16.e5 dxe5
17.Bxb7 Qxb7
18.bxa3 exd4
19.Rxd4 and I went on to win after a long struggle.

Here's another example, same theme.

Once again, 16...Nxa3 works to perfection.

And another one:

And of course, Nxa3!
It gets to the point where you can think of it, Sicilian defense 101 - go for the a-pawn with your knight and hope your opponent has an undefended knight on c3...

I think though, that the more important lesson to draw is a certain tactical awareness so that you can be primed and aware when similar opportunities arise in disimilar positions. For example:

Here I was white against a strong expert, and it was with great relish that I unleashed Bxh6! which let me off the hook after a long a difficult effort to mobilize my hanging pawns, and I went on to win.

Some More Unpleasantries

2008-06-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

In a lot of these games, as I look over them, I remember feeling that I had reached reasonable middlegame/late opening positions, but then had only a weak sense (or no real sense) of how to proceed in the position. Maybe this classes as something to do with strategic assessment in complex positions. I find it hard to accurately evaluate threats and to judge potential plans.

1700 player—Joshua

1.c4 e5
2.g3 Nf6
3.Bg2 c6
4.e3 d5
5.cxd5 cxd5
6.d4 e4
7.f3 Bf5
My opponent here is playing a rather untheoretical English, and I'm not sure if a c6+d5 pawn structure was the best idea against it. Hard to say. Then, I don't really know if it would have been better to exchange e for f.
8.Nc3 Nc6
9.Nge2 Be7
Once the kings are castled, tension will build against the black center, and I needed to have some kind of a better sense of where my pieces could go to support it. Maybe I had to have the e-file clear so I could play Re8? If I just play something like exf3 here on move 9, my opponent plays 10.Bxf3 followed by Qb3 and/or Nf4 to gang up on d4. But maybe there's something tactical here. Perhaps I can really irritate him by playing 10...Nb4 11.0-0 Nc2 12.Rb1... maybe I can get a repetition... I'm not really buying it. BTW, if he swung over Qa4+ at some point to snag the Nb4, I think I can just play Qd7. Okay, maybe 9... exf3 10.Bxf3 Bb4 That seems more useful than Be7, but what about 11.a3? Maybe just 11...Bxc3 12.Nxc3. I don't think that bxc3 is good for him because of how it blocks out his bishop, though it might have potential to give him a menacing center. Then 12...0-0 and maybe I'm good. Hmmm
10.0-0 0-0
11.fxe4 Bxe4
12.Nxe4 Nxe4
13.Nc3Here, having left the center to the whims of chance, I find myself in trouble. Because I have the Be7 instead of having played that bishop elsewhere, I can't support my strongpoint on e4. It's precisely the kind of strategic mess I have a tendancy to get myself into because I will play through an opening with only a rudimentary sense of structures, and then find that my pieces are somehow not coordinating appropriately. Here, if 13...Nxc3 14.bxc3 the difference from the previous position I looked at with bxc3 is that black has no fast ability to pressurize the backward e-pawn. That means that white will be able to push it and liquidize it probably, giving him a monopoly on the center and a passed pawn to shove up my gut. I have to look at this more to determine if it's truly fatal, but at the time, I thought it was losing for me. I played
13...Re8, hoping that the threat of Bg5 would be helpful, but...
14.Nxe4 dxe4
15.Bxe4 Bg5
16.Qf3!
And I was out of ideas and facing an ugly defense. I managed to scrounge a draw, but he should have won.

Composting the Old Rot

2008-06-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

That's how I'm thinking about it. I've been doing a lot of gardening lately, and it seems to me that the pile of old games I've played, some of them successful, many of them blighted, are fertile material to support a new crop of experiences if I will only turn them over a bit and lay them out.

Here's a 2007 win that I think I never blogged. It came near the end when I was writing a lot and increasingly strained for time, but it was a good experience.

1600 player-Joshua
1.d4 Nf6
2.c4 e6
3.Nc3 Bb4
4.Bg5 c5
5.f3?!

It makes sense to me to mark this move dubious because I don't see how an f3-e4 structure will work with the bishop on g5 here. It's possible that it's just a later move that makes it all go wrong, but I think that white's plan is kind of flawed. The point is that after a potential cxd4, Qxd4, if Bxc3, Qxc3, any time white plays e4, Nxe4 will be in the air as a possibility. Hence, f3-e4 would make sense if, and maybe only if white had also played d4-d5.So I played 5...h6
6.Bh4 cxd4
7.Qxd4 Nc6
8.Qd2
And even now I could have played Ne4!?, though I think it's not much better than equal at this point—still not what white would be looking for. Anyway, instead,
8... b6 and now
9.e4? Nxe4And white's in trouble.
10.Bxd8 Nxd2
11.Bh4 Nxf1
12.Kxf1 Bxc3
13.bxc3 Ba6And here I mopped up.

Alright, and here's another fertile disaster I had in 2007. This game is from a duel of many games played against one particular master, in all of which I had black... it wasn't really a duel, more like me just getting smooshed over and over and over.This is one of those organic kinds of positions without a lot of theory where I always thought that black should just play hedgehog-type moves and keep it chill and white's space advantage would eventually melt. I read somewhere once that black should not play d5, but should play for e5 in this kind of position, so that's usually how I would coordinate my pieces in this variation, but it seldom works, I find. This is the kind of position for me where I think that a little more opening theory knowledge would be helpful, as it would encourage me to have a more useful plan instead of just shuffling about until I get squashed.
10.Nbd2 a6
btw, I think a6 looks kind of lame, but I lost a game once in this structure by letting my opponent (another master who suckered me in this line) play Ba6 and trade off the light-squared bishops and then crucify me on the queenside light squares. So I was learning... but maybe not learning the right lessons.
11.Ng5 Nbd7
12.Nge4 Nxe4
13.Nxe4 e5So, I've gotten in my e5 push, and it looks like I might get to play f5 too and have some play.
14.Ng3!
And now I was suddenly stumped. It looks like f5 is not on the table, and my e5 pawn is pinned, which shows that I might have been kind of hasty. Maybe I needed to play Re8 and Bf8 first? Yeah, I think I need to look this up. Instead, I played
14... g6?!
15.f4 Bf6
16.Ne4 Bxe4
17.Bxe4Probably I'm close to lost now. I played 17...Ra7 to avoid losing the a-pawn, but that badly misplaces the rook, and the position just keeps getting worse.
18.fxe5 dxe5
19.Bh6
And now the e5-pawn (the advance of which was my entire plan in this bloody line!) is a major weakness, and I have to play the miserably groveling,
19...Re8 just to avoid losing it.
20.Bc6 Re6
21.d5 Re7
22.Qf2 Bg7
23.Be3Now I'm losing material. From here it was short and awful.
23...Qb8
24.Rad1 f5 Ahhh, my groveling advance. The plan is going so well...
25.d6 Re8
26.Bxb6
1-0
This game was bad enough, but taking into account that it was just one of a whole series of such disasters in this line, I think that's time for me to reexamine my approach to the position. It's tough to play against the these Colle/Trompowsky/Torre/Stonewall type positions, because as the player of the black pieces, you know that if you don't do something active, the white player is going to slowly suffocate you. (I find that there are simpler plans against the London). Maybe I should look up some theory and games and try to build a broader repertoire of potential ideas against these lines so that I can meet them more flexibly. Certainly my, play b6, d6, and strive for e5 idea is not flying most of the time...

Another Loss

2008-06-27T16:39:00.001-07:00

I continue to reflect on my experiences from 2007. This example comes from one of the more frustrating games I had that year. I was white, and had had a very memorable game against a prominent master up until the endgame, which I was continuing to win, but we were in a time scramble.Here, black to move played 36...Rf8 and I completely neglected to look for problems. I was down to a few minutes, and was very very nervous - as one is wont to be when beating a hotshot master.
37.a7 Rf4
and now my heart stopped. It looked to me like I was losing all of a sudden and there was nothing I could do about it. All I could find was
38.Qf3?? Rh4+
39.Qh3 Rxh3+
40.gxh3 Qxh3+
41.Kg1 Qg3+
43.Kh2 Qa8
and I'm toast because the black king can catch the c-pawn.
If I had been a little tactically sharper though... and maybe if there had been a little more time, I would have found the saving move,
38.Qc7!
after which follows
38... Rh4+
39.Qh2 Rxh2
40.Kxh2 Qf4+
41.Kg1
and black runs out of checks and cannot stop the a-pawn.
I guess it remains anyone's guess whether I could have then won the won game with the little bit of time I had, but the point is that I blundered and missed a critical ONLY move in a time scramble. Looks to me like more weak tactics.

After a Looooong Break

2008-06-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

Apologies to my steady readership. It's been a long winter/spring of non-chess life. I've been writing a book over the past year, and during the heavy writing season (when I'm not focusing on funding the project) it's really hard to find any time for chess. Of late though I've been following the chess world a bit more, and I've been considering how to make a comeback.

When last I was blogging, as some of you may remember, I had been going through a rough stretch in my play. Slumps have been very rare creatures (Thankfully) in my praxis, but last year's was an unpleasant one, and it seems to me that the first thing to do as I consider how to reapproach the tournament scene is to reflect on what went wrong last year and to try to learn from it. I envision a series of postings analyzing some of the uglier experiences.

I started 2007 with a rating of 1880 USCF. I reached a peak for the year of 1904, and finished on the boomerang low note of 1842, though this was something of a rebound from my nadir at 1806. I won 18 games, including a scalp of a master, drew 20 games, and lost 17, for close to a 50 percent performance. Kind of mediocre.

I think I'll start with a couple of examples of blunderitis which seemed to creap into my play last year after a several year absence.

Here's a position that I think typifies some of my less successful play from 2007. I was white, playing in a position where I was under some pressure and rather uncomfortable. Something that I thnk came up a number of times in 2007 that was interesting was a tendency in my play to seek "advantages" based on principles, rather than assessing positions concretely. Here, for example, I think that I sought this structure, with my opponent having split q-side pawns, and myself with hanging pawns, because I thought that the isolated c-pawn would be weak. I hadn't thought about the fact that my opponent could simply push c7-c5 at an auspicious moment to clear away the weakness—hadn't thought about it until I got to the structure, that is.

Here now, I was struggling with the problem of how to relieve the pressure on the Nf3. Now I think that Ncd2 was probably the easiest way, though I'm still uncomfortable with the consequences of a c5 push by black. Basically, I think that white is struggling a little all around, but I played the ridiculous 21.Qf1??, thinking that I would move the knight and welcome an exchange of bishops - perhaps also fantasizing that my opponent would not play c5. This seems to me to be the kind of a blunder that happens when you're so caught up in trying to solve a problem on the board that you begin to lose sight of the position. Even so, though, it's kind of an amazing blunder for me.

Here's another example of a position in which I blundered. I had the black pieces, and was playing an uptempo game in 30. At the time, I remember thinking that my opponent had gone wrong in the opening and that I would be better, when in fact, I now think that the position is rather unclear. In any case, white has just played Nxd5, capturing my knight, and I need to respond. I had calculated 9...Nxd4 10.Qd1 Nxf3+ 11.Bxf3 Bxd2+ 12.Qxd2 exd5, and had somehow overlooked the simple fact that white can now recapture on d5, threatening b7 as well as c4. The pressure is kind of irritating in that position, but the game is certainly fully playable. After some thought, however, realizing that I was using too much time given the control, I reached out and played 9...exd5?? 10.Bxb4 when, of course, black is in a lot of trouble, down a piece for pawns. I think this blunder was sort of an inversion of moves problem, but still, a pretty significant disaster.

So, what can I learn from these two examples? I think that I was lacking a certain fluidity with my tactics. I wasn't necessarily seeing the board badly all the time, but I was not sufficiently comfortable with my visualizing of the relationships between the pieces to ensure that I would not occasionally blunder terribly. Obviously, blundering like this is a series cause of fast losses...

A Little Chess

2007-11-27T10:09:00.001-08:00

Work has been swamping my chess playing schedule this month, so there hasn't been much action to write about. As these things go, a little action often means mediocre action, but I think I've learned some things, even from sporadic and inconsistent play.I was white here, and feeling pretty forlorn already. Clearly, I've lost an exchange, and I was just trying to come up with a way of holding down the damage. Hence,
15.Bd2? Nxa1
16.Qxa1 etc. and I was playing to somehow not lose.
Soon after the game, the idea 15.Rb1! was pointed out to me by none other than BCC Master Riordan, and I immediately protested that it lost the d-pawn. It must be bad right? Ahem. Play might have proceeded something like: 15...Nxd4 16.Nfxd4 Bxb1 17.Nc3 Bg6 18.f5 exf5 19.Bxd5 Rb8 20.e6 fxe6 21.Nxe6And white is looking very happy, superior development and open lines accounting for the material. Again and again I have come across this lesson - it is absolutely CRUCIAL in chess to be concrete - look deeper at lines that you want to dismiss instinctively and hunt for attacking patterns, especially when things are going badly.

Strategic Themes

2007-10-25T08:42:00.000-07:00

One thing that I find crops up a fair amount in over-the-board praxis is that I'm playing along in a game in the early stages and my opponent suddenly springs a move that seems completely out of left field. Usually it's a move that has no relationship to established theory, and often there's something clearly positionally or strategically questionable about the move, but it can be amazingly difficult to refute or punish such moves. There's very little guidance for this problem in the literature, as on the professional level, I'm sure that the answers appear more-or-less self-evident, but I find that it's easy to get into trouble scratching away after a solution to a problem that is hardly as transparent as it seems like it ought to be.

Sometimes you can find an answer by instinct. In this mainstream opening position, I had an opponent who played 5...d5? a move that clearly defies the logic of the position. He's opening up the center when behind in development, and willfully fixing himself with an isolated pawn that will be hard to defend. Alright, so 6.exd5 exd5, and then I sat there wondering how I could hurry up and win the isolani. I felt that his play was so illogical that I ought to be grabbing material immediately. 7.Bb5 Bd7 (maybe Nge7 can work? It holds the Nc6 and d5 pawn, but it is just so slow.) 8.Nxd5 Nxd4 9.Bxd7+ Qxd7 10.Qxd4 Rd8 and now, though I was still able to emerge with my pawn, the position had become at the very least, threatening. I suppose that my play was still about right, but the point is that these problems are often more difficult than they appear at first glance.

Here is a position from my most recent game:For readers who've seen some of my recent postings, yes, a large number of my games with both colors seems to be hedgehogs these days... At this point, I think it was time for black to play 10...Nbd7, probably to be followed by b7-b6 and a q-side fianchetto. Instead, my opponent played: 10...e5?! He wanted to activate his c8 bishop, and presumably hoped to treat the position like a mainline Kalashnikov. I knew that this had to be unsound, but how to prove it?
11 Nf5 Bxf5
12 exf5 Nc6
13 Re1 h6
14 f4 Rfe8
15 Qf2 Rad8
Clearly, there have been some less-than-perfect moves by both players to bring us to this position, and I think that white is still objectively for favor, but the point is that the whole endeavor has taken on a considerable note of risk. It would be easy for white to lose control of the position, dropping c4 or one of the f-pawns, and then black's two central pawns could really tell in an endgame.
Here I played 16.Nd5 and good things happened, but after 16...Nxd5 17.exd5 Nd4 18.Be3 Bf6, matters are far from clear, and the position is dangling close to a black advantage. The point is that white's pawns are unstable and rather over-extended.
I suppose that the moral of something like this is that you really can't afford to get too self-confident with your decisions just because you know that the opponent is trying something unkosher. If you don't have a clear instinct for the refutation, even very improbable plans can cause trouble.

Precision Moves

2007-10-11T20:45:00.000-07:00

Twice this week I have had experiences where a position that was optically strong for me required surprising precision in order to make progress. The first time, I found the right move and emerged victorious. The second time... ahem.
Here, with the white pieces, I felt that my queenside majority should provide a stable advantage. My two bishops were also pretty nice. My opponent had just played ...a6, which I felt was unnecessary and weakening, but it took some thought before I considered the move: 1.Qb3! I suppose that a move like this really should jump out as obvious, but it seems so counterintuitive to block your own majority. Now it's hard to come up with a good reply for black. For example, 1...Rd7 2.Bb6 Qc8 3.Bd4 Qc7 4.Bxf6 Bxf6 5.Rxd7 Qxd7 6.Rd1, and b7 is falling. My opponent played:
1...Rxd1
2.Rxd1 Rc8? The best move is kind of hard to spot here. 2...Re8 3.Bb6 Qb8 would have put up the best fight, but white is still crawling over the queenside. 2...Rb8 runs into 3.Bb6 Qf4 4.c5 e6 5.Ba7 +-
3.Qxb7 and I was comfortably better and went on to win.

In this position, I had what appeared to be a very impressive attack. I had just won the e7 pawn, and I got... well, careless. I played:
1.Bxe5? Rd8
19.Bxg7? Nxg7 And only now did I realize that a consolidating move like Qc2 would run into a rook skewer on e8. I ended up sheding the pawn back to survive, and the game quickly petered out into a draw.

Instead, I had to play 1.fxe5, preserving the bishop to maintain my surprising pressure on the dark squares. From here, the lines are fascinating. For example, 1...Rc7 2.b4 Qa4 3.Nd5 Rc8 4.Qd1 and black is completely busted, 1...Rb7 2.Bc5!, 1...Rd8 2.Nd5 Qa3 3.cxb5 with the threat of Bc5! Obviously the trouble with these lines is that the key idea is different in each variation depending on how black replies, and I was just being... lazy.

Playing Ugly

2007-10-06T16:04:00.000-07:00

Yes, well, I've been trying to rebound for some time now - thought I had it again a few weeks back, but I keep coming down to earth. I think, finally, that I would have to identify rusty (read inconsistent) tactics as the biggest problem. Here are a couple of unpleasantries that I put myself through this weekend:

Hedgehog structures seem like a nice, safe place to begin for a player trying to find his feet. They're stodgy, slow, rather positional - they emphasize ideas rather than concrete strings. So here, I am behind the black side of one:
11...0-0
What's going on you ask? Well, I've weakened my queenside dark squares for a shot at some play down the long diagonal. The bishop on g7 also protects my king against possible pawn storms. The trick here is going to be to figure out what to do with my queenside bishop. I also need to make sure to keep an eye on the d6 pawn, as it can become weak in a hurry.
12.Qd2
Okay, so he wants to exchange off the dark square bishops. How do I feel about this? Don't like it. If I had really thought about this carefully, I might have tried to leave my bishop on e7. I know that it's theoretically okay to have the bishop on g7 here though, so what now? Well, I thought I would get cute:
12...Nh5!? or ?!
13.Nde2 Ne5
So, I'm still trying to hold up that Bh6 move.
14.b3 b6?!
Probably Rfd8 I think. I was starting to lose track of the dark squares.
15.Rfd1 Bb7?
16.Na4
Whoops. It's about finished here - or at least it's going that way. There's no safe way to deal with both weaknesses.
16...Nd7
17.Bb1
And now, head in my hands, I sat there and thought long and hard, and came up with:
17...b5?
Like I say, it was an ugly weekend. Remarkably, I managed to hold this game, though it was as much my opponent's fault.
18.cxb5 Qb8
19.b6? d5
20.exd5 Bxd5
21.Rc7 Nhf6
22.Rdc1 Rd8
23.Nf4 Bb7
24.Qa5? e5
Ahh, a slim pulse has returned. It's not much though, as the threat of Nd5 is empty - he doesn't have to move the rook!
25.Rxb7?
What? Ambition... This is a cute idea that he had, but unfortunately, it simply doesn't work.
25... Qxb7
26.Rc7 Qb8
27.b7 exf4
28.bxa8(Q) Qxa8
29.Bxf4 Qd5
And now, seeing as I had about 24 minutes and he had 7, I thought he would take my draw offer, and he did. Certainly, he is still meaningfully better with the extra pawn, but I have good holding chances now.

This position is from the following round. I had black again, and this time had taken active part in a rather obscure opening discussion that led to an unusual position from the Symmetrical English. With the benefit of subsequent analysis, I think that the best move here might well be 7...d5!? with many complications to follow. That's not the kind of thing that I'm likely to play without some kind of knowledge in advance though, so I opted to steer this game into the structure of the previous one... I should have learned something from the experience of that game though...
7... d6
8.0-0 Be7
9.Nc3 a6
10.Be3
And I'm already kind of shaky. a6 is often necessary in positions with a queen on b6 so that if she gets kicked back to c7 by Be3, she won't then get walloped further by Nb5. Here though, Be3 and then Na4 is pretty nasty. Looking at this threat absorbed a fair amount of my attention, as I worked on Nd7 and how I would have to go about extricating my white-squared bishop. Consequently, I never even looked at another looming threat.
10... Qc7
11.Rc1 0-0?
Absolutely necesary was 11... Ne5 with a fine position.
12.Nd5!
And now I'm toast - just like that.

Chess can be painful!

Finding My Form

2007-10-05T14:49:00.000-07:00

Well, I kind of brought my head above water again with that great tournament I had a few weeks back. Then I submerged for a while... Two losses in succession, one of them where I simply dropped a piece due to some wretched calculating, and then I had a rather embarrassing weekend where I came away with .5/4, but to be fair, I was pressing at that event, trying to do too much in most of the games, and looking for violence when I should have been taking deep, slow breaths.

This month has brought some games against weaker opposition at last, and they have had a calming effect on my play. Somehow, I'm working to find a rhythm again, to remember just what it takes to win and not lose, to press without over-reaching.

In this position, with the black pieces, I had already wrapped up a win, but there remained some question over just how long it would take me to convert. With great amusement though, I found:
1... a3
2.Ra4 a2!
Which works of course because of the skewer threat.
3.Kf2 Rh1
0-1

I had been a long, grueling fight, and it was nice to close out in style.

In this position, with the white pieces, I had what I thought should have been a comfortable positional edge, stemming principally from my permanent knight on d5. However, I think that my kingside advances were rather more loosening than I had intended, and now I began to worry about a potential break on the f-file.
28.Kg2 Qe6
29.g5 Rf8
And, trying to stick to my guns, I have seriously failed to prevent an f-break.
30.h5 h6!?
I rather expected 30...f6, which I suspect would have been stronger than the game continuation. I had calculated 31.hxg6 fxg6 32.gxf6 Bxf6 33.Qg3, and felt that I should still have a little something, but not so much as I would have liked. The trouble is that my knight is going to be destabilized if the center opens up and the major pieces fail to come off.
31.Rh1 f5This was a key moment. We were in mutual time trouble, and I hedged my bets that if I took on f5 he would fail to take back with the queen. Objectively, 32.gxf6 is probably better, but I felt that 32.exf5 would give me greater practical chances.
32.exf5 Rxf5?
Here, 32...Qxf5 would have called my bluff, as I can't play 33.Nf6+ now because the queen is simply too dangerous to loose on my naked king. I end up losing a rook in the check patterns in those lines. Instead, play might have gone 33.Qxf5 Rxf5 34.gxh6 Bxh6 35.hxg6 Rg5+ with relative equality heading into the endgame. I lucked out though - for a change.
33.Nf6+ Bxf6
34.Qxb7 Rxg5+
35.Kf1 Qg4
36.Rxd6 Qf4
37.Qa8+ Kh7
38.hxg6+ Kxg6?
This makes it easy. Rxf6 would have been much feistier.
39.Qg8+ Kf5
40.Qe6+?
Missing all of the good moves. 40.Rxf6 was cute, as was 40.Qh7+, but it was the time control move...
40... Kg6
41.Qg8+ Kf5
42.Qh7+ Rg6
43.Rh5+ Bg5
44.Qxg6+ 1-0

So, things are looking up for the moment. Nothing too impressive, but I imagine that a few more wins, a little more confidence, and maybe I can start to work on churning out something to really write about again!

One Foot in Front of the Other

2007-09-25T09:01:00.000-07:00

So I had my big "breaking out of the slump" tournament, and since then, haven't found much time to play, what with my annual September move. It's been fascinating watching the World Championship tournament in Mexico of course, and I have had a few games through the Boylston Chess Club Hauptturnier, but not much to write about. Here's a little something though, and hopefully there will be a lot more to say over the next few weeks as October rolls in.

White: Joshua Haunstrup (1889)
Black: David Glickman (2027)
Event: BCC Hauptturnier (3)
Date: 2007-09-25
(C12 French MacCutcheon)
1 e4 e6
2 d4 d5
3 Nc3 Nf6
4 Bg5 Bb4
5 e5 h6
6 Be3 Ne4
7 Qg4 g6
8 a3 Ba5!?An interesting and rather paradoxical choice. White offers black the chance to win a pawn in return for somewhat misplacing his pieces, and black eschews the opportunity, indicating that the aggressive placement of his pieces is mostly just bluff. My opponent seemingly did not want to absorb the kingside pressure that often ensues in the mainlines.
9 Ne2 c5
10 dxc5 Bxc3+My first instinct was that black really shouldn't be able to get away with the inconsistency of this move, retreating and then taking anyway. More logical would have been 10...Nc6 11.b4 Nxe5 12.Qh3 Bc7 13.Nb5 with an interesting and complex game. Now I think that I played out the position pretty logically, but there's not a whole lot there even so.
11 Nxc3 Nxc3
12 bxc3 Nc6
13 Bd4 Qa5
14 Bd3 Nxd4
15 Qxd4 Bd7
16 Qb4 Qc7
17 0-0I felt that 17...Qxe5 would be far too risky for black with his queenside collapsing, but I did wonder if perhaps I should avoid castling in anticipation of some kind of liquidation. Fritz thinks that the more flexible 17.Qd4 was probably best, but I wondered how I would then counter the simple 17...Rc8, as it become a little more difficult to gain counterplay once the c-pawns start falling.
17... Bc6
18 Rfe1 Rc8
19 Rab1 1/2
Now, feeling that there weren't a lot of options for either of us and that my extra pawn was not all that useful, I offered a draw, which he accepted. Not the most exciting game, but a reasonable little tussle, I thought, and a good sign for the future if I can somehow continue to put my game back together.

Catching the Rebound!!

2007-09-08T21:41:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I came out of my funk in style, winning three and drawing one for a share of first in the BCF Davis Square Open, and that's not all - the games included a win over a master, and a draw with a 2400 IM! I guess things can snowball the other way too...

The tournament began a little clumsy, as many of my games against lower-rated players have been over the past few months:I was white here in a position that looks deceptively similar to a mainline Yugoslav Dragon. Unfortunately though, I treated the position as if it was a mainline when in fact, the inclusion of the moves a6 and g4 critically alters the evaluation. Normally here, white would play exd5, Nxc6, and then Bd4. In this position though, g4-g5 followed by Nxd5 is a major improvement based upon the extra move g4. If I had thought to look for this, I would have had a significant advantage. Of course, I didn't, and had to struggle through a tight and tense game for a lot of moves before reaching this ending:This position should be a draw so long as black keeps the e-pawn out of reach of my king. However, after:
44...e5?
White is suddenly winning nicely!
45.Kd3 e4+
46.Ke3 Ke5
47.c6 Kd6
48.Kxe4 Kxc649.Kf5 Kb5
50.Kg6 Kxb4
51.Kxh6 a5
52.Kxg5 a4
53.h6 1-0
My first win in fourteen tries!

In round 2 I geared up for my customary thrashing at the hands of National Master Lawyer Times. I have suffered plenty against his Colle, so I tried to be evasive and push play into something a little more off the beaten path, but I only succeeded in making my position worse than usual!
From here, I thought that Lawyer would simply play 18.d5, cementing his space advantage, perhaps to follow up with Na5-c6 with all kinds of ugliness. Instead, he blundered with 18.Rc7, allowing the shot 18...Bxe4, and the nature of the game changed radically. Play followed 19.Rxa7 Bxd3 20.Qxd3 and here I missed that 20...e4 would have secured me an advantage. Instead, I played 20...Qxa7 and we waded through many moves of rather dry play where I kept parrying threats until Lawyer finally broke through and won a pawn. However, he made a hasty move in my time trouble that turned out to be a horrible blunder, and he quickly succumbed in a piece-slamming time scramble. It was a little goofy beating a master for the first time in a game where he blundered instead of in a game that I played particularly well, but I'll take it!

Round 3 saw a raging Sicilian battle with opposite sides castling.Here, I was already well on top, but after 16.gxf7+ my opponent needed to play the cringe-inducing 16...Kxf7 in order to hold e6 (at least for the time being). Instead, he played 16...Rxf7, and quickly collapsed after 17.Nxe6 Qd7 18.Ng5 Rf8 19.Bh3

Finally, having won my first three games, I found myself on the black side of a battle with IM David Vigorito for first place. It was especially intimidating facing Vigorito seeing as some of my preparation comes from his excellent book "Challenging the Nimzo-Indian." Sure enough, the game proceeded right out of the pages of his analysis and I was quickly worse.Having been suffocated steadily for essentially all of the game to this point, I decided to shed a pawn to try to unravel and get some counterplay on the dark squares.
27...Rad8
28.Bxa5 bxa5
29.Rxa5 Qf8
30.Ra6
Vigorito later suggested that he should have varied here, perhaps with 30.Qc6 to try to force me to make a passive move, meeting 30...Rd1 with 31.Ra1.
In the game, I was able to generate counterplay with:
30...Qb4
31.Qe3 Rd1
And now, instead of 32.Ra1, Vigorito played,
32.Rxd1 Rxd1
33.Ra8+ Kh7
34.h5?
This really stunned me, especially as the move seemed like it was sort of asking for trouble, and it came after a long think that brought him below 5 minutes while I still had 15+.Instead, I think that 34.Qe4 must have been stronger, as the text gives me some ferocious threats that might well have been decisive had I had the nerve and wherewithal to try to see it through.
34...Qxc4
35.hxg6+ fxg6
36.Qf3 Qxf1+
37.Kh2 Qg1+
38.Kh3And here, I just couldn't make anything work. Fritz suggests a materialist approach with 38...Rd5. Several BCC players suggested that I might try 38...h5 to limit the white king's retreat squares and continue my attack. I felt that 38...Qh1+ would lead to an endgame that was very unclear... so, I opted to try for a draw by repetition with
38...Qf1+
39.Kh2 Qg1+
1/2-1/2
Maybe I should have figured out how to win that one too, but there's no need to be greedy. It was quite a way to bounce back!

Another Loss

2007-09-07T10:55:00.000-07:00

So, my streak is now up to 13 games without a win: 8 losses, 5 draws, and the funny thing is, I think my play during this span has gotten steadily stronger. Here is a game from my latest tournament.

BCC Wednesday Early Bird Rapid Quads
Joshua Haunstrup (1889)
Chris Chase (2331)
September 5, 2007

1.e4 g6
2.d4 Bg7
3.Nc3 d6
4.Be3 a6
5.Qd2 b5
6.Bd3 Bb7
7.a4 b4
8.Nce2 a5
9.Ng3 c5
10.Nf3 Nd7
11.Bb5Here, I think that white is very comfortable and probably reasonably better. My plan was to target the weakened white squares, and my instinct in the position was that the combination of a5 and c5 was rather too weak on the queenside. I had recently seen Ivanov-Ibragimov at the Continental, which contested a similar structure out of the same opening, and I had a sense of the patterns here. Evidently, Master Chase was disturbed by the prospects of the pin, so he sidestepped, making his position more flexible, but quite awkward. He told me afterward that he was hopeful that I would go after the c-pawn and miss the horribleness of Bxb2 followed by the skewer, Bc3.
11...Kf8
12.c3 h5
13.h4 Nh6
14.Bxd7 Qxd7
15.dxc5 bxc3
16.bxc3 Rc8
17.Bd4!This was the only move to maintain my advantage, avoiding nastiness in the combinations between the Bg7 and c-file rook, but finding it, I think that the white position continues to be robust and comfortably superior.
17...f6
18.cxd6 Qxd6
19.0-0 Ng4
20.Qb2 Ba8
21.Rab1?!I'm starting to drift here. Definitely better was 21.Qb5, and I continue to pressure him. It's tough to be so accurate under the grind of a G/30 time control.
21...Bh6
22.Qb5 Bf4
23.Qxa5
Recognizing that the position has now deteriorated badly, I opted to bag a pawn.
23...Bxg3
24.fxg3 Bxe4
25.Rbd1? Qxg3
26.Bf2 Nxf2
27.Rxf2 Bxf3
28.Rxf3 Qxh4So, I've survived the worst of Chase's attack, but now it was serious crunch time on the clock, so I determined to push for an exchange of queens, hoping to accent the time loss he will have to go through to activate his k-rook while connecting my queenside pawns.
29.Qb4 Rc4?
30.Rxf6+!29...Rc4 was a terrible blunder, and now white should be winning. Either ...Qxb4 or Qg5 would have been far superior. Now, anything but ...Qxf6 and black gets mated.
30...Qxf6
31.Qxc4 Kg7
32.a5?I missed the key move, 32.Rf1 which would have secured the advantage and cut out any counterplay nonsense. Now, tormented by time trouble, I proceeded to misplay the position badly.
32...Qe5
33.a6 Qe3+
34.Kh1 Ra8
35.Ra1 Kh6
36.Qc6 Rf8
37.a7?
I missed the threat entirely.
37...Rf4
And now I felt crushed, and... missed that I am still winning easily by force!In the two minutes or so that I had to think, all I could come up with to hold was Qf3, which lost quickly after 38... Rf4+ 39.Qh3 Rxh3+ 40.gxh3 and now the check on the white squares secures a8 for the queen. Instead, 38.Qc7 would have won, enabling me to block the Rh4+ with Qh2, following up with the push a8Q with the comfortable resulting advantage of rook for two pawns.

So... I lost... again.

Got the Blues

2007-08-29T15:34:00.000-07:00

Another game down, no win. I'm at ten now without a win: 5 losses, 5 draws. All the games played down against people lower rated. But, I think I've definitely turned the corner in terms of play. I should have won all three of my most recent games - nothing that would really qualify as a blunder in any of them. It's remarkable to me still that I could suffer such a drought without really making any serious blunders along the way...

Anyhow, the endgame practical jokes continued last night. It's getting pretty humiliating. By the time I reach these positions, I am so frustrated with my inability to make something more concrete of the games that I lack the objectivity to be patient and find what's there. None of my games this year have been theoretical endgames so far - maybe with the exception of the two drawn rook endgames that I won (but those came before the drought began). The trouble is more a matter of concrete calculation and my willingness to suspend disbelief and concentrate on seeing if there's anything there.

Up until now, my opponent, who had the white pieces, had put in one heck of a game for someone rated 1490-odd, and he would assuredly have done even better if he hadn't gotten into an ugly time scrape. I scrounged a pawn in the transfer to the endgame and managed to... make very little of it, and the best I could see was this reduction to two pawns versus a bishop, a reduction that I also pointedly misplayed ( I should have been up about 2 tempi on this position, which might well have been enough to win easily. So... here we were. He had just played Kc4 and then extended his hand in a draw offer, and, quite demoralized by this point, I accepted.

It's a draw right, we're all agreed? I mean come on - he munches the b-pawn with his king and then swings the bishop over to guard h1 and that's it...

HA! Take a look at 1...h3 2.Kc3 Kg3 3.Kxb2 Kf4! 4.Ba2 Ke5 0-1. Yeah, that one I found without Fritz. I just set it up on my board at home to sulk, and there it was, gleaming at me with all of the evilness that a couple of hunks of plastic can muster, and I was left to wonder what in the world was wrong with me. So it continues, and I'm left to pout over my own foolishness. Chess can be pretty tough medicine.

The Najdorf Problem

2007-08-28T11:41:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, I decided to adopt the Be2 line against the Najdorf Sicilian, hoping to get positions that would be stable and flexible, enabling me to comfortably deploy my pieces and pressure my opponents without needing to launch violent sacrificial attacks. The resulting praxis was confusing and unfortunately, a bit disappointing. I guess that my (rather premature) conclusion would be that the Najdorf is just a really slippery beast to tackle - you have to get both hands around its throat and hold on for a long time to get that full point.

White: Joshua Haunstrup (1817)
Black: Seth Neel (1794)
Event: MCC Summer Solstice (4)
1 e4 c5
2 Nf3 d6
3 d4 cxd4
4 Nxd4 Nf6
5 Nc3 a6
I had recently won a pretty ugly miniature from Seth at the Rhode Island Championship, and, still harboring memories of a similarly miserable loss that I had suffered at his hands about a year before, I was looking forward to sticking it to him with my new toy. (This was my first outing with Be2.)
6 Be2 e6
7 0-0 b5?!
Dubiousness sets in already! Evidently, Seth wasn't used to seeing his opponents playing with such reserve (I knew he was pretty booked up on Be3 for instance). However, alas, it took me another move before I spotted the correct reply Bf3.
8 Bg5 Be7
9 Bf3 Ra7
10 a4 b4
11 Na2 e5
12 Bxf6 Bxf6
13 Nf5 Bxf5
14 exf5 a5
15 c3 Qb6
16 Qd2 Na6
The position is kind of hard to evaluate, and definitely not the sort of thing that would ever have cropped up in an Anand-Kasparov game. At the time, I couldn't really shake the sense that I should have gotten more from the position after his sketchy b5 advance, but up to this point, he played with a lot of poise. White probably does have a little something here just based on the awkwardness of black's defense, but it's not the position that affords a lot of scope for outplaying your opponent. It's much more a duel of who will be able to continue to find the "only" and best moves turn after turn.
17 Rfd1 Rd7
Probably 17... b3 was stronger.
18 cxb4 axb4
19 a5 Qb5
20 Rdc1
And here, I finally strayed a bit. 20.Qe2 with the idea of forcing his knight away from the defense of b4 after the exchange of queens was probably best.
20... d5
21 Rc8+ Bd8
22 Be2?!
Once again here, Qe2 with an exchange was the best. My move lost a bit of the advantage, relinquishing the pressure, and the game sputtered soon afterwards into an ending that we agreed drawn.
22 ... Qb7
23 Bxa6 Qxa6
24 Qc1 Qxa5
25 Nc3 Qb6
26 Na4 Qb7
27 Qc5 Rc7
28 Rxc7 Bxc7
29 Rc1 Bd8
30 Rd1 Be7
31 Qxd5 Qxd5
32 Rxd5 f6
33 Nc5 Bxc5
34 Rxc5 0-0
35 Rb5 1/2
Alright, the first outing was a bit of a disappointment, but what of the second?

White: Joshua Haunstrup (1817)
Black: Philip Nutzman (1865)
Event: BCC Quad 7-6 (3)
1 e4 c5
2 Nf3 d6
3 d4 cxd4
4 Nxd4 Nf6
5 Nc3 a6
6 Be2 e6
7 0-0 Be7
8 a4 Nc6
Here we have a fairly standard mainline position. And now... I went astray! For some weird reason I really got into a habit of prematurely retreating my knight from d4 in standard sicilian positions for a while. I guess the advice here for all readers is that the knight really belongs on d4 where it has a lot of scope unless there's really a very good reason to retreat it, and fear of exchange and fear of a knight coming to c5 are not good reasons in most cases.
9 Nb3? b6
10 Be3 Bb7
11 f4 0-0
12 Bd3 Qc7
13 Kh1 Rfd8
14 Qe2 e5
15 Nd5?!
Something like 15.fxe5 dxe5 16.Qf2 would have been more standard, preserving some hope of a slight advantage. My move is rather wacky - a knee-jerk reaction to Nutzman's pawn-break that's kind of an overreaction.
15... Nxd5
16 exd5 Nb4
Now we've reached the boiling point.
Black has a lot of coiled dynamism and verges on being able to demonstrate that white has overextended. Best was certainly 17.a5! which I had been planning some moves ago but somehow forgot about in the heat of the moment. The resulting play might have continued: 17...bxa5 18.c4 Nxd3 19.Qxd3 Bf6 20.fxe5 Bxe5 21.Nxa5 with an unclear position in which black has to tread very carefully. This would have reserved pretty good chances for an advantage. Instead, I tossed it all with a move that demonstrated that I really didn't have a handle on the subtleties of position.
17 fxe5
From here on out, it's all black all the way.
17... Nxd3
18 Qxd3 dxe5
19 c4 b5
20 axb5 axb5
21 Rxa8 Bxa8
22 Rc1 bxc4
23 Rxc4 Qb7
24 Qc2 Qxd5
25 h3 Bb7
26 Nc5 Rc8
27 b3 Bc6
28 Nd3 f6
29 Bc5 Bxc5
30 Rxc5 Qd7
31 Kg1 Qd4+
32 Kh2 Rd8
33 Nc1 Qf4+
34 Kg1 Rd2
35 Qxd2 Qxd2
36 Rxc6 e4
37 Rc8+ Kf7
38 Rc7+ Kg6
39 Rc4 e3
40 b4 Qf2+
41 Kh2 e2
42 Nxe2 Qxe2 0-1

Shouldering Through the Slide

2007-08-22T14:53:00.000-07:00

So... the Continental Open (6 rounds, $2000 prize, section cutoff just above my rating) was a great opportunity to break out of my month-long slump and rekindle some good form, but alas, it was not to be. Nay, instead, 2 draws and 2 humiliating losses in, all against much lower-rated opponents, I found myself rather confused and bewildered. At a certain point when you're losing in all manner of novel ways and not winning a single game, even the really, really won ones, you have to begin to wonder if there's a fundamental concentration problem, though I suppose that Ladyluck certainly has it within her whimsy to deal a month of snakeyes if she should so desire. Anyhow, it started ugly, and it ended ugly, and, on some level, I'm still scratching my head.
This is my round 1 game, I was white, position after my sixteenth move. The opening has essentially just ended, and it looks dynamic and interesting. I have barely strayed from theory - not mainstream theory - fringe theory - but theory nonetheless. However, I think that the position is already quite suspicious.
16... b4
17 axb4 Nxb4
18 g5 Nd7
19 Bg2 Bb7
20 Qf2
It's really hard to find a good spot for her majesty. This doesn't really seem like a blunder of a move, but it can't be good. In truth, I don't really know how to improve on my play from the above position.
20... Rfc8
21 Rd2 Nc5
22 Qe3 a5And it's about time to think of what I'm having for lunch. Yeah, he's just got too much firepower. As if the cuteness of ...Na2+, Nxa2 Nxb3 wasn't enough for me to sweat over, now that horrorshow of an a-pawn is breathing down my neck and my king is just whimpering. I lasted eleven moves more before I had had royally enough, and each one of those moves was painful to make!

On to Game 2. I was black. This is one that I blew badly in the opening. Then, after suffering in a miserable - and probably losing - position for hours, my opponent suddenly caved in and I just didn't have the composure to punish him.White has missed his shot here and now needed to retreat his Rook to e1 to hold, but instead, he played:
25 Re5?
Which loses a pawn.
25... Qxa2
26 Rxb7 Rab8
27 Rxb8 Rxb8
28 Re2 Qb1+
29 Re1 Qxb2
30 Qe3 Rd8
31 Qd3 Qb5
32 Qc3 g6?!
I was very twitchy from the long fight, and I didn't want to take any chances. The trouble is, this weakens the one diagonal that can conceal a tactic viz the advance of the white d-pawn. Pushing the h pawn was much preferable, and best was probably the simple 32...Qa4, as the surest way to maintain an advantage is to figure out how to avoid trading the a-pawn for the white d-pawn.
33 Ra1 Rb8
34 h3 Rb6
35 Ra5 Qc6
36 Rc5 Qd6
37 Rc8+ Kg7
38 d5+At this point, I was feeling quite shaky. I could see dimly that blocking the check with e5 would allow Rc6, forcing the exchange of the a and d-pawns, and I thought that the resulting position could hardly offer much to black, but certainly it had to be better than what I did play!
38... f6?!
Now the position is cover-your-eyes frightening.
39 Rc7+ Kh6
40 Qc1+ g5
41 Qc2 Rb1+
Whew! I found that last resource and I have a pulse, but my winning chances are completely gone.
42 Qxb1 Qxc7
43 dxe6 Qe5!
Black's threats with the a-pawn are enough now to maintain the balance.
44 Qb6 a5 1/2

Now, for one more painful anecdote. In round 4, I had the black pieces after another traumatic draw that should have been a win. Here I got an essentially winning position from the opening, but I think that by now I was getting pretty tired, and certainly, I was feeling very unsure of myself.
Here, in response to my idea of targeting the weak e3-square with Ng4, white has played Ng3-e4, threatening to come in at f6 with a fork. Objectively, this isn't much, and I have a simple way of smashing him, but I just didn't see a way forward for the life of me, and I was feeling very nervous. So, I played:
23... Kg7?
If instead I had played the necessary 23... f5!, sample lines are 24.Nc3 e4 25.Nd4 Nxe3! or 24.Ng3 Nxe3 25.Rf2 e4 and white is absolutely finished! The game continued:
24.c5 Bc7
25.b6 Bb8
26.h3 Nh6
27.Nfg5 f5
28.Nc3
Even here I had the chance to stir things up with 28...Rd3 29.Nb5 Nf7, but after the further silliness,
28... Ng8
I was well on my way to another passive collapse.

So, I have consigned myself to a little break, some long nights of sleep, maybe a little better nutrition, and then I'll be ready for another go at it. I just can't quite put a finger on precisely what I've lost from a few weeks ago.

Losing is a Contagion

2007-08-08T09:59:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's official at this point: I have entered the strange nexus of free-falling. I have now lost 4 games against lower-rated opposition, the most recent against a player over two hundred points lower rated, and this after going some 70 games with only one loss down over the course of last year... Some kind of cosmic justice for the underdogs? Maybe it's just all of the rust of having taken off 6 months finally catching up to me, but I have found some very weird ways to bungle chess games.

Saturday at the BCC Quads I had two draws and a loss. In both of the draws I had fairly clear wins on the board (one that was at the point where I was almost waiting for my opponent to resign and then I let slip a repetition.) The loss was just a role over stick a fork in me type event that I can only put down to demoralization and stress with the time control. That and my most recent game (another loss of course) seem to indicate that lack of confidence is showing up in a propensity for moving slower that is now beginning to take a toll on my clock management, something that has never been a problem before in my entire chess career.

Amazingly, I could not find my score sheet after last night's encounter, further evidence that I really wasn't all there somehow, just very befuddled and confused with myself as I stumbled away from the board. Luckily, I remember the game essentially in its entirety, though I'm a little unsure of the opening move-order.

My opponent was a 1600 player who had just recently won the U1700 section at the club and I had the white pieces.

This position came about as a result of some rather eccentric play by my opponent from a Sicilian. It looks kind of like a very odd Benoni sort of thing, except that my knight is on a3 instead of c3. I put the steed over there to cut out any b6-b5 nonsense, but I wonder now if that was really just silliness on my part, because the knight remained very cut off for most of the game.
12 Bc2 This was a pretty commital decision. I wanted to be able to exchange off the dark-squared bishops, and I figured that once I had pushed f4, I would have a far superior position in terms of space and flexibility. I think I was misevaluating though, as my opponent remains amazingly resilient in his cramped position, and as soon as I tried to leverage my space, I became worse.
12... Nge5
13 Nxe5 Nxe5
14 Bh6 Qd7
15 Bxg7 Kxg7
16 f4 Ng4
17 h3 Nf6
Alright, so far so good, so I have built my big impressive center. The trouble now is that I became somewhat obsessed with the idea of stifling him with c3-c4 to avoid letting him get counterplay against d5. I was thinking and thinking about trying to arrange e4-e5, and was really just kind of ignoring my inferior piece-placement on the queenside. This is elementary stuff, right? I don't know what I was on about. I think logical at this point would have been 18.Nc4 with something like 18...Qc7 19.Ne3 and he may get the b5 push afterall, but at least I'm much better placed to try to take advantage of my space.
18 c4?! Rae8
19 e5 Nh5
20 Qc3 This was kind of a lazy move. I was thinking, alright, maybe my opponent can be induced to simply blunder. I guess that g4 was netting the knight after some adventures, but it looked really hairy. Yeah, laziness.
20... Kg8
21 f5 dxe5
22 Qxe5 Qd6
At this point I think the tide has turned. My central space advantage has spent itself for naught, and all of a sudden I am looking at uncomfortable endgames where my awkward piece placement and poor coordination will really tell. But it was such a big space advantage, I was thinking...
23 Rae1 Bc8
24 fxg6 hxg6
25 Qg5 e5
Now I'm really getting into trouble. My opponent's central pawn is a nasty creature, and he even has ideas of f5 in some lines. Fritz now suggests that I just say to heck with what I'm doing and play Nb1 to reroute, and actually, I'm inclined to agree. That troublesome steed's misplacement is the difference between a playable position and unplayable one.
26 Re3 Nf4
27 Rfe1 Kg7
As I was recently discussing with blunderprone, one of the biggest obstacles to successful and consistent chessplaying is a player's own psychology, and that was certainly the case here. Having felt that I was better for part of the game, and believing that I really had no business doing anything but winning, I now began to despair in the face of the monster knight on f4 when in truth, the position is not really that far from equal. Again, Nb1 was in order to regroup, and I should have just played on with some patience. However, with the time controls approaching and feeling very nervous, I forgot for a moment that the knight was covering g6, and I went ahead and snatched the pawn, shedding an exchange by accident!
28 Rxe5 f6
29 Qxf4 fxe5
30 Qg3 Bf5
31 Bxf5 Rxf5
32 Nb1 Qf6
Here I am distinctly struggling, though amusingly, Fritz thinks the position remains about equal. But, most importantly, I finally got it into my head to redirect the knight!
33 Nc3 e4
34 b3?
Finding myself somehow, ridiculously, still in the game, I finally made a very serious error with 34.b3 when I really needed to play Qe3 to stifle his play. Now he should have just pressed on with 34...e3 and really shoved that pawn down my throat. I was running out of mental resources though, feeling pretty foggy-brained, and I soon followed up my first error with a real howler of a blunder.
34... Qd4+
35 Re3?? That's it, adios. All he needs to do now is find 35... Rf3 and I am absolutely finished.
35... Rfe5??
Unbelievable, I thought, and now I'm better again out of the blue! Would I have the mental reserves to blitz out the next few moves accurately and make the time control though? I was down to a few minutes.
36 Ne2 Qa1+
37 Kh2 R5e7?
He's certainly not finding his way in the time scramble. He had to defend g6 somehow, maybe with 37...Rf8 38.Nc3 Ref5 39.Re1 Qb2 40.Nxe4 when I have two pawns for the exchange and am beginning to amass threats. Instead, my opponent's move goes much of the distance toward losing by force.
38 Nf4! Qe5
Note that he can't play 38...Qf6 because of 39.Nh5+
39 Qxg6+ Kf8
Here I was looking intently at 40.g3 trying to figure out precisely how the followup was going to go. Somehow, in the complexity of the moment, I got lost in the variations: 40.g3 Rg7 41.Qxb6 Qd4 42.Re2 and what was the best way to win? And all of a sudden, I looked up and he was pointing at my expired flag. I had had about a minute and ten to come up with my fortieth move and I had totally blacked out. Afterwards, I could say to my credit that the tactical vision that egged me on to keep searching was correct, as 40.Rg3 was incontestably stronger than 40.g3, and even the remarkable 40.d6 was probably better. It was really sad for it to end that way, though I certainly made enough errors earlier to deserve to lose... but to have time expire on a won position...

Oh well, there'll be another game.

Not in Single Spies

2007-08-02T19:10:00.001-07:00

Trying to get back on the horse after my frustrating last-round meltdown against Lung on Tuesday, I attended the Boylston Chess Club Earlybird Rapid Quads this week, but unfortunately, I just succeeded in demonstrating that I have definitely run into some rust at last. I guess you can't take off many months and expect it all to be smooth sailing...

There were three games, 2 wins and a loss; respectable enough, but the second win was very rocky, and the loss was an all out disaster. I had the strange experience, which I don't think I have ever had before, of calculating out a sequence of moves, deciding precisely what I was going to play, and then reaching out and making the second move in the sequence instead of the first. Yeah, instead of being up a pawn, I was down a piece, not because I didn't see it, rather, because I my hand just moved the wrong piece... Hard to explain that kind of a loss.

I think I'll share the second win. It was messy, hectic, and altogether a bit of a botched job by me, but it was entertaining, and it definitely looks like a game played with 30 minute time controls.

White: Joshua Haunstrup (1880)
Black: Walter Driscoll (1807)
Event: BCC Rapid Quad (2)
Date: 2007-08-01
(A40 English Defence)
1 e4 e6
This was quite a surprise, and it got even more surprising when Walter played his second move.
2 d4 b6
Here, I thought for a moment, which I'll bet was the intent of the move - get me behind on the clock in a rapid game - and I decided that my chances of stirring up a hornet's nest - read, a good time - were better by forcing a transposition to the English Defence instead of monkeying around in some hippo-esque position.
3 c4 Bb7
4 Bd3 Nc6!?
I have always thought that the move 4...f5 was fascinating! Lines go something like: 5.exf5 Bxg2 6.Qh5+ g6 7.fxg6 Bg7 8.gxh7+ Kf8 9.hxg8=Q+ Kxg8 10.Qg4 Bxh1 with a totally irrational position.Alas, Walter wasn't feeling quite so frisky as I was.
5 d5 Ne5
6 Nf3 Bb4+
7 Nc3 Bxc3+
8 bxc3 Nxd3+
9 Qxd3I had originally assessed this position in my mind as just much better for white based upon my space and the clump of pawns that I have blocking the black white-squared bishop. Now I'm not so sure though, as f5 ideas look fairly promising for black. If my center implodes, he's gonna hvae a lot of energy.
9... Ne7
10 0-0 Ng6
11 Be3 a5
12 c5 b5
13 Rfd1 c6

I thought that this had to be wrong. Once I get my central pawns cemented home on the dark squares, I must be strategically winning, mustn't I? It just seems to rotten for black.
14 d6 Ba6
15 Qd4 0-0
16 e5 b4
17 cxb4 axb4

A good position to take stock, and really a rather critical one for the subsequent vicissitudes of the game. Here is where the troubles started for me, troubles in the category of oversights. Somehow, though I sat and looked at it, rather blankly I should think, I studied the upcoming tactical shot Be2 without registering that it posed a mortal threat to my e5 pawn. Certainly e5 has gotta be worth a good deal more than b4 as far as zones of control go, and I don't know... It just slipped away from me, and by the time I woke up and stopped making bad moves, I was in a lot of trouble.
18 Qxb4? Be2
19 Rd2? Bxf3
20 gxf3 Nxe5
21 Qe4? Qf6
3 bad moves later and my position is rapidly approaching the lost periphery. First I blundered by snatching b4 when I thought I was winning it. I had seen the doubling on f3 but somehow hadn't considered that I was also losing e5. Then I played the foolish d2, making my a1 rook into a potential tactical target. Then I played the queen to e4 instead of f4, allowing Walter to fit f3 with real force. I think I was just reacting slowly to developments at this point, thinking that I would have time to play Kh1, Rg1 and use my queen's pleasant white square threats from e4...ha! Yeah right, the position is now a total mess.
22 Kg2 Nc4?
Whoops, Walter tosses some of it back to me. 22... Nxf3 was really nasty and probably best.
23 Rdd1 Nxe3+
24 fxe3 Qg6+?
This is also wrong. With my king so exposed and my pawn centre crumbling, the queen could really have helped Walter to tie me down. It's true that my pawns are more vulnerable without the support of my queen, but I think that the queens were certainly as much an aid to him as to me.
25 Qxg6 fxg6
26 a4 Rf5
27 Rdc1 Ra5
28 e4
Curious. I haven't Fritz'd this in any depth, but I really wonder if I have anything substantial in the endgame after 28...Rxc5. My a-pawn looks really dangerous, but Walter might have time to make all of that work for him, and if the a-pawn advance runs out of juice, I am definitely toast.
28... Rg5+
29 Kf2 Re5
30 Rc4 Kf7
31 Rac1 Kf6
32 Rb1 Rexc5
33 Rxc5 Rxc5
34 Rb7 Rc2+
35 Kg3 Ra2
36 Rxd7 Rxa4
37 Rc7 Rd4
38 Rxc6 e5
Blunderprone and others are going to start mocking me for all of my insistence that rook endings are insignificant to chess improvement, and it is pretty funny that right after I wrote that I have seen a glut of these things in my games... but I have yet to ever lose one! I think that from here I'm doing fine again, though the position is still pretty messy. I haven't the foggiest what the theory on something like this would be. I just knew how the king ending would look if I played it right, and I'll leave the rest without comment, as I'm really not qualified to say anything more than that the king and pawn ending was totally won after Walter advanced his h-pawn.
39 h4 Ke6
40 Rc7 Rxd6
41 Rxg7 Rd7
42 Rxd7 Kxd7
43 Kg4 h6
44 h5 gxh5+
45 Kxh5 Ke7
46 Kxh6 Kf6
47 Kh5 Kf7
48 Kg5 Ke6
49 Kg6 Ke7
50 Kf5 Kf7
51 Kxe5 Ke7
52 f4 Kf7
53 Kd6 Ke8
54 f5 Kd8
55 e5 Ke8
56 f6 Kf8
57 Kd7 Kf7
58 e6+ Kf8
59 e7+ 1-0

Down in Flames

2007-08-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

Well, my ten-game undefeated streak has been snapped in ferocious fashion - I even lost down, something I almost never do.
One of my repeat opponents, little James Lung, pulled a surprise in the opening and, well...

White: Joshua Haunstrup (1880)
Black: James Lung (1794)
Event: MCC Independence Day Swiss (5)
Date: 2007-07-31
(C63 Ruy Lopez, Schliemann)

1 e4 e5
2 Nf3 Nc6
3 Bb5 f5

The Schliemann Lopez is very tactical, making it a good practical choice against most players, but I have always known it to be rather dubious, and having played it myself with the black pieces on and off, I thought I had a pretty good feel for the variations. Thus, instead of ducking the challenge with 4.d3 or 4.Bxc6, which I am sure I should have done, taking stock of the fact that it had been a long time since I had studied the opening, I decided to dive straight into the main line:
4 Nc3 fxe4
5 Nxe4 d5
6 Nxe5 dxe4
7 Nxc6 Qg5
8 Qe2 Nf6
9 f4 Qxf4

Here we are then, 9 moves of theory, and what's going on? The position is sort of irrational. White has some threats with the knight on c6, and black has some tactical ideas so long as white's king is still in the center. This is where I lost the clarity of the theory. In the past, I have played Nxa7+ which isn't supposed to grant much in the way of an advantage for white, but which I think is actually quite strong in a practical over-the-board situation. The main move is Ne5+, but I thought that I could interpose 10.d4, which seemed natural and strong. Then, after 10...Qh4+ 11.g3 Qh3, I could go back and play 12.Ne5+ and we would transpose. I kind of thought that 10...Qh4+ was the only reasonable reply to 10.d4, so you can imagine my surprise when James whipped out 10...Qd6. I guess that's partly why the Ne5+ comes first, because the queen is so nicely situated on d6, and this is still a theoretical position, though I don't really understand why, because it seems downright dubious for white if you ask me. To make matters worse, I naturally assumed that 10...Qd6 was a mistake of some sort, since I new it didn't happen in the main line, so I started to consume gobs of time trying to crack it.
10 d4 Qd6
11 Ne5+ c6
12 Bc4 Qxd4!

This is the simple move, but it's not even in the book that I have! Everybody in the past seems to have played 12...Be6, but James knew better. Afterall, my threats on f7 are really pretty weak. I'm never going to have time for Nf7, and this only really began to sink in now. I wanted to play Bf7+, but I think that this just gets a piece stuck on an awkward square. No, all in all, the white position is already really untenable. For example, 13.Nf7 Bg4 14.Qf1 is getting really frightening, and is in danger of being imminently embarrassing.
13 Nf3 Qc5
14 Ng5

Right about here I actually had this funny notion that I was back in the clear and had threats that were meaningful, but this is just an illusion. The truth is, black has threats and is up a pawn.
14... Bg4
After this, I think that my original intention had been to play something like 15.Qf1, but after 15...0-0-0 things are turning south fast, and cheap tricks like 16.Be6+ aren't going to save me. Hence, my move, which I think Fritz agrees with, though it does seem to salient a bishop pretty badly.
15 Bf7+ Ke7
16 Be3??
Given my nervous state at this time, all the energy I was putting into trying to figure out exactly how and why this position had arisen, I think that a blunder was kind of logical, but ouch, this one's really ugly. I had even calculated the right move, 16.Qc4 several time over, I just didn't want to play it. My logic was that having just forced James to misplace his king, just about the only thing I had going here was the dim potential of some kind of tactical shot off the monarch, so I really didn't want to take the Queen off. After 16.Qc4 we'd be in an endgame or queenless middlegame where his extra central pawn would have been the topic of discussion. I think that he'd have pretty good winning chances, and at the least he would have made me hurt for a long time. Instead, after,
16... Qxg5
It was time to resign: 0-1

It's hard to know what conclusion to draw from a disaster like that. I had just played James a few weeks ago and beaten him rather convincingly, and the sad thing is that I had a nice piece of preparation waiting for him in his old main opening variation. It's logical to blame the opening line for the bad position, and I do think now that 10.d4 must be rather dubious, or at any rate, fairly untenable. I'm just amazed that it has such pedigree - no less a player than Kamsky has played it - so I'm going to have to Fritz it more and see what I can find. The strong masters seem to reply to 12....Qxd4 with 13.Bf7+ Ke7 14.Bf4 and then the black player plays 14...Be6 afterall, which seems very inconsistent. What I don't understand is why black doesn't just double down and play 14...Qxb2 15.0-0 Qc3 and thumb his nose at white. It looks ugly for black, but I can't see any way through for white. Can anyone else?
Certainly, in my game I blundered, and blundered badly, but I think that was a product of the situation, of the bad psychological state you find yourself in when you have tried to refute something that haven't seen before and it isn't working - it can be really hard to change gears from trying to punish someone to groveling for a draw in a lousy position.

Those Cheapo Openings

2007-07-29T16:51:00.001-07:00

One thing that I have found increasingly vexing as I have climbed the rating charts is the prevalence of "cheap" lines in almost all defences. I won't deny that I am certainly someone who prefers positional imbalance in my chess games - I like semi-open positions more than clear open ones, and I like uneven structures that allow for a range of maneuvering ideas - but I am open to more closed structures, just anything that gives me the opportunity when playing with the black pieces to fight for a win. That said, I never cease to amazed that there simply are ways in almost every single opening for white to turn down the complexity and play a flat, relaxed, sometimes even thoughtless game and just coast.

For example, I would offer the following:

4 Knights Scotch/Lopez especially, or Ruy Lopez Exchange

French Exchange

Caro-Kann Exchange

Sicilian Alapin, or c3+d3 slow positions, or even 1.e4 c5 2.c4 with a Botvinnik positional grind

Alekhine Exchange

Pirc w/1.e4, 2.d3

London System

Colle System

KID Exchange

Slav Exchange

Grunfeld with e3 early and maybe Be2

e3 QID

Some QGD Exchange lines, usually without Ne2

Anti-Benoni

etc.

I don't mind the drier lines that result in imbalance, like the Closed Sicilian, or the Burn French, or even the Bf4 Grunfeld, what really vexes me are all the positions where white just comes out and says, look, I don't want to lose. That's all there is to it. I don't really mind if I have virtually no winning chances, as long as you have no winning chances either. All of these systems have followings, and as a tournament player, I find that they arise in as much as perhaps 1/4 of games played. People seem remarkably content with the white pieces to just relax, play really slowly, and just shrug their way through the middlegame and on into a level endgame waiting for the opponent to make an error or bely a shortage of positional knowledge on their way to a lost pawn endgame or some such.

I wonder if it is simply a given in the nature of the game that if white really really wants a draw, it is virtually impossible for black to avoid allowing a flat, dry position.

I wonder, do other players find this to be a problem, do they find it to be true? How does a player in a must-win game with the black pieces find a way to mix it up, especially against someone of equal strength who is liable to punish dubious flailing? I have found this to be especially disconcerting in the e4 lines, and believe me, at one time or another, I have tried them all! It is very difficult to be patient when you are on the hotseat, and many is the time that my opponent played one of these lines and then simply didn't make a mistake, leaving me with little recourse to a grumbling 1/2-1/2...

Arghhh!

2007-07-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

Not much chess for me over the past few weeks. (I missed a game at the weekly club to be in NYC for the big explosion up in midtown...) But I think I'll be playing a tournament this next upcoming weekend, so there should be more grist for the posts soon enough. I have had one encounter though, but not a very inspiring one.

White: Neil Cousin (1924)
Black: Joshua Haunstrup (1880)
Event: MCC Independence Day Swiss (4)
Date: 2007-07-24
(C01 French, Exchange)
1 e4 e6
2 d4 d5
3 exd5 exd5
4 Nf3 Bg4
5 Be2 Nc6
6 c3 Bd6?
That's right, in my incredible urge to hurry up and get my pieces out aggressively and then force through opposite sides castling - for pity's sake, there's got to be better things in life to do than sit around and draw Exchange French positions - I went and dropped a pawn right out of the opening. The clear reply is 7.Qb3 and it's hasta la vista to my hopes of winning the tournament - maybe a long painful grind with some dim glimmer of a draw chance if he screws up. But, of course, as I sat there in agony, looking at my blunder, he didn't see it, and shot right out with 7.0-0. Yeah, enough said. It was long. It was painful. We were one of the last boards going. It was drawn... Arghhh!

Questionnaire Tag

2007-07-22T23:54:00.000-07:00

Amazing how small the digital universe is. I was reading these questionnaire chain letters on the BCC site and wondering how long it would take to come around. Answer: not very long.

Alright, here goes:

1. How long have you been playing chess? Have you played it consistently since you started, or were there lulls in your play? How did these lulls affect your performance?

I have been playing since 1993 according to the uschess site, which would put me at 11 at my first tournament. I knew the rules and had been playing casually for some time before that, let's say since I was about 8, but I didn't take it very seriously until I was about 10. Before that, I had one of those cheesy plastic sets with the red pieces and red and black squared bored. Afterwards, I played at a scholastic club that my father ran. I was top dog there most of the time - there were only two other players who could scalp me occasionally, one of them a much older fellow of about 16 years who had me licked one time and was so doggone happy about it that he just kept on checking me in every which way he could think of without mating me until he finally blundered into doing it. Truth be told, I was a lousy scholastic player - I don't think I ever really had much raw ability for it, and though i did well at the local clubs on the Cape - games weren't rated - I never faired too well in tournament praxis.

My first big hiatus came at the advent of high school. I had been playing a lot of bughouse in middle school - it was sort of a social phenomenon there, with even some of the 'cool' kids playing - but chess was too much along with a high school course load, so I left off until college, at which point I moved to the city and started to play again seriously. In the summer between high school and college I geered up for a return to the game, reading Romanovsky's Chess Middlegame Planning cover to cover and playing out every single position on a board - a really arduous undertaking - and I credit this with pushing me over the hump from a lousy scholastic player to a serviceable competitor.

Since then, I have played steadily for intense periods with occasional lapses of many months when serious distractions have arisen in my life. Most recently, I took off about half a year while working on my book and traveling to do research, but I don't think I could ever let it go for a really long time. I love playing chess.

2. Aside from playing games, what is your primary mode of training?

Most enlightening I find is reading over and studying full games, usually in opening systems that I play. I like to study how the opening becomes the geography of the structure in the middlegame, and I try to comprehend the plans and use this as a basis to understand the openings, middlegames, and even the endings that result. I read over more complete games than anything else, though I also play an absurd amount of blitz chess online, though I have never been very good at it. My blitz rating jumps up and down hundreds and hundreds of points depending on the time of day and how tired I am. I do think that blitz play helps with pattern recognition though, and it definitely hones tactics.

3. What is the single most helpful method of improvement that you have ever used?

Very hard to say. Reading the Romanovsky book occasioned a big jump in rating strength for me, but that might have been more due to the immersion in GM games than to any great merit of the book. I think that playing a lot of rated chess has really helped me to get better. 2006 was my most active year to date - I played 135 games and gained about 240 points. I always go over my games in Fritz, and I tend to study them over time so that I remember what I have played and who I have played, and that helps me to anticipate openings and styles and to minimize the repetition of errors. It's really irritating to lose the same way twice!

4. What is your favorite opening to play as white? As black against e4? As black against d4?

This is a rather goofy question that I see everybody dodging. Favorite openings to play are not necessarily the same as openings frequently played, so I will take this question in the spirit of amusement.

My favorite white opening to play is probably the main line center counter. I have a wonderful score in it and was deep in the midst of a very rich and prolonged discussion in the lines with the two Wamala kids before they stopped playing chess. I find the positions both stimulating and very pleasing to play with the white pieces - the tactics are everywhere, the pieces fly, and somehow, I always have the impression that the black position is just a little bit rotten.

Against e4 I have had the most fun playing the Elephant Gambit. I even played it in a string of rated games at one point, but I think it makes for a better blitz weapon. The structures are reminiscent of the Scotch Gambit, and the piece activity is very dynamic.

Against d4, my first love was the Albin countergambit, an opening that I played exclusively in all formats until I reached the upper echelons of the 1600s, at which point it began to run short of gas. I think that the opening leads to really dynamic positions, and I love the attacking structures that result from the opposite sides castling variations. Its just not stable enough to have as a mainline weapon in a repertoire, and I also found that, as I have lamented in one of my posts, many players seem to go for this really dry liquidating line, and I don't like playing positions as black that have no winning chances. First loves die hard though, and I do look at my Albin games and at my study notes longingly sometimes...

5. Who is your favorite chess player and why?

Tal was a mindblowing talent. I love reading over his games, though I have to say that they are not the best from which to study structural ideas. They are the spirit of the art of the game though. I am also a big fan of Victor Korchnoi, both for his incredible longevity and for his wonderful defensive spirit. As I have gotten stronger, I have found that defending and counterattacking are increasingly important to success. Gaining points is as much about saving lost positions as it is about launching smashing attacks, and I have gained much inspiration from Korchnoi's games.

6. What is your favorite chess book?

I really like Larry Christiansen's books, especially for the collections of games that he includes. I also have a book called Chess Brilliancies that I love to read through. Reading over Beautiful games reminds me always of what I find so fascinating and enriching about the game.

7. What book would you recommend for a friend who knows only the rules of chess?

I think that a basic book on structures and planning is a good place to start. The Romanovsky book, Chess Middlegame Planning was a great basic starter for me. It is basically a collection of several hundred annotated games (sometimes games within games) that show repetitions of planning themes - invasion on the a file, besieging a backward pawn, etc. demonstrated with example after example after example after example. The tedium can be agonizing, but reading over these games gives you a sense of themes and ideas that you just can't get any other way. I was recently reading through Secrets of Positional Chess, which is kind of a lighter and more sophisticated version of the same, and I immediatley went out and found an idea in a game that was precisely like one from the book.

8. Do you play in in-person tournaments? What is your favorite tournament experience?

I think that "in-person" tournaments are really the only way to compete in a truly serious format. Chess is meant to be a battle between two people - it just isn't the same when you can't see the expressions on your opponent's face. I won The Northeast Chess Summer Getaway U1700 section in sole first place one time. It was a really big deal for me at the time. More recently, I had one very nice month where I won the BCC Thursday night monthly open and the MCC Tuesday monthly in my section all at once. Poor Timmy Lung had to suffer through my victories in both events!

9. Please give us a link to what you consider your best two blog posts (on your own blog).

http://chesspraxis.blogspot.com/2007/07/success-continues.html

http://chesspraxis.blogspot.com/2007/06/one-of-my-best-games.html

10. What proportion of total chess time should be spent studying openings for someone at your level?

This is another very tricky question. Assuming that one has developed a stable repertoire of some sort, studying openings is really not that important for most improvement. One should continue to review and always seek to learn improvements after playing games, but constant study of openings is a waste of time - you forget. However, if you're trying to improve your repertoire or seeking to expand it in the interest of broadening your exposure to middlegame structures, etc. I think that opening study can be very important. In those instances, maybe 25 percent of the time is useful for someone of my strenght 1800s-1900s. Even then though, I think that it is best to study variations in the context of full games. Planning is more important usually than exactitude. Most of the time your opponents will go out of book before you do.

I tag Steve Eddins to continue the chain.

Endgames Phooey!

2007-07-14T12:34:00.000-07:00

One of these days I'm going to have eat my words about endgames - I can feel it in the wind. A time will come when the playing strength of my opponents is such that we frequently wage balanced struggles that make it all the way to theoretical endgames. For now though, experiences like my latest USCF game remain very unusual.

White: Joshua Haunstrup (1880)
Black: Larry Pratt (1798)
Event: MCC Independence Day Swiss (2)
Date: 2007-07-10
(B42 Sicilian, Kan, 5.Bd3)
1 e4 c5
2 Nf3 e6
3 d4 cxd4
4 Nxd4 a6
5 Bd3 Nc6
This variation is surprisingly popular, and I'm not really sure why. Either players don't know the theory and just make this move because it seems obvious to attack the knight on d4 after Bd3, or else for some strange reason, everybody's really excited about a flat middlegame with a symmetrical pawn structure, and this out of a Sicilian opening...
6 Nxc6 dxc6
7 0-0 e5
Here we are, many dry moves await!
8 Be3 Nf6
9 h3 Be7
10 Nd2 Qc7
11 a4 Nd7
12 a5 0-0
Yeah, so the basic idea here for me was to center my whole game around taking advantage of those weak dark squares. It worked in the big picture, but what a vanilla way to win a chess game...
13 c3 Bc5
14 Qe2 Bxe3
15 Qxe3 b5
16 axb6 Qxb6
17 Qxb6 Nxb6
Some subtleties remained, but essentially, white will win a pawn here one way or the other, and then it'll be just a question of how to convert the endgame, grrr. 18 Nb3 Nd7
19 Ra5 Rb8
20 Bc4 Re8
21 Rfa1 Kf8
22 R1a2 f6
23 Nc5 Nxc5
24 Rxc5 Be6
25 Rxc6 Bxc4
26 Rxc4 Rb3
27 Rxa6 Rxb2
28 Ra7 Re7
29 Rcc7 Rxc7
30 Rxc7 Rc2
31 c4
In this position, I actually think that white should go for the h pawn and the simplification, but I really am not that certain. I do know that the way that I won in the game had more to do with my opponent playing it wrong in the time scramble than because I knew what I was doing. I shall have to put in some time with Fritz and figure it out... 31... g6
32 g3 Re2
33 f3 Rc2
34 Kf1 h5
35 h4 g5
36 hxg5 fxg5
37 Rc5 h4
38 Rxe5 h3
39 Kg1 Rg2+
40 Kh1 Rxg3
41 Rf5+ Kg7
42 Kh2 Rg2+
43 Kxh3 Rg1
44 Kh2 1-0

Success Continues!

2007-07-08T07:41:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's an image of me taking on the Dragon! Turning the tables on my previous post, I got the chance on Saturday to show that I am no wimp when it comes to wrestling the firebreather! More on that in a bit though.
Saturday was the BCC Quads, and my unbeaten streak continues: 2 wins and 1 draw. Since coming back to the game after my 1/2 year break, I have won 5 and drawn 3! And... I still haven't played anyone higher rated than I am, but I think it's really important to be able to show that you are what your rating says by continually asserting it against the lower rateds, and I have picked up enough points to be over 1900 for the first time ever.
With black in the first game, I won a fairly straightforward pawn-grabbing operation:

16... Nxa3
17.bxa3 Qxc3
And from there it's just a question of patience because white really wasn't coordinated enough to launch much of an attack. Some time aqo, I played the same combination in another game, but in that one it was a good deal more stressful:

Here, the advanced f-pawn and the reasonable attacking coordination that white has mean that after the combination, black's dislocated queen is actually the impetus for some violence from white, and the game continued:
15... Nxa3
16.bxa3 Qxc3
17.Bb2 Qc7
18.e5 Bxf3
19.Qxf3 Nd7
20.Qg4
And I was in some trouble, though I eventually won that game too, but only after some adventures.
In my second game, I had white against the Sveshnikov, and got a very reasonable position out of the opening, a position that I have actually essentially had before, but I have always gone wrong with it:

I think I have finally learned, and hopefully will remember, that I must play f4 here. I cannot allow black to have that advance at the expense of my poor prelate. In this game, I played:
15.0-0 f4
16.Bb6 f3
And was in scalding hot water. I found a reasonable way to hold on:
17.gxf3 Bg5
18.Kh1 Qh3?!
I think that Bf4 had to be better.
19.f4
And I can breath a big sigh of relief, though I am still in some trouble, if not a little worse. But I survived to draw. Anyhow, now I have a better feel for the position, and I'm not going to let it slide like that again.
Finally, for the last game of the day, I had white against an accelerated dragon - a slimy half-formed version of its big brother to be sure - so no Yugoslav violence, but I have other tricks up my sleeve for the Accelerated beast, and I gave the game both barrels, so to speak:

Here we are after black's move 14, Ne8-c7. White is playing loose and furious without much recourse if the attack doesn't work.
15. h4 b4
16. Na4
I had looked at other options, but it seemed best to me to cut out all of the nonsense by just using my knight as a shield on the queenside.
16... Nb5
17 fxg6 hxg6
Black can't take back fxg6 because of the queen check.
18 h5 Ne5
19 hxg6 Nxg6
20 Bc4
This was my key idea, bringing about pinning threats, but Fritz doesn't really agree that it's best. The silicon brain wants me to take, Qxb4 - doesn't Fritz have any aesthetic at all??!
20... Be5
21 Qe2 Kg7

My opponent played this cooly, evidently confident that it would turn the tables on my attack. Once the rook comes to h8, there's no longer any major mating threat down the h-file, so I had to act fast.
22 Rh7+
Moves like this are what chess is all about as far as I am concerned! I live for these moves! I just hardly ever get to play them...
22... Kxh7
23 Qh5+ Kg7
24 Qh6+ Kg8
25 Qxg6+ Bg7
This is the only reasonable defence, but I just castle queenside to swing over the second rook.
26 0-0-0 d5
Yeah, shucks. I hadn't really gotten this far in my original analysis - not calculating quite precisely enough.

27 Qh5 dxc4
Here, my opponent offered a draw, content with the notion that the two rooks for the queen would about level it, but I had no intention of putting down my sword.
28 Rh1 Re8?
Much more irritating for the attack is 28...f5. Then if I play 29.g6 to suffocate the king, black plays 29...Rf6, slipping away. Whereas 29.Qh7+ allows 29...Kf7. I think that best after 28... f5 probably is 29.g6 Rf6 30.Qh7+ Kf8 31.Bh6 where black has to let go of the bishop because of the threat of Qh8#. In that case, I'd have the piece for the rook and still have a fair amount of play, with multiple pawns to round up and many threats - I think I'd still be winning even, according to my analysis, but only by a little.
29 Qh7+ Kf8
30 g6 f6
31 Bh6

From here, it's all over.
Whew! Definitely something to write home about.

Trying to Breathe Fire Leaves you Sucking Smoke

2007-07-05T21:59:00.000-07:00

I love the Dragon. Who doesn't? What Chess player in his/her right mind could look you in the eye and say that the Dragon is anything shy of the most incredible rush of a chess opening in the whole game? Yeah, I heard you, the Evan's Gambit is pretty nifty too, but there is something viscerally overwhelming about the firebreathing opening, like Caissa spat it up herself in a fit of rage over a 10 move draw and saw fit to declare that if we were to be privileged enough to play this game, we had better play it for keeps.
The Dragon is all about attacking chess - lines drawn, bloodlust ready, and good, violent fun.
At least, that is what it ought to be. Games like the following have gripped me since I first became aware of the existence of the opening:
Morris-Ward
Lloyds Bank, 1983
1.e4 c5
2.Nf3 d6
3.d4 cxd4
4.Nxd4 Nf6
5.Nc3 g6
6.Be3 Bg7
7.f3 0-0
8.Qd2 Nc6
9.Bc4 Bd7
10.Bb3 Qa5
11.h4 Rfc8The battle lines are drawn as both sides ready for an epic showdown.
12.h5 Nxh5
13.0-0-0 Ne5
14.Nde2 Be6
15.Kb1 Nc4
16.Bxc4 Rxc4
17.g4 Ng3!Fun all the way! If only all of our games could look like this.
18.Nxg3 Rxc4
19.b3 Rac8
20.Rc1
20...Bxb3!
21.cxb3 Rxb3+
0-1
Inspired by such games, I have endeavored to employ the Dragon in my own games at several points, always hopeful that my latest rating strength and experience would enable me to produce flights of fancy. Alas, I have discovered, much to my chagrin, that a Dragon battle takes two.
First, there is an endless array of anti-sicilians, as those of us who struggle with the opening know, and then there are lots and lots of positional attempts to steer the game into quiet waters. The g3 lines, the Be2 variations, etc. Then, when you finally get someone who sits down and plays it violently, would you know it but he actually knows the theory and knocks you flat, or, worse still, he suddenly disappoints you by slipping into a quiet sideline. Check out this game from my own praxis for example:
1.e4 c5
2.Nf3 d6
3.d4 cxd4
4.Nxd4 Nf6
5.Nc3 g6
6.Be3 Bg7
7.Bc4 Nc6
8.f3 0-0
9.Qd2 Bd7
10.0-0-0 Qa5
11.h4 Ne5
12.Bb3 Rfc8
All right, time for some Dragon magic, I was thinking.
13.Nd5
Uh oh, what's that sound? Excitement deflating I think. How positively wet!
13... Qxd2+
14.Rxd2 Nxd5
15.Bxd5 Nc6
Yecchh! There goes my fun - right out the window. Now it's Capablanca time. Yeah, so I went on to win the game, but it was thoroughly unmemorable, and should have been a short draw.
The point is, sad to say it, as amazing as the Dragon is, it seems somewhat unpractical to have high expectations for its sanguinary character. The unfortunate reality is that, as with almost any opening, the nature of the struggle is definied by the decisions of both players. White can certainly opt to dive into the pyrotechnics, and it'll be a hoot then for sure, but he doesn't have to, and most people don't...

Picking Up Steam

2007-07-04T10:45:00.000-07:00

So, five games back into the swing of things, and still not a loss! Feels good, very good. Of course, I haven't played anyone higher rated than I am, but hey, gotta put one foot in front of the other one, right?

Tuesday night at the club I put together what I thought was a pretty nice effort:

White: Tim Bromley (1735)
Black: Joshua Haunstrup (1880)
Event: MCC Independence Day Swiss (1)
Date: 2007-07-04
(E04 Catalan)

1 d4 Nf6
2 Nf3 e6
3 c4
Knowing Tim, I was expecting a London System, but it seems that the big London splash at the MetroWest Chess Club has ended. Everybody's getting bored of the opening, amen!
3... Nc6
I think this is a terribly interesting move order for black. I actually came up with it on the fly a while back, maybe a year and a half ago, and then of course I found that I wasn't the only one who had thought of it. The idea is to get a flexible position and wait and see what white does with chances to transpose into a glut of openings. It can become a Nimzo-Indian, a Bogo-Indian, a Catalan, something like a KID, a KID directly, etc. It's a great practice move if you're trying to learn d4 openings and feel them out.
4 g3 d5
Alright, a Catalan. I haven't seen too many of those in my games - the opening is just a bit subtle for us mortals - but I was ready to have some fun with it.
5 Bg2 dxc4
6 0-0 Rb8
7 e3 a6?!

This is somewhat inconsistent. The right move has to be: 7 ... b5! My move seems sensible enough, but the trouble is that the open a-file helps white and takes away the a5 square from my c6 knight. I just wasn't familiar enough with the themes of the opening to have a good feeling for this question.
8 a4 b5
9 axb5 axb5
10 b3 cxb3
11 Qxb3 Be7
Instead, 11... Bd6 came into consideration, but I didn't like the Ne5 options that this would bring about given that my pieces would now face a potential pawn spike.
12 Bb2 0-0
13 Rc1 Bb7

We're at a fairly critical position. Technically, I think that Tim's activity is sputtering, and he doesn't really have enough compensation for the pawn, but in a practical sense, the position is fairly uncomfortable for me to play, and that means a lot over the board. I played 13...Bb7 hoping that I could goad him into snatching on b5, and that really helped to relieve the pressure. If he had played 14.Nc3 here, after the forced 14....b4, I think that Tim could have kept up the pressure and retained some compensation for the pawn. Probably not quite enough, but it would have been tougher for me.
14 Qxb5 Nxd4
15 Bxd4 Bxf3
16 Qe5 Bxg2
17 Kxg2
Now it was time for a solid think.

I had actually anticipated that the position would be easier to play than it seemed to be. There are a lot of ways for me to go wrong and just equalize. The key really is to find a way to sufficiently contest the dark squares and gain enough time to get that pawn moving.
17... Bd6
18 Qg5 h6
Now, 19.Bxf6 hxg5 would have been pretty good for me, I thought - with ideas like g5-g4 to clamp down on white's kingside structure, etc.
19 Qa5 Qe7
20 Qc3 Nd5
21 Qa5 Rfc8
22 Nc3?

Another critical moment. I think that Tim would have retained reasonable chances of holding me up if he had played 22.Bc5. If he had succeeded in getting the dark square forces off the board, ie. the bishops and queens, I think that it would have been very hard for me to make real progress with the passer. Probably I'm still winning, but it would have just been very taxing, and I would have had to work for it steadily in a long game. His move, instead, enables me to improve my structure, and then I'm doing much better.
22... c5
23 Nxd5 exd5
24 Bc3 Qe4+?
Argh! My turn to make a mistake.

Here, the immediate d4 was right, because after 25.exd4 cxd4, 26.Bxd4 runs into 26...Qe4+ The way that I inverted it, it has a big flaw. If 24...Qe4+ 25.Kg1 d4 26.exd4 cxd4 27.Re1! Qg4 28.Ra4 and I'm losing my pawn. Thankfully, I saw all this before going into it and mucking up the game! So, having played inaccurately, I had to just ease up the pressure a bit and relax with better structure for a few moves and try to consolidate.
25 Kg1 Rd8
26 Ra4 Qe6
Tim thought I had better here, but I wanted to prevent him from bringing the rook over to the kingside while still supporting my pawn at the same time.
27 Qa6 Bf8
Fritz doesn't like this move, asserting that 27...Qf5 retains a much clearer advantage, but 27...Bf8 seems to me to be a good, lazy human move. It just cuts out a lot of nonsense giving me less to have to worry about in my calculations on each turn. Clearly, it can't be good for white to take off the queens and improve my structure even further.
28 Qe2?

This really seems to have been the losing move. It allows a clinching blow. Instead, 28.Qd3 would have been much more pugnacious. And, while I'm pretty certain that I'm still winning there, it would have taken a lot of effort wherein of course there would have been room for error.
28... d4
29 Ra6 Qe4
30 Ba5 d3
31 Qa2 Rd7
32 Rc4 Rb1+
33 Qxb1 Qxc4
34 Ra8 d2
35 Rxf8+ Kxf8
36 Qb8+ Ke7
37 Qe5+ Qe6
38 Qxc5+ Qd6 0-1

Some Strange Finishes Monday at the World Open

2007-07-02T19:14:00.001-07:00

Watching the games online has been fascinating for this year's World Open, and there were some hefty slugfests on Monday night. These were accompanied by some very odd moves at the end though.

The board one duel between Akobian and Stripunsky ended abruptly after the time control when Stripunsky played:

40...Nxa5?
whoops
Then came
41.Bf3 1-0.
Of course, the position was lost anyway, but ouch!

Bryan Smith-Alex Shabalov was a wild game in the Latvian's pet anti-4-pawns' Alekhine line with the quick c5.

This position seems awful hard to play for white, but I didn't think it was over just yet.
30.d6 Ndxb2+
Yeah, and white's losing a piece. Wasn't it possible to play Nd2? I haven't sat down with my thinking cap, but there's got to be something better than what happened:
31.Kc2
into the pin??!!
31...Nxd6!
A beautiful rejoinder by Shabalov - what a headspinner. It's this next move though that really weirded me out:
32.Qxf5 0-1
What in the world is that? Very odd.

Chess Openings: Part 2

2007-06-30T21:05:00.000-07:00

We study openings because we find that it is unpleasant to lose games without having at least convinced ourselves that we had a fighting chance. A few 12-move losses, and it's hard to show your face at a chess club, and that's the honest truth.
The trouble is, it's really hard to know what the best way to study an opening is. What are you trying to learn, and how will the lessons take root? For example, assuming that we can agree that ideas, tactical motifs, and positional patterns for strengths and weakness are more important in one's knowledge of an opening system than concrete lines, what happens if we misapply something? It's easy enough to read through a few variations, get an idea, and then try to generalize. Here are some praxis examples:

White: Joshua Haunstrup (1825)
Black: William Michael (1730)
Event: MCC Fall Swiss (4)
Date: 2006-09-26
(B45 Sicilian, Taimanov V)
1 e4 c5
2 Nc3 e6
3 Nge2 Nc6
4 d4 cxd4
5 Nxd4 Nge7?
Poor William was trying to play Taimanov's system in the style of Taimanov himself I'm sure. Grandmaster Mark Taimanov pioneered the whole modern interpretation of the Paulsen Sicilian complex, but then went off on an eccentric and very interesting tangent with lines that include Nge7. Most of these lines are theoretically considered a little suspect, but they are very creative and different for the Sicilian, and several opening books expound the virtues of them. HOWEVER, even when playing Taimanov's own pet lines, there are some basic rules for development in the Paulsen complex, and playing this move on move 5 is an absolute no-no. What followed was:
6 Ndb5

6... d5?
This loses quickly, but even after the necessary 6...Ng6, William would have been forced to give up his dark-squared bishop after 7.Nd6+, and would then have been saddled with an inferior game with weak dark squares and an ugly and unpleasant defensive task.
7 exd5 exd5
8 Bf4 Ng6
9 Nc7+ Kd7
10 Qxd5+ Ke7
11 Qc5+ Kf6
12 Qg5++ 1-0
Afterwards, he told me he was sorry that he didn't give me much of a game. Sure, there were some tactics involved, but it's really hard to spy complex tactics from the getgo. At the beginning of a game, the heuristics of patterns are supreme. They tell us how to play a position, what to anticipate, what to be afraid of, what to strive for.
Here's a subtler example:
White: Christopher W. Chase (2316)
Black: Joshua Haunstrup (1826)
Event: MCC Stanley Crowe Memorial (4)
Date: 2006-10-24
(A08 Réti, King's Indian A)
1 e4 c5
2 d3 e6
3 Nf3 Nc6
4 g3 d5
5 Nbd2 Bd6
6 Bg2 Nge7
7 0-0 0-0
8 Nh4

Alright, so I knew that Chris played the King's Indian Attack, and I knew some variations of the opening pretty well, as my father always played it, but I didn't recall what black was supposed to do here. More generally, I think that I lacked a sense of the positional themes of the opening. I knew some moves, and after that, I would adopt a wait and see attitude, doing my best to parry the kingside attack. There's more to an opening than that though. You have to put your pieces on coordinated squares and then know how to use them once they get there.
8... b6?!
This move does all of nothing, but it looks alright, I mean it's a move that black does make in other variations...
9 f4 dxe4
10 dxe4 e5
11 c3 Ba6
12 Rf2 Qd7
13 Nf5

And here it's panic time. Chris has some nasty threats, my position looks about as rock solid as swiss cheese, and I don't have the foggiest idea what I'm doing. Have I blundered? Not really, although yes, in a sense. My game is coming close to indefensible and I haven't even started playing, all because I don't know the opening.
13... Nxf5
14 exf5 exf4
15 Ne4
And here I should have just resigned.

Now, did I learn from this fiasco you ask? No, not at all. I simply made a mental note that f5 could be a problem square in the King's Indian Attack, and I stored that memory for a future date. Ahem.
White: Max Enkin (2249)
Black: Joshua Haunstrup (1877)
Event: Harry Nelson Pillsbury Memorial (1)
Date: 2006-12-02
(A08 Réti, King's Indian A)
1 e4 c5
2 Nf3 e6
3 d3 Nc6
4 g3 d5
5 Nbd2 Bd6
6 Bg2 Nge7
7 0-0 0-0
8 Nh4

Here we go again. Another master, the same position, time to show that I learned.
8... f5!?
Ahhh, much better, at least it's a playable move!
9 f4
And now what? IM John Watson gives 9...b5, but that's not the sort of move that you would innocently think up by yourself. No, I played what seemed logical again, and was out of my depths in no time:
9... dxe4?!
10 dxe4 Bc7?!
Whoops, this can't be right. What about the gaping hole on e5? That looks like a positional disaster, but at least he's not going to kill me on f5, right?
11 c3 e5?!

Problem solved... ha! The end draws near.
12 fxe5 Bxe5
13 Nxf5 Nxf5
14 exf5
And, up a pawn and with freer pieces, Max finished me off easily.
These kinds of opening disasters are common place in class competition, and they really do underscore the need for concrete knowledge. It's not about knowing specific moves, it's about having a sense of where your pieces need to be and what you need to be afraid of.

Ivanchuk in Style

2007-06-29T16:02:00.000-07:00

Two major topflight tournaments are in full swing internationally now. One, the Aerosvit open, has had little press, as it is a lower category event, while the other, Dortmund, with Kramnik, Anand and Carlsen playing, has been a total snoozer, draws, draws, and more draws.

Not so Aerosvit, with an engaging and interesting array of games and many tough fights. Going into the last round, through some wild and persistent play, Vassily Ivanchuk has stolen the show, an occurrence that always makes for spectacle.
Ivanchuk has been among the world's top players for over fifteen years now, and he has always retained his flare for eccentricity. Rarely looking at the board, instead staring blankly at the wall as he plays, Ivanchuk is notorious for his mercurial temperaments, outbursts, irregular wardrobe, and unpredictability. Top players jokingly relate that he lives on "Planet Ivanchuk", a world unto itself.
In round one, he essayed the Accelerated Dragon, an unusual choice. This then became a Yugoslav Dragon by transposition, making it yet more of an oddity, but it fizzled it out quickly, though not without color.
White: Karjakin,Sergey (2686)
Black: Ivanchuk,V (2729)
Event: Foros UKR: Aerosvit (1)
Date: 2007-06-18
(B78 Sicilian, Dragon, Yugoslav A, 10.O-O-O)
1 e4 c5
2 Nf3 Nc6
3 d4 cxd4
4 Nxd4 g6
5 Nc3 Bg7
6 Be3 Nf6
7 Bc4 O-O
8 Bb3 d6
9 f3 Bd7
10 Qd2 Rc8
11 O-O-O Ne5
12 Kb1 Re8
13 Bh6
Instead, 13.h4 is the main line. Black has generally done well after Bh6.
13... Bxh6
14 Qxh6 Rxc3
15 bxc3 a5
16 a4 Karjakin's move here is a novelty it seems, varying from 16.a3, and I suppose that it is an improvement, but not much of one. The real teeth in white's approach to the Yugoslav still come after 9.0-0-0.
16... Qb6
17 h4 Bxa4
18 h5 Nc6
19 hxg6 Bxb3
20 gxh7+ Kh8
21 cxb3

21... Nxd4
22 cxd4 Qxb3+
23 Ka1 1/2
After a nice win over Nisipeanu in the second round, Ivanchuk then settled down to rattle off 22 moves of straight theory in a drawish line of the modern Benoni, following a 1996 Karpov-Topalov game. His opponent, Sasikiran, varied on move 23, but unimpressively, and the game ended in a draw five moves later.

Here, see Ivanchuk watching intently as Sasikiran struggles to center his knight on the square. Ivanchuk's chagrin that he did not wear a pink shirt to match his trousers is clearly in evidence.
After this rather uneventful encounter, Ivanchuk seemed to lose interest for a time, drawing his next three games in a row in 18, 23, and 17 moves. By that time, his countryman, Karjakin, had taken the lead, and Ivanchuk seemed to find motivation afresh.
In round 7, he distmantled Eljanov's Queen's Indian. Then in round 8, with the black pieces, he destroyed Rublevsky's Sozin attack, demonstrating rather convincingly once again, and sadly alas, that the Sozin is not very effective with opposite sides castling against Najdorf. In round 9, tied with Karjakin now for the lead, Ivanchuk strove his utmost to break Dominguez Perez down in an even endgame, fighting on for 77 moves without an appreciable change in predicament only to draw at the end. Whew!
In round 10, he had black against Alexei Shirov, and they played a Ruy Lopez. It proved to be one of the most interesting games of the tournament.
White: Shirov,Alexei (2699)
Black: Ivanchuk,Vassily (2729)
Event: Foros: Aerosvit-2007 (10)
Date: 2007-06-28
(C91 Ruy Lopez)
1 e4 e5
2 Nf3 Nc6
3 Bb5 a6
4 Ba4 Nf6
5 O-O b5
6 Bb3 Be7
7 d4 d6
Shirov's 7th move is unusual but probably not that strong. White suffers somewhat for allowing the pin on g4.
8 c3 O-O
9 Re1 Bg4
10 Be3 exd4
11 cxd4 d5
12 e5 Ne4
13 Nc3 Nxc3
14 bxc3 Qd7
15 h3 Bh5
16 g4 Bg6
17 Nd2 a5
18 f4 a4
19 Bc2 Bxc2
20 Qxc2 f5
21 exf6 Bxf6
22 Nf3 Rae8
23 Bf2 h5
24 Qg6 Re4
25 Rxe4 dxe4
26 Nh2?!

The position was rather balanced here, but after Shirov's inaccuracy - the knight ought to have gone forward to g5, Ivanchuk unleashed a monster of a move.
26... Nxd4!
After this, it was a walkover.
27 cxd4 Bxd4
28 Rb1 e3
29 Bg3 h4!
30 Bxh4 Rxf4
31 Qd3 Qd5
32 Nf1 Rf2
33 Nxe3 Rg2+
34 Kh1 Qf3 0-1
With a solid draw in the last round, Ivanchuk sealed the deal. Amazing what a spurt of inspiration can do.

Studying Openings

2007-06-28T22:24:00.000-07:00

At the risk of sounding blasphemous - flying in the face of all of those trainers out there - I want to assert that I think that studying openings is valuable, imperative even, for chess improvement. Maybe there is so much force on the other side of this argument because so many books focus on openings and so many players obsess over openings. Maybe it's because teachers think that students simply memorize the moves without thinking them though - maybe they do some of the time.
Studying openings though, is about learning the patterns.
It's easy enough to say that studying tactics will get you through the opening; just don't make any mistakes. Heh. Yeah. The trouble is, you can easily find yourself in disastrous positions because you didn't see a tactical motif many moves away and now you have your pieces positioned so that they can't do anything about it. More frustrating even, you can find yourself all happily developed in a position where your pieces aren't useful, aren't able to do anything effective.
In this sense, the study of openings is about learning position types, usually by learning thematic structures and reading through games played in them so that you will have a sense of the paths and ideas in the middlegames that you will be seeing in your own praxis. Knowing exacting sequences is helpful, sometimes necessary, but the key is the ideas.
All right, enough bluster, how about some examples then, right? Well, plenty of times I have played the opening ignorantly but without error only to find myself in positions where I had no idea what to do.
White: Lior Rozhansky (1651)
Black: Joshua Haunstrup (1699)
Event: MCC Tuesday Swiss (3)
Date: 2006-02-21
(A46 Queen's Pawn Game)
1.d4 Nf6
2.Nf3 e6
3.Bf4 c5
4.e3 Be7
5.Bd3 Nc6
6.Nbd2 cxd4
7.exd4 d6
8.c3 a6
9.0-0 0-0
10.Qc2 h6
11.Rfe1 Bd7
12.Ne4 Nxe4
13.Bxe4 Rc8
14.a3

So what is black doing here? Don't look at me, I only played the game. My pieces look rosy; I have the central proponderance; I'm sure I thought I was better. But what's that knight up to on c6? Where can it go? Should I push d6-d5 and let white's knight to e5? What's the game plan.
I followed up with the rather vacuous but seemingly logical sicilanesque,
14...b5
and then I was smacked in the teeth by
15.d5 Ouch!

Here's another one, similar in many ways,
White: Joshua Haunstrup (1699)
Black: Nikita Konovalchuk (1783)
Event: MCC Tuesday Swiss (2)
Date: 2006-02-14
(B06 Robatsch (Modern) D)

1. e4 g6
2. d4 Bg7
3. Nc3 c6
4. Bc4 d6
My position seemed very active. A good diagonal for the bishop. So far so good.
5. Be3 Nf6
6. Bb3 0-0
7. a4

Like a Sozin Sicilian, right? Then I remembered something about not allowing b5 in the modern complex, so, alright.
7... Nbd7
8. Nf3 e5
9. 0-0 h6
Yuck. Now there's no Qd2 because of the icky Ng4 threat. What am I doing now anyway? Beats me, but I sure haven't blundered anything, I just don't know the opening, haven't a clue.
10. h3 Kh7
11. Qe2 Qe7
12. Rae1 Nh5

Oh, I get it, f5 is coming. That's peachy.
13. dxe5 dxe5
14. Nd2 b6
No no no, a7-a5 and Ba6 is terribleness. Better put the bishop back on the f1-a6 diagonal.
15. Bc4 Qh4

Uh-huh. That's cute. Give a guy all day to come up with something and eventually he will.

The point is that even if you don't make any bad mistakes, if you don't know what you're doing in an opening and resultantly, in a position, you can't really compete. At a certain level, your opponents will probably eventually drop something if you don't but beyond the point of severe blunderitis, you will just lose if you don't have a plan.

One of my Best Games

2007-06-27T11:27:00.000-07:00

For anyone reading back and seeing the work I invested in my effort to diffuse the Reti last year, I thought I would just share one of my best games. It's old now, but it really tickled me at the time, and it's definitely my favorite game to show off.
White: AP (1788)
Black: Joshua Haunstrup (1699)
Event: BCC Spring Open (4)
Date: 2006-04-02

1.Nf3 Nf6
2.c4 Nc6
3.d4 e6
I had just recently lost a miserable game to Paphitis out of his pet Reti lines, an experience that I discussed some time ago in one of my posts. This revised approach was the result of an extended meditation. Basically, After 2...Nc6 white can either allow an e5 English, which is a totally different creature from a symmetrical English, or else play 3.d4, which allows black to force the game from the Reti into the Catalan. This move order allows black to escape from the Reti all together.
4.g3 d5
5.b3
I guess I won't go so far as to call this move dubious, but it's definitely not the best. 5.Bg2 would be standard with a Catalan position. My Opponent was still trying to steer things back into his territory, but I wasn't obliging.
5... Bb4+

I think that white has bitten off a bit much here. Conceptually, the position is kind of like a QID except that black has much better development and more central bite. White will struggle to hold the center together and is riddled with awkwardness as a result of his slow play.
6.Bd2 Be7
7.c5 a5?!
Almost certainly, 7...e5 is best, punching back immediately.
8.Bc3 Ne4
9.Bb2 e5
10.e3 exd4

I guess I won't make any big claims here, as white can certainly take back with the d pawn at which point he will stand solidly enough, but his position would be rather illogical then, with the Bb2 hemmed in and a weak pawn on d4. Black would also have a relatively free hand on the kingside with those bishops - I'd say that I would have won the opening duel then at the least. Instead, White tried to keep the long diagonal open, but this more or less lost by force.
11.Nxd4 Bxc5
12.Nxc6 bxc6
13.Bxg7 Bb4+
This is the point of my play. All of white's ambition has resulted in a terrible plight for his king.
14.Ke2 Rg8

At this point, 14...Qg5 was actually probably best -- I'll let you work it out -- with the same ideas from the game but in a clearer delivery. Unfortunately, I don't have balls of silicon, and I wasn't that diligent in my calculations... In any case, it's a losing struggle for white, and an ugly one, but what fun it was to sit behind the black pieces!
15.Be5 Qg5
16.Bf4 Ba6+
17.Kf3 Qg4+
18.Kg2 Qxd1
19.Bxa6 Qc2 0-1

Last Round Melt Down

2007-06-27T10:57:00.000-07:00

For as long as I have been playing chess, the last round to win position has always been disastrous - I mean simply not do-able. 2000 Harvard Open, I was 3/3 and lost, 2004 G/60 Champs I was 3/3 and lost, at the 2004 Northeast Chess Summer Getaway I pulled it out and won, but that was just the once. Since then, 2005 G/60 Champs I was 2.5/3 and drew, MCC Dec 2005 I was 3/3 and lost, 75th MA Open I was 4/5 and tied for first and I drew, and then 2006 RI Champs I was 4/4 and lost. Sometimes, like at the RI tournament, I was the major favorite and even had the white pieces, and still managed to lose in a game that I only had to draw!
I don't know what it is, call me a choker, but I never seem to be able to pull it out at the end. This week at MCC, I had 2.5/3 and needed to win for a share of first, and I had the black pieces. Not the most auspicious set of circumstances, though it's quite nice to come back after a break and go through three rounds without a loss, but arghh, I could feel it coming again. So I can't exactly say that I pulled out all the stops, but I thought long and hard about what I would play and what my strategy would be, and for a while there it seemed to be going alright.

Edward Astrachan (1866)-Joshua Haunstrup (1880) after 22...Bc4
Black has some active ideas from here, and white's center is likely to become more of a liability than an advantage. Certainly, it's not the kind of raging crazy position you would generally pick for a must win game, but I thought it had potential.
23.Rad1
and now I got to thinking. It seemed that the best thing to do was to keep him on his toes. I looked at 23...Ng3 with something like 24.Rfe1 Bxd3 25.Rxd3 Nxe4, but this seemed uncertain and dubious because of the revealed threats. I think I even considered 23...Nf6, but that certainly wasn't any good. Finally, I settled on
23...Bb3 and the game proceeded
24.Rde1 Nc4
25.Bc1 Rad8
26.e5
and now I was beginning to unravel. Sure, I had looked at this possibility plenty of times, but I always seemed to think that I could get my knight back to f6 to move to d5 supported by the other knight first. It was one of those things where I had considered it a long time ago in my thought process and then just assumed that it was a constant - as if the shifts in the position elsewhere weren't affecting the evaluation of this idea. I guess I could now have played something like 26...c5, continuing my activity, but I was growing afraid of g2-g4, which perhaps is a ghost, as it will take white a while to gobble the knight, and meanwhile, his position may collapse, but needless to say, I went in for:
26...Nxe5
27.Nxe5 Bxe5
28.Rxe5 Rxe5
29.dxe5 Rxd3
30.Bxh6
and when the dust settled, I found myself looking at a draw. Yeah, that's right, another no go fourth round.
I think that the best line was where I chickened out on move 23 and should have played:
23...Ng3
24.Rfe1 Bxd3
25.Rxd3 Nxe4
26.Bxh6 Nxc3
27.Bxg7 Rxe1+
28.Nxe1 Ncd5
29.Bh6 Re8
With what should be a steady advantage in the endgame. But I was lazy I suppose, and didn't calculate carefully enough... Someday I'll learn to pull one of these things out.

One Step Forward, One Step Back

2007-06-24T23:15:00.000-07:00

Looking over games from the months just before I took my break from chess, it is amazing to see how little I learned from my own experience at times. Having made the leap from 1600 to 1800 in the course of a few short months, I was often jogging to keep up with the theory of opponents at my new level, and struggling to assert my strength against the dangerous youngsters.
For example, in the course of a relatively short span, I had two games with the white pieces against Jesse Nicholas (currently 1790). The opening of the first game was a bit of a surprise, as Jesse played the rather antiquated Classical System in the Ruy Lopez with the line that entails an early Qf6. I knew that the variation existed, but was rather unprepared, though I think that I hacked out a reasonable game:
1.e4 e5
2.Nf3 Nc6
3.Bb5 Bc5!?
4.0-0 Qf6
5.c3 Nge7
6.d3

Apparently this move is unnecessarily conservative, as the rabid seeming 6.d4!? exd4 7.Bg5 Qg6 8.Bxe7 Bxe7 9.cxd4 is much more topical, although not necessarily good enough for much of a white advantage. In any case, after,
6. ... h6
7.Be3 Bb6
8.d4 exd4
9.cxd4 0-0
10.Nc3 d6
11.h3 Qg6
12.Kh2 Rd8
13.Qe2 d5
14.e5
I had what I thought a very promising position that I went on to win rather comfortably.

Afterwards though, I couldn't help wondering how I was "supposed" to handle the position, and went to the bookshelf and rummaged around until I found some theory, which I studied dutifully and then promptly forgot, and that was the end of that.
Some time later of course, I ran into Jesse again. I recalled in advance that he played the Classical Lopez, and I had a dim recollection of the game that we had played before, but I seemed to think that I had played 4.c3 in that game, and this time I played 4.0-0, imagining that I was varying from my earlier praxis according to whatever it was that I had studied. Unperturbed, Jesse comfortably whipped out his moves, and the game proceeded as follows:
1.e4 e5
2.Nf3 Nc6
3.Bb5 Bc5!?
4.0-0 Qf6
5.c3 Nge7
Yes, here we were again, though I didn't remember it as such, and I sat there all over again trying to decide how I ought to proceed. Predictably, my instincts were true, and after,
6.d3
we reached the very same untheoretical position as before:

Play continued to follow our earlier game,
6. ... h6
7.Be3 Bb6
Whereupon, I sank into a protracted think, and emerged with the indisputably inferior, and quite strange,
8.Na3!? Intent on going after the b6 prelate. From here, play proceeded,
8. ... 0-0
9.Nc4 d6
10.Nxb6 axb6
11.d4 exd4
12.cxd4 Bg4
13.Be2 Ng6
14.h3 Bd7
15.Qc2 Rac8
16.Qd2 Rfe8
17.d5 Nce5
18.Nxe5 dxe5
19.Kh2 Nf4

In many ways the games proceeded in a remarkably similar manner, demonstrating the consistencies of both of our chess processing minds. Once again, I conspired to find my king on the strangely obtuse h2 square, and attempted to force through central expansion at the expense of stability, resulting in a slightly shaky structural position. This time, however, my game proceeded in a decidedly inferior manner - as the result of... innovation! Yes, confronted with the exact same technical problem and position on the board with the benefit of added study time and much extra playing time, I went through the same progression and proceeded with a weaker plan.
It's hard to make sense of a situation like this in the immediate aftermath, and when I went home and hit the books again, I was rather raw at myself. With the benefit of hindsight though, I think that it is safe to reassert the old adage that learning is the faculty that allows us to recognize a mistake when we make it again, and perhaps to go a tad bit further and add that when we realize we are making the mistake even worse the second time, it's time to take a breather...

Learning From Disasters

2007-06-22T21:49:00.000-07:00

Here is a game from just a little while before I took my hiatus - a game where I lost miserably. I often find that while such experiences are miserable, depressing even, they are some of the best learning experiences.
I was playing Daniel Schmidt, a fellow trivia player from Chris Chase's team at Pizzeria Uno's, and was initially excited at the opportunity to play another 1800 player - most of my games are either against higher or lower rated opponents. Apparently, he was experimenting with the 2 Knights' Sicilian for the first time, and I was playing a line that I had studied a bit, so I should have had the edge...

White: Joshua Haunstrup (1826)
Black: Daniel Schmidt (1828)
Event: BCC October TNIS (2)
Date: October 12, 2006
(B45 Sicilian, Taimanov V)
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.Ndb5 Bb4
For those unfamiliar, 6...d6 is a popular move here with a transposition to the Sveshnikov.
7.Bf4
This is a move that Judit Polgar popularized, and it has a nice aggression to it, but it may not be the theoretically strongest - just good for some fun, at least that is what I hoped...
7...Nxe4
8.Nc7+ Kf8
9.Qf3 d5
10.0-0-0 Nxc3?!

This move came as a big surprise. I was aware of the possibility of 10...Rb8 and of 10...e5, but I hadn't even really thought about the Knight capture, evidently because it's not very good, but in the moment, I got stumped, and sat there very confused. I couldn't figure out what would happen after 11...Ba3+ If 12.Kb1, I was afraid of the impending mate threats with a queen swing over to b6. Horror of horrors though, I hadn't even seen somehow that if my knight takes on a8, the queen has no access to my king. Obviously such lines are very nerve wracking, but white should be fine, better eventually, with good chances for eventual success. In the game, I suffered a total calculating collapse, and went in for the groveling retreat to d2 after which I lost without much fight.
11.bxc3 Ba3+
12.Kd2? e5
13.Nxa8 exf4
14.Ke1 Be6
15.Be2 Bd6
16.Rxd5 Bxd5
17.Qxd5 g6
18.Kd2 Kg7
19.Bc4 Qd7
20.h4 Rxa8
21.h5 Rd8
22.hxg6 hxg6
23.Bd3 Be7
24.Qf3 Bg5
25.Ke2 Ne5
26.Qe4 Nxd3
0-1
Obviously, it was well past the point for giving up. This game was a real eye opener, and very miserable. Reflecting on it afterwards, I realized that probably the most important mistake was just the result of bad calculating. However, I suppose that more universally, the game demonstrated the dangers of playing a dangerous and complex variation without first having spent much time in analysis of sidelines and natural responses. It's easy to get in over your head!

Back with a new Discipline - I hope...

2007-06-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

I have been away from the game of chess for quite some time. My last tournament game for many months was back in December. Then work intervened, and chess had to take a temporary backburner that became a long break, and then a longer one, and before I knew it, I had to go searching through boxes even just to find my chess books.

Needless to say, I am back, hopefully to stay, and whatever the conventional wisdom is, I don't seem to have that many cobwebs in my brain, thank heavens!

The world of chess has not stood still though. The World Championship has come and gone, uncommented upon on this blog. Players have risen and fallen, and it is time to get cracking again. So, without further ado, I shall begin with a recap of my own recent game history, looking at success, failures, learning experiences etc.

My first game back went off with a bang, round one on a Tuesday night at Metrowest. I started in the U1900 section, as the top rated player, and had the luxury of the white pieces to boot.

White: Joshua Haunstrup (1880)
Black: Amrit Gupta (1784)
Event: MCC Summer Solstice (1)
Date: June 5, 2007
(B42 Sicilian, Kan, 5.Bd3)

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Bd3 Nc6
This move came as quite a surprise. I think I vaguely new that this was a line, a rather stodgy line, but it seems unnatural - a sort of uncomfortable hybrid between the Taimanov and Kan variations. It would make sense in the position after 5.Nc3, but here?
6.Nxc6 bxc6
Apparently this move has had a lousy reputation ever since Fischer smashed it up in a now somewhat ancient game, but it's not objectively so bad if black follows up correctly. At this point, white would like to play e5 as in some 2 knights' lines, but Qa5 puts the kabosh on that, so castling comes first.
7.0-0 Nf6?!
7...d5 was almost necessary.
8.e5 Nd5 9. a3
This move probably was not necessary, but I wanted to cut back on his options.
9...Bc5 10.c4 Nb6 11.Qg4! g6?!
I think that 11...Kf8 or even 11...Bf8 would have been preferable. Now Gupta has serious positional problems.
12.Nc3 d5
I was eyeing d6 with the knight via e4, so Gupta resorted to desperate measures.
13.exd6
The black position seems rather helpless already, but it gets rapidly worse.
13...e5?
This just gives me a tempo.
14.Qf3 Bxd6
15.Qxc6+
It's pretty much all over from here.
15...Kf8
16.c5 Be7
17.cxb6 Qxd3
18.Bh6+ with rapid mate to follow
1-0.

Well, welcome back, right? More thoughts and recap to follow.

Recipe for the Reti

2006-02-13T08:31:00.000-08:00

Although I was well aware of its existence and even had a certain detached respect for the bloody opening, before last week I had never run into the Reti over the board. Then along came an opponent who quickly rattled off 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 and I sat scratching my head. I knew that black could play 2...d4, but that looked horribly committal and 2...dxc4 would likewise lose time and run into a flood of tactics. Deciding that I should swallow my pride and play conservatively, I chose 2...e6 and the game continued 3.g3 Nf6 4.Bg2 Be7 5.b3 c5 6.cxd5 exd5 7.d4 and I was faced with the ugly decision of choosing between a pair of weak hanging pawns - after 7...b6 - or an isolated queen-pawn. I chose the former evil, judging it to be lesser, and promptly found myself in a positional disaster that crashed and burned in about 30 moves. Afterwards I quickly determined that I should have played 6...Nxd5 and veered toward a solid QID type structure, but needless to say, I don't play the Queen's Indian and I was not prepared for this transposition.

So I went home and poured over the pages of the books that I have that cover the Reti, looking over all of the alternative lines. The opening is not exactly mainstream and it really seemed to me that black should have a wealth of good resources, but I didn't find them. Line after line seemed uncomfortable for black, as white consistently reserved his two central pawns for powerful breaks at the optimum moment. I didn't like 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e4 and I was not convinced by the accepted lines stemming from 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 e6 3.g3 Nf6 4.Bg2 dxc4. It seemed like a lot of pressure to absorb to snatch a pawn that black wouldn't even get to keep.

I kept at it though, tearing through the lines looking for an improvement or an unbalancing line with good practical chances. Then finally it struck me - why not simply force a transposition to an e5 English? How? Well, play Nf6 and then Nc6!? It seemed so weird that it might be dubious, so I checked out chessbase and found that it had been played plenty of times, but almost never by a master... and most of the games were not well executed. The genesis of the idea comes from the Tango lines, 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nf3 e6 and in fact, this exact position can arise from the Reti move-order after 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 Nc6 3.d4. More probable though, I thought was something like 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 Nc6 3.g3 e5, after which 4.Nc3 Bb4 and 4.d4 e4/exd4 are main lines from the e5 English. These e5 lines are rich with tactics that stem from Sicilian-like lines, perfect for upsetting the equilibrium of a well-seasoned Reti player, but even more importantly, no matter how white replied, the game would quickly leave the pages of mainline Reti theory. I've looked at it and looked at it, run my Fritz checks, and there is nothing wrong with the line, so the only question is - why don't the masters play it?

Good Work by Gata

2006-01-20T09:10:00.000-08:00

The one time prodigy, American GM Gata Kamsky was having the devil of a time playing with the sharks at Wijk aan Zee 2006 before scoring a startling breakthrough today. Armed with the white pieces, he leveled tournament leader Viswanathan Anand to climb out of the basement in the standings. First though, let's recap his experience in the event thus far.

Round one started out as follows:

Topalov,V (2801) - Kamsky,G (2686)
Corus A Wijk aan Zee NED (1), 14.01.2006
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Nf6 3.Nf3 Nxd5 4.d4 Bf5 5.Bd3 Bxd3 6.Qxd3 e6 7.0-0 Nc6 8.c4 Nb6 9.Nc3 Be7 10.Bf4 g5 11.Bg3 g4 12.Ne5 Nxd4 13.c5 Bxc5 14.Rad1 0-0 15.Ne4 Be7 16.Nxg4 c5? Kamsky knew he should play solidly against the reigning FIDE Champion, so he opted for the Scandinavian defense, but he soon allowed himself to be tempted into grabbing pawns, capturing first one and then a second on moves 12 and 13. The position quickly became critical, and Kamsky's 16. ... c5? infact loses by force, as cleverly noted by Kasparov, who was watching the game live on the internet. Instead of Topalov's 17. b4, white should have played 17.Be5! (threatening 18.Nh6#) f6 18. Ng5!! (threatening 19. Qxh7# and, if 18. ...fxg5 then 19. Nh6#) 18...Nf5 19. Nh6 and black is finished. The game did not last long anyway though, concluding with Kamsky's resignation at move 26.

Gata recovered for an interesting game in round 2 against Israeli GM Boris Gelfand, but the final result was a product of Boris' blunder in a theoretically drawn position in the end.

Kamsky,G (2686) - Gelfand,B (2723)
Corus A Wijk aan Zee NED (2), 15.01.2006

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 dxc4 5.a4 Bf5 6.Ne5 Nbd7 7.Nxc4 Qc7 8.g3 e5 9.dxe5 Nxe5 10.Bf4 Nfd7 11.Qc1 g6 12.Bg2 Bg7 13.0-0 0-0 14.a5 Be6 15.Nxe5 Nxe5 16.a6 bxa6 17.Rxa6 Rab8 18.Qa1 Qb7 19.Ra5 Nc4 20.Rxa7 Qxb2 21.Bxb8 Qxb8 22.Rb1 Qe5 23.Rc1 Nd2 24.Rc2 Nb3 25.Qa3 Qb8 26.Bxc6 Bxc3 27.Rxc3 Nd4 28.Ra8 Nxe2+ 29.Kg2 Qxa8 30.Bxa8 Nxc3 31.Qa5 Nb5 32.f3 Nd6 33.g4 Rc8 34.Kg3 Nc4 35.Qa1 Rd8 36.h4 Ne3 37.Be4 Nd5 38.Qe5 h6 39.Bxg6 Rd7 40.Be4 Ne7 41.Qf6 1-0

The critical position came at move 31:Here Gelfand had to play 31. ... h5 in order to stem white's attacking chances against his kingside pawns on the white squares and to give his monarch some room to breathe. The option was again available on move 32, but Gelfand never saw it.

The torture resumed in round 3, as the youthful GM Sergey Karjakin steamrolled Kamsky's Kan Sicilian with a grinding Maroczy Bind.

Karjakin,Sergey (2660) - Kamsky,G (2686)
Corus A Wijk aan Zee NED (3), 16.01.2006

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Bd3 Nf6 6.0-0 d6 7.c4 g6 8.Nc3 Bg7 9.Be3 0-0 10.Rc1 Nbd7 11.Qd2 Qc7 12.f3 b6 13.Rfd1 Bb7 14.Bf1 Rfc8 15.b4 Bf8 16.a3 Rab8 17.Kh1 Qd8 18.Qf2 Ne5 19.Na4 Nfd7 20.Nb3 Ba8 21.Nb2 Rc7 22.Na4 Rcc8 23.Bd4 Rc6 24.c5 bxc5 25.Naxc5 Nxc5 26.Nxc5 Qc8 27.Qe3 Bb7 28.Bxe5 dxe5 29.Nd7 Rxc1 30.Qxc1 Ra8 31.Nb6 Qxc1 32.Rxc1 Rd8 1-0

Karjakin's 29. Nd7! was just brutal, but this game was white's all the way.

In round 4, paired against GM Levon Aronian - fresh from winning the FIDE Knockout Tournament - Kamsky again over pressed iwth the white pieces and found himself in a miserable, albeit somewhat drawable game. The game needs very little explanation - the American GM simply lost a pawn in the opening and then struggled violently to try to eke out the draw.

Kamsky,G (2686) - Aronian,L (2752)
Corus A Wijk aan Zee NED (4), 17.01.2006

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.d3 Bd6 8.Nbd2 Be6 9.b3 Nd7 10.Bb2 c5 11.g3 0-0 12.Nh4 Re8 13.Nf5 Bxf5 14.exf5 Qg5 15.f6 Nxf6 16.Ne4 Qf5 17.Nxf6+ Qxf6 18.f4 Qh6 19.f5 e4 20.Re1 Rad8 21.Qg4 exd3 22.cxd3 Bf8 23.Rxe8 Rxe8 24.Rd1 Qe3+ 25.Kf1 g6 26.Bc1 Qe5 27.fxg6 hxg6 28.Qf3 Qa1 29.Qf2 Bg7 30.Kg2 Qe5 31.Rf1 Qe7 32.Bg5 Qd7 33.Qf3 Bd4 34.g4 c6 35.h4 Re6 36.Kh3 b5 37.Bd2 Rf6 38.Qg2 Rd6 39.Bf4 Rd5 40.Rf3 Qe6 41.Bg3 Bg7 42.Qf1 Rd8 43.Bf2 Qd5 44.Qe2 Bf8 45.Kg2 Rd6 46.Kg1 Re6 47.Re3 Rxe3 48.Bxe3 Qe5 49.Kf1 Qg3 50.h5 Qh3+ 51.Kg1 Bd6 52.hxg6 fxg6 53.Bf4 Bf8 54.Qe6+ Kh7 55.Qd7+ Bg7 56.Kf2 Qh4+ 57.Ke2 Qf6 58.Ke3 Qa1 59.g5 Qe1+ 60.Kf3 Qf1+ 61.Ke3 c4 62.dxc4 bxc4 63.bxc4 Qc1+ 64.Kf3 Qxc4 65.Qh3+ Kg8 66.Qc8+ Bf8 67.Qe8 Qd3+ 68.Be3 c5 69.Qc6 Qf1+ 70.Kg3 Qe1+ 71.Kf4 Qh4+ 72.Ke5 Qh8+ 0-1

Kamsky succumbed to the dreaded bind again in round 5, this time with Ivanchuk demonstrating his superior technique in a grueling positional struggle.

Ivanchuk,V (2729) - Kamsky,G (2686)
Corus A Wijk aan Zee NED (5), 19.01.2006

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Bd3 Bc5 6.Nb3 Ba7 7.Qe2 d6 8.Be3 Nf6 9.Bxa7 Rxa7 10.c4 Nc6 11.Nc3 0-0 12.0-0 b6 13.Qe3 Qc7 14.Be2 Qb8 15.Rfd1 Rd8 16.Rd2 e5 17.Rc1 Be6 18.Rcd1 h6 19.h3 Rb7 20.Bf1 b5 21.cxb5 axb5 22.Nd5 Bxd5 23.exd5 Ne7 24.Na5 Rc7 25.Nc6 Nxc6 26.dxc6 Rxc6 27.Qxe5 b4 28.Qd4 Qb6 29.Bc4 Qxd4 30.Rxd4 Rb6 31.Bb3 Kf8 32.g4 Ke7 33.Re1+ Kf8 34.Rc1 Rd7 35.Rc8+ Ke7 36.h4 g5 37.Rh8 Rd8 38.Rxh6 Rg8 39.f3 gxh4 40.Rxh4 d5 41.Kf2 Rbb8 42.Ke3 Kd6 43.Rh6 Rbe8+ 44.Kf4 Kc5 45.Rd2 Rg6 46.Rh1 Reg8 47.Rc1+ Kd6 48.Rdc2 Rd8 49.Rc7 Rd7 50.R1c6+ Ke7 51.Bc2 d4 52.Rxd7+ Kxd7 53.Bxg6 Kxc6 54.Bxf7 1-0

After the game Kasparov finally dismissed the American as a legitimate contender, remarking: "Kamsky is from a different era and it shows." It'll be interesting to see what he says after today's powerhouse showing.

Kamsky,G (2686) - Anand,V (2792)
Corus A Wijk aan Zee NED (5), 20.01.2006

1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e4 Nf6 4.e5 Nd5 5.Bxc4 Nb6 6.Bd3 Nc6 7.Ne2 Be6 8.Nbc3 Qd7 9.Ne4 Bd5 10.Be3 O-O-O 11.a3 Qe8 12.Qc2 f5 13.N4c3 Bxg2 14.Rg1 Bf3 15.Bxf5+ e6 16.Bh3 In a dramatic departure from his earlier play, Kamsky came out with both fists in this game, declaring his belligerence right away in the opening! 16. ... Kb8 17.Rg3 Bxe2 18.Nxe2 Nd5 19.Nc3 Nxe3 20.fxe3 Qh5 21.Qe2 Qxe2+ 22.Kxe2 Re8 23.Rf1 Nd8 Anand has managed to force most of the aggressive pieces off the board, but Kamsky's structure is much stronger and black is clearly scrambling for drawing chances. Look out how all of Anand's piece have found their way to the back rank!
24.Ne4 g6 25.Ng5 Re7 26.Rgf3 Bh6 27.Nf7 Nxf7 28.Rxf7 Rhe8 29.R1f6 a5 30.Rxe7 Rxe7 31.Rxe6 Rxe6 32.Bxe6 Bg5 33.d5 Ka7 34.Bg8 h6 35.Bf7 Kb6 36.Bxg6 Kc5 37.Bf7 h5 38.Kd3 h4 39.h3 b5 40.Ke4 b4 41.axb4+ axb4 42.b3 Bh6 43.Bh5 Bg5 44.Be2 Bh6 45.Bc4 Bg5 46.Kf5 Bxe3 47.d6 1-0 Wonderful technique by Gata Kamsky, proving that it's a little early to declare him over the hill!

Reviving the 5. ... gxf6 Caro-Kann

2006-01-19T20:57:00.000-08:00

Popular in the 1970's and 1980's as a result of the work of GMs David Bronstein and Bent Larsen, this eccentric and aggressive variation of the Caro-Kann, characterized by the moves 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6+ gxf6, fell into utter disuse after a series of blows were dealt to it at the end of the 1980's. It always seemed a real shame to me that such a colorful variation should sink into the shadows of professional chess. In the line, black sacrifices king safety and structure in return for a dynamic center and attacking chances down the open g-file. There's nothing wrong with the idea strategically - afterall the same idea is still commonly played in the Burn French - rather, it appears to be tactically flawed.

The main culprit variation stems from the game Riemersma-Pietersee, Dieren 1989. 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6+ gxf6 6. c3 Bf5 7. Nf3 e6 8. g3 h5 9. Bg2 Be4 10. 0-0 Be7 11. Re1 f5 12. Qe2! h4 13. Bf4 Nd7 14. Ne5!This variation with 8. g3 has always been considered the best try for white because it slows down black's play on the g-file and black's plan with a quick h5-h4 has been shown to be the most active and assertive reply - if not the only really playable line. The problem is that in the diagrammed position black is in a lot of trouble. Pietersee played 14. ... Bxg2? and ran into the shocking reply 15. Nxf7! Kxf7 16. Qxe6+ winning. If instead he had played 14. ... Nxe5, then 15. Bxe5 f6 16. Bf4 Bxg2 17. Kxg2 follows and white is still much better.

Obviously there are other options at black's disposal, but none of them faired much better. If instead 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6+ gxf6 6. c3 Bf5 7. Nf3 Nd7, as in Campora-Morozevich, Moscow Olympiad 1994, then 8. g3 Nb6 9. Bg2 Qd7 10. 0-0 Bh3 11. Bxh3 Qxh3 12. a4 and black is behind in development, under-represented in the center, and faces the unpleasant task of finding reasonable lodgings for his monarch. Somewhat amusingly, Campora tried to improve on this line for black recently and fared no better than Morozevich did ten years earlier. Fernandez Romero-Campora, Dos Hermanas 2005 went 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6+ gxf6 6. c3 Bf5 7. Nf3 Nd7 8. g3 Nb6 9. Bg2 Qd7 10. 0-0 0-0-0 11. a4 Nd5 12. Bd2 e6. 13. Re1 Kb8 14. b4 Bg4 15. Qb3 Nc7 16. Bf4 Bd6 17. Bxd6 Qxd6 18. Nd2 and white was much better coordinated and positioned for attack.

Alternatively, 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6+ gxf6 6. c3 Bf5 7. Nf3 e6 8. g3 Qd5?! 9. Bg2 Qc4 10. Be3 Nd7 11. Bf1!? Qd5 12. Qe2! And black's plan is already unraveling, as he cannot further trouble white's castling scheme on the light squares and he has wasted an inordinate amount of time on queen moves.

Saddled with the task of choosing among this unpromising array of options, strong players simply gave up the line and it has remained abandoned throughout the 1990's and into the 21st century. In this past year, however, there have been stirrings of interest in the variation and two strong players ventured to experiment in the line. Their contributions are strange to say the least, but the ideas are novel and far from clear. Is it possible that there will yet be a renaissance for the line?

Naiditsch-Seirawan, Dutch Rapid 2005 went 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6+ gxf6 6. c3 h5!? Here Jeremy Silman offered 7. Bc4 Nd7 8. Ne2 Nb6 9. Bb3 Bg4 10. h3 Bxe2 11. Qxe2 e6 12. Be3 Qc7 with advantage to white in his 1989 book The Dynamic Caro-Kann. This assessment is probably accurate, but there's definitely plenty of fight left in the position, and in any case, there is probably room for improvement in the line. Naiditsch varied with 7. Nf3 h4 8. Bf4 Nd7 9. h3 Nb6 10. c4 Bf5 11. Bd3 Qd7 12. Be3 0-0-0 13. Qc2 Bxd3 14. Qxd3 e5!?Seirawan's handling of the line is substantially more solid and conservative than the traditional main variations. He certainly has somewhat the weaker central control in the diagrammed position, but it looks like he has good chances for equality and the game was in fact drawn quite easily after 24 moves. Maybe black just needs to take a more relaxed approach?

Even more interesting (and potentially theoretically significant) was the game Tiviakov-Nisipeanu, FIDE World Championship Libya 2004. It was an important game for the aggressive Romanian grandmaster and it is noteworthy that he opted for the disreputable gxf6 line. The game went 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6+ gxf6 6. c3 Qd5!? This is a move that Jeremy Silman pointed to in his book as a possible area for future exploration, but very little work has been done on it in the intervening years. It is strange in that black's queen should be exposed in the center, but instead, it appears that it helps to quiet down white's initiative and buy time for black to unwind. The game continued 7. Ne2 e5 8. Be3 Be6 9. f4 Nd7 10. dxe5 fxe5 11. Qxd5 Bxd5 12. fxe5 Nxe5 13. Nf4 Be4 14. Be2 0-0-0 15. 0-0 Bh6where black had the technical structural problem of isolated pawns on the kingside, but somewhat made up for it with attacking chances down the g-file. The diagrammed position was probably not far from even. One older game also demonstrated the viability of this line for black, suggesting that perhaps it is really a fully acceptable and quite playable alternative to the old lines. Spassky-Seirawan, Barcelona 1989 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6+ gxf6 6. c3 Qd5!? 7. Ne2 e5 8. Be3 Be6 9. Qe2 Nd7 10. a3 0-0-0 11. 0-0-0 Nb6 12. dxe5 Qxd1+ 13. Qxd1 Rxd1+ 14. Kxd1 fxe5 15. Ng3 f5 16. Bd3 e4 17. Be2 c5 18. Nh5 1/2-1/2

Morozevich and Bareev, Heavyweight Duelists

2006-01-17T08:23:00.000-08:00

Russian Superstar Alexander Morozevich is, hands down, the most dynamic active "Super Grandmaster" and is one of the most fascinating players to follow. He is not so much incredible for his sacrificial play as for his odd piece-placement and seeming comfort with unusual, even dubious openings and hectically confusing positions. Here is a special gem of his - a very interesting contribution to Caro-Kann opening theory (that is, if anyone is courageous enough to follow his lead) in which Morozevich matches wits with Russian Super Grandmaster Evgeny Bareev.

Morozevich-Bareev 2000 Sarajevo, Bosnia
1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nc3 e6
I would like to point out here that in my own praxis, I have had difficulty with 4. ... Qb6 5. Bd3 Qxd4!? Kotronias' book on the advance Caro-Kann recommends 5. Bd3, arguing that black cannot take this central pawn because he falls too far behind in development, but U.S. GM Larry Christiansen argues that the pawn can be captured with impunity and I have not come across any convincing analysis to the contrary. Does white have a better line here?
5. g4 Bg6 6. Nge2 c5 7. h4 h5 8. Nf4 Nc6 9. Nxg6 fxg6 10. Ne2 Qb6Ten moves in and already all hell has broken loose. Bareev's king position has been compromised, but white cannot carry out his attack unless he mobilizes more of his pieces, meanwhile black's development is speeding up and it looks as though white's overextended pawns are going to start falling.
11. Nf4 cxd4 12. Nxg6 Bb4+ 13. Ke2!?Amazing! Morozevich carries on in signature style, refusing to play c3 and absurdly centralizing his king. The move follows a sort of logic though. White is committed to maintaining as much of his own positional edge as possible - the knight on g6 defends e5 - and he cannot play Bd7 because this uncovers the b7 pawn. Hence - into the fray...
13. ... hxg4 14. a3
Morozevich understands that maintaining the pawn on e5 is more important for the survival of his centralized king than capturing the rook on h8. Additionally, the bishop needs to be kicked or captured in order for him to develop his queenside comfortably.
14. ... Rh5 15. axb4 Nge7 16. Nxe7 Rxe5+ 17. Kd2
White is now up two pieces, but the wild romp seems to be coming to its close. Black's central pawn wedge is intimidating, and there are preciously few escape squares for the white monarch. It looks as though 17. ... Qxb4+ is met by the lunatic 18. Kd3, escaping from the pressure, but computer analysis would show the path more accurately.
17. ... Kxe7 18. b5! Nb4 19. Bd3 Rf8 20. Qxg4 Nxd3 21. cxd3 Rxf2+ 22. Kd1 Qxb5 23. Ra3 Qc6
Morozevich hangs on by the skin of his teeth. He may be up by a piece, but he has lost most of his pawns and the attack just won't quit. He has also gone the whole game without comfortably developing - this cannot be how grandmasters should play chess, right?
24. Bd2 Ree2Just when it seems that the wild ride must finally be over, Morozevich pulls another rabit out of his hat!
25. Qxe2! Rxe2 26. Kxe2 e5 27. Rg1 e4 28. dxe4 dxe4 29. Rxg7+ Kf8 30. Rag3 1/2-1/2
The dust has settled and the result is peaceful... Fascinating!

The Immortal Duel of a Son and Father

2006-01-16T16:01:00.000-08:00

I first got involved in tournament chess as a kid when my father still directed scholastic events, but I took a long hiatus in High School. When I went off to college I became re-enthused and during my college summers when I came home, my father and I waged titanic battles over the board, sitting out on our summer porch in candle light. The games were often fraught with errors, as we taught each other opening theory in cold blood, but they were wonderfully spirited. The first example here was one of my favorites.

Joshua-Moe 2001

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. f4 0-0 6. h3?! c5 7. d5 Nh5?! 8. Qf3 Bxc3+ 9. bxc3 Ng7 10. Bd3 e6 11. Ne2 f5 12. e5
Here we are in typical form for the time. I was white. In the position, I am pressing, impetuous, violently overambitious and about ready to win... or collapse. My father is trying to hold his own, perhaps a little tentative, but certainly tenacious.
12. ... dxe5 13. fxe5 Nd7 14. Qg3 Nh5 15. Qh2 exd5 16. cxd5 Nb6 17. c4 g5 18. 0-0 f4 19. e6 Qf6 20. Ba3 Ng3 21. Nxg3 Qd4+ 22. Kh1 Qxd3
The battle has reached its boiling point. My material is falling fast, but the pawn chain has become insurmountable.
23. Bxc5 fxg3 24. Rxf8+ Kg7 25. Qg1 Qxc4 26. e7 Bd7 27. Bd4+ Kh6 28. Rf6+ Kh5 29. Qd1+ Kh4 30. Rh6#
Those were the days!

Here's an interesting one where my father gave me a pretty good licking. Again, it's a little crude from an aesthetic standpoint, but a pretty good standup fight.

Moe-Joshua 2000

1. e4 d5 2. Nc3 d4 3. Nce2 e5 4. f4 Bd6 5. f5 c5 6. Ng3 Nf6 7. Bc4 a6 8. a4 Nc6 9. d3 h6 10. Nf3 0-0 11. 0-0 Rb8 12. h3 b5 13. axb5 axb5 14. Ba2 Nb4 15. Nh2 Bb7 16. Ng4
My father's eccentric retort to my centre counter has seemingly worked out. Though I have more space on the queenside, my pieces are not well coordinated, and he is geering up for a big attack on my king position.
16. ... Nxa2 17. Rxa2 c4 18. Nxh6+ gxh6 19. Bxh6 cxd3 20. cxd3 Kh7 21. Bg5 Rg8 22. h4 Be7 23. Nh5 Nd7 24. f6 Bf8 25. Ng7 Rxg7 26. Qh5+ Kg8 27. fxg7 f6 28. Qh8+ resign.

It's an interesting dynamic, participating in a long-term duel with a person you know very well. Though I have devoted a good deal more time to chess than my father, and have consequently surpassed him in overall strength, he still holds his own against me when we play. We know each other well.

Topalov beats Bacrot ... or does Bacrot just blow it.

2006-01-16T14:57:00.000-08:00

Topalov,V (2801) - Bacrot,E (2717) [C42]
Corus A Wijk aan Zee NED (3), 16.01.2006

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Nc3 Nxc3 6.dxc3 Be7 7.Bf4 0-0 8.Qd2 Nd7 9.0-0-0 Nc5 10.h4 Bf6 11.Ng5 h6 12.Bd3 Nxd3+ 13.Qxd3 g6 14.Nf3 h5 15.Rde1 Bf5 16.Qd2 Re8 17.Bg5 Bxg5 18.Nxg5 Qf6 19.f3 Re5 20.Rxe5 dxe5 21.Rd1 Qc6 22.b3 Re8 23.Kb2 e4 24.fxe4 Bxe4 25.Qf4 Bf5 26.Rd2 Qc5 27.Nf3 Bg4 28.a4 Bxf3 29.Qxf3 c6 30.Rd7 Re7 31.Qd3 Rxd7 32.Qxd7 Qb6 33.b4 c5 34.a5 Qc6 35.Qxc6 bxc6 36.Kb3 Kf8 37.Kc4 Ke7 38.Kxc5 Kd7 39.c4 f6 40.b5 g5 41.b6 axb6+ 42.Kxb6 Kc8 43.Kxc6 gxh4 44.c5 1-0

Reading over this game this afternoon I was... well I was very confused. Bacrot unleashed the mighty Petrov (haha) against Topalov, evidently seeking a draw. Topalov responded with the eccentric 5. Nc3 variation, seeking a quick doubling of his own pawns in return for dynamic and obscure play. It didn't seem to be working out for him by 22. ... Re8, however. Bacrot has managed his pieces alright and Topalov doesn't seem to have much to atone for the doubles. Maybe the game will draw from here, I thought, and maybe Topalov will even lose. True enough, he has better control of the dark squares, and Bacrot has some airy squares around his king, but... well anyway. Bacrot seemed to go wrong somewhere in the maneuvering stage, when neither player had much left on the board. I think the following position, before the exchange of rooks was an important decisive stage, but I still don't really get it. It seems that Bacrot should really be doing alright after something like ...b6. Ah well, I will have to Fritz it and see. What really struck me was that Bacrot kept playing after the exchange of queens, long after it was clear as day that he was dead lost.

The Peaceful Albin?

2006-01-16T12:16:00.000-08:00

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5!?

Black strikes back in the centre in violent uncompromising fashion. You'll never take me alive, he protests, stamping his boot and shaking his fist. Thus the Albin!

I grew up in love with this risque counter to the Queen's Gambit. A kid played it against me once in a scholastic tournament and I was enthralled. That first game was not very interesting. I followed up 3. cxd5 and the position quickly smoothed over into flat equality... though I eventually prevailed! My life would never be the same again, however. I found a musty old copy of Lamford's book on the gambit and started to employ it whenever I encountered a d-pawn player. At one point my USCF record with the gambit was a startling 8 for 8 with the black pieces! Every trap in the opening seemed to work like it was a foregone conclusion. I won a sweet little game that went:

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 d4 4. e3 Bb4+ 5. Bd2 dxe3 6. Bxb4 exf2+ 7. Kxf2 Qxd1 8. resign

Yes, I was a weak player back in those days, but ahhh, it was nice when opponents used to hand out shrink-wrapped wins on silver platters like that. In any case, the heart of the Albin lines according to the books go:

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 d4 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. g3

White accepts the gambit and both sides play with extended pawns that impinge somewhat uncomfortably on the opponents' position. Black is down a pawn, but in return gets dynamism, a semi-open game that is more reminiscent of many e4 systems or of the Benoni than of most d4 lines and attacking chances against the white kingside. It all sounds great, right?

The main followup plans involve either moving the queenside bishop or the kingside knight. 5. ... Nge7 is Russian Superstar Alexander Morozevich's patent, a move that seems to be taking off after it appeared in the Secrets of Opening Surprises series and was featured in several of Nakamura's games. It is a little more solid than the more traditional bishop moves, eg. 5. ... Bf5, Be6, and Bg5. Each of these moves has its advantages and short-comings, but I never had much trouble in these main line positions with black. I always found that the inherent aggression of the pawn structure worked to my advantage, even when White managed to combine aggressive pawn advances with the long-range power of the fianchettoed bishop. Much more troubling, believe it or not, has always been the annoying patzer move 5. a3!? Here white forgoes rapid development in an effort to avoid the bishop check on b4, enabling the undermining advance e3. The amazing bit here is the difficulty that black faces achieving anything more than a miserable equality. I will also note here that I have had stunning difficulties after 5. e3 Bb4+ 6. Bd2 dxe3 7. fxe3.
It can be amazingly difficult to take advantage of the doubled pawns if there is an exchange of queens. Additionally, if white can maneuver a piece to d4 without losing the advanced e5 pawn, good luck securing any advantage...

Chris Ward's recent book on Unusual Queen's Gambits offers 5. a3 Nge7 as an interesting departure from the relatively lame 5. ... Be6, but though this stands up alright against 6. e3, I have found it to be somewhat wanting against 6. b4!? a move that I have never seen in any book on the subject. It looks a little silly I know, another patzer idea at work - push the b-pawn down the board to kick away the defense of the d-pawn, but it is very annoying. Play continues something like: 6. ... Ng6 7. b5 Ncxe5 8. Qxd4 Qxd4 9. Nxd4 Nxc4 10. e4.
The question is, can black develop counterplay against white's stronger central grip? The answer is probably, but it's certainly no picnic. Black has to retreat his knight and white will have a lot more space.

I think this is the most irritating thing in the whole Albin complex, and is most certainly the main thing that has turned me off to playing the Albin in recent years. It's really too bad from a competitive standpoint, because all of the other Albin lines are fun to play... Does anyone have suggested improvements? Has there ever been any high-level analysis of this line?