The Tactical Endgame series: The crazy rodeo: 2 Knights against a Rook!

Another episode of the on-going serie about interesting Endgame studies aimed at improving your tactical imagination (if you need to be convinced, just read here).

This 2 Knights against a Rook is an interesting fight...and quite painful for the weaker side!

Even though the bishop pair can be extremely powerful in open positions, the 2 knights duo are monsters in blocked or "messy" situations!

Also you certainly don't want to face them at the end of a Blitz game or in Zeitnot!

Below is a list of studies that will hone your skills and should demonstrate how powerful and difficult to face this duo can be.

A special mention of Alexey Troitsky (composer of two studies below) who is considered the father of the modern endgame study. If you are interested to know more about him, here is an interesting article about his work and legacy.

Enjoy!

What's the best opening?!

This is a recurring question among beginners and intermediate players as opening theory often plays a major role in their overall Chess training unfortunately.

As always, there is no clear cut answer to that.....

So the best opening? None!....or rather all of them!

There are lots of good and perfectly playable openings out there but really the best (for you) is the one:

• you understand!This seems pretty obvious but you'd be amazed how many players are just memorizing long opening lines and just don't know what to do with the resulting positions!So know, at least, the main standard strategic plans (and keep in mind that a wrong plan is still better that no plan at all) and tactics
• you enjoy playing!This is very important as Chess is a game after all!
• you feel comfortable playingThe opening fits your style of playing and provides room for growth and improvement.

Your next steps to improve your opening repertoire

• For each of your main White and Black openings, ask yourself:
  • Do I know the standard plans well enough for this particular opening?
  • Do I know the standard tactics well enough for this particular opening?
  • Do I feel that my middle games out of the opening are reasonably playable/well balanced?
  • Do I enjoy playing it?
  • What is my success rate with it?

Experiment...

• Based on the answers to the questions above
  • Try new sub-lines, plans and tactics
  • Learn new openings

and practice, practice, practice!

To wrap things up, I cannot resist to post a fairly well-known game, and a great one, between to fantastic players of the 80's, Anatoly Karpov (the ultra-dominant World Champion at that time,and, in my opinion, one of the greatest player of all times) and GM Tony Miles ....if you don't already know this game, you're in for a treat...Enjoy! (also with comments here):

Chess Tips: the 15 seconds rule

During regular games...

To blitz or not to blitz?

Like dogs who sniff each other when meeting, chess players have a ritual at first acquaintance: they sit down to play speed chess.
- Anatoly Karpov

That shows how prevalent and widespread Blitz (speed) chess is in the Chess culture!

But what is Blitz Chess exactly anyways?

It's a game where you have to play the entire game within 15 minutes. Usually, this is less than that and the most popular time controls are 5 minutes or 3 minutes plus a 2 seconds increment for the entire game.
Faster than that it's called "Bullet" usually 1 to 3 minute games but I have to say that I agree with V. Kramnik's statement:

To be honest, I consider [bullet chess] a bit moronic, and therefore I never play it.
- Vladimir Kramnik

That being said Bullet Chess can be fun....but, to me, this is not Chess anymore....

One thing for sure: Blitz Chess is fun....but is it hurting my level of play?

Well, You can see the glass whether half-full or half-empty...

Why Blitz can be good for you....

• It can help you develop an opening repertoire:
  As I said in a previous post, if used properly, Blitz Chess can be a great tool to help you developing, enhancing and broadening your opening repertoire.
• It leaves room for experimentation:
  You definitively have less inhibitions in Blitz games than longer time controls games so it is an opportunity for you to be creative or, at least do things you wouldn't normally do in regular games.
• Being a good blitz player helps when in zeitnot:
  That one is pretty easy to figure out
• You learn to keep your composure when things go awry:
  Because of its very own nature, your Blitz game can go from huge plus to a huge minus in a split second!...so this usually teaches you how to regroup quickly, look for opportunities, develop tenacity and a "can do" attitude, skills very useful during regular games

But not till you drop....or your chess strength will too!

• No deep thinking is involved in Blitz:
  You tend to rely on what you already know (standard tactics & plans, same old openings and so forth);
  Most of the time (but not always) no real creativity is involved, just Pavlovian reflexes!
• Bad habits can develop pretty quickly:
  You tend to rely more and more on tricks (because it works!) rather than healthy tactics or true strategy;
  Also sometimes positions to be avoided in Blitz (declining an obviously incorrect sacrifice for the sake of "Blitz pragmatism" for example....) could be playable and even desirable in regular games...
  and per the various reasons listed above Blitz Chess is not to be advised for true beginners...

In conclusion  Blitz is fun and, to some extend, has some upsides but, in my opinion, you should never play it more than 10-20% of your Chess time if you want to make any significant and steady progress...

To wrap things up, below is a video of Hikaru Nakamura playing Blitz Chess with the white pieces: there are several great Blitz players in Chess History (R. Capablanca, A. Karpov, M. Tal and the much lesser know Genrikh Chepukaitis) and Nakaumura (CapilanoBridge on ICC) is without a doubt among the very best today...

Enjoy this fantastic fight!

How to study an opening?

Studying opening theory came shortly after I learnt the game. I discovered with amazement that you could get "a decisive advantage" right out of the opening if you know the "right moves". Wow! pretty interesting and intriguing stuff!

So I started studying openings...which probably sidetracked my true Chess development for many years.
I am not saying that studying opening Chess theory is wrong in itself but it has to be approached the right way.

Opening theory and GMs

Nowadays, being up-to-date on the latest theory development (as well as coming up with new, fresh and unexpected ideas) is definitively a pre-requisite for very strong players (GMI and above).

The trend was probably set by Garry Kasparov over 3 decades ago or so (even though, before him, Lev Poulougaieski was also known to have very deep opening preparation, see his famous and excellent book Grandmaster Achievement) where games can be won...without playing!

This is still true (to some extent) at the highest level; As an example, you can watch the following game Kariakin Mamedyarov 2013 (nicely commented by GM Daniel King) where a strong theoretical novelty, in a rather well-known position, basically wins the game.

Chess Opening theory for mere mortals

But I would definitively not recommend this approach for players below 2200 FIDE and for many reasons:

• It divert the player's efforts, energy and time from more important topics mainly:
  • Practical play
  • Tactical training
  • Practical Endgame theory and Endgame studies :-)
  • Game Analysis
  • and the list goes on and on...
• It can be viewed as somewhat the "miracle" recipe to climb the ELO ladder but the truth is that opening preparation, at lower levels, backfires more often than succeed

But we still need to have some opening knowledge, don't we!?

Right, but instead a theoretical one, it should be a practical one, based on experience and also, but not only, opening theory.

As far theory is concerned, a minimum opening theoretical knowledge is sufficient.

Ok, but what is minimum opening theoretical knowledge?

Well, the goal, when entering the middle game, is to have a good (or at least a descent) position where we know what to do next!

So knowing the various possible standard plans for an opening is extremely valuable.

You still can come up with something on your own of course but there is a great probability for a given position that a proven strategic plan already exist for it.

That being said, you should use your common sense and judgement as much as possible: this might not work well with certain openings though, like the Sicilian Dragon and Poisoned Pawn lines, so try to avoid them!

Opening study: the process

Depending on the scope of your study, a whole opening(!) or a very specific variation, the process remains more or less the same:

• Study Few GMs or important games for that opening and/or system. This allows you to:
  
  • get a general feeling of the opening/variation
  • identify tactical and strategical ideas
  • build some reference points
    It is important to stay away from opening manuals!....at first.
    The number one thing to avoid is memorizing lines; You will eventually know the moves because of the practice and games! The objective is to rely on ideas, not variations!
• Practice, Practice and Practice!
  
  • Try some 5-minutes blitz games first, a few dozens of blitz games to get a feel of the opening
  • Then switch to longer time controls (15/20/30 minutes games), obviously the more the better; practice make perfect!
• The Oracle...that must be challenged!
  
  • Finally take a look at some opening manuals:
    • a comprehensive yet general manual like Batsford Chess Opening is usually more than enough
    • Compare your thoughts / analysis with the assessments and lines given in the book:
    • no needs to be shy about having your own opinion; quite often analysis/assessments presented in this kind of book are just wrong!
    • The key thing is to develop one's own opinion: Be an explorer and challenge every analysis!
• Start playing your opening in tournaments/serious games!
  
• "Rinse and repeat" to refine your repertoire
  

Good luck with your opening explorations!

The Tactical Endgame series: The deadly Triumvirate, 2 Bishops an Knight, against Queen

Another episode of the on-going serie about interesting Endgame studies aimed at improving your tactical imagination.

2 Bishops and Knight against Queen is an interesting fight: where the queen is unsually viewed as supremely powerful (and from a purely math standpoint, the material balance is there), the 3 minor pieces are most of the time superior to the Queen.

Below is a list of studies that will excerce your skills and uncover some interesting abilities of my favorite trio. Most of those patterns used in these studies are omnipresent in regular games.

A special mention of Henri Rinck (composer of three studies below) who was one of the greatest composer of all time

Enjoy!

The black art of calculation - Blindfold Chess with a Twist!

En route to the next level of training!

In a previous article, I showed how much fun and valuable it is to play (or at least try to play) Blindfold Chess.
I'll introduce today a modified form of blindfold play that will provide even more benefits to your over-the-board game.

BCT! (Blinfold Chess with a Twist!).

This is a little known training exercise that I used to practice at my Chess Club "Caissa" in Paris during the days when the extraordinary Mme Chaude de Silans was the owner of the club; You'll need a chessboard, a partner (no computer GUI can play this as far as I know) and a clock (optional though); This goes as follows:

• Decide upfront how many moves who want to "skip":
  • let's call it the "skipping factor; "The best pick is between 2 and 5, so let's say 2 for the purpose of this explanation but I usually pick 3
  • the game can now begin!
• The white player announces his/her move but without playing it on the board i.e. e2-e4
• The black player announces his/her reply but without playing it on the board i.e. e7-e5.
• At this point, the board is unchanged but the players already played 1 move each.
• Then The white player announces his/her next move but without playing it on the board i.e. Ng1-f3
• The black player announces his/her reply but without playing it on the board i.e. Nb8-c6.
• At this point, the board remains unchanged but the players already played 2 moves each.
• The white player announces his/her next move, say, Bf1-b5 but, as we reached the "skipping factor" (3 in this example), the white player has to play on the board the move announced 2 moves earlier i.e. e2-e4.
• The black player announces his/her reply, say, a7-a6 but, again, we reached the "skipping factor", the black player has to play the move announced 2 moves earlier i.e. e7-e5 in this example.

At this point, the board shows the position below:

Where, in reality, the game already reached the position below:



and then you keep playing along the same lines; In our example this could go like this:

• The white player announces Bb5-a4 and play Ng1-f3 on the board
• The black player announces Ng8-f6 and play Nb8-c6 on the board
• The white player announces O-O and play Bf1-b5 on the board
• The black player announces Bf8-e7 and play a7-a6 on the board
• etc...

This exercise is both fun and extremely useful when it comes to improving your visualization and calculation skills, give it a try!