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Tal
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« Reply #420 on: October 26, 2012, 10:39:25 PM »

Hi Skolsuper

Ok. I’ve had a good look at your game. The opening was basically fine. I really wouldn’t worry about trying to force something out of the opening. Imagine you’re playing a nit heads up. You can raise every button and play as aggro as you like, but if the villain isn’t going to play along you can only pick up the blinds. In some games – including some variations of the French – you have to accept that the villain is going to play solidly and you will need to build your winning game, rather than just trying to plough through him.

To address a point you’ve made about move one, 1.e4 generally leads to more aggressive than games than 1.d4. If you think about it, you are exposing the king straight away, so there is usually more of an edge to the position. There are some really sharp king’s pawn openings and variations, so if you want to play sharp stuff, my advice would be to stick to playing 1.e4.

Turning to the specifics:
9.b3 is a bit wonky, because you have quite a nice position up to that point, but space is at a premium. One of the best tricks from a positional sense in these openings - where there are lots of fixed pawns - is to work out which is your better bishop. It is often the one on the squares you’re pawns aren’t. In other words, it’s the one on d3. To keep it being a good piece, you:
a) want to keep it on the board, because villain’s pawns keeping his own light-squared bishop blocked in and
b) want to put your pawns on black squares to optimise the range of your best bishop.
So, to put it in PHA terms: 9c3 >>> 9.b3

When Black captures on d4, you have to take back with the other knight, because otherwise the pawn on e5 is hanging. He can’t play 10…f4 then, because you are threatening to take on e6 with your knight and fork queen and rook. This is one of the features of a 1.e4 opening: there are lots of little tactics in these positions and there is absolutely no time to waste, once the position opens up. But, the villain missed that he could take the e-pawn, so we dodge that bullet.

We can then castle happily, because we have a pretty decent set of pieces, we are ahead in development and Black still has to work out how he’s going to get that bishop on c8 into the game. By playing 11.g4, we decide we can go for the throat. There’s a logic for it, because Black is a long way from being in good shape with his pieces and his king’s knight is miles away from looking after the king. Against that, though, we aren’t ready yet to open the game up. If you had castled queenside and had a rook on g1, different ball game.

From that point, the trouble was you had lost a lot of the impetus in the position, which meant that Black could get back into the game, open up the diagonals for his bishops and get himself out of being cramped. If you remember my game the other week, that was a French defence not dissimilar to this one, but the key to my win was that I kept him cramped until I was ready to open the position on my terms. This is what you need to do; just keep your patience and finish your development.

25. h4 was a blunder and, when you recapture on g4 with the king, you might have seen since that Black has a forced checkmate in 5 moves. When you put your queen on g3 to block the check of Qg2, Black can play h5+ and it looks more than a little unpleasant from there.
 
As a general appraisal, a sample size of one is a bit tough, but I’d say you have a better grasp of the basics than your opponent, who was a little eager to swap off for my taste. If you keep your patience in the opening and the early middlegame, such that you can finish developing your pieces and castle, a plan will be easier to execute.

We all do it, but the point is that an attack is much, much easier when you have all your pieces developed. In this type of opening, although your pieces are a bit short of room, the villains’ are in much worse shape, so leave him with the problems and play simple moves that help your position.

Is any of that useful?
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Tal
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« Reply #421 on: October 26, 2012, 11:35:59 PM »

This will be geeky, so let's get that out of the way, straight away!

Have a look at this game: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1471200

Gufeld v Spassky, played in Leningrad in 1960. The future world champion, Boris Spassky, is beaten by your opening. Gufeld's light squared bishop is a monster of a piece, because he allows the position to stay tight and Black remains cramped until it is too late. Spassky was a brilliant tactician, but he was on the receiving end in this game. White castles and then looks to attack the enemy king with his pieces, rather than with his pawns (note that you generally have to make a choice between pieces or pawns as the main thrust of a kingside attack, because the pawns will get in the way of a fast-paced, crash-bang flurry at the king and could leave you exposed yourself if it doesn't work).

Cliffs: stick with the opening you've played, as long as you're comfortable with it, because there is plenty of life in it.  
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« Reply #422 on: October 27, 2012, 12:52:31 AM »

Great post Tal.

But d4 is still the nuts Wink
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« Reply #423 on: October 27, 2012, 01:41:48 AM »

Fantastic post. Unfortunately any chess discussion between us is going to be a bit one-sided for a while, all I can say in reply is thanks for the help  thumbs up
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« Reply #424 on: October 27, 2012, 06:27:58 AM »

wake-up at 5.30 on a Saturday morning and first thing I do is continue with some chess games... oh how things have changed. I play on chess.com for android. it's incred. I got abs destroyed playing 10min games which saw my score go down to 800, now play the 24hr-3 days per move games and my results are improving. quite comfortable vs 1400-1600 guys now.
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The Baron
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« Reply #425 on: October 27, 2012, 09:59:52 AM »

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2006

Chess in the last 50 years or so has a rich history of debate, disagreement and dispute about who is the World Champion. You'd think it would be an easy exercise - just hold a tournament, invite the best players in the world to it and give the winner a laurel wreath.

Oh no.

Where would you hold such a tournament? What if that gives X home advantage? Who makes the decisions? Him? Well he's corrupt so fat chance!

Anyway, chess world champs historically get a free pass to the final match, so they shouldn't be involved in the tournament. But that isn't what happens in football, rugby, cricket...

There have been breakaway world championships, unifications and breakaways again. Now we have one world champ - Anand.

His predecessor, Vladimir Kramnik, was the man to dethrone Garry Kasparov. Kramnik played the top-rated player of the time Vessilin Topalov in 2006 in what was to become the most farcical championship match since Fischer v Spassky.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=52037

The two still don't shake hands and, funnily enough, don't play in the same tournament very often.

Fascinating. Do you think there was cheating going on?
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« Reply #426 on: October 27, 2012, 10:00:37 AM »

wake-up at 5.30 on a Saturday morning and first thing I do is continue with some chess games... oh how things have changed. I play on chess.com for android. it's incred. I got abs destroyed playing 10min games which saw my score go down to 800, now play the 24hr-3 days per move games and my results are improving. quite comfortable vs 1400-1600 guys now.

Sigh, installing...
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Tal
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« Reply #427 on: October 27, 2012, 10:57:02 AM »

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2006

Chess in the last 50 years or so has a rich history of debate, disagreement and dispute about who is the World Champion. You'd think it would be an easy exercise - just hold a tournament, invite the best players in the world to it and give the winner a laurel wreath.

Oh no.

Where would you hold such a tournament? What if that gives X home advantage? Who makes the decisions? Him? Well he's corrupt so fat chance!

Anyway, chess world champs historically get a free pass to the final match, so they shouldn't be involved in the tournament. But that isn't what happens in football, rugby, cricket...

There have been breakaway world championships, unifications and breakaways again. Now we have one world champ - Anand.

His predecessor, Vladimir Kramnik, was the man to dethrone Garry Kasparov. Kramnik played the top-rated player of the time Vessilin Topalov in 2006 in what was to become the most farcical championship match since Fischer v Spassky.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=52037

The two still don't shake hands and, funnily enough, don't play in the same tournament very often.

Fascinating. Do you think there was cheating going on?

In short, no. I don't think there are many people who believe Topalov's allegation and it is the only situation that I'm aware of where Kramnik's integrity has been questioned.
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« Reply #428 on: October 27, 2012, 08:45:55 PM »

I spent this afternoon playing for Warwickshire in the final of the Midland region county championships for players under 180 ECF (under 2040 ish in the international ratings). Managed to win in a game that went down to the wire (just under 4 intense hours). Thin bit out the way...

The rules say you have to have your 'phone off during play or you lose the game. It's a simple, strict liability rule.

After the "toilet-gate" incident I mentioned the other day (seriously, why add Gate to every incident? Watergate had nothing to do with water), there was a disqualification in the German Bundesliga when a Grandmaster kept going to the toilet during a game. Suspicions were raised and he refused to show the arbiter his 'phone.

Consequently, the arbiter decided that was enough and the player was disqualified.

http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8586
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« Reply #429 on: October 28, 2012, 02:22:26 PM »

Is cheating something that's ever happened at the top level?
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Tal
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« Reply #430 on: October 28, 2012, 03:27:47 PM »

Is cheating something that's ever happened at the top level?


There has been a big scandal in France recently, as it happens.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8370

Over the years, there have been allegations of collusion and issues over everything you could possibly consider arguing over. Chess players aren't the most well-rounded bunch, en masse.
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« Reply #431 on: October 28, 2012, 08:47:51 PM »

A question for the semi-pros....

How do you think the WCC should be decided?

On one hand I completely understand the frustration of the likes of Karpov who lost his FIDE title in 99 without losing a match vs a challenger as it was decided in a round robin tournament format.

On the other I can completely see why it would be extremely frustrating for the clear best player in the world (ie Kasparov 2001-2004) that he doesn't get to be world champion due to politics and financing meaning you can't get the games arranged.

Should the champ need to be beaten by the challenger like in boxing? Or should a fresh tournament decide the reigning world champion every year like in most other sports?
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Tal
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« Reply #432 on: October 28, 2012, 09:03:21 PM »

A question for the semi-pros....

How do you think the WCC should be decided?

On one hand I completely understand the frustration of the likes of Karpov who lost his FIDE title in 99 without losing a match vs a challenger as it was decided in a round robin tournament format.

On the other I can completely see why it would be extremely frustrating for the clear best player in the world (ie Kasparov 2001-2004) that he doesn't get to be world champion due to politics and financing meaning you can't get the games arranged.

Should the champ need to be beaten by the challenger like in boxing? Or should a fresh tournament decide the reigning world champion every year like in most other sports?


Ah the world championship question!

It's a real opinion-divider among even the elite these days.

There are two questions you're asking, though (whether intentionally or otherwise). The first one is that there have over the last 30 years been two world champions - a sort of official and unofficial champion - which has been largely due to the arguments some players have had with the governing body. It has been through make-ups and break-ups but the championships have been unified with Mr Anand.

Here's a helpful timeline for those who have no idea what I'm wittering on about:



Red means undisputed; blue means classical (official) and green means FIDE. When people speak of who was the world champion, it's the red and the blue that count. Not that I wouldn't call myself the world champ, were I to have won the FIDE title!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship

The above will give you the details.


The second question is the main one - how should the title be decided. Magnus Carlsen has been probably the most vocal on this subject in the past couple of years, as he wants a tournament like you see in most sports. Others prefer the traditional method, more akin to boxing, where you only get the title if you beat the champ in an officially-sanctioned title bout.

Personally, I like the idea of a match (in other words, the status quo), but the way that the challenger is decided is much better as a Candidates tournament than the set-up from the last cycle, which was a knockout. The last world championship was a bit silly. An out of form champion against a player who was barely in the top ten in the world.
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Tal
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« Reply #433 on: October 28, 2012, 10:29:44 PM »

A few interesting things happened in my game on Saturday and I thought I could share them without resorting to chess (at least in the sense that I shalln’t recant the game itself). This will be more of a story, which will perhaps move between Wodehouse, Self and Beano, but, I trust you appreciate, will be eternally Tal. This has tl;dr potential, but that’s up to you Smiley

County chess is largely middle-aged and older men who play (there is the odd under-30 player) and you play up to four games a year, each on a Saturday, for up to four hours a time (first 36 moves to be played in 90 minutes each; 30 minutes then to be added to each clock for the completion of the game). Each team has 16 players and they are ranked in order of strength, such that your best player plays their best and so on. A coin is tossed to decide who gets white on the odd/even boards and off you go. In theory, you play someone of equal – or close – strength to yourself.

So the match started and I was paired against someone I’d never met before, but who had a similar rating to me. I’ve largely been out of the loop on the circuit for ten years, apart from the odd appearance at a tournament every couple of years and playing in my local league, so this is not a surprise. We started the game and it was clear that he was comfortable with the opening – a Sicilian, Rossolimo Variation – as he was able to play his moves reasonably quickly and without a hint of anguish or confusion in his body language (I’m a big fan at watching this stuff – helps with the poker of course, too!)

I started to get an edge in the position after about an hour of play and began to make a move towards the king. He defended stoutly, leaning forward towards the board as though to protect his pieces. I had been to get a mug of tea to drink while studying the position (#englishgent) and oscillated between calm focus and hunched intensity. He made a move and I had to decide whether I could go for a flamboyant knight sacrifice that would open up the position and could lead to checkmate or whether I should accept that he had defended and I needed to regroup, still keeping a small edge.

I studied the position for about 15 minutes and, after playing through a few lines in my head, I concluded that I couldn’t work the whole thing out but that there were enough complications and traps in there to make it playable. This is one of the big differences between playing a human being and playing a computer. A computer isn’t fazed by a complicated position that has a number of intricate tricks and traps. A human hates being on the receiving end of one.

So, I went with it. And he rocked forward. He hadn’t expected that at all. He had done his thinking and had concluded 15 minutes earlier that I had two possible moves – both moving the attacked knight away. He probably had a move already that he would play in response to each. Now he had to start again. Nothing scares a player of my level like someone playing a sacrifice you weren’t expecting. He spent a couple of minutes sitting reasonably comfortably and looking at perhaps a couple of simple variations to get a basic feel for what I was planning to do if he took the knight I had offered.

After that, he moved further forward in his chair, rested his elbows on the table, put his palms on his temples and stared at the board. His eyes went from the knight to the bishop and back again, from the queen to the king and back to the knight. I was similarly focused, because I wanted to make sure I had got a good chunk of the theory sorted in my head and because I wanted him to know that there was a lot of thought that had gone into my move. That established, I went to get another mug of tea. The reason for this was fourfold:

1.   I wanted to clear my head;
2.   I wanted to have a brief chat with another player who was walking around;
3.   I wanted the villain to think I had this whole situation worked out; and
4.   I was thirsty.

I returned to the board to see a couple of kibitzers overlooking matters, as chess watchers have a sixth sense for sacrifices or when a king is in trouble. My opponent was still deep in thought and about ten minutes had passed. I started again in my analysis and got to a similar stage in my head as I had previously. This time, the intention was to be clear as to what I would play if he took the knight. What would my next move be? I had a general idea but the important thing was having specifically the next move ready, because if I could play it immediately, that would really upset him – it would be as though I had the entire sequence in my head that would lead to checkmate.

He continued to think. 15 became 20 and 20 became 25 minutes. He suddenly rose from his chair, looked me square in the eye and said something I’ve never had said to me before: “I’m sorry. I need to get up and sort out my head”. He hadn’t moved; he had just frazzled his hard-drive in trying to work out the position. 99 times out of 100, the villain says “sod it” and plays one of the possible responses, but this chap went for a walk! He returned, having taken off his coat and jumper (leaving a polo shirt on) to start afresh. With a few lucid thoughts, he was able to decide on a move and, after a total think of 30 minutes, he took the knight.

Within 30 seconds, I had played my response and it was back to him to decide what to do. In fairness to him, he had a vision of what he wanted to do and we played after that at a similar pace of a couple of minutes per move. I am not sure whether the sacrifice completely worked and my opponent certainly found what I considered to be the best continuation/defence, to which I had no conclusive riposte.

The attack fizzled out and I needed to regroup, having won enough material to level up the numbers. The position was unbalanced and we made our 36th moves in time, but it was very much unclear who was winning. We had both been a little short of time, leading up to the time control and we shared a glance and a smile when we made it, with about a minute each to spare. We both sat back in our chairs and exhaled audibly; a deep, hearty exhalation, albeit muted slightly so as not to disturb those playing around us. I played my 37th move as white and went to use the gentlemen’s facilities, as I had been, shall I say, eager to do so for some 15 minutes. We were now 3 hours into the game. 

When I returned, my opponent was again hunched over the board with his head in his hands. But this was different; he was much more positive in his posture; he fancied he was in with a chance of winning and he really wanted it. I used the cloakroom visit as an opportunity to start again and I made a conscious effort not to think about the position in that five minute period between leaving the board and returning to it. I actually hummed a song to myself (something completely leftfield that popped into my head – Shake the Disease by Depeche Mode – could have been anything, but it was that this time).

With renewed focus and an empty bladder, I studied the new position that had been generated from his move in my absence.

The game continued and a tense endgame soon developed. He was after my king and I was threatening a sharp counterattack. With the pawns disappearing, my queen was getting more scope and his gaze regularly but fleetingly turned to my queen every few seconds he watched the board. He made a mistake and lost a pawn, which was critical in this position, as it took a lot of the thrust out of his attack. He looked up at me and rolled his eyes. This was a huge relief to me. Like when an opponent over the felt sighs when you raise their bet (and doesn’t insta-shove!).

With a winning endgame, I now had to seal the win. We both had less than five minutes left to complete the game and that isn’t a lot. There were still probably 20 moves to be made to win it with best defence from the villain and for that I would have to find the optimal move – or at least close to it – every time. The crowd was gathering, as most had finished their games and a close finish is always worth a watch.

It is something I have got used to and generally block it out of my mind but some people hate spectators. My opponent didn’t seem to mind, either.

With about a minute on his clock and two on mine, the villain played a move that made me think I might have a quick way to find a won game. It involved an odd move, so I paused, took a breath, checked it and re-checked it in my mind and picked up my rook, which I would use to take his knight. He would then recapture but I would have a won endgame with an extra pawn. As I picked up my rook, my hand was shaking. When the clocks are getting close to the end, you naturally get the adrenaline going; some people get shaky legs; some sit on their hands; some rock back and forth; some do all of them! My hand was quivering like a jelly on a train and it was a huge relief when my opponent resigned immediately. We shook quivering hands and he gave one more verbal gem to me:

“That was a wonderful game. I hope never to play you again”
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« Reply #434 on: October 28, 2012, 10:57:18 PM »

I really enjoyed reading that.
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