Category Archives: chess

Reflections

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I haven’t played serious chess for a while and doubt I will again.  The chess achievement I am proudest of is winning the Exeter Chess Club Championship six times.  However, I think I have never been the best player in the club, certainly not the highest-rated, on any of these occasions.  So how come?  In a Swiss, you have to win all or most of your games, and there’s usually one crucial game against the favourite.  Evaluations and ?! mostly by Stockfish and me.

2003-2004: graham bolt – The briar patch

This was before Graham’s Hedghog period, and he rather helpfully played into a line that I knew fairly well and which I think is not dangerous to Black.  Graham of course is highly dangerous, but seemed content to wait for me to lose rather than press strongly for his own cause.

2004-2005: Brian Hewson – the patriarch

Brian is a very experienced and practical player but allowed himself to covet a pawn, which gave me a sustained initiative that was wearisome to defend against, resulting in a slip.

2006-2007: Simon Waters – the centre

Simon is a big old-fashioned centre-forward of a player, who has got the better of me more than once in complications.  Lots of elementary errors after his pawn sac.

2012-2013: Pablo Medina – the briar patch 2

Pablo’s forthright style made a big impression on us all but chose in this last-round play-off game to avoid any possible preparation by discarding his favourite 1.e4 for 1.d4 and a Dutch.  I had to be more familiar with this than Pablo but I didn’t especially outplay him, he just lost his way late in the game.

2013-2014: Tim Paulden – the briar patch 3

In a rather loud echo of the last game, Tim sought to avoid any of my prep by… playing into my main defensive system, so I always felt comfortable and got on top.

2014-2015: Tim Paulden – A waltz on the clifftop

We both prepped for this — Tim’s favourite at the time was the Nimzo-Larsen, which I believed then and now can be handled with a sensible move order, but I very quickly grabbed a hot pawn and soon regretted it.  Yet I found a little wrinkle at the end of a forcing line and Tim followed me down the garden path.

2014-2015: LAURENTZ Hartmann – a tale of two bishops

Laurentz and I both played this Botvinnik system, and on the day he thoroughly outplayed me in the opening and got an equal game at least.  I kept a straight face and kept going, and gradually took over the light squares.

 

Reading matters

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A set of books to have on the go:

Opening: White .
Opening: White odds .
Opening: Black e4 .
Opening: Black d4 .
Tactics .
Strategy ,
Endgames ,
Praxis .

For example:

Opening: White EMMS: Starting Out: Scotch Game
Opening: White odds COX SO: 1.e4, COLLINS A simple chess opening repertoire
Opening: Black e4 PEDERSEN Easy Guide Scheveningen
Opening: Black d4 GALLAGHER SO: King’s Indian
Tactics HAYS Winning Chess Tactics
Strategy SILMAN Reassess your Chess
Endgames de la VILLA 100 Endgames
Praxis HARTSTON Kings of Chess, TAL Life and Games

Chessable and YouTube doubtless offer much the same content, but I have never had a dodgy connection with a book, so tend to prefer them.

Next steps:

Opening: White .
Opening: White odds .
Opening: Black e4 .
Opening: Black d4 .
Tactics: patterns .
Tactics: visualisation .
Tactics: calculation .
Strategy: patterns .
Strategy: evaluation .
Strategy: planning .
Endgames: knowledge .
Endgames: principles .
Praxis .

Approaching coaching

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Do you need a chess coach?

I think, if you want to improve, you should be

  1. Playing often, including a good slice of slow-play games
  2. Writing down all your slow-play games (and others if you can) or storing them in a database
  3. Going over your games, (a) by yourself, (b) with another player, and/or (c) with a computer
  4. Checking your opening moves against a book or database – who made the last ‘book’ move?
  5. Doing a bit of study of (a) tactics, (b) openings, and (c) endgames

If you aren’t doing any or all of those things, you won’t improve as fast as you could.  None of that needs a coach, but a coach might be able to give you pointers about your games (#2) or what you might look at to study (#4).  There’s a terrific amount of free instructional material online these days, so be sure you’re making the best use of your time and money before you hire a coach.  Here are some starting places:

https://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/getting-started-coaching-stuff
http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/u14-training-day-1st-february-2014

Hiring Dr.Dave

If you want to talk to me about coaching, I usually offer a free first consultation, to decide (a) if we like each other enough to spend more time talking,
(b) if I think I can do you any good, and
(c) if so, how and how often.
I’d like to do the consultation after having looked at your last dozen chess games – not your best dozen, or your last dozen wins, but your last dozen games, preferably with at least 30 minutes each on the clock.

The easiest thing, if you play online, is to point me to your chess profiles, where I can see your games for myself.  Lichess.org I think is one of the best places to play and is entirely free.

You can send games to me as scoresheets, photocopies or scans of scoresheets, transcribed typed moves, read to me over the ‘phone, or best of all as a PGN file.

Portable Game Notation (PGN) is a way of swapping games between computers, and any chess software worthy of the name should be able to read and write PGN files. A PGN file looks like this:

[Event "Game for stakes"]
[Site "London, Simpson's"]
[Date "1879"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Schilling,PDQ"]
[Black "Blackburne,JH"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C50"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nd4 4. Nxe5 Qg5 5. Nxf7 Qxg2 
6. Rf1 Qxe4+ 7. Be2 Nf3# 0-1

Usually, a programme will give you a board to make the moves and a little form to fill in the game information.  To enter and email chess games in PGN format you can use:

If you play chess online, your server or software should be storing your games somewhere, and you should be able to find the games and send them along.  However, I never find ‘should’ much of a guarantee in life, so best of luck with that.

ALSO:

I am also interested to know about chess books, DVDs and software that you have in the house and also about any chess books that you may have devoured in the past and websites you may have plundered.

I can work face-to-face, over the ‘phone, or over the Internet using something like Skype and/or a chess server like Lichess .  Depending on your telephone contract and Internet speed, either may be the best option for us, but happy to discuss and experiment.

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