Category Archives: Chess (general)

Who would win in a fight between a lion and a bear? (endgame fortresses)

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My young colleague Leif enjoys endgames, and has an endless curiosity about unbalanced endgames. So he asks:
can you win with three pawns against a Bishop?
how about a Knight?
what about two Knights?

A pattern we kept running into was:
united pawns on their start squares don’t win against a piece (a)
united and *advanced* pawns win against a piece (b)
but
there are some special cases where the side with the piece can set up a blockade or fortressagainst advanced pawns (c)



So it’s less like that famous Internet question
who would win in a fight between a lion and a bear?
but
who would win in a fight between a fox and a hedgehog?

Anyhow, we ended up looking at a few fortresses, some I knew, some I had
to look up, and some I found out more about.

There are cases where a lone King can be a ‘toad in a stone’, wedged in and impossible to shift.

The Japanese might say a ‘bear in the hole’… Notice that these cases
are all in the corner of the board. Edges and corners are friends of the defending side.

With a pawn to help, the King can resist near a corner without being in
it:

It’s perfectly possible to draw when you are the exchange behind, if you
can keep out the enemy King. That’s another theme: keeping out the
attacking King.

The mighty Queen can be kept at bay, as long as the attacking King can’t
get in:

We played around with variations on that last fortress, and then looked
it up. It’s sort of interesting: if the pawn is advanced, the Queen can
get behind your defences and you lose, but if the pawn is advanced and
on the edge, you are able to hold again.

To break down the defence, you have to use zugzwang to make the Rook
abandon the King.

The same ideas occur in the ‘simple’ Q vs R endgame, which six-times US
champion GM Walter Browne failed to win against a computer in the 1970s,
before looking up the right technique… Try it against your own
computer!

Fortresses in practice

Here’s one from a game I had a year or two ago: I got through, but I
think I shouldn’t have been allowed to.

A couple of well-known ones at GM level: a great swindle by Zsuzsa
Polgar:

Another sad tale of the wrong Rook’s Pawn!

And a spectacular save:

P.S. Foxes are said to eat hedgehogs by rolling them into water, when the hedgehog will unroll to swim, and loses its life.

Storm on a chessboard

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A few years ago I was interested in David Pritchard’s account of an original
French game (Tempête sur l’échiquier) in his book of chess variants. I found
the artwork a delight, and was curious recently to try and discover what had
been made of it since – in particular, if there is now an English version.
Indeed there is, released by Steve Jackson games:

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

And it has a fan page:

http://knightmarechess.tripod.com/thegame_r.html.

The team at Chess Variants led by the indefatigable Hans Bodlaender give
it a bit of space, but they hated the new artwork:

http://www.chessvariants.org/cards.dir/knightmare.html

I think the fan is not reading right the reaction of the CV team

Hans said he finds the artwork ‘disturbing’ (a word he may have used),
but the Knightmare fan doesn’t take this at face value, and suggests that
Hans is a chess purist who takes exception to the deviation offered by
Knightmare – perhaps because you have to throw away conventional chess
strategy.

Of course, I can imagine a chess ‘purist’, by definition, not liking any
variation on chess, but most chess players know and enjoy several
variations of the orthodox game. That’s certainly true for me, and I use
a lot of chess variants with my junior chess club. Some of these
variants do require you to re-think strategy from scratch, so I don’t
think that is going to be a problem for most people and certainly not
for Hans, or whoever wrote the review for Chess Variants, who devote
a lot of time and energy celebrating the diversity of such variants.

The description of the original French game on the chessvariants.org
site is actually sympathetic (‘hilarious’) and elsewhere describes it as
‘lots of fun’.

http://www.chessvariants.org/cards.dir/tempete.html

So if Hans says he finds the new Knightmare artwork ‘disturbing’, I
would take his comment at face value.

I found the original French artwork to be very engaging – so much so, I
resolved to track down a pack. Naturally, I wondered what beef Hans had
with the Knightmare version. It took me precisely four clicks from the
Knightmare fan website to find I had exactly the same reaction as Hans
to the new SJ artwork:

http://www.sjgames.com/knightmare/
http://www.sjgames.com/knightmare/gallery/
http://www.sjgames.com/knightmare/gallery/01.html
http://www.sjgames.com/knightmare/img/kc_003.gif

That combination of over-the-top sexuality and realistic violence really
isn’t anything I want to put under the noses of anyone at my club, young
or old, male or female. So I think my best hope to wait for a re-release
of the European version.

http://www.faidutti.com/index.php?Module=mesjeux&id=338
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temp%C3%AAte_sur_l%27%C3%A9chiquier

Playing for a win

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Jonathan had a frustrating game recently, where his hopes of an interesting game with chances to win came to nothing. Have a play through this one and have see what you think.

Murray-Waley, 2011 (see games appended)

With hindsight, the various exchanges and the symmetrical pawn formation with likely further exchanges of Rooks were strong drawing factors. So we can suggest:

  • finding an opening formation which retains more tension
  • the tactical sequence at move 12 should have been avoided
  • more patience and perhaps more subtlety was needed later to build up an advantage, but perhaps by then it was already too late to avoid the oncoming draw

We can see the same double-whammy of symmetrical pawns, two open central files and imminent Queen exchanges in this encounter:

Waters-Paulden, 2011

So, how to play next time? Alexander Alekhin showed a game with this theme in the very first issue of chess magazine in 1935:

Forder-Alekhin, 1935

The whole magazine can be downloaded from http://www.ukgamesshop.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Co…

It’s not impossible to play for a win from unpromising symmetrical material, but you need a bit of grandmasterly technique, and perhaps grandmasterly grit as well:

Miles-Webb, 1975

Lastly, the player who I associate more than anyone with making something out of nothing is the great Cuban champion:

Capablanca-Vidmar, 1924

A moment in the solid Sicilian

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I’m thinking about a position in the Scheveningen Sicilian, however you say it…

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Nl-Scheveningen.ogg

Sicilian = sharp+theoretical

Chess Stars
Easiest Sicilian = Sveshnikov
Safest Sicilian = Taimanov
Sharpest Sicilian = Najdorf

A move order for Black in the Classical:

6…Be7 no reason to delay this
7…0-0 well, you can delay this move!
8…Nc6 the best squares

Now there is a big split here for Black:
9…Qc7 (idea …e5)
9…a6 (idea …b5)
9…Bd7 (idea …Nxd4, …Bc6, …Qd7 and …b5)
9…e5
9…Re8

--------
--nppn-p
pppbbqp-

-kr----r

I think the safest and most solid move is 9…Qc7. It holds back White’s e4-e5 move and threatens to play …e5.

Now, …e5 is often a good idea in the Scheveningen. We have learned that in a lot of Sicilian lines, the d6 pawn is not weak and occupying the d5 square is not much of an achievement. The d6 pawn is difficult to attack and a Knight on d5 can be swapped off, even if it manages to co-ordinate with White’s other pieces.

Meanwhile, Black gets a big pawn in the centre, which is supported (unlike White’s e-pawn). White’s Bishop on d3 or f3 suddenly gets blocked in. Black gets other options, like playing …e5xf4 and …Nf6-f7-e5, with a great Knight outpost. So, although this is complicated and you need to be careful, you shouldn’t be afraid of playing …e5. Spassky even showed us that you can play 9…e5 straight away! But I like 9…Qc7 first.

First of all, I think you will get some White players who will think you have made a mistake and play 10.Ndb5. Of course, you will play 10..Qb8, then 11…a6 and after 12.Nd4, the Queen has moved, the a-pawn has moved, but the Knight is back where it was! So, you have gained two moves, thanks to White, and they are good moves to make; your Queen is still thinking about e5 but can also now support …b5.

Secondly, the most straightforward way to get an advantage

If these positions are a bit too dull for you — f you think they don’t give you enough chances to win with Black — then you need a slightly riskier line. I recommend 9…a6.

Stone soup

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From the FRACTINT documentation

Appendix B Stone Soup With Pixels: The Authors

THE STONE SOUP STORY

Once upon a time, somewhere in Eastern Europe, there was a great
famine. People jealously hoarded whatever food they could find,
hiding it even from their friends and neighbors. One day a peddler
drove his wagon into a village, sold a few of his wares, and began
asking questions as if he planned to stay for the night.

  [No! No! It was three Russian Soldiers! – Lee
Crocker]
[Wait! I heard it was a Wandering Confessor! – Doug Quinn]
[Well *my* kids have a book that uses Russian Soldiers! – Bert]
[Look, who’s writing this documentation, anyway? – Monte]
[Ah, but who gets it *last* and gets to upload it? – Bert]

  “There’s not a bite to eat in the whole province,” he was
told. “Better keep moving on.”

  “Oh, I have everything I need,” he said. “In fact, I was
thinking of making some stone soup to share with all of you.” He
pulled an iron cauldron from his wagon, filled it with water, and
built a fire under it. Then, with great ceremony, he drew an
ordinary-looking stone from a velvet bag and dropped it into the
water.

  By now, hearing the rumor of food, most of the villagers
had come to the square or watched from their windows. As the
peddler sniffed the “broth” and licked his lips in anticipation,
hunger began to overcome their skepticism.

  “Ahh,” the peddler said to himself rather loudly, “I do
like a tasty stone soup. Of course, stone soup with CABBAGE —
that’s hard to beat.”

  Soon a villager approached hesitantly, holding a cabbage
he’d retrieved from its hiding place, and added it to the pot.
“Capital!” cried the peddler. “You know, I once had stone soup with
cabbage and a bit of salt beef as well, and it was fit for a
king.”

  The village butcher managed to find some salt beef…and
so it went, through potatoes, onions, carrots, mushrooms, and so
on, until there was indeed a delicious meal for all. The villagers
offered the peddler a great deal of money for the magic stone, but
he refused to sell and traveled on the next day. And from that time
on, long after the famine had ended, they reminisced about the
finest soup they’d ever had.

Woof

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Occasionally, two unconnected bits of the world collide in the space between my ears, which can make me laugh.

I don’t know if Nigel Short still refers to Judit Polgar as ‘Lassie’.

Anyhow, I was doodling online while listening to a repeat of Cabin Pressure on the radio, when I came across this interesting statistic:

Player: Judit Polgar
Player profile: Nigel Short

Overall record: Judit Polgar beat Nigel Short 12 to 3, with 5 draws.*
* Based on games present in our database; may not be complete.
(from chessgames.com)

So, if there is anything at all to add, it is probably: [woof.mp3 (66.25 KB)]

P.S.

“Women will never be great chess players — They just don’t have the killer instinct.” — Nigel SHORT

Three results

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29th_June_2010: Three results

Charlie suffered a bit in the last round and wondered if he could fight harder when he was losing.  IM Douglas Bryson once said that in every game he wins there is one point where he loses control and the likely result of the game wobbles for a moment.  That should tell us that in our games there may be opportunities to strike back: we can still hope for a draw or even a win when we are losing.  This is part of a more general problem of getting the right result for you in a game.  Jonathan Rowson talks about playing for two results as opposed to three, or even one…  If you aim at a win and miss, you might draw, but if you aim for a draw and miss?

We often talk about winning a won game, or indeed losing one.  I thought about making some notes on

Winning…   …won  
Drawing… a …drawn …game.
Losing…   …lost  

Things are rarely so identifiable: I know when I’m worse, but the transitions between worse and losing and lost may pass me by.

Let’s consider:

  Winning Drawing Losing
Won      
Better      
Drawn      
Worse      
Lost      

And putting a bit of meat on the bones, some advice, some good examples, some horrible examples, some master games, some club games:
 

  Winning Drawing Losing
Won EG:

  • Botvinnik – Szilagyi [A07]

Botvinnik-Szilyagi
EG:

  • Regis D. – Dale H. [A18]

Regis-Dale
EG:

  • Regis D. – Anderson P. [A14]

Regis-Anderson

  • Control the game
  • Vigilance at all times
  • Keep your eye on the ball
  • Strike when necessary
 EG:

  • Regis D. – Knox S. [D33]

Regis-Knox

  • Faint heart
  • Fear of losing
  • Fear of opponent
  • Vagueness
  • Letting critical moment pass
  • Lack of technique
 EG:

  • Regis D. – Walton E. [A08]

Regis-Walton
EG:

  • Regis D. – Paulden T. [A40]

Regis-Paulden
EG:

  • Royle J. – Marsh B. [C42]

Royle-Marsh

  • Losing control
  • Losing concentration
  • Losing interest
  • Not in the moment
  • Your opponent changes gear and you don’t react properly
  • Hope Chess
Better EG:

  • Botvinnik – Kann [E21]

Botvinnik-Kann
EG:

  • Ditmas H. – Regis D. [C07]

Ditmas-Regis
EG:

  • Brusey A. – Regis D. [C02]

Brusey-Regis

  • As above
  • Keep up pressure
  • Cashing in
  • One wobble (Bryson) 
 EG:

  • Regis D. – Greet A. [A08]

Regis-Greet
EG:

  • Blackmore – Isaac [C48]

Blackmore-Isaac
EG: Morgan
 

  • (As above)
 EG:

  • Regis D. – Lubrook M. [A26]

Regis-Lubrook
EG:

  • Brusey A. – Regis D. [C02]

Brusey-Regis

  • As above; also:
  • Carrying on in the hope that your better position reappears
Drawn EG:

  • Miles A. – Webb S.

Miles-Webb
EG:

  • Regis D. – Hewson B. [A20]

Regis-Hewson
EG:

  • Gurevich M. – Short N. [C01]

Gurevich-Short

  • Persistence
  • Patience
  • Suitable modesty
  • Accumulation of advantages
 EG:

  • Richmond J. – Regis D. [C12]

Richmond-Regis

  • Patience/Stubbornness
  • Don’t make concessions
  • Keep active
  • Exchange with caution
 EG:

  • Regis D. – Jamieson I. [A00]

Regis-Jamieson
EG:

  • Menchik V. – Capablanca J. [A47]

Capablanca-Menchik

  • Trying too hard to win!
  • Trying too hard to draw!
  • Making unnecessary concessions 
  • Not making necessary concessions
  • Going passive
  • Trying to force the issue
  • Wanting the game over
  • Panicking
Worse EG:

  • Gosling B. – Regis D. [A48]

Gosling-Regis
EG:

  • Pope S. – Regis D. [C02]

Pope-Regis

  • Avoid concessions
  • Avoid exchanges
  • Keep active
  • Don’t lose
  • Keep going
  • Create threats
  • See The Swindle
 EG:

  • Regis D. – Sedgwick D. [A28]

Regis-Sedgwick
EG:

  • Waley J. – Keen C. [A55]

Waley-Keen

  • Be realistic
  • Recognise trouble
  • Do something before it’s too late
  • Don’t panic
  • Keep going
  • Don’t lose!
 EG:

  • Waley J. – Keen C. [A55]

Waley-Keen
EG:

  • Regis D. – Anderson P. [A14]

Regis-Anderson

  • Sleepwalking to the graveyard
  • Losing interest
  • Lashing out
  • Lack of technique
Lost EG:

  • Annetts I. – Regis D. [C02]

Annetts-Regis
EG:

  • Stean M. – Webb S. [D44]

Stean-Webb

The Swindle:

  • You need an accident to happen to your opponent
  • Eliminate losing options quickly
  • Force game out of usual channels
  • Randomising moves (chaos)
  • Keep enough pieces on
  • Keep enough pieces active
  • Make threats
 EG:

  • Regis D. – Greet A. [A26]

Regis-Greet
EG:

  • Waters S. – Regis D. [A85]

Waters-Regis

  • Perpetual check
  • Bluff
  • Sieze the carp
  • Elimination method
 EG:

  • Brusey A. – Regis D. [C02]

Brusey-Regis

  • Let events take their course
  • Leave flaws in your position unmended
  • Let game proceed normally
  • Haste
  • Blunder in a bad position

 

Several of these squares complement each other (highlighted): if you are trying to win a better game, your opponent should be at least trying to avoid losing!

Let’s start with Charlie’s initial bleat: how to avoid losing. EG:

Waley-Keen.  

Well, there was certainly the moment when White lost control, right at the end, and perhaps the way to find the best line for Black was the process of elimination (41…Kb5?? loses to two fairly obvious checks, so that’s a hint to play 41…Kb7).

Working backwards, and with the help of Fritz, we can find some improvements for Black.  

Chart of game evaluation at each move

However, I can’t find a move that gives Black any counterplay.  In fact, Black’s attempts at getting some play (22…f5? and 36…b5) just make things worse!  

So this was one of those unpleasant games where Black just has to avoid making the situation worse, and find small ways to make things better (22…f6 and 23…Kf7 doesn’t save the game for Black, but improves the position a little).  Karpov was the master at this sort of thing, whether he was better or worse!

However, that is a pretty miserable way to play chess, so I’m going to point the finger at 8…exd4?!, making a concession for no good reason, and also 3…Be7, which rather says that Black is making things up as they go along — which I had a lot to say about last time.

Click […] for list of games

Mopping up

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There were three issues
raised at the start of the summer that I haven’t dealt with yet, and
thought I’d offer some reflection.  It turned out that the people
who wanted to work on these issues aren’t around at the moment, so I
might come back to these!


  1. Making practice (at club and at
    home) really helpful
    in terms
    of improvement


    That would be a good thing to solve!  Well, in many ways I’ve
    tried to promote and model this over the last few years, so I will be
    brief here.

    I think most have us have come across some variation or other of the

    experiential
    learning
    cycle
    , which Kolb and colleagues have developed over many
    years, originally in connection with adult education.  A chess
    version of this might look like:

    PLAY

    		 ==> REVIEW
    /\

    /\

    		\/
    \/
    STUDY/PRACTICE <== REPORT

    The idea is to learn from experience, and focus on what actually is
    holding you back, and not what
    you enjoy studying.  Simon Webb (and Ish) have provided good
    models for how to look at your own game and identify weaknesses; Rowson
    and Dvoretsky have provided some good ideas about how to study.
    It is possible to improve at chess just by playing, because of course
    each exchange of moves allows for your current thinking to be
    challenged, each game gives you new experience to interpret.  But
    playing without reflection might just rehearse bad habits…
    It’s hard to talk in general terms: it’s also not clear what it is
    reasonable to expect from your study.  If you’re a tennis player
    and work on your backhand, you might reasonably expect to be able to
    play a few backhands in your next match.  But if you study IQP
    positions, you may not see one for months.

  2. Too narrow an opening repertoire
    I wonder what sort of problem that is.  I would have thought for
    most of us, we could do with getting into a groove with our openings,
    getting to know them better.  So, I’ve been trying to get
    Brian to stick to one opening system as White and two as Black, so he
    can get familiar with and eventually expert in those formations. 
    I think he’s doing well with White but keeps making it up as he goes
    along as Black.  You branch out later, once you’ve got something
    solid to base it
    on.  When you do branch out, you can take on related systems,
    similar formations, and broaden your expertise in that way.  It’s
    a good goal to be able to play any opening well, any type of position
    well, but be realistic about what you want to take on as an amateur
    with limited study time.

    It’s possible to play any opening at amateur level, I think, and play
    it well and with your own ideas.  There is the Tony Dempsey IQP
    repertoire:
    White:
    Scotch Four Knights’ Game
    Tarrasch Variation vs. French
    Panov-Botvinnik vs. Caro-Kann
    Alapin vs. Sicilian
    Black:
    Swiss Defence vs. QGD (although the Tarrasch also makes sense to me:
    you get into it a lot earlier so you’re more likely to end up playing
    it!)
    Petroff’s Defence vs. 1.e4


  3. Calculating all the tactics out
    (relying too much on
    intuition
    i.e. Laziness)
    The penalty for doing that is of course missing things and
    losing.  If that doesn’t hurt enough to make you change your
    ways…
    As for a cure, perhaps take on sharp positions against a
    computer, when you will surely be punished for being lazy. 
    Dvoretsky
    recommended a couple of deeply-analysed games from John Nunn to be used
    for
    playing-out against an opponent, (see the Canon) but by all means pick
    positions from
    an anthology of games by your favourite attacking player. 
    A similar technique is: play a series of games against your computer in
    open games (1.e4 e5), and re-start the game after any oversights. 
    Aim to extend the average length of the games!