[This review first appeared in Westward
Ho!]
Book review: Attack with Mikhail Tal (179pp+index)
Cadogan Press: London.
Mikhail Tal and Iakov Damsky. [[sterling]]11.99.
Mikhail Tal needs no introduction; the wizard who emerged in the
late 1950s as a force to complement the science of Botvinnik. This
is Mikhail Tal’s last word to the chess world, some of which was
transcribed from tapes made within days of his death in 1994, and
which he did not live to complete. Damsky tells us the planned
title was Everything about attack, and rues the omission
of a planned chapter on the Queen’s-side attack. The nine chapters
completed are listed below.
Each chapter contains a number of examples, for instance,
the chapter on the eighth rank contains 16 examples from games –
some rather familiar (like Levitsky-Marshall) – with four test
positions and an example complete game with the same back rank
theme. I have another book – Test your Chess IQ by
Livshits – which contains 32 such examples. What extra do you get
from the Tal/Damsky book?
Livshits’ positions all have a concrete short-term
solution (say, White to play and win in 5 moves), whereas the
examples in this book are nearly all of the sort that Spielmann
calls ‘real’ sacrifices – being genuinely unclear or at least
requiring more judgement than calculation. The first example does
resolve inside 7 moves, but the second only clears up only after 17
moves. This sort of thing is real chess drama, and is great fun to
watch in action. Tal and Damsky also give some chatty annotation
which is mostly illuminating and engaging. Lastly, the themes are
strategic more than tactical – the back rank chapter is the only
one with an explicitly tactical theme. But all the common
sacrificial motifs are present:
| Chapter | typical sacrifices |
|---|
|
|
On a bare chessboard, put a knight on a1. How many squares can it move to? Just two. On b1, three. On c1, four. On c2, six. On c3, eight. From this you can see that moving from b1 to c3 in the opening makes the knight more than twice as powerful. |
![[EXERCISE:]](https://exeterchessclub.org.uk/chessx/exercise.gif)
Now, this is part of the argument about control of the centre, and helps explain why development towards the centre is so important. But it is particularly true of knights, because their step is so small. A bishop developed in fianchetto on b2 or g2 can extend its reach to the other side of the board, but a knight on b2 can hardly make it to the half-way line. Knights become much stronger by being moved into the centre, but as a rule are vulnerable to being swapped off or nudged by pawns. An outpost is a square which a knight can occupy , which is either immune from attack (like d5 in the lower diagram) or the opponent would get into other sorts of trouble by getting rid of it (like in the Tal game overleaf). So, one of the key strategical ideas in chess is the knight outpost.
David Norwood describes an exercise given to players in the old USSR where they were given the position in the diagram
and asked:
|
|
remove pairs of pieces of equal value to White’s advantage. |
The solution they were looking for was to remove all the Qs,Rs, and everything else apart from the Kings, one White knight and the Black B on f8. Then White’s knight could go to d5, dominating the board, while Black’s poor bishop couldn’t ever swap it off. It would be a pretty miserable bishop anyhow, which is our next idea – the bad bishop. But this exercise also starts to show you how to plan a game of chess based on the pawn structure: this ‘remove pairs of pieces’ exercise is what you can try and do by exchanging pieces, and this is pretty well what Smyslov does in the illustrative game.
More games:
Castling
From info!dregis Wed Jan 29 13:41:21 GMT 1997 Article: 16115 of rec.games.chess.misc Newsgroups: rec.games.chess.misc Path: info!dregis From: dregis@exeter.ac.uk (D.Regis) Subject: HELP PLEASE: Unusual castlings Message-ID: Organization: University of Exeter, UK. Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997 12:31:18 GMT I'm compiling a piece about castling and found a couple of nice examples in a book by Pfleger and Treppner. They gave only positions and I wondered if anyone has a genuine whole game scores for a game where we see an example of the trap e.g. 1 ... Rb8xb2? 2. Qd1xd8+! Ke8xd8 3. O-O-O+! winning the Rook. (I've seen it done, but don't have a complete score.) I would be very grateful if someone could post or forward a score for this. -- May your pieces harmonise with your Pawn structure and your sacrifices be sound in all variations D _ / "()/~ Dave Regis &8^D* Exeter Chess Coaching Page etc.: || \_/| = DrDave on BICS http://www.ex.ac.uk/~dregis/DR/chess.html ~\ / "...what else exists in the world but chess?" _|||__SHEU ~/sheu.html -- NABOKOV "Contribute!" -- Doug Attig
Article 16494 of rec.games.chess.misc: From: mattg@indirect.com (Matt Guthrie) Newsgroups: rec.games.chess.misc Subject: Adams wins a rook by playing 0-0-0+ Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 13:36:14 UNDEFINED Organization: his hobbithole Lines: 56 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: phx-ts8-28.goodnet.com X-Newsreader: Trumpet for Windows [Version 1.0 Rev B final beta #1] Most Americans are probably unaware that Exeter, the home of frequent r.g.c.m contributor Dave Regis, is in Devon, the next county over from Cornwall, whence sprang GM Michael Adams. Clearly a conversation such as the following must have taken place at some West Country pub in the last few weeks: Dave: Mikey, I'm putting together a collection of games where one player castles long and attacks a rook on b2. Do you know of any? Michael: I can't think of any, but I'm off to Linares next week, so I'll see what I can do for you. Dave: Much obliged, old chap. I've asked on the internet, but haven't got too much response. Have another pint? Michael: Don't mind if I do. As luck would have it, GM Adams did not have to wait long to fulfill his promise. In the very first round he was paired against GM Alexey Dreev, a man with a reputation of never having met a b-pawn he didn't like... [Event "Linares 1997"] [Site "Linares, Spain"] [Date "1997.02.04"] [Round "1"] [White "Adams"] [Black "Dreev"] [Result "1-0"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. g3 g6 7. Bg2 Bg7 8. Nxc6 bxc6 9. e5 dxe5 10. Qxd8+ Kxd8 11. Bxc6 Rb8 12. Be3 Rxb2 13. O-O-O+ Kc7 14. Bb5 Rb4 15. a3 Rxb5 16. Nxb5+ Kb7 17. Nxa7 Bf5 18. Kb2 Ng4 19. Nb5 Rc8 20. Rd2 Ka6 21. a4 e4+ 22. Bd4 Bh6 23. Re2 e5 24. Ba7 Rc4 25. h3 Nf6 26. Nd6 Rxa4 27. Be3 Bf8 28. Nxf5 Rb4+ 29. Kc1 gxf5 30. c3 Ra4 31. Kb2 Kb5 32. Rd2 Be7 33. Bg5 e3 34. Bxe3 Kc4 35. Ra1 Rxa1 36. Kxa1 Nd5 37. Kb2 Bd8 38. Kc2 Ba5 39. Rd1 h5 40. Bd2 Bb6 41. Be1 f4 42. Ra1 f3 43. Ra4+ Kc5 44. c4 Nf6 45. Ba5 Nd7 46. Kd3 f5 47. Bxb6+ Kxb6 48. Ke3 e4 49. Rb4+ Kc6 50. Rb5 Nc5 51. Rb8 Nd7 52. Rh8 Ne5 53. Kd4 Nd3 54. Rxh5 {Black resigned} 1-0 So: Did Dreev simply overlook White's 13th? Or did he decide that pitching the exchange to shatter Adams' Q-side pawns was his best drawing chance? Clearly for many months Dave Regis has been hiding from us all his major influence on the chess world. He has but to ask, and world-class GMs leap to do his bidding! Dave, can you please ask Kasparov to take up the King's Gambit? Miles to use the Birmingham again? Fischer to... nah, never mind, not even you have that much influence. Matt Guthrie Hark, now hear the sailors cry Smell the sea and feel the sky Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic. (Thanks, Van)
Lessons from Capablanca
Peter Lane, 22 January 1997
On Studying Master Games – a short digression
Polugayevsky, in the beginning of his book `Grandmaster Performance’, quotes some advice he was given when a young player:
“If you want to play well, in the first instance study games. Your own and other peoples’. Examine them from the viewpoint of the middlegame and the endgame, and only then from the viewpoint of the opening. This is more important than studying textbooks.”
This advice can be found in many sources, and, as an aspiring player, I am happy to follow it. But how exactly should we “study games”? How to derive the maximum benefit from watching somebody else, given our own knowledge and preferences? A useful start might be the players’ own analysis. However, I find John Nunn opaque at best, Bobby Fischer more teasing than explanatory, and try Capablanca:
[Capablanca-Alekhin, St.Petersburg 1913]
His explanation of 18. Be4 is that it exchanges:
“the almost useless B for a most valuable Kt. It would take a good many lines to explain this move properly, and then I might not be clearly understood, so I leave the student to work it out by himself“.
Analysis seems more accessible when by the lesser lights: Irving Chernev springs readily to mind, and also writers more involved with teaching, such as Dvoretsky and co. Why is this?
Obviously, the mental makeup of a great player is different to that of a teacher, and their combination is a great rarity. Capablanca’s comment “where you guess, I know” points very clearly at the existence of a gulf in understanding between the average player and the genius. This is all very well, but I still want some guidance on techniques of self-study, especially as printed analysis cannot be all things to all readers.
What we need (any psychologists listening?) is a method to help the individual identify, not only the crucial points of a game, but more those points from which the individual can learn. And this requires a skill at self-evaluation, which the injunction to study your own games is designed to develop. One method I use, with which I invite argument, is derived from a rule in the computer study of intelligence known as Martin’s Law: “You cannot learn anything unless you almost know it already“. In the games below, I have tried to pick out those where it is possible to almost follow what is happening, and it is these where most can be learnt. At each point we must ask: – how does Capablanca assess the features in a position? – how do these features get drawn into a plan for the game?
Janowski
My introduction made the point that we must begin looking at a master’s game when we almost know what is going on, but perhaps we are missing some key feature of the position, or merely uncertain about whether we would make the moves ourselves. My tactic is to work backwards. Take the game above where I have supplied a number of diagrams. Beginning from the opening, we may wonder which of many plans would be most relevant, and despair of finding the answer. Beginning from the end, we should all see the tactics which lead black to resign … so we have our opening into understanding the game. Go back one stage further, and ask whether we understand how to generate the position in which those tactics are playable. As our understanding improves, we can work back further in the game, and begin to see the various elements of strategy leading to the final assault as potentialities out of the opening.
Ragozin
This position, with a clear pawn extra and no worrying counterattack, looks like a trivial win for white, and indeed it should be. But … how many times have such positions ended in draws? The simplicity leaves each move transparent: we do not have to worry about the `why’ of each move, only the `how do we think of it in the first place’. Have you seen the long detailed plans Alekhin gives of some of his endgames (the one against Znosko-Borovsky, Paris 1933 is a case in point)? Ever wondered what happens to the plan if the opponent deviates slightly? What is actually needed is something simpler, confined to the concerns of the present position, and with sufficient flexibility to allow for change. Capablanca has the following to say about this position:
“White’s plan is to prevent the advance of the c-pawn (after which the b-pawn could become weak) and to control the entire board up to the fifth rank. This is achieved by moving the king to e3, and by placing the rook at c3, the knight at d4, and the pawns at b4 and f4. After he has attained such a position, White will be able to advance his Q- side pawns“.
This is what is known as endgame technique, and involves thinking schematically: a concrete assessment of the position, a desired piece configuration, and no variations. I give the sequel in brief. The point is to watch the improvement in piece position – once the pieces are superior, the pawns can move up.
Villegas
Allies
Zugzwang! vs Marshall
To finish off, a few points on Capablanca’s style. First, rather like Tal, he was no opening theoretician. A number of standard Ruy Lopez or Queen’s Gambit Declined positions, but otherwise he plays out of the book fairly quickly. For this reason, his games make good patterns for club players after sound openings, with a minimum of theory. For example, take his game against Tartakover, New York 1924 (yes, with the famous Rook ending!), for a simple and direct way of playing against the Dutch.
Second, there is a good reason why he is known as an endgame expert: a fine feel for piece coordination and clarity in achieving positional objectives are both brought out most starkly when material is reduced. Finally, thinking in small schemes, and making controlled progress towards a goal, but never afraid of the tactical resolution.
Further reading
Capablanca, R.J. My Chess Career (Try the new algebraic edition, which I believe will expand on the analysis, to make it more informative.)
Chernev, I. Capablanca’s Best Chess Endings
The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played
Cozens, W.H. Lessons in Chess Strategy (An excellent introduction to long-term planning.)
Shereshevsky, M.I. Endgame Strategy (One to read after Capablanca’s Best Chess Endings. The best way to learn how to handle the pieces!)
The Chess Scene
[painstakingly recreated by Dave Regis]
News, Views and Gossip
This section of Chess Scene is intended to provide a forum for news
about Chess Clubs around the world, amateur events and the progress
of us merely mortal chess players towards immortal heights!
[…]
Gene Thompson’s Search For Great Chess, Part V
[…]
“In Part V of his series Gene Thompson explores an
interesting hypothesis on why amateurs ‘Force The Issue’. It’s one
of his best articles which certainly rings true with me. Is there a
moral? Well, perhaps it is: play for a positional advantage and the
tactics will look after themselves. “
Alex
Bellinger.
Hello from sunny Seattle!
Things are going well here; the Sonics are cleaning up in
the NBA playoffs, the Mariners have slipped a little, but are still
doing great, and my chess is coming along slowly but surely! Yeah,
it’s a little cocky placing my talent along side their’s, but what
the heck, it’s my article! 🙂
Today’s topic is … “Forcing The Issue.”
I am involved with an e-mail chess match with a gentleman
who wrote me in response to these articles. Among the many things
we have discussed (long chained monomers, Polymer chemistry, and
chess sets), the most disheartening issue was our failure to play
as well as we feel we should.
In his case, one of his regular opponents can beat him
despite having not studied chess at all. This opponent is an
intelligent individual, but so is my friend (he’s the Polymer
Chemist, not me!). My friend is studying the correct chess
literature: Nimzovitch, Evan’s and the like. But, he still finds it
difficult to hold his own! What could be his problem?!?
My case is similar. I’ve been studying good(?) books:
Yasser Seirawan’s series, and Mike Basman’s openings book. But, I
find it difficult, actually impossible, to beat programs I once
did. What is going on here?
Well, a couple of nights ago, it came to me. I had just
been beaten by CM3000 again, and was I in a nasty mood. My wife
asked if it was doing any good whining about the loss. No, but I
wanted to anyway. When I calmed down, I thought about how I played
the game. I didn’t. Once I got past the opening, I just started
moving pieces more or less randomly! I was looking for a position
that contained a tactical solution, but not really doing anything
to create one. The computer wasn’t forcing the issue, just beating
me with my own moves. Hmmm.
Here is my hypothesis: My friend and I are both afflicted
with the same problem, FTI – Forcing The Issue. We have spent so
much effort learning tactics from setup positions, that once we are
in a real game, we try to apply our lessons to positions that don’t
warrant it. Subconsciously, we believe that every position has some
stunning combination in it that will allow us to win. When we look
for it, if it’s not there (most often the case), we try to force
one, causing a lost game.
When I was in college, I loved to rockclimb. The school
was perfect for it. All the buildings were of rough-cut stone, so I
could practice anytime I wanted (well, almost). I got so used to
blowing through a few technical moves and finishing a “route,” that
when I got on real rock I was totally lost. The basics just weren’t
a part of my climbing. I could always (according to MY memory)
cruise through the crux (the hardest, most technical part of the
climb) but would usually blow it navigating the main route. I think
I’m seeing a connection here.
Studying tactics in setup positions is a VERY necessary
part of learning chess, but, knowing when to apply tactical
knowledge is, at this point in my education, to me even more
important. My friend’s opponent instinctively makes “better” moves
because my friend is making weaker moves, and so am I. Given a
setup position, he would most likely find the solution much faster
than his opponent. In a general position, we would both likely find
a combination that wasn’t there.
So, after all of this babble, what is the solution? Play
more chess, learn to read a position for tactical possibilities,
and let them happen (hopefully to your opponent). Easier said than
done, n’est-ce pas?
Have a good one & GO SONICS!!!!