Category Archives: Topic

Lucky escapes

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Simon Webb in his book Chess for Tigers identified the “secrets of swindling”:
(1) Be objective. The first prerequisite to a swindle is to be objective enough to realize early on when you have a lost position and start playing for a swindle while your position still has resources. If you wait until your position worsens and becomes hopeless, it will be too late.

(2) Do not be afraid of losing. “Once you’ve accepted that your position is lost, you should be in a position of psychological strength.” The worst that can happen is that you’ll lose the game. The pressure is on your opponent to win a “won game”, and it is your opponent who will be embarrassed if unable to do so.
(3) Play actively. In a losing position, you cannot passively wait for your opponent to squeeze you to death. To stand a chance of pulling off a successful swindle, it is important to get the initiative, and this may involve sacrificing a pawn or two, or even the exchange, to activate your pieces.
(4) Use the process of elimination. If you have a choice of several possible moves, and you see simple forced wins against all but one of those moves, you should play the one remaining move, and do so quickly. Again, the onus is on your opponent to find a way to win.

Swindling themes:
1 Stalemate
2 Weak back rank
3 Perpetual check
4 Surprise mating attack
5 Bishops of opposite colours
6 Material insufficiency
7 Building a fortress
8 Zugzwang
9 Timing

Wikipedia has an excellent article on swindling, in which some of those examples appear: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swindle_%28chess%29

Test paper, test positions, and suggested solutions, all attached.

The secret about dangerous openings

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<p>The secret is: they’re all dangerous!</p>
<p>The great (really great) Garry Kasparov just lost in 7 moves:</p>

<p>From Leonard Barden in the Guardian:</p>

<p>

</p>

Lichess magic

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Heffalump trap:

https://lichess.org/api/games/user/{player}?clocks=true&perfType=rapid&max=200

Classical games:

https://lichess.org/api/games/user/{player}?clocks=true&perfType=classical&max=30

Games from a player with options:

lichess.org/api/games/user/{player}?clocks=true
lichess.org/api/games/user/{player}?clocks=true&perfType=rapid
lichess.org/api/games/user/{player}?clocks=true&perfType=classical&max=6

Games from a Swiss tournament:
lichess.org/api/swiss/{tournID}/games e.g. https://lichess.org/api/swiss/69wSfABK/games?clocks=true

 

Reflections on resources 2021

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I started coaching adults at the Exeter club in 1993, about the same time as Alan Maynard started up the current incarnation of Exeter Junior Chess Club. I went looking for some useful resources for teaching, and there were some, but mostly I became a magpie, picking shiny bits out of various good books. I did find it irksome that so many books repeated familiar examples, and I thought I could at least pull those out for my colleagues, and that became the core of the Canon. I found particularly useful:

  • * Tony Gillam – Simple Chess Tactics and Simple Checkmates
  • * Euwe/Kramer – The Middlegame I & II
  • * Kotov – Think like a Grandmaster
  • * Nunn/Griffiths – Secrets of Grandmaster Play
  • * Livshits — Test your Chess IQ 1 2 & 3
  • * Littlewood – Chess Coaching

My frustrations with the available literature were:

  • * dreadfully partisan openings guides — “Winning with the Petroff” is a title I won’t forget in a hurry
  • * lots of material written for juniors which was far too advanced in content and language
  • * lots of material written about openings by people who have no experience with the system in question (“I must give this a try myself one day” was one memorable comment by a GM author)
  • * lots of material written to instruct with it seemed no idea about how to teach apart from show and tell — no tests, no summaries… (Pioneering efforts by Bellin failed to carry the day)
  • * if there were books of tests, they were just tactics
  • * and frankly, a lot of crap — database dumps, over-familiar examples, superficial content, and if you were lucky, all of those in one book.

Now, we have an abundance of riches, and a lot going free. We have books, videos,  CDs, DVDs, databases, playing engines, tactics rating sites, online arenas, streaming… too much to choose from. Reviewers cannot cope with the avalanche of material! There are also several laudable cases of a GM retiring from play, going into coaching, deciding all the available material was garbage, and developing some excellent resources for themselves — Aagaard’s stuff being the prime example. But I am pleased to see that some of my gripes from my early days have been addressed:

  • * there is lots more thoughtfulness about the business of instruction — books have introductions, summaries, callbacks, review quizzes… I thought Aagaard’s book on the Panov was a fine example.
  • * intelligent use of computers — as sparring partners, revision guides, and database tools. Chess Position Trainer was very helpful for this.
  • * there are now some excellent active learning materials — Chess Choice Challenge was great (if pricey for what you got), the recent Steps materials in particular are very good and thorough, and I like also Gambit’s Workbooks for Kids (still too hard for most juniors, though) — and about each dimension of the game
  • * and there is material now discussing how to teach and learn about chess — Hawkins, NiC, Rowson, James, Hendricks and Waizkin have all made commendable (if contradictory) contributions in the last 10 years.

I expect you could teach yourself chess these days just from free YouTube videos (although again the chaff/wheat ratio can seem a little high: “Basic Openings for Black: Sicilian Dragon & King’s Indian: Simple and Sound” seems an offence under the Trades Descriptions Act). I don’t like video so much as a learning medium myself — I’m an old man, and still prefer gall ink on parchment — but I am very happy to hear youngsters tell me about learning and discussing new openings they have seen online, without them having to lash out a lot of pocket money on a possibly unsuitable book to do so.

Starting under lockdown

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My 10 year old daughter is very keen on chess but the only person she ever plays is me, who she always beats because I’m rubbish, and I am unable to offer her any advice on how to improve her play.

My first bit of advice is: see if you can find her some better opposition!  Not easy to play over-the-board at the moment of course — but schools may run clubs soon and there is a lot of chess played online.  You can review the games you have played online and think about what to do better next time.

ChessKid.com is a safe online environment to play in which does not allow player-to-player chat (messages) — just canned messages like ‘Well played’ and ‘Good game’.   It also has instructional videos presented in a very friendly way.

All the youngsters from my club have joined Lichess.org, which is an adult/mixed site.  But the programmers have thought about youngsters’ safety: you can turn chat off, set chat to password-only, or allow chat but have a peek every so often at who is saying what in her messages.

You could also find her a computer opponent — there are free apps, some of which are of Grandmaster strength, but something like ‘Play Magnus’ might appeal.  You get to play a computer imitating the play of the current World Champion, Magnus Carlsen, but can choose from versions of him at different ages, with the hope that most of us can hold him off when he is 5.

I was wondering if you have any coaches who would be willing to spend a little time with her, helping her get an idea of what she should work on if she wants to improve.

At the moment I’m on furlough so I have more time for coaching than I want!  There are several coaches in Devon, myself included, who might be able to help.  If you are happy to think about coaching online — which is how we’ve all had to work this year — you have the cream of national and international chess to choose from.  The English Chess Federation has just this month launched a new list of qualifying coaches, and Lichess has a huge list of titled players who coach.

I’d be happy be to point you to some useful free resources to look at (YouTube is awash with chess) and maybe some books that you could use with her.   If you get a Lichess account beforehand, for yourself or for her, we can play on the same board while we talk.

There’s some basic advice here, some for U9s:
https://devonjuniorchess.co.uk/content/advice

And more here:
https://www.chessinschools.co.uk/chess-at-home

That should keep her amused for a while!