Smack my bishop (into shape!) - The training log

mikhail

Lucena wrote: »

http://www.chess.com/blog/Binouzenours/january-2015---a-bad-loss

I agree ...c4 was a mistake, but is ...dxe4 one too? You give the knights a lovely square in e4, and got your queen in trouble at the same time. After ...Nh7 instead, you can hide your king on d8, and white's king is drafty no matter where he goes - the e-file's open and you have ...g5 and ...b4 breaks.

...f5 was worse - a move borne of panic. You'll suffer the rest of the game after a move like that. ...b4 instead would scare the crap out of white, who then has to worry about king safety. Follow it up with ...Rb8, ...Kf8, ...Ne7, ...Bc6, and White will keep having to find good moves to stay on top.

EDIT: (I'm not using an engine here, so there may be tactical stuff I'm overlooking.)

Valmont

That's some impressive progress with Yusupov! I'd be very curious to see what one book from start to finish does to your rating.

Lucena

Valmont wrote: »

That's some impressive progress with Yusupov! I'd be very curious to see what one book from start to finish does to your rating.

I'll let you know next week!

Lucena

Just finished chapter 16 there now, passed with flying colours. I wonder how often Queen v lone pawn will ever come up in my games?

Team match tomorrow, if everything goes to plan i.e. the opposing team don't modify their board order, I'll be playing with black against an 1850 who plays the King's Indian Attack at the moment. Funny thing is, I'm paired to meet him next Saturday as white, so if everything works out, it'll be like a mini match.

The team match itself is a big game, our club and the opposition are joint top of the division, having won all our matches, with only two more matches left after tomorrow. If we win tomorrow, we're almost certain of winning the division, as we'll have played all the tougher teams, and even if we lose one of the two remaining matches and tomorrow's opposition win the last two, we'll win the division because of our result against them.

We'll see.

Valmont

I'm playing black against a King's Indian Attack player on this coming Thursday; is there any way to force them into another opening and keep equality?

Lucena

Not really, Valmont. That seems to be the beauty of the KIA, you can play your first 6-7 moves without thinking against virtually any black set-up. Let me know what you usually play as Black against either e4 or d4, I'll see if it can be meshed into a suitable defence against the KIA.

Lucena

Just back from today's match against our top-of-the-table rivals. Unfortunately we lost 5-2, so our title chances are pretty much gone.

In my own game, I ended up playing against KIA guy, and he did indeed play the KIA. Apart from looking through a few games fairly quickly, I hadn't really prepared, so lost a bit of time in the opening. I thought I could win a pawn in the opening, but it turned out it was pretty much an illusion, and I ended up with a rubbish pawn structure and my opponent getting his pawn back. I ended up in an endgame 3 pawns down (!) but managed to find a bit of activity and my opponent slipped up, letting me get a perpetual.

I'll try and stick the game up tomorrow evening.

Valmont

Against 1. e4 I always play 1...c6 and go for a caro-kann game characterised by a c5 pawn break. Against 1.d4 I play 1...d5 and go where the wind takes me - usually a classic queen's gambit declined. I think I'll just pretend I'm white against KID and build up a big pawn centre.

brilliantboy

Valmont wrote: »

I'm playing black against a King's Indian Attack player on this coming Thursday; is there any way to force them into another opening and keep equality?

Just a note on this. If you really want to avoid it you can try 1. e4 d5 and force White to think about the defense of his pawn. Basically don't give him time to setup methodically with d3, Nf3, g3. Bg2, Nd2 etc.
If he plays 2.d3 to defend the pawn you can just whip it off ...dxe4 because 3.dxe4 Qxd1+ 4. Kxd1 is pretty crummy for him.
Of course you have to be prepared to play the Black side of a Scandinavian after 2. exd5

Lucena

I don't know if White necessarily has to play 1. e4 first. My opponent played 1. Nf3, followed by g3 and Bg2.

Lucena

Here's yesterday's game:

http://www.chess.com/blog/Binouzenours/how-not-to-play-against-the-kia-and-still-draw

@Valmont
The line where I took with the knight on e4 looks quite playable, but only if Black follows up with 0-0-0.

I'm fairly happy with myself for hanging on in a bad position and getting a draw. Playing good chess doesn't necessarily mean playing perfect chess!

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Going to work on a bit of Yusupov before heading to bed. I'm in the zone!

Valmont

You played well in the rook endgame to draw I think. I thought he would have converted one of his queenside pawns? I liked 31...h6 I would never have foreseen the need to play that.

Mustafa Chess

I thought White was going to win that game for sure. Did he miss something?

Lucena

Valmont wrote: »

You played well in the rook endgame to draw I think. I thought he would have converted one of his queenside pawns? I liked 31...h6 I would never have foreseen the need to play that.

Yeah, I was kind of proud of that move as well! I think I was fairly aware of the back-rank mate theme in the game, as White was under threat from something similar earlier in the game. If White played 28. Re7, for example, I would have mated him in two moves with 28...Re1.
Also round about this time in the game I was wondering why my situation seemed more active. The answer I came up with was that White's king was trapped on the back rank because his pawn structure f4-g3-h2 was open towards the centre, his king couldn't 'nip round the back' and escape via h2, for example. This gave me the idea that I might need to make my own luft on h7, which I ended up doing.

Lucena

Mustafa Chess wrote: »

I thought White was going to win that game for sure. Did he miss something?

Welcome to Boards, Mustafa Chess!

Well, apart from 32. Rb5, which would have left him in a slightly better position but still having to work for the win, he should have played 30. Rf1, giving up the pawn, but then placing the rook on White's 2nd rank by 31. Rf2

If Black now exchanges rooks, White has a winning endgame with a passed a-pawn, and 3 versus 2 on the kingside. If Black doesn't exchange straight away, the king can go to g2 on the next move, and is therefore no longer trapped, avoiding the situation that actually happened in the game.

Lucena

Finished Chapter 17 last night, Stalemate Motifs. It's classed as a tactics chapter, but seeing as there's generally very little material left on the board for stalemate to happen, it had a very endgamey flavour.

At this rate, I might finish the book before the end of the month:cool: , so it won't have too much time to have an impact on my play. I wonder long-term how much of the information I'll retain. Maybe it's like learning a language, if I follow up with the next book, it'll build on what I've just learned, cementing it into place.

Current Fide rating: 1711

Valmont

I'm still struggling with 'the value of the pieces'; I can't let go the puzzles I don't get so I go back to them for a few days in row hoping something will pop out. I don't know if I retained much from the lessons but the puzzles have definitely improved my overall tactical ability and calculation.

Lucena

I think that the real work, and learning, happens mostly in the puzzles. If the book didn't have the end of chapter puzzles, I think I'd forget everything soon after learning it.

Mustafa Chess

Seems to take a lot of effort to actually win these endgames.

Lucena

Mustafa Chess wrote: »

Seems to take a lot of effort to actually win these endgames.

Well that’s the thing, over the board, and especially at amateur level, while it’s important to know the theoretical evaluation of a position, there’s still a lot of potential for making the opponent work hard for the win even in losing positions. Had my opponent played perfectly, from say move 25 on, he would have won.

There’s a book about this theme called “How to be lucky in chess” by David LeMoir. I’ve only had a quick look through it, but basically the author’s not too worried about perfect play. He gives lots of examples where his position is quite bad, and shows how he can makes things awkward for the opponent, trying to force mistakes.

In my game from last Sunday, did my opponent presume the win was in the bag (two passed pawns!!) and mentally take his foot off the pedal? I don’t know, it didn’t really come up in the post-mortem analysis, but it seems likely. He should have snuffed out all Black’s activity before pushing the pawns.

Mustafa Chess

I prefer attacking games but I end up in bad endgames and then get outplayed.

Lucena

I know it's easier said than done, but you sometimes have to look at what will happen if the attack peters out and a lot of the pieces are swapped off. In fact, this may be the defenders best option, exchanging as much material as possible and heading for an endgame.

Out of curiosity, what endgame knowledge do you have, Mustafa?

brilliantboy

Mustafa Chess wrote: »

I prefer attacking games but I end up in bad endgames and then get outplayed.

If that's the case then it's probably your attacking that needs the work

Lucena

Playing KIA guy again this afternoon. Against 1. e4, he used to play the Sicilian, but recently seems to be playing 1...d6, followed by Nf6, g6. I've always had a repertoire against the Sicilian, and I've just had a quickish look (30 mins) through some lines against 1...d6, so I'm not going in totally blind.

Fingers crossed!

brilliantboy

Lucena wrote: »

Playing KIA guy again this afternoon. Against 1. e4, he used to play the Sicilian, but recently seems to be playing 1...d6, followed by Nf6, g6. I've always had a repertoire against the Sicilian, and I've just had a quickish look (30 mins) through some lines against 1...d6, so I'm not going in totally blind.

Fingers crossed!

Treat it like a Dragon.
Trade dark squared bishops on h6/g7, crack open the h-file, sac, sac, mate.

Valmont

Have you looked at the Austrian attack? My KIA player didn't use it but I liked the look of 1. e4...d6 2. d4...Nf6 3. Nc3...g6 4. f4 for a very strong centre and plenty of attacking prospects.

Lucena

Yep, I played the Austrian attack. I lost the game after giving away a pawn in the opening, having to play some acrobatic moves to try to stay in the game. Will try and stick it up later today.

brilliantboy

Lucena wrote: »

Yep, I played the Austrian attack. I lost the game after giving away a pawn in the opening, having to play some acrobatic moves to try to stay in the game. Will try and stick it up later today.

I've always thought it suicidal to go into a sharp theoretical line in something like the Pirc or Alekhine because invariably the other guy is going to know it better than you, thus negating any advantage that theory gives.
Better to pick something slightly rarer that he's not used to seeing and just play chess.

Lucena

brilliantboy wrote: »

I've always thought it suicidal to go into a sharp theoretical line in something like the Pirc or Alekhine because invariably the other guy is going to know it better than you, thus negating any advantage that theory gives.
Better to pick something slightly rarer that he's not used to seeing and just play chess.

That's a fair point. Possibly when playing against "lesser" openings, the tendancy in preparation is to go for agressive lines.

"Hmm, my opponent plays the Pirc, what shall I play against him? I'll have a quick look throught the different variations, see if there's anything interesting.
Classical, ok.
150 Attack. We'll see
Argentine attack. Maybe
Austrian Attack. Hmm, says here it's a direct, agressive line. I'll have some of that, sod this slow manoeuvring lark."

Maybe it's just me that thinks like that though!

Lucena

I know this is going to sound strange coming from someone who is writing about working hard on becoming a stronger player, but I’m still not convinced it’s actually possible to improve at my age. As I said when I started this thread, when I started playing, I quickly reached 1700 and then plateaued. When I look at the rating curve for any adult players in the area, it’s exactly the same; they hit a plateau and then stay around that level forever.
I also wonder whether I’m not, in some way, blocking my own progress by putting up mental barriers.

As an example, there’s a local player, rated around 1400, always has been, probably always will be. Whenever I play him, and generally beat him, I always offer to analyse, more out of politeness than anything else, because I know it’s wasted on him. Why?
A typical post-game analysis session will go like this:

Me: You shouldn’t have exchanged pieces here because that gave me the open file.
Him: Yes but if you’d taken with the pawn instead, my position was ok.
Later in the analysis:
Me: You shouldn’t have headed for the endgame, because my king was better placed and could start eating your pawns before your king got anywhere near mine.
Him: Yes but if my king had been nearer the centre the endgame would’ve been ok for me.

It seems he doesn’t want to know where he went wrong, which would imply that he made bad decisions, but seems to spend his time putting up mental barriers to convince himself that his position would be ok if only cosmic forces/luck/fate weren’t conspiring against him.

Do I have similar mental barriers? I always try to analyse with my opponent after a game, and try to accept advice and analysis, so I don’t think I have mental barriers, but maybe I have others that I’m not aware of. Maybe that’s the nature of mental barriers, we’re not aware of them.

Anyway, I’m not about to give up just yet, maybe it just takes a lot of work to make progress, and I haven’t done enough yet. If I ever make the 1750 mark, I'll consider I've made progress, but anything below that would be just the small variations everyone's rating goes through.