It’s Better to be Lucky Than Good

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As mentioned in a prior post, one of my main focuses right now is to learn to be completely honest with myself. To me, this doesn’t mean just being honest in my annotations – that part is easy. It also means a more honest approach with how to fix these issues.

Here is an excellent example:

Simple, right? 20…Rc2 followed by taking the knight? Well, I calculated 20…Rc2 21.Qb3 Rxe2 22.Rdc1 Qd7 23.Qd1 and I was worried my rook would be in danger of being trapped. Had I seen one move further and considered 23…Rb2 I would have likely realized that there is no practical way for White to get at the rook before Black can defend it.

This is something that can’t be “hidden in analysis” – there’s no real way to say that I didn’t take because of some external factor without looking like a real idiot. So it’s easy to be honest in the analytical part of this game. There’s no other practical choice.

But what about honesty in the approach to solving the issue? That’s a far more complex discussion.

I need to improve my calculation far beyond where it is now. It’s not just a matter of seeing further and clearer but of properly evaluating the end result of the variation I am looking at.

To this end, I am going to use this website: Blindfold Chess Puzzles (blindfold-chess-puzzles.com). I need to learn to visualize better, and this needs to be one of the tools used.

For those who are interested, here is the entire game.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Intermezzo’s – They Matter

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Some lessons really stick with you. For me, this game is one of the most efficient lessons I have ever received.

I just now put this game, played only seven months into my comeback after an 18-year layoff, into Chessbase. I didn’t remember some of the info, such as the opening, but I could still picture the tactic as clear as day.

This was the tactic that made me realize how important in-between moves are. Since then, any book I have seen with a chapter on this theme is one I really enjoy reading.

This takes us back to the game we reviewed a snippet of yesterday. We have this position:

Here, my opponent plays 29…Qf7. At the board, I had calculated his other alternative, 29…Qe8 as follows: 30.Bg4 Rf8 31.Bxe6+ Kh8 32.Rc7 and just assessed this as crushing for White.

However, it turns out that Black has a nice resource here. Instead of retreating the rook on f5 here:

Black can play 30…Rc8 and if White captures the rooks with 31.Bxf5 Black then plays 31…Nxf5 32.Rxc8 Qxc8 33.Bf4 Nc4 and White is only the tiniest bit better. Now, the engine will show lines where as long as White avoids taking the rook right away, then White is still better, but I don’t think that in the game I would have looked deep enough to even think of those ideas.

Luckily for me, in the line that appeared on the board I saw the nice intermezzo.

Again, here is the position:

I see that my opponent is planning that after 30.Bg4 Rxf4 that as long as I play 31.Bxf4 Qxf4+ he gets a pawn for the exchange. Instead, I play 31.Bxe6

Now after 31…Qxe6 32.Bxf4 I am up a clean exchange.

This is the reason that reviewing your games matters. Yes, I didn’t analyze the game with Ryan in Chessbase, but we did go over it a bit after the game.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

You Have to Be Honest With Yourself

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One of the almost universally accepted pieces of advice that improvers get it to analyze your own games.

I will be the first to admit that many times in my life I have “analyzed” my games by simply turning on the engine and turning off my mind. I also have fallen victim many times to the idea that “I would have seen that.”

That last phrase is an insidious one. It’s so easy to trick yourself into believing these things that it can have a massive negative impact.

Let’s take this position, for instance. Here, my opponent has just taken on d4 with the knight which had been on f5. After the game, he said he had missed that my queen would guard the f2 square so his rook couldn’t penetrate.

If I take the knight, I’m simply up a rook for a pawn, and with so much weak material in Black’s camp, it will soon be more. But wait, isn’t 35.Rxg7+ the start of a three-move mate?

Well, back when I first came back to chess in 2011, and for a few years afterward, I had this horrible habit of missing escape squares. Luckily, this behavior manifested itself more often in my puzzle-solving than in my playing, but let’s just attribute that to luck.

So what happens here?

Well, calculation shows two possibilities. The first would be 35…Kxg7 36.Bf6+ Kf7 37.Qg6#. OK, that’s good. The second possibility would be 36…Kh6 37.Qg6#.

Good news, we have a forced mate on the board! However, remember what I told you above about my habit of missing things? I wanted to make sure that I didn’t run into anything like that here. So I really took my time and spent a few minutes making sure.

So ultimately I played the move, and here is the final position of the game.

Nice, right? Everything came out just as calculated. Except it didn’t, and this is where today’s lesson of honesty comes into play. When I was calculating this OTB, I completely missed the fact that the Black king could go to h6 in the first place.

“But I would have seen that in the game!” Yeah, sure. I would have 100% seen that 37.Qg6 is mate in one. I have no doubt about this. In addition, the knight is still hanging on d4, so does any of this truly matter?

Yes, of course it does. If you really want to get better, you have to have a deep and abiding honesty with yourself. You can’t brush these things aside.

So, while I am pleased overall with the game and the result, I am not happy with my performance on this move.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Steinitz Never Mouse-slipped

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These days, when you’re looking up games, you need to pay special attention to whether or not the game was played online.

Let’s take the game Donchenko-Malek played on 11/07/2023 in the early Titled Tuesday. Since this game is in an opening I play (the Caro), I decided to look at it since I often look at games in TWIC that are played in my openings.

We start out with a sideline:

Here, Malek plays 3…g6 instead of taking the pawn and exchanging queens. Cool, I don’t look at these lines too often, so this is some good stuff.

I keep going through the game, and it’s just dead level, but I can see that Malek wins, so what the heck.

One move from the end of the game, Black is slightly better, but nothing spectacular. Then:

In this position, Donchenko, clearly intending to play 29.Rd6, instead plays 29.Rd5.

Ah. No wonder the game is lost.

Here is the entire game for anyone interested.

Just a reminder that in the digital chess age, you can’t take a result at face value 100% of the time.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Don’t Blame the Opening

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Last Thursday, I played against Allen Becker, a local 2000 player. Typically, when I have White against Allen, I play the 6.Be2 Najdorf. I planned to compile a file of all of the games in this line from 2023 in which both players were 2500 minimum, then work through them in preparation for this game.

My Chessbase had other ideas, and I had to spend some time deleting and recreating my search booster, along with some other maintenance work. So, I was thinking before the game that I had two choices.

First, I could play into what would likely be the 6.Be2 Najdorf. I assume Allen spent some time that day (and perhaps prior) looking at these lines to prepare.

Second, I could play 1.d4, and we would likely wind up in a Queen’s Indian.

Decisions needed to be made, and I ultimately went with Option 2. As I mentioned to Allen after the game, the problem here is that I have played the Najdorf as recently as he has, whereas I hadn’t played the White side of the QID in years.

First, let’s start with the game:

Now, let’s start with the excuses.

  • “I had to stay out of his prep.”
  • “I didn’t know the opening/I didn’t have time to memorize the lines/I’m not playing my normal stuff.”

Are those legit? Perhaps in their own way, but certainly not in relation to this game. Let’s look at why.

First, take this position:

This is where it’s easy to say stuff like, “Here, I went wrong with 13.Rc1 since 13.Ne5 has been played more than five times as often.” That is a 100% true statement, but let’s face it, it’s an excuse. The three most popular moves here, in order, according to my database, are 13.Ne5 (73 times); 13.Re1 (19 times); 13.Rc1 (14 times), and so there it is, right? The third most popular line equals didn’t know the opening well enough, and that’s why I lost!

However, Stockfish 16, at a depth of 40, gives the following as the top three moves in this order. 13.a3 (-0.09); 13.Qb1 (-0.09); 13.Rc1 (-0.13).

So, ultimately, I played the best move of the three shown in my database, according to the engine. Hmm… it must not be that I didn’t know the opening.

Now, let’s take this position:

Here, I play a move that has never appeared in my database, 13.Na4?. I can pretend as long and as loud as I like that the reason I played this move is that I didn’t know the opening, but you don’t have to know an opening to know enough not to make stupid moves.

My thought process here is that I want to fight for control of the c file, so I want to get the knight out of the way. Stockfish 16, again at a depth of 40, will tell you that the position here is -0.60. This is hardly the evaluation of a dead-lost position. In fact, it’s only slightly worse.

The problem isn’t the eval; it’s the lack of understanding. Here, I refuse to abide by solid chess principles. After all, my vague dream to “fight for control of the c file” is nonsense in this position. Allen can play 12..Ba3 13.Rc2 Qe7 and so much for any hope I have to control anything.

While Allen doesn’t play that line, what he plays is fine. This leads us five moves later, to this:

Here I know I need to get my knight back into the game. So I start calculating. I look at 18.Qb2 and 18.Nc3. I ultimately decide the Nc3 idea has the trappy little idea in it.

I look at the following:

13.Nc3 Rc8 14.Nex4 Rxc1 15.Nxd6 Rc6 16.Nxf7 Kxf7 and it seems a bit unclear  to me, but probably a little better. The engine will tell you it’s much, much better, but I did not know during the game if it was, just that it likely was a bit better, though unclear.

However, after 13.Nc3 Rc8 14.Nex4 Black doesn’t have to take the queen. He can play 14…dxe4 instead. But here, I can just play 15.Qxc8+ and then after 15…Nf8, I must be completely winning since I can save the knight on f3.

Oops. Do you see the fatal flaw? Give it some thought. It’s below my signature.

So here we are at the end of an important lesson. It’s easy to blame the lack of opening knowledge, but that wouldn’t be correct since that’s not what cost me the game. It was my lack of understanding in general, along with the utter oversight in calculation.

The good news is that this understanding means that the problem can be fixed, whereas taking the easy way out and blaming the opening would mean that I wouldn’t have identified the actual issue.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscot

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Oops, the bishop on a6 will snap off the queen. I missed this entirely.

The Grind: Templin – Wainscott 1/2-1/2

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This past Thursday, I had a chance to play someone I hadn’t played before. Since then, I have analyzed the game pretty thoroughly. I believe that if I analyze all of my games like this and do the work they show me I need, then improvement will continue.

Here is the game:

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

The Most Useful Puzzle I Have Ever Seen

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I am curious to know if there are others like this out there. Do you remember the most useful puzzle or position you have ever seen?

For me, it’s this one:

The idea behind this puzzle was eye-opening and has helped me navigate many strategic ideas throughout my games in the five years since I first saw it.

The game is Donner – Smyslov from Havana 1967. This is the first position in the book Strategic Chess Exercises by Emmanuel Bricard.

I will spare you all of the analysis here (buy the book! Seriously, buy it now!) but the idea is that Black would like to own the d file. So how does the former world champion accomplish that?

Like this:

1…c6 with the idea to take away the b5 square. 2.Rfd1 preparing to double, but wait. 2…Be6 and now the queen must move. 3.Qe2 Bb3! and that’s it. The d file will now belong to Black.

I would imagine that most titled players likely think of ideas like this without much trouble, but to me, this was like a lightning bolt from the blue. The idea that I could use a bishop to hit a square on a file so that I could own the file was not something that instantly sprang to mind until I first read this one.

Have I said that you should buy the book? You should buy this book.

For those who would like to see the entire game, here you are: Jan Hein Donner vs Vasily Smyslov (1967) (chessgames.com)

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Review of Grind Like a Grandmaster

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Grind Like a Grandmaster by Magnus Carlsen and David Howell New in Chess 208pp

You’re in the final round of the tournament. A win will put you in first place. A draw…well…why even bother? “If you’re not first, you’re last.” Wise words from a wise man, Ricky Bobby.

The problem is that your position is pretty level. Maybe you’re a tiny bit better, but it’s hard to say, and you are in a position where you now need to prove that over the board. This is where having a skill demonstrated time after time by players such as Magnus Carlsen, Boris Gelfand, Anatoly Karpov, and more, would come in handy. That skill is grinding out a win from a level endgame.

How does one develop that skill? Keep reading.

Fun. Quirky. Kitchy. Useful. These are not typically words that I would use to describe a chess book, but here we are.

One of the latest offerings in the Chessable-courses-come-to-life-as-books line, this book has much going for it.

First, let’s take the positives. It’s a hardcover. I, for one, love hardcover chess books and am sad that so few are published this way. Also, the printing and layout are immaculate from a design standpoint. This makes the book very easy to read.

Having mentioned some positives, I want to point out something that may be highly relevant to many readers of this blog. This is not an in-depth book that analyzes everything to death to teach the reader how to play more precisely in the endgame. Instead, it’s more of a guidepost designed to give the reader a feel for when an endgame grind may be called for.

This isn’t to say that there is no analysis in the book; there is. It’s just that the main idea here is to take the reader down the path of what it takes to become an endgame grinder.

Take this position, which is from Tari – Carlsen Stavanger 2021 after Black’s 32nd move.

David: What was his body language like around this time? Did he realize that maybe you were starting to bully him a little bit?

Magnus: I think here he was definitely getting nervous. He was starting to use more time as well. And 32…h5 also poses him problems. Do you want to play 33.g3, or is it hanging on account of 33…Nxg3 and 34…Qxe3? Do you want to play h4, or is this pawn too loose at the moment? He’ll need to spend more time protecting it. Essentially, that’s probably what he should have done.

33.Qd3

Magnus: But he decides to wait.

David: I’ve noticed that this is a habit of yours. You always push h5 and a5 when you can. Is that just an endgame trick of the trade?

Magnus: It’s one of the things I learned from Boris Gelfand, actually. Improve your pieces as much as you can, including pawns, before going for forced lines. Especially if your opponent has no counterplay. Here it’s important to note that after my next move, 33…Nd6, White can never improve by pushing the pawn to d5, as it simply allows me to further centralize my queen on e5.

This example is extremely illustrative of most of the book. There is *some* analysis, but the gist of the content is to give someone a feel for the ideas which can be used in almost any game rather than a concrete path that worked in one specific game.

The book is divided into eight chapters. They are:

  1. Chapter 1 – Legendary endgame grinders
  2. Chapter 2 – Origin stories
  3. Chapter 3 – Accumlating small advantages
  4. Chapter 4 – Outgrinding fellow grinders
  5. Chapter 5 – Turning draws into wins
  6. Chapter 6 – Defensive grinding: saving the half point
  7. Chapter 7 – Tiring out your opponent
  8. Chapter 8 – Transformation of advantage types

Included in those chapters are 12 complete games, along with several fragments given along the way.

Now let’s take an example with a bit more analysis. The game is Carlsen – Nepomniachtchi from the sixth game of their 2021 World Championship match in Dubai. The position is after Black’s 29th move.

David: He could also have opted for 29…Bb2, forcing the minor piece exchange: 30.Rc5 Qd6 31.Rxb2 Qxd3 32.Rbc2 Qxa3 33.Rxb5

analysis diagram

Magnus: I knew my rooks would be forced into passivity here, so it should be fine. Play would continue with 33…Qd3 34.Rbc5 a3 35.Rc1 a2 36.Ra1 a2 37.Rc1

analysis diagram

and we exchange pawns (b4 for a2), leaving Black in a dreaded endgame. I’m sure those who have followed elite chess for a long time will remember the game Leko vs Kramnik (Brissago WCh m 2004/1), where Kramnik won the endgame with rooks against the queen and three pawns on both sides. The current position is even better for me. It’s probably still a draw with best play, but Black really has to worry about White’s rooks reaching the seventh rank.

That’s about the most in-depth the analysis gets in this one. It’s not non-existent, but it’s pretty light.

My personal thoughts on this book is that it’s well worth the read as long as the reader isn’t looking for more. There are many excellent books on practical and theoretical endgames. This is not one of them. If you are looking for instruction, this book is not for you. If you are looking for inspiration that can be combined with the instruction from other books, then you will likely enjoy this.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Draw Offers Can be Strategic

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Chess is war. However, there are some unwritten rules which are based on politeness. For instance, one should never offer a draw in a completely lost position. (As a side note, I don’t generally fault newer players or those with three-digit ratings, as they legitimately may not know that the position is lost.)

However, what about offering a higher-rated player a draw? Well, generally, the unwritten rule is that the higher-rated player should be the one to offer the draw. That’s a rule that I only believe in if the rating difference is extreme. For instance, I wouldn’t offer a draw against a GM since they’ll let me know when they think the position is drawn.

When it comes to offering draws against players who are within a few hundred points I have been known to use them as a strategy. Here’s an example from last Thursday.

Here I am Black, and I have been defending a worse position for some time. Here, however, I decide it’s level enough that I will offer a draw. I should point out that while Edgar and I are only about 70 points apart currently, historically he has outrated me by 200-300 points in most of our games.

My thought process is as follows:

  1. Edgar generally doesn’t like draws.
  2. Regardless of current rating, overall Edgar is the stronger player.
  3. Sometimes stronger players will overpress trying to prove that the position is not a draw.

Let’s go back a few moves.

As you can see, I was worse a bit earlier in the game.

After I play 19…Nxa5, Edgar recaptures with the pawn. Had he played 20.Rxa5 I think he has the better part of the game in perpetuity and I have to fight to hold essentially for the rest of the game.

However, after 20.bxa5 I can see a tiny ray of light ahead. This is what allows me to essentially equalize and offer the draw. Edgar had spent a lot of time to this point and continued to spend more. Eventually the overuse of time led him to blunder. The game continues for 15-20 moves past when we stop recording, but ends in a win on time for me in a completely winning position.

Here is the game. I still need to analyze it, but the idea of the strategic draw offer is a lesson in itself.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

My Best Game in Years

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On Thursday, I  played my best game in the past several years. There was nothing flashy or explosive about this game; it was just a nice, technical win.

However, since I am currently very much in the mindset of being an adult improver rather than an adult enjoyer (see my article here for an explanation of this concept), it is through games like this, where I show a better understanding than I have previously, which gives me hope that I am verging on a breakthrough.

Here is the game.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott