An Important Endgame Stalemate Theme

This is an important position to remember in rook vs pawn endings.

This position generally arises when there is a pawn on g7 which would be promoted on the next move if not captured.

The reason that this is such an important position has to do with transitions.

Take this position for example.

This is the game Comas Fabrego – Piket 1998.  Here White has just played 67.Kf5 attacking Black’s rook.  The key here is that Black needs to play 67…Re8.  This will tactically protect the pawn on f6 as after 68.Kxf6 Kf3 the first white pawn will fall, following shortly by the second.

Instead Black plays 67…Ra6 and White saves the draw by knowing the position we started out with.  Please feel free to try to work out the idea yourself as a training exercise.

Here is the complete game:

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Been in the Bunker for a While

It’s been a while I posted here.  This isn’t because I’ve lost interest in chess and improving, it’s because I’ve been busy with many chess-related projects which have taken some time away from being able to blog.

For those who subscribe to American Chess Magazine, you may have noticed that I am now an Associate Editor there.  My first piece ran in the most recent issue (a profile of the Webster University team) and I spent a lot of time finishing up my second piece, which will run in the next issue.

I am also working for the first time as editor on an upcoming chess book.  That hasn’t taken a ton of time yet, but it will over the coming weeks.

Playing wise I’m finally back on the upswing.  I seem to have this pattern which repeats where I gain a ton of points, drop 150, then go 100+ past the prior high water mark before repeating.  If that’s the case here, then hopefully this will be the surge that eventually takes me over 1900.

I also plan on setting up a plan to get to 2000.  I’ve been researching the process of learning itself so that I can hopefully put together a training plan in a proper way.

One thing which I have been doing for a week or so now is I saw this class by IM Danny Rensch where he gave the tip that if a student has a plan, like say “Today I’m going to do 30 minutes of tactics and then 30 minutes on rook endings” that he recommends you develop the discipline to finish what you have planned before allowing yourself to move on to the next thing.

As an example, let’s say you’re working on the 30 minutes of tactics and you get several in a row wrong and you’re frustrated and want to say “forget this” and move on to the endgames.  Under Rensch’s methodology this isn’t allowed.  You have to develop the discipline to finish the first thing before you can move on to the next.

What’s interesting with this philosophy is that it drove home the point to me that I waffle a lot in my study.  I start out intending to do one thing, then wind up doing many things that weren’t on the list originally.  This really made me see how unorganized my study has been.

I think that perhaps the issue I’ve been having of late is that it’s easier to get away with unfocused study up to a point.  Since you need to learn approximately five times less to go from 1500-1600 than you do to go from 1800-1900 it’s easier to get there even while more or less drifting through study sessions.

So far I’ve had sessions that consisted of:

30 minutes of tactics, followed by playing through an annotated game in a line I play.

30 minutes of tactics, followed by playing through the Game of the Century

30 minutes of tactics followed by playing through an annotated game in the most recent New in Chess.

120 minutes of tactics

30 minutes of tactics followed by 60 minutes on rook endings.

As you can see, I’m still working heavily on tactics in my study routine.  It’s interesting because I’ve been focusing on this heavily for the past couple of years, but this week I realized that I like to only do a handful and then just move on to something else in an unfocused way.

That’s not going to work to get to Expert.  And clearly Expert is the next main step on the road to master.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

The Turnaround Begins

Thursday I played a rated training game against NM Rithwik Mathur.  I had agreed to play the White side of a line that he was wanting to test.

I found a few moves I was particularly proud of, especially 20.c4 and I also made things harder than they needed to be (sacking the exchange back instead of finding 40.R3e4) but overall I felt like the game was fairly well played on my part.

I do think that Rithwik missed two winning ideas.  One was 52…a2 which I saw at the board, and the other was 53…Rg2 which was pointed out by NM Bill Williams after the game.

Either way, I think that this game represents the first game in what will hopefully be a turnaround for me.

Here’s the game:

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

An Instructive Position

I was looking at the game Petrosian – Olafsson from the first round of the Candidates Tournament in 1959.

This position was reached with White to move:

My first instinct was to put the knight on d2.  After all, who wants to put a piece on the bank rank intentionally when they don’t have to.

But then I looked at this position much closer.  I asked myself why I would want to put the knight on d2 other than “it’s not the bank rank.”

Superficially it looks like the e4 pawn is being pressured, but there’s nothing to that in truth since White can’t bring enough pressure for that to mean anything.

So then I asked myself what future does the knight have on d2 and what future would it have on e1?

On e1 the knight can easily go to c2-e3 and play a role.  On d2…not much.

What makes the position so interesting to me is understanding that even just a month or two ago if I had this position in a game I would have instantly put the knight on d2.

I’m hopeful that this is a sign that my positional play is in fact improving in the manner I’d like it to.

Here is the entire game.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Room for Improvement

My last two tournaments have not been great.  I’ve managed to lose three games to improving juniors.

This has had the effect of dropping my rating around 40 points.  While I’m not that upset about the rating since ratings fluctuate, I am incredibly annoyed with the way I have played as I have thrown away promising positions quite often during this streak.

Yesterday I played a game which I hope is the start of a turnaround, although I still missed a huge opportunity and was lucky to get a second chance.

Here is the game.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Me and Petrosian

One of the books that I have been reading lately is Python Strategy by the ninth world champion “Iron” Tigran Petrosian.

Quality Chess published an English language edition a year or two ago and in my opinion this book is solid gold.

There are a couple of reasons for that opinion.  The first is that generally I think that anything written by a world champion is worthy of attention.  The second is the fact that this book is simply amazing.

One thing that comes through loud and clear is that Petrosian wrote this book with the very clear purpose of it being instructional.  This book was meant to inspire the future generations of Soviet Bloc players who would inevitably replace him at the top of the mountain.

Contrast this with something like Kasparov’s My Great Predecessors which is useful to strong players, but not to average players looking to understand the game better in order to improve.

Thus, annotations in Python Strategy are variational where needed to whatever depth it takes to properly detail the position, and verbose where prosaic explanations serve to better illustrate a general point about the topic at hand.

Petrosian has long been one of my favorite players.  He has been unfairly saddled with the monikor of being “boring” or “drawish” but the reality is that he was such as solid defender that he saved a ton of poor positions and therefore just didn’t lose often.  He also, much like Karpov, refused to enter needless complications in order to create winning chances.

If he gained an advantage he would nurse it until he converted it.  If he was in a level position he would simply make sure that first and foremost he was playing in as risk free a manner as possible.

In my opinion those who say that Petrosian’s was simply a draw master and pretty much the same as those who say the same about Anish Giri today.

If Petrosian were simply a draw master he never would have become world champion, the same as Giri would never have made it over 2800.

Another reason that Petrosian inspires me is that on many levels I try to model my play on his own.  I enjoy positional, maneuvering games when they arise, but I also work on my tactics and attacking abilities so that when presented with a chance I can take it.

Here is a game of Petrosian’s in which the young Armenian demolishes  the legendary Paul Keres with a piece sacrifice.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

A Fascinating Position

Here is a position from my game Thursday night.  I am White and it’s my move.

So here I see this tactical idea and I calculate 10.Bxf6 Qxf6 11.Nxd5 cxd5 12.Qxd5 and now the rook on c8 is lost unless Black gives up the knight with 12…Nc6.  I now realize that after 13.Qxc6 my queen and Black’s queen are both on the sixth rank and – oh no – 13…Bb4+ unleashes a discovered attack on my queen would cost me the game.

So I make a different move then I realize that I missed a key aspect of the position, which is that my thirteenth move is not 13.Qxc6, but 13.Qxc6+

Since this would also pick off the rook this tells me at the time that clearly this was the way to play and that I missed something major.

So I spend the next few moves of the game annoyed for missing something “obvious” in the position.  Fast forward to today.  I start looking at the position again and something just doesn’t look quite right.

I start moving pieces around and something just isn’t adding up, but I can’t quite find it.  As I had just read a piece by Jacob Aagaard explaining that if you’re going to use an engine you need to use it in such a manner as to let yourself discover the reason certain moves are good or bad rather than just the fact that they are good or bad I turn on the engine after Black’s ninth move …b6, which gives us the position we first looked at:

The engine is insisting that this position is equal.  “Well, OK” I think…”10…Qxf6 isn’t forced.  After all, Black can play 10…gxf6.”

Nope, that position the engine shows as much better for White.  So I follow the line closely until we get to this position:

Here Black has an amazing trap in the position.  First he plays 12…0-0, then after 13.Qxa8 Nc6 14.Qb7 Rb8 the engine is screaming that 15.Qxc6 is the least bad of the options although Black will pick up the Queen after 15…Bb4+ 16.Qc3 Bxc3+ 17.bxc3:

Here White is up the equivalent of a pawn, but Black’s position is so much better than the computer shows the position to be about -1.2 in Black’s favor.

“Yeah, but why is 15.Qxc6 considered best?” I ask myself.  After all, White can save the queen with 15.Qa6.  Now we reach the most critical part of the position, this:

Black now slams shut the jaws of their trap with 15…Nb4.  Not only does this threaten the queen on a6, but at the same time it also threatens the fork 16…Nc2+

So all in all an amazing position which teaches the analyst to always keep looking for resources.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

I Was Able to Play a Game in St. Louis

Friday I was hanging around the Chess Club & Scholastic Center of St. Louis with my friend Glenn Panner when the opportunity to schedule a game against one of the local kids came up.

One of the Junior SPICE members, Ben, was sitting at a rating of 1995.  His mother was trying to find a game for him in hopes that he could get over 2000 and get that pressure off of him.

I agreed to play him Saturday night at the club when nothing else was going on.  The conditions were perfect since the club has amazing lighting and we were playing with an elegant wood set on one of the beautiful chess tables the club has.  (Side note – I once looked up those tables and they cost almost $5000 each…though I’m sure if you buy them in bulk as the club does you probably get a discount!)

The agreed time control was G/90+30 and Ben and I wound up having the entire second floor of the club to ourselves.  The only spectators were a friend of Ben who came to look at the game and WGM Anna Sharevich who took a look at the position and then went back downstairs to give her evaluation to Ben’s mother who was curious.  Anna’s eval…totally even.

The only other interruption was equal parts amusing and annoying.  The closing ceremony for the Sinquefield Cup was taking place across the street at the same time and one of the guys from the tech crew came upstairs at one point to lower a needed cable to someone below.  He opened the window and then got into a relatively loud discussion with whomever he was lowering the cable to.  I don’t know what an “S loop” is, but it was something he clearly didn’t think was a good idea to have!

Luckily this only went on for a minute or two and didn’t seem to disturb Ben too much. It happened pretty much equally on my time vs. his.

As for the game itself, it was a hard fought battle until I blundered the exchange although the reason I did so is instructive in and of itself.

Here is the game in it’s entirety.  Thanks to Ben and his mother Stephanie for the opportunity to play this exciting game!  Also, congratulations to Ben who it looks like will be an expert once this is rated!

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

An Excellent Game to Learn From

Here is the game that I played Thursday.  I felt like the game was slightly better for me, but then I fell into a perpetual trap by my opponent.

The question when you fall into these sorts of things is “why?”  Answering that question is where improvement comes from.

With the exception of a handful of times, “you should have seen that” just doesn’t hold water.  There is a reason people don’t see things.

It’s easy to say “you study tactics, therefore you have no excuse” but the truth goes so much deeper than that.  Especially as all tactics are not created equally.

In this case I think it’s quite interesting and the answer seems to be that I still assume that all re-captures are just automatic.

Interestingly this is related to an issue I was having around five years ago when I was 1600 or so and had a tendency to miss in between moves all the time.  I was able to fix that with careful work, so now it would seem that I need to do that with this problem as well.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Wainscott – Williams 0-1

Here is last Thursday’s game.  As you can see there are many lessons to be taken from this one.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott