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

Honesty, is Such a Lonely Word

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I mentioned in an earlier post that you have to be honest with yourself. 

That doesn’t mean part of the time or some of the time. It means all of the time. Today I come across this position:

First, take a minute and calculate what you would play here. White to play and win.

OK, did you solve it?

Here’s what I came up with. 22.Ne6 fxe6 23.Qf6.Boom! I win.

Nope. What did I miss?

Simple. After Qf6 Black can play 23…Qf8. Here 24.Rc7 wins.

But I did not see that when I was solving it.

So I think that counting ones like this as failures is a huge step on the journey to improvement.

YMMV.

Here’s 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

Look For a Better One

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Many chess players are familiar with this Lasker quote. “If you see a good move, look for a better one.”

I myself am certainly familiar, but sometimes it’s easy to forget to follow that advice. Take this position from a 10+5 game I just played:

Here I have decided that a possible path to victory is just to ram the a pawn down the board. So I begin this plan with 25…a5 and after a few moves we are here:

The nice thing is that the rook on c1 can’t block the a pawn as the bishop hangs. One reasonable idea for White would be to exchange the bishops with 28.Bxe4, but instead my opponent decides that he’d rather preserve the bishop, and so he plays 28.Bd1??.

I am now so fixated on my plan of shoving the a pawn, that the next move I play is 28…a4 and then after 29.h4 I respond 29…a3

This is why we are supposed to look for a better move. To be clear, I have plenty of time here. I am not in time trouble AT ALL.

What move did I miss? See below…

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

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In either position the correct idea is …Rxg2+, forking the queen and king.

US Senior Open Training – Day 2

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As I mentioned yesterday, I am now training for the US Senior Open. This morning I kept up the routine of working on four exercises from Sherlock’s Method.

So far, here are my results. Out of eight puzzles, I have gotten four correct, three incorrect, and one I am giving myself partial credit for because I saw the main idea but not the purpose of it, so while I had a couple of moves correct, I missed some of the follow-up moves.

This is why I insist on writing down all of my analysis. There is no way to pretend, “oh yeah, I saw that,” since it’s not on the page.

The next piece of work that I need to do is to determine what line of the Caro I want to play against the starting move order of the classical variation. Take this position:

Here the main three moves are 4…Bf5; 4…Nf6; 4…Nd7. The one that seems to be the most in vogue is the 4…Nf6 line, but I don’t know how I feel about it. I have never played it or 4…Nd7, so I can see some value in deeply learning one of those systems. On the other hand, there is something to be said for sticking to the lines that I know best. Something to think about in the coming few days.

In the meantime, here’s a position from So-Van Foreest Zagreb 2022 Blitz.

I was checking this game as I saw it was an 0-1 game in the 4…Nf6 line of the Caro. In this position White has a massive edge, but Wesley slipped by playing the natural looking, but less precise 23.Rae1 instead of a move that holds the bigger edge. What move did Wesley miss? Solution below.

Here is the entire game.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

What Wesley Missed

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23.f4 keeps the position at a little over +5 according to Stockfish 15

Officially in Training

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I don’t play many weekend tournaments. There are a myriad of reasons for this, and they are not likely to change in the near future. That means that when I do play a weekend tournament I have to make the most of it.

Since I have also been relatively dormant on this blog, I figure what better way to bring it back than to track my progress here.

On June 6th I will turn 50 years old. This means that for the first time, I will be eligible for the US Senior Open, which starts on July 21st in Elmhurst, IL.

That gives me 68 days from today until then in order to train. Here is the plan for preparing for the event:

  1. As I have been doing basically every day for the past several years, I will solve some basic tactics on Chessable. The courses I use are three of the Frank Erwich “1001” series. Specifically, I use 1001 Chess Endgame Exercises for Beginners, 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners, and 1001 Chess Exercises for Club Players. Please note that “for beginners” does not mean raw beginners. I am 1800, and I find many of the puzzles to be quite challenging.
  2. Solving from Sherlock’s Method. My good friend and coach, Elshan Moradiabadi, wrote this book along with Sabina Foiser. It’s intentionally designed to get a player ready for a tournament. The first two chapters on simple positions and endgames comprise 270 puzzles. If I average 28 per week (one page of four per day), I will finish them just as the tournament arrives.
  3. Opening prep for Black. When you are as sloppy as I am at studying the opening, two months just isn’t a lot of time. So I have decided to work on my black openings for this tournament. This means the Slav, Caro-Kann, and 1…e5 against the English.

Now let’s take those items and break them down into more details.

For Chessable, I consider these puzzles to be a warm-up. For years I have kept the timer off on Chessable puzzles. I am not looking to solve them fast; I am looking to solve them correctly. Speed comes when the patterns are well-established in my brain. If It takes me a few minutes the first time, that’s fine. By the 5th-6th time, it will take a few seconds as long as the pattern sticks.

I also solve these on a screen. Typically, I use my phone, but occasionally on a proper computer. Again, the idea with these is to warm my brain up. I’m not looking to do any heavy lifting with these.

Here’s a nice example of a puzzle from 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners by Frank Erwich. Solution below.

For Sherlock’s Method, I am taking a more rigid approach than I am with the Chessable stuff. For one thing, if I don’t solve the puzzle within a minute or so I am starting a clock and giving myself 10 minutes to come up with a solution. I am very much trying to solve these under tournament conditions. I am also writing down my answers so I can’t play the “I saw that” game when there is a move in the solution that I didn’t consider.

This means I am also physically setting them up on a board. Yes, that can be annoying when you spend a couple of minutes setting up a position only to solve it in 15 seconds. I guess that’s a good problem to have.

Here is a puzzle from Sherlock’s Method that I failed to solve this morning. Let’s see if the readers can do better than I did. The solution to this one, along with some of Elshan and Sabina’s analysis, is below. As you can see by the analysis, great detail is given in the explanation. You can buy this book here.

As for openings, I am working with several books and the Chessbase database. I am creating proper files for the first time and plan on reviewing GM games in my lines regularly.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Solutions to Puzzles Below

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Erwich Puzzle

1…Qxh2+ 2.Kf1 Qxf2# (or 2…Qh1#)

Elshan Puzzle – analysis from the book.

20…Rf5!

with the idea of …Rh5. The simple theme is White’s misplaced queen, who happens to be the caretaker of White’s king. White simply lacks the necessary cohesion among his pieces in order to stop Black’s attack.

In this position, Giri played 20…h5? taking away a great square for his rook. 21.Bg5 Rh7? (21…Qg6 22.Bd3 Bf5 was essential and Black’s attack is still strong.) 22.Re3 after which White equalizes and eventually went on to win the game.

21.Be2

21.Bb5 maybe this is the move that worried Giri and prevented him from playing …Rf5, although after 21…Rh5 22.Re8+ Qxe8! 23.Qxg4 Qf7 White has no compensation.

21…Bxe2! 22.Rxe2 Qg6!

Once again taking advantage of the trapped queen on h4.

23.g4

Is the only move in this position. but it is sad when one must weaken one’s own king this much.

23…h5 24.Rbe1 Kb7!

Preventing the back rank exchange. White seems dead lost.

25.Re6

25.g5 Rf3 and now …Qxc2 is an overwhelming threat.

25…Qxg4+ 26.Qxg4 hxg4

And Black does not only have an attack on the kingside, his king can also calmly march into White’s weakened camp on the queenside with a much better position.

Chess Blindness

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In my Thursday game this past week I sat down to play Minghang Chen, who’s a solid 1800 player. I had a good feeling all day and was in a great frame of mind at the board.

I had the White pieces and in short order I achieved an almost winning position:

A few moves later we reach this position and now I’m thinking it’s time to get my material back and win some of my own.

After taking the d pawn, we arrive at

And now I can just bail out into a better position with Re6, but my idea is to capture on f6 with the d6 rook. So I do, and Black captures back.

Here I can just take again on f6 and then after …Bc3 Qb6 I have an edge

Instead I decide (correctly) that Qxe5 is much better.

Now I start thinking that Black might have something with …Bc3, and this is where chess blindness kicks in. Black plays the move.

The blindness takes two forms here. It starts with the fact that for some reason I’m not realizing that my rook on f1 is protected by the bishop. So I play what I feel is the forced 34.Qxc3 Qxc3  35.Nxc3 and offer a draw, which was accepted (I’m going to lose the c pawn, so I’m probably on the worse end of this draw, but my opponent had little time left on the clock.)

However, do you spot what I  missed?

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Yep, I can just play 34.Qxb8 and I’m completely winning. The rook on b8 hangs, but since in my mind I think that my rook on f1 is hanging with check I don’t see this at all.

Chess blindness is a disease which must be eradicated.

Here is the whole game.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Nice Puzzle From Sherlock’s Method

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If you feel like helping me out, and if you can spare it, please click here and become a supporter. Even $1 a month can help me continue this project.

Here’s a nice puzzle from Sherlock’s Method by GM Elshan Moradiabadi and WGM Sabina Foiser.

To see the solution, contained within the game, click here. The position is after Black’s 26th move.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

 

Tactic of the Day 4/13/2021

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I could really use your help. If you’ve seen this more than once that means that you’re hopefully getting something useful out of this blog. I pay all of the costs for hosting, and put a lot of effort into creating the content. Please consider becoming a Patreon supporter. 

If you can spare it, please click here and become a supporter. Even $1 a month can help me continue this project.

Solution below.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

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Tactic of the Day 4/11/2021

My Patreon page is now live!

I could really use your help. If you’ve seen this more than once that means that you’re hopefully getting something useful out of this blog. I pay all of the costs for hosting, and put a lot of effort into creating the content. Please consider becoming a Patreon supporter. 

If you can spare it, please click here and become a supporter. Even $1 a month can help me continue this project.

Solution below.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

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