An Adult Competitors Journey Towards 2200
The solution appears at the bottom!
Til Next Time,
Chris Wainscott
If you like this blog, please consider becoming a Patreon supporter. Any money I raise will go towards lessons and stronger tournaments.
If you can spare it, please click here and become a supporter. Even $1 a month can help me achieve my dream.
The solution to today’s puzzle is:
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1… Rxe1 2. Qxe1 (2. Bxe1 Ne4+) (2. Kxe1 Qe6+) 2… Nxa2 0-1
Til Next Time,
Chris Wainscott
If you like this blog, please consider becoming a Patreon supporter. Any money I raise will go towards lessons and stronger tournaments.
If you can spare it, please click here and become a supporter. Even $1 a month can help me achieve my dream.
The solution appears at the bottom!
Til Next Time,
Chris Wainscott
If you like this blog, please consider becoming a Patreon supporter. Any money I raise will go towards lessons and stronger tournaments.
If you can spare it, please click here and become a supporter. Even $1 a month can help me achieve my dream.
The solution to today’s puzzle is:
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.
.
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1… Bh3 2. g4 Qxg4 3. Qxg4 Rf1# 0-1
Here’s what looks to be a typical position:
The game is from Budapest 1996 and is between Jacob Aagaard and Istvan Almasi.
In his most recent book Thinking Inside the Box Aagaard says that this was apparently from a Petrosian game, and here Petrosian played the normal looking 17.Rad1. (Side note – I looked but couldn’t find the Petrosian game.)
So I’m looking at this position and thinking, yeah, that’s probably what I’d play. After all, don’t we often just automatically make moves to put our rooks in the center of the board like that? Especially on an open file?
However, the soon-to-be-IM Aagaard realizes that the only thing that is going to happen on the d-file is exchanges. And he doesn’t want exchanges.
So here he plays 17.Re2 in order to double on the e-file and prevent the exchanges he was worried about. He wins this game in a great attacking style.
The main point of this game is not to show this move. It’s in the chapter on analyzing your own games, and beyond this there is some detail by Jacob on his difficulties with the French Defense.
However, as someone who has made automatic looking rook moves for years I found this tiny snippet to be incredibly useful.
Here is the game.
Til Next Time,
Chris Wainscott
If you like this blog, please consider becoming a Patreon supporter. Any money I raise will go towards lessons and stronger tournaments.
If you can spare it, please click here and become a supporter. Even $1 a month can help me achieve my dream.
Check out this game from the Russian Superfinal. The game was Inarkiev – Dubov from round three.
First, let’s take a look at the final position. You can use this as an exercise if you like. There is a forced mate for Black in the final position. It’s White to move, and Inarkiev chose to resign here.
Here’s the entire game:
I love the KID. I really enjoy the sacrificial chaos that can arise from those positions.
Til Next Time,
Chris Wainscott
If you like this blog, please consider becoming a Patreon supporter. Any money I raise will go towards lessons and stronger tournaments.
If you can spare it, please click here and become a supporter. Even $1 a month can help me achieve my dream.
Til Next Time,
Chris Wainscott
If you like this blog, please consider becoming a Patreon supporter. Any money I raise will go towards lessons and stronger tournaments.
If you can spare it, please click here and become a supporter. Even $1 a month can help me achieve my dream.
The solution appears at the bottom!
Til Next Time,
Chris Wainscott
If you like this blog, please consider becoming a Patreon supporter. Any money I raise will go towards lessons and stronger tournaments.
If you can spare it, please click here and become a supporter. Even $1 a month can help me achieve my dream.
The solution to today’s puzzle is:
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.
.
.
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1. Nd6+ Kb8 (1… cxd6 2. Qxa6+ Kb8 3. Qb7#) 2. Qxc7+ (2. Nxa6+ $18 {
Alternative}) 2… Kxc7 3. Nxa6# 1-0
Something that I think I will be doing going forward is providing some historical overviews of the matches for the game of the day feature.
Since the first two of this match have already been published, let’s kick that off here, then I can add this stuff to the posts with the games going forward.
Prior to Steinitz – Zukertort 1886 the title of “World Champion” had been completely unofficial.
Wilhelm Steinitz had long been considered the strongest player of his day, having defeated his top rival Adolf Anderssen 20 years prior +8-6=0. However, it wasn’t until this match with Zukertort that talk of an official world championship began.
Three years prior, in the London 1883 tournament, which had been a 14 player double round robin, Zukertort had finished at the top of the table with +18 (22/26) compared to Steinitz’s +12 (19/26).
With the death of Paul Morphy in 1884 there was no longer anyone who could reasonably claim the title of the strongest player (and keep in mind that Morphy’s last serious game had been much earlier in 1859) the path was clear to hold a match between the two.
The terms of the match were the same as Bobby Fischer would propose 89 years later – first player to ten wins, draws not counting.
The time control was to be 30 moves in two hours, then 15 moves per hour thereafter.
Although Steinitz would not become a US Citizen until 1888, he insisted on playing this match under the flag of the USA as he had been living in New York for a few years by then.
In 1888 he officially became a US citizen and changed his name to William.
The championship itself saw three different cities, with the first five games coming in New York, the next four in Saint Louis, and the concluding games in New Orleans.
Here is the table from Wikipedia showing the match results.
Til Next Time,
Chris Wainscott
If you like this blog, please consider becoming a Patreon supporter. Any money I raise will go towards lessons and stronger tournaments.
If you can spare it, please click here and become a supporter. Even $1 a month can help me achieve my dream.
Til Next Time,
Chris Wainscott
If you like this blog, please consider becoming a Patreon supporter. Any money I raise will go towards lessons and stronger tournaments.
If you can spare it, please click here and become a supporter. Even $1 a month can help me achieve my dream.
I have decided that in addition to the puzzle of the day feature, that I will also be doing a game of the day feature. I will be starting with game one of the first world championship match, and then each day I will add the next game sequentially in world championship history.
So together we will eventually see all of the games from every match.
Here we go!
Til Next Time,
Chris Wainscott
If you like this blog, please consider becoming a Patreon supporter. Any money I raise will go towards lessons and stronger tournaments.
If you can spare it, please click here and become a supporter. Even $1 a month can help me achieve my dream.