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.

Some Thoughts About Improvement

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A common theme that I continue to see in adult improvement content is that, for some unknown reason, many people have decided that improvement cannot be fun and must be a grind.

From my point of view, neither of those are necessarily true statements.

The internet is full of folks who are several hundred (even 1,000+) points below whatever rating level is being discussed, but they are speaking definitively that “The only way to get to ____ is to ____.” e.g., “The only way to get to 2200 is to spend at least five hours a day studying for ten years.” or something along those lines.

The main problem here is how would they know.

Let’s use me as an example here. My rating is currently 1848, and I am trying to get to 2200. I can speak pretty definitively on what it took for me to get to 1800, but I can’t tell you a thing about what it takes to get to 2200. I can tell you what my plan is to get there, but I can’t tell you if it will work. Along the way, over the years of my journey, I have made several changes to what I am doing as I learn what works and what doesn’t for me.

The key takeaway in that sentence is the last two words. “For me.”

However, my journey started a dozen years ago. I was just under 1500, and my current peak rating is 1898. So I can speak about how I gained those 400 peak-to-trough points. Did I do it by grinding away for hours every single day on things that I hate? Absolutely not.

Mostly, what I have done to this point is just to spend *some* time on chess almost every single day. Sometimes that looks like me spending a couple of minutes on Chessable knocking on an opening line or some tactics. Sometimes it looks like me spending several hours on analyzing a game of mine or playing through GM games, etc.

The point is consistency, not pain. Sure, sometimes I spend a lot of time taking the pain. This has been illustrated in my recent work over the past year or so on openings. In general, I don’t like studying openings. But I will not consistently beat the players I need to beat to get to 2200 if I don’t stop getting horrible positions out of the opening. Yet, if I decided that I was going to grind openings to the detriment of everything else, then how would I possibly be able to keep my head in the game?

I don’t think I could. To study chess with an eye toward improving, I am convinced that it needs to be enjoyable. At least, that turns out to be the case when I am the improver.

Therefore, I split the time as best I can. Today, perhaps I will work on lines in the Caro. Tomorrow, maybe I solve some puzzles. Then, the day after, I could decide it’s time to play through some GM games or read a bit more of Reassess Your Chess.

Again, I can’t pretend to be able to speak with any authority on where I am trying to go. But I can speak that way with where I am now.

Since you made it this far, here’s a puzzle to solve. The solution is at the bottom.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

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Solution

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

Silman on Knights

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As I mentioned in this post, I am working through Reassess Your Chess by Jeremy Silman. The idea is to learn a lot more about imbalances and strategic thinking.

This morning, while reading a bit of the chapter on knights, I am looking at this position.

The idea here is that the White knight has two interesting options for the knight. f5 and c6. White assesses that the knight would be better on c6, and so he plays:

12.e5

Then, after 12…Bxg2 13.Kxg2 Nd5 White can play the move they were angling for, 14.Nc6

Of course, the knight can’t be kicked with 14…Qd7 since 15.Qxd5 Qxd5 16.Nxe7+ wins on the spot.

With this octopus sitting on c6 and tearing into the position, Black quickly went wrong and was crushed.

Here is the entire game, with Roiz’s annotations.

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

The Silman Project

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Several years back, I did something that I called The Quality Chess Project. For a year, I read nothing at all other than books published by Quality Chess. The idea was that books by QC should be good enough that they are all one needs to become a master.

That may be true (and likely is), but one year was not enough time to get there from wherever I was in the 1700s. I knew this going in, but I wanted to see the results. The overall results weren’t great, but I would put that on the fact that I wasn’t exactly hitting the books hard. The artificiality of things like a one-year period didn’t help either.

With The Silman Project, my plan is quite different. I plan to ignore timelines and also to allow myself to read other materials, but for the next however long it takes, I will do the following:

  • Read the following books:
    • Reassess Your Chess 4th Edition
    • The Amateur’s Mind
    • Silman’s Complete Endgame Course
  • Play through 10,000 games in Chessbase.

The books are mostly self-explanatory, so let’s discuss the second point first.

Many times over the years, Silman would recommend playing through “tens of thousands” of master games as quickly as possible.

Here is a quote from a review he did of Agdestein’s book about Magnus:

“I always recommend playing over tens of thousands of games as quickly as you can, since the subconscious mind will absorb the pawn structures and how the pieces are placed when those structures arise. You’ll also absorb tactical patterns, opening patterns, and endgames too. Many tell me I’m wrong and get quite upset by this (everyone wants to be great, but few are willing to do the work). However, a quote from Agdestein will put this into perspective: ‘In Norway we say that it takes 10,000 hours to become world-class in something.'”

Here is an article where he goes a bit deeper on the “why” of the question.

For my game selection, I grabbed every game in my database from 1955 to 1985 as I was unsure how many games that would be. As it turns out, a bit over 55,000. So I trimmed it down by just grabbing 10,000 from 1970 to 1976.

To go through them, I will do precisely as Silman advises. 20-40 seconds per game, max. I will resist the urge to go through them in any detail.

Depending on how long it takes me to get through the 10,000, I may go back for more.

As for the books, I am starting with Reassess Your Chess. I would start with The Amateur’s Mind, but I can’t find my copy. I may need to order a new copy.

As I mentioned earlier, I will not be holding myself to any timeline for this project. Instead, I will post as I go and update on my progress. The fact is that I have been playing quite well lately, and I want to find what it takes to get over the next hump of 1900.

Let’s go on a journey here.

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

Fischer At His Best: Fischer – Panno 1-0

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No, I’m not talking about this famous Fischer “win” from Palma when Panno didn’t play in protest:

Instead, we’re talking about his win in Buenos Aires in 1970. I am reading a new book I just got from New in Chess to review, and this is the first game in it. I’ll have a full review in the near future, but let’s take a look at this position:

It’s White to move. With a locked center, Fisher wants to attack on the kingside. He’s not quite ready as he needs to play a preparatory move. Take some time and try to figure out what he played. The answer is below.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

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Bobby can’t just play 18.h4 as the attack would be stalled after 18…Nf5, so first Fischer stops the knight move by playing 18.g4

Here is the whole game.