The other night at the Marshall Chess Club Asa Hoffmann presented me with the following position from a game of his with Ed Frumkin. Contained in the position is an interesting combination- two moves with the same idea win.

It’s black to move:

Black wins with either f5+, e.p. h5+ or vice versa h5+, e.p. f5+ when Rxc1 and the a knight fork or bishop skewer will decide. I love the symmetry in this position- it’s rare that just combinatorial symmetry occurs over the board.

I’m not really sure what to say. There are a million excuses for the game I am about to show- I’ve been working like a dog lately- monday through friday at my day job, nights and weekends either doing freelance work for a publishing company or at the marshall…needless to say i haven’t had much time for chess and I am terribly sorry to not have posted more often.

Having said that, my chess confidence seems to be a bit down- friday night i stopped by the marshall chess club and wound up playing in the friday night rapids- a blitz tournament that usually attracts some strong players. On this occasion, there were 6 players, one IM and two FMs. I wont get into details, but the following game is one in which I reached a crushing position against an FM in with 4 minutes left on my clock and then promptly resigned- bleary eyed and expecting to be beaten anyway, it wasn’t that hard to accept that I had hung a piece- except that I hadn’t- and had actually achieved a winning position in a mere 14 moves.

Here is the game:

The format of the tournament was a double round robin- so each player played the other player twice. I was expecting to just lose two quick games and go home- so when I thought for a second that I had hung my knight (having forgotten that I could take the rook if white moved his queen) i was happy to topple my king and start the second game. What a shame- truly- as I could have had a nice scalp and in style. Ugh…

In other news I have a huge chess project that I am working on. As I move further along I will let you guys in on it.

The Queen’s Bishop Attack is basically the trompowsky where black hasn’t played Nf6 yet. It’s an oddball dramatic grab- playing Bg5 on move 2- the bishop hanging there in space pinning nothing and threatening nothing. James Plaskett has written a book on the subject, that is basically a game collection targeted at beginners in the “Batsford Chess Revealed” series of books. However, I have had several masters tell me that this book contains nuggets of knowledge that are far more complicated than most beginner books aim for. In particular, there is a discuss of the following type of position:

Here we see the two queen’s staring at one another across the board, putting the question back and forth. When to take and whether to take is often something even masters may bicker over. The following game demonstrates a straightforward idea for using the queenside space gained in the opening to generate pressure against a single weak point in order to generate a breakthrough using this theme. When i was a weaker fish than I am now, I almost always took my opponent’s queen when I had the black pieces and was offered this option. As I got stronger my opinion flipped one hundred and eighty degrees, and I thought that one should never take the queen allowing white a free hand on the a-file and queenside pressure. Now I appreciate that what is happening on the rest of the board matters as well, however, in the following example I think we can agree that black would have done better to not have taken white’s queen. In any case, these positions are incredibly common in off-beat queen’s pawn games such as the tromp, torre, and Queen’s Bishop Attack, so a careful study of the position is necessary before jumping to any quick conclusions about these positions in general.

In essence, I think that capturing the queen and doubling the opponent’s pawns is a risky and double edged idea. You have to be prepared for the coming presure and aware of what weak squares will need to be held before lashing out with the Queen exchange.

I’ve been trying to study tactics lately, and have been working through a dusty old tactics book that has been sitting on my shelf for a while now (which one is top secret.)

In any case, I came across the following problem and was struck by it’s elegance. The following position occurred in Kosikov v. Bezman, USSR 1986. It is white to move.

Obviously there is a pin that needs to be addressed, and naturally the passed f-pawn is a key resource as well. At first, I thought simply 1.Rg2 would save the knight by threatening mate, however, I couldn’t find a follow up to this after 1…Rxf7 that would lead to anything promising for white. Then something magical in the position presented itself to me. The king is immobile, and the knight is glued to the blockade of the f-pawn. By putting these two ideas together, it becomes clear that the white knight on b3 is irrelevant and white can simply proceed with 1.Rf2!! Rxb3 2.Rg2 Rb1+ 3.Kf2 Rb2+ 4.Kg1 Rxg2+ 5.Kxg2 and now the white king can gobble up all of black’s pawns because black’s king and knight are both immobilized by the advanced pawns.

I’ve noticed an interesting trend in the playing of the modern defense. IM Jay Bonin has lately been playing a defense with 1…c6 and 2…a6 against nearly everything, hoping to achieve a chebanenko slav or gurgenidze system through a tricky move order. Asa Hoffmann has also been playing a modified modern called the Pribyl that I’ve written about before. With the recent book “Tiger’s Modern” advocating a similar setup, I’ve seen an explosion of popularity in this whole system – both Yefim Treger and Ildar Salakhutidnov have employed it at tournaments recently and I myself am planning on using it once I get a handle on the themes.

The following game illustrates some of the ideas of this system, and Asa Hoffmann will be giving a lecture at the Marshall this month on these ideas as he presents several of his recent victories with black using this system.

This last Tuesday, IM Danny Kopec gave a lecture at the Marshall Chess Club based on his new book “Test, Evaluate and Improve Your Chess.” The lecture was long- much longer than your average chess lecture- but it was also extraordinarily well attended and Kopec seemed to have quite a few doting followers in the audience who traveled across state lines just to hear him speak.

In any case, his book is pretty good I have to admit. Many of the positions are basic tactical positions or positions where you have to find the correct pawn lever. However, some of the positions later in the book are quite complicated and well analyzed. In particular, there is a chapter on rook and pawns that I really enjoyed, and am planning on going over again. The following position was one that I think demonstrates the importance of rook activity in such a concrete way as to be memorable.

In this position, the material is equal but white’s rook is more active than black’s, which is tied to the defense of the outside pawn. This is the only feature of the position that maters and to find the right plan you must have the specific knowledge that rook activity is crucial. If black merely holds onto the pawn, then white will march his king across the board, push the rook back, and potentially win in some cases. So- in order to draw- black must give up the pawn with 1…Rb8 2.Rxa5 Rb1+ 3.Kg2 Ra1 – Tarrasch’s Rule- the rook goes behind the passer and the draw is assured now that black’s rook has more activity than white’s- which is now tied to the defense of the a-pawn.

The book is replete with such positions- particularly in the rook and pawn chapter- and I think it’s worth picking up a copy if you find one around. I was pleased to get mine for free from Danny Kopec to review here- it’s rare that I get such decent schwag but sometimes my part-time position at the Marshall pays off in that regard.

This weekend was a massive booksale at the marshall, tomorrow is the last day! I bought a big stack of books- despite the fact that I’m currently trying to sell a box of chess books on ebay at the moment- check out my auctions here, and be sure to swing by the Marshall at 23 West 10th st. tomorrow to pick up some good deals. Downstairs near the door is several boxes of magazines that i’ve been told are free and up for grabs. I noted Fred Wilson picking through the stacks as well as some other chess book hounds.

THE MARSHALL CHESS CLUB BOOK FAIR

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The following game I played this weekend at the Marshall. My opponent made a few errors in the opening that allowed me to have both a lead in development and control of the center. From that position it was easy to generate a kingside attack with my knights. What I like about this game is the role of the knights. The pattern of two knights ganging up on the same square early in a game is something that I first remember seeing in this game, though it is also a common theme I’ve noted from Harold Keilhack’s “Knight on the Left” game collection. (speaking of early knight duos, the french, and the van geet attack, this famous game by napolean bonaparte also comes to mind.)

In any case, of the 4 games I played, I won 2 and drew 2, but this one was by far the most interesting.

One of my friends sent me a link to this awesome collection of Fischer Photos in the nytimes. I felt obligated to post a link here.

“Between games during a match in Argentina, Mr. Fischer and Mr. Benson would take long walks. One of Mr. Fischer’s favorite places was an amusement park and one day he wandered through the hall of mirrors. Mr. Benson said Mr. Fischer appeared apprehensive when he emerged.”

As most of my regular readers know, I’m a fan of offbeat openings. I wrote a post earlier about playing 1.Nc3 here. While this repertoire probably doesn’t appeal to most people because it involves knowing such unpopular lines as the Veresov, Vienna, Grand Prix Attack, Trompowsky and Pseudo-Tromp, there is one part of it that may appeal to even mainstream 1.e4 players. If black tries to play the Scandinavian with 1…d5, white has the move 2.Nc3, which likely will induce most Black players to push the pawn to d4 and enter the Van Geet Attack. (A top secret piece of info is that black should take the pawn on e4, and after 3.Nxe4 Qd5, white has nothing better than to retreat the knight back with 4.Nc3 when a normal scandinavian position arises once again on move 4 instead of on move 2.)

Since I broke my knee in a bike accident, I’ve had a month and a half to study chess among other things, and play online blitz like a banshee, getting my FICS blitz rating up to 1706. From those dozens of games I have produced the following collection of games in which the Van Geet is seen in full effect. The plans are rather simple. Number one, attempt to close the center. Number Two, begin a kingside attack with your knights. Number three, watch as your opponent stumbles under the pressure. Bing, Bang, Bongo. Enjoy.

I was lucky enough to find a copy of this classic book at Fred Wilson’s bookstore a while ago for a mere $10, which is a pretty amazing deal considering what it’s selling for on amazon at the moment. In any case, it’s a collection of Bronstein’s games laid out in an interesting format. Each game takes up only a single page, with a single diagram of a position where a combination is possible. So, the book is a biographical game collection, but could also be used as a tactics book quite easily.

For instance, from one of his games against Kotov he presents us with the following diagram with white to move:

Here, white’s queen is under attack but a paradoxical shot ends the game on the spot: Bh6!

This book is full of these simple yet interesting tactical blows. I wish more biographies took this format, as it made it easier to cruise through than…for instance Euwe’s bio by New In Chess which is dense with hundreds of pages of prose. Here, the games really speak for themselves with minimal commentary interspersed into the parenthesis of continuations.

Here is the complete game Bronstein v. Kotov from the 1946 Moscow Championship:

I’m not sure how many people who read this play on FICS, but I’m hoping some of you do. For Mac users, I’m pretty sure “Raptor” is where it’s at. As far as graphics go, it is clean, simple, and the features are user friendly. It also shows you what variation you are playing as you play, which is pretty wonderful.

As a threshold issue I should add, FICS (free internet chess server) is identical to ICC in basically every way- you can even use the same clients- but you don’t have to pay for it. ’nuff said.

So, my question to you dear readers is this: what is the best client for a PC user? At the moment, I have babaschess, raptor, and jin, but I’m not thrilled with any of them. Raptor takes on a distractingly gross aesthetic in a PC environment (i guess that’s true of all things p.c. but somehow here it is even more pronounced.) Babaschess is what I have been using, but I’m not thrilled with it either. In any case, if anyone knows of another thread on a forum somewhere discussing this topic, or a list of a good clients or has any suggestions, hit me up in the comments.

I apologize for this post without any real content, but I’m desperate here.

The most entertaining tournament of the year concluded recently with Kramnik taking clear first. What makes the London Classic so fantastic? For one, the live commentary is superb, complete with a video feed and post-mortem analysis from the players. Without question, the London Classic is the most well organized tournament on the calendar, and the live coverage is simply sans pareil. While the Tal Memorial had a great live video feed and commentary in Russian as well, another benefit of the London Classic is that it is the closest tournament to New York on the major professional circuit, so the time difference isn’t as severe as Khanty-Mansisyk for those of us in nyc who want to watch the games live. In any case, while Kramnik won the tournament, Nakamura took second place and played some fantastic chess as well. Check out his games from the event- he beat Anand with black in a Kings Indian Defense, and Adams with white in a King’s Gambit! Naka wasn’t the only player to uncork a King’s Gambit at this tournament, Nigel Short did as well. In fact he has established a bit of a tradition of playing it at this tournament each year. Check out Naka’s games below.