Prospect v. Palatine (3): Guarding f7

What is the most vulnerable square at the start of the game? Here's a hint:

If you guessed the square occupied by the f-pawn, you were absolutely right. f2 and f7 are the squares upon which the earliest checkmates happen because they are only guarded by the kings. Protecting and exploiting these squares should be part of any opening strategy.

Palatine suffered on 6th Board and 8th Board due to the weakness of f7. Palatine's Steve Skara played the Two Knights Defense against Parth Patel on 6th and failed to properly counter 4.Ng5. Parth's inaccuracies allowed Steve to survive the opening, but his king was stuck in the middle. This proved to be his downfall. On the bottom board, Palatine's Jeff Leach left f7 completely unguarded when he castled queenside and overlooked Max Zwolenik's attack on the square. As sometimes happens in chess, a single oversight led to the complete unraveling of a position.

Prospect v. Palatine (2): Tough Decisions

The hardest decisions in chess often involve deciding what to do with an advantage once it is achieved. The path to victory frequently requires a player to convert an advantage in initiative or space advantage into a advantage in material or a middlegame advantage into an endgame advantage. Timing these conversions is often critical, but complicated by the fact that the advantage a player presently enjoys is always easier to appreciate than the one he hopes to enjoy.

The most interesting game of the match was Kevin Kostka's loss on 3rd Board against Palatine's K.C. Stenerson. K.C. neutralized Kevin's King's Gambit whereupon Kevin sacrificed a piece in an effort to salvage some initiative. In his eagerness to simplify the position, K.C. let Kevin obtain two powerful pawns deep in Black territory, but Kevin was unable to find the right point to convert that advantage into a strong ending.

On 2nd Board Palatine's Kyle Shymanik obtained a space advantage and superior piece activity against Andrew Berowski, but gave them up to quickly leading to a drawn ending. On 4th Board, Palatine's Ian Salyers obtained a space advantage and an extra pawn, but failed to take the measures necessary to neutralize Tejas Shah's counterplay and wound up overlooking a mate threat.

Endgame Rule Number One--STRAIGHT BACK DRAWS

Here is the first thing every player should learn about endgames: straight back draws. Consider the following position:

With White to move, he draws if he drops his king straight back to e1 but loses if he drops the king back to f1 or d1. After either 1.Ke1 Kd3 2. Kd1 e2+ 3.Ke1 and 1. Kd1 Kd3 2. Ke1 e2, the following position is reached:

So why does it matter whether White drops straight back or not? BECAUSE IT DETERMINES WHOSE MOVE IT IS IN THE POSITION! If White dropped straight back, it is Black's move and he must abandon his pawn or play 3...Ke3, which is STALEMATE. If White dropped back at an angle than it is his move and he must play 3.Kf2 to which Black responds 3...Kd2 with 4...e1=Q coming next move.


While it is only that last drop back that determines whether White draws or not, I recommend that all the drop backs are handled that way. Consider the following position:

It does not matter whether White plays 1.Kd3, 1.Ke3, or 1.Kf3. It only matters that he plays Ke1 at the appointed time. However, I always feel much better when I see one of my players move 1.Ke3 because it gives me confidence that he understands STRAIGHT BACK DRAWS.

Their is an entire body of endgame theory regarding the principle of "opposition" which applies to most endings where only kings and pawns are left and the player who understands it will be able to figure out this position at the board. However, even if a player does not remember the opposition or is too low on time to figure it out, STRAIGHT BACK DRAWS will enable him to save the half point. It will also tell him whether he want to trade off rooks in a position where he has a rook and king against his opponent's pawn, rook and king.

So remember, STRAIGHT BACK DRAWS or "SBD," which I am confident can be turned into a scatological mnemonic device by any high school age male.

Prospect v. Palatine (1): Prospect Wins!

However hopeless the situation appears to be there yet always exists the possibility of putting up a stubborn resistance. And it is the player’s task to find these opportunities and make the best of them. When the player with the upper hand is continually confronted by new problems, when, at every moment, one renders the win as difficult as possible, then it is likely that his powers will eventually weaken and he may make some mistake. Paul Keres


Prospect scored its first win ever over Palatine by a score of 52.5-14.5. While it is true that Palatine was playing without a couple of strong players, Prospect played well to pull off the upset. Palatine players had strong positions on each of the top four boards, but stubborn play by all the Prospect players yielded two wins and a draw.

The win was anchored by 1st Board Peter Dimopoulos who won on time against Palatine's Syed Hassan. Peter grabbed a big advantage in space in the opening, but took a little too long to get his attack rolling which allowed Syed to generate dangerous counterplay. The ending looked bad for Peter with rook, bishop and four pawns against Syed's rook, bishop and six pawns. However, Peter still had the space advantage which he nursed carefully to keep Syed's rook and bishop passive. Syed used all his time trying to find a way to untangle his position.

Prospect v. Barrington (3): Opening Moves I Hate

Two of Prospect's three victories came from the Zwolenik brothers, Mike on 5th Board against Zach Youman and Max on 8th Board against Cory Hunter. Both Zwoleniks have demonstrated potential on some occassions and sloppiness on others, but they both came up with some accurate moves in complex positions to win their games.

While I hate to pour salt in a player's wounds after a loss, I love to jump on a player's mistakes after he wins, and each of the Zwoleniks played an opening move that made me cringe. In Max's case it was putting a bishop in front of an unmoved central pawn with 4.Qd3 .

There are several reasons I hate this move: (1) blocking the d-pawn immobilizes it and stops it from exerting control of the center or performing any other useful function; (2) blocking the d-pawn makes it harder to develop the other bishop; and (3) the bishop is wasted because it is performing the function of a pawn. Not surprisingly, you will rarely see a bishop developed this way in games between strong players.

In Mike's case, the hated move was placing the queen in front of an undeveloped bishop with 5...Qe7.

The reason I hate this move is that it delays the development of the bishop and delays castling. It rarely yields benefits commensurate with the loss of development, however, there are in fact a few opening in which you will see this move played at the top level. Most of them involve situations where the opponent suffers a loss of development because he is forced to play the same move to deal with threats on the e-file. One such case occurs in the Petrov defense after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 2.Nxe5 Nxe4?! 3.Qe2. Black is now forced to play 3...Qe7 because he will lose his queen after 3...Nf6?? 4.Nd6+.

Prospect v. Barrington (2): The Anti-Sicilians

The most popular opening at the grandmaster level is the the Sicilan Defense. After 1.e4 c5, the most dynamic lines are known generally as the Open Sicilian when White plays 2.Nf3 d6 (or 2...e6 or 2..Nc6) 3.d4 cxd4, 4.Nxd4.


The Open Sicilian includes many well-known variations such as the Najdorf, the Dragon, the Classical, the Schevenginen, the Taimanov, the Paulsen, the Sveshnikov and the Kalishnakov. Chess books are filled with exciting games played in the Sicilian and many are tempted to try it out.


One big problem with playing the Sicilian Defense is that your opponent may know nothing about opening theory and he may not realize how exciting the Open Sicilian is, or he may know and decide that he is not in the mood for that kind of excitement. He may play one of many variations that are known collectively as Anti-Sicilians, including the Grand Prix Attack, the c3 Sicilian, Closed Sicilian, the Alapin, the Wing Gambit, the Morra Gambit, the Moscow, the Rossolimo. He may even play a perfectly logical move like 3.Bc4 that has no name at all. Whichever one of these White plays, it assures that Black will not get to play that exciting opening that he studied.

When I returned to competitive chess in 1996 after a twenty year hiatus since high school, I decided to play the Sicilian Defense. I started out with the Najdorf but soon switched to the Dragon. I had good results in these lines but I found that most of my opponents avoided them The most common Anti-Sicilians I encountered were the Closed Sicilian and the c3 Sicilian, although I did poorly against all the Grand Prix Attack as well, so poorly that I began to experiment with other defenses to 1.e4. Finally I figured out how to play against them and now I am actually happy to face an Anti-Sicilian. When I see one, I am pretty sure that my opponent is not going to surprise me with some devastating innovation from the latest super-GM event.

While the Anti-Sicilians are not considered the most testing lines, they cannot be taken lightly. Black can find himself in trouble if he simply follows his usual scheme of development without considering the strengths and weaknesses of White's approach. For example, when fianchettoing the bishop against several Anti-Sicilians, the Black knight is better placed on e7 rather than f6. Here is a position from the Closed Sicilian that is reached by 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.g3 g6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.d3 e6 6.f4 Nge7 7.Nf3 0-0 8.Be3 d6.

Since White played d3 rather than d4, the e4 pawn is secure and White can thumb his nose at a knight on f6. However, on e7 the Black knight is ready to go to c6 after ...Nd4 and it also serves to deter White from playing f5. The same formation for Black is also seen against the Grand Prix Attack.

This position is reached by 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Bc4 e6 6.0-0 Nge7 7.d3 0-0. From both of the positions above Black can consider expanding on the queenside with ...a6 and ...b5 or challenging the center with ...d5.

The Importance of Exchanges

Against Barrington, Tejas Shah struggled to find counterplay on 4th Board against the closed game Luc Norman played against the Sicilian. However, the game was decided by two exchanges made by Tejas that allowed Luc to bring pieces to dominating positions. Too often, young players exchange pieces automatically. However, a capture can do great harm when the recapturing piece is much stronger than the original piece that occupied the square.

Prospect v. Barrington (1)

Prospect fell short in its bid to be the only team to beat Barrington for three years running. The Zwolenik brothers, Mike and Max, played their best chess of the year to beat Zach Youman and Cory Hunter on 5th Board and 8th Board and Andrew Berowski continued his hex on Kevin Karande on 2nd Board this time. Unfortunately, those were all the points Prospect could muster. Peter Dimopoulos put up a good fight against 1957 rated Zach Kasiurak on 1st but could not pull off the upset while Kevin Kostka could not quite make his exchange sacrifice pay off on 3rd Board against David Lilien. On 4th Board, Norman Luc kept Tejas Shah on the defensive most of the game. Parth Patel's game on 6th Board could have gone either way before Grant Wagner prevailed in the ending. On 7th Board, Dhruvin Talati obtained a decent postion against Zach Bakal but dropped a knight in a miscalculation.

Rumor has it that Barrington used this blog to scout Prospect, which pleases me no end, particularly since the Prospect players came out of the openings fine.

Prospect v. Schaumburg (3): Too Many Pawn Moves

Pawn moves in the opening can be quite useful. They provide space for the pieces to develop and they help control the center. But excessive pawn moves create weaknesses and allow an opponent to get a lead in development. Three of Schaumburg's losses can be traced to excessive pawn moves. On 4th Board, five out of Brandon Hunt's first seven moves against Mike Zwolenik were pawn moves. On 7th Board, Ryan Wehmeier used six of his first eight moves for pawns against Mike's brother Max, and on 8th Board, Ryan Koutnik made six straight pawn moves to open the game against Mike Busby. The results were lags in development and vulnerable kings.

On 2nd Board, Schaumburg's Alexander Savoy got his pieces into the action, but his single minded attack on Andrew Berowski's king was parried by accurate defense and White ran out of ammo. On 3rd Board, Schaumburg's Ben Wu developed his pieces reasonably but overlooked a double attack on move 13 that cost him a knight after which Tejas Shah maintained control.

The most interesting game of the match was played on 1st Board between Peter Dimopoulos and Schaumburg's Craig McIlvain. Craig played the opening somewhat timidly and wound up down a pawn with an exposed king, but Peter could not find a way to open the lines he needed to open to bring his rooks to bear. Craig in turn missed the chance to exploit the open lines available to his rooks and a rook and pawn ending was reached that probably should have been drawn. However, Craig allowed Peter to trade rooks to reach a winning king and pawn ending but Peter was too eager to advance his pawn and Craig managed Schaumburg's sole win in the match.

Prospect v. Schaumburg (2): Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

If you've never missed a flight, you're spending too much time in airports. Economist Stephen Landsburg.

If you never get in time trouble, you're making your moves too fast. Chess Expert Vince Hart.


The nicest thing about working chess problems in a book is that little phrase "White to play and win." The reader knows there is a good move there if he spends the time to look for it. In a real game, no one tells the player when he should move quickly and when he should invest some time in looking for a move that can change the course of the game. He has to figure that out for yourself.

A complicating factor in deciding how much time to allocate to a particular move is the fact that the player never knows how many moves the game is going to last. In the MSL, the player usually has sixty minutes to make all his moves, but I have seen move lengths ranging from eight moves to eighty-five moves over the last few years at Prospect. The player who spends three minutes per move is going to run out of time if the game lasts longer than twenty.

This complicating factor is somewhat offset by the fact that the last ten to fifteen to twenty moves of a very long game often consist of a player with an overwhelming material advantage picking off his opponent's remaining pawns, queening his own pawn, and tracking down the opponent's king to deliver checkmate. A great deal of time need not be budgeted for these moves as they can be played fairly quickly, often within the five second delay.

I would say that forty moves is probably a good first guess for the length of the game. That allows for 1.5 minutes per move. If a player finds that he has made twenty moves in the first ten minutes, then he knows he should start taking more time. If he finds that he has played only fifteen moves in a half an hour, he might consider picking up his pace, however even this is subject to the position on the board. In a complicated position where the right move might decide the game, it may be worth risking a time shortage later.

There will of course be times when a player invests all his time in the hopes of reaching a decisive position only to find himself continuing to face a complicated position with inadequate time to think. If it happens all the time, the player needs to start playing faster. However, occasionally facing time pressure is much better than consistently finishing a game with forty-five minutes left on the clock.

So when is a player warranted in spending a little more time looking for a decisive move? As usual, I steal my material from National Master Dan Heisman. In an article titled The Seeds of Tactical Destruction he lists the types of things that give rise to tactical possibilities.

• Loose (unguarded) pieces - "Loose Pieces Drop Off" = LPDO
• Pieces that can easily be attacked by enemy pieces of less value
• One or more pieces than can be attacked via a "discovered
  attack"
• Weak back rank
• Pieces on the same diagonal that may vulnerable to a bishop skewer or pin,
• Pieces along the same rank or file that may be vulnerable to a rook pin or skewer
  diagonal
• Pieces that may be vulnerable to Knight forks
• Inadequately guarded pieces
• Overworked pieces that are guarding more than one piece or square (which, if removed, will make another piece loose or inadequately guarded)
• A big lead in development
• Pawns nearing promotion
• King uncastled or lacking pawn protection (especially with Queens on the
  Board)
• Open lines for Rooks, Queens, and Bishops towards opponent’s King
  Pieces with little mobility that might be trapped if attacked
• A large domination of one side's forces in one area of the board

These are the kinds of things that players should be looking for all the time. When they appear on the board, it is worth spending some extra time to see if they can be exploited.

The Chronos chess clock has a feature that will record the time that each player spends on each move so that it can be reviewed after the game. For the Schaumburg match, I had Dhruvin Talati use the clock for his game on 6th Board against Schaumburg's Chuck Novak. Dhruvin frequently demonstrates nice tactical vision, but he often finishes his game with more than forty minutes left on his clock (which is actually an improvement over last year when he would finish with fifty minutes left on his clock). As a result, he commits some painful blunders.

Against Schaumburg, Dhruvin got a big lead in development when his opponent failed to get all his pieces into the action, but Dhuvin did not take the time to find a way to exploit the advantage. He eventually found some Knight forks to gain a substantial material advantage but then proceeded to give much of it back on two consectutive moves on which he spent three and twenty-one seconds. Luckily, he retained enough of an advantage that he was able to win the game.

Prospect v. Schaumburg (1): Opening Principles

On November 1, Prospect beat Schaumburg by a score of 56-12. If the match had been decided purely on the number of tactical blunders made by each side, the score would have been much closer. The main reason for the lopsided score was that the Schaumburg players neglected the three basic goals of the opening: (1) Development, (2) Control of the center. and (3) King safety. It is very difficult to put up a good fight if you don't play the opening with these concepts in mind. As always, I highly recommend the article Opening Principles by National Master Dan Heisman.

Development is job one. More pieces in action means more possibilities to attack your opponent. More pieces in action means more pieces your opponent must keep track of meaning more possibilities that he will overlook what one of them is up to. More pieces in action means more possibilities of responding when your opponent does something unexpected. More pieces in action means more possibilities that you can defend something that needs to be defended. More pieces in action means more possibilities that you can create such strong threats of your own that you can ignore the unexpected thing your opponent did.

An exellent rule for less experienced players to follow: Move every piece once before you move any piece twice unless there is a good reason to do so. In the context of development, piece means knight, bishop, rook or queen, not pawn. Good reason usually means that you can win material by moving a piece twice or you can avoid losing material by doing so.

The second purpose of the opening is to control the center. Take a look at this diagram of the Battle of Gettysburg.

The Union Army under General George Meade controlled the center of the battlefield and was able to shift forces quickly from one point to another as the battle dictated. The Confederate Army under General Robert E. Lee had a very difficult time coordinating its attacks. The same thing happens in chess. The player who controls the center of the board finds it much easier to redeploy his forces and concentrate them where they will do the most good.

For beginning players, the most natural way to to obtain central control is to occupy it with pawns. There are some opening setups in which the center is controlled with pieces alone, but they tend to require more advanced knowledge. There are also openings in which one side cedes control of the center in the hopes that his opponent's position will become over extended and weak. These openings are even trickier and probably should not be attempted until a player is comfortable with the simpler methods.

The third goal of the opening is finding a safe spot for the the king. This usually means castling on a side of the board where the king will have good pawn cover. The great thing about castling is that it often meets the first two goals as well because it develops the rook to a square where it can support and control the center.

On 5th Board, Schaumburg's Michael Simboli neglected opening development in favor of queenside pawn expansion and left his king in the center. Although Prospect's Parth Patel did not counter as sharply as he might have, Michael found it difficult to defend his advanced pawns. When Michael continued to operate on the queenside, Parth took advantage of the White king's vulnerability to put the game away.

Prospect v. Buffalo Grove (4): Loose Pieces Drop Off

English Grandmaster John Nunn frequently writes about a princple that he refers to as LPDO which stands for "loose pieces drop off." The idea is that even among strong players, all the opening theory and middle game strategy often comes to nought as the game is decided when an undefended piece falls victim to a tactic. If players learn early on to be circumspect about leaving loose pieces on the board, they would find their results improving more rapidly.

Prospect's 1st Board Peter Dimopolous and 3rd Board Tejas Shah both played the Queen's Gambit as white and Buffalo Grove's Yuriy Nartov and Nedium Bajramovic both accepted. Peter and Tejas both wound up with a loose bishop on c4 which came under attack from a knight on e5. It is there that the similarity ends. Peter responded to the attack by moving his bishop to safety while Tejas opted for a tactical response that involved planting a loose bishop on f4. Can you guess who won their game and who lost their game?

Prospect v. Buffalo Grove (3): An Interesting Endgame

I think the most impressive game of the match was played by Buffalo Grove's freshman Andrey Puzanov on 5th Board against Prospect's Mike Zwolenik. After a fairly uneventful opening and middle game, the players reached a double rook ending where Andrey was up a pawn. Rook endings have a tendency to be drawish in part because rooks are wonderful attackers but somewhat clumsy defenders. Moreover they don't seem nearly as adept as knights, bishops and queens at simultaneously attacking and defending. They often are forced to choose one or the other. What frequently happens is one player starts attacking his opponent's pawns while leaving his own pawns undefended. The result is both players left with nothing but a king and a rook.

Andrey did a terrific job of maneuvering his rooks patiently while waiting for the right moment to attack. Mike defended well, but a subtle mistake gave Andrey the opportunity to go on the attack at a point when Mike was not quite ready to do so thereby allowing Andrey to briefly go ahead by two paws. While Andrey could not maintain the second pawn, Mike was forced to allow the exchange of rooks. In the resulting king and pawn ending, Andrey played very precisely to win the full point.

Prospect v. Buffalo Grove (2): Winning a Won Game

Sometimes when your opponent makes a mistake that allows you to gain a material advantage, his position falls apart completely and the game is easily won. On other occasions, you may need to use a couple of moves to pick up the material while your opponent winds up with some compensation for the deficit in terms of space or development. On such occasions, it is vitally important to recognize the weakness you have incurred. You must work to consolidate your advantage rather than expecting the position to win itself.

On 2nd Board, Prospect's Andrew Berowski was confronted with the offbeat Polish Opening from George Karavaev. Andrew kept his wits about him and reacted reasonably and spotted the opportunity to win some material with a knight foray. However, Andrew did not take into account the weaknesses that had been created in his own position and unexpectedly found his opponent's pieces occupying the kind of painful positions in his rearward areas that usually require the attention of a medical specialist.

On 6th Board, Prospect's Parth Patel got the opportunity to play the legendary Fried Liver Attack (which is discussed more thoroughly in Patel v. Barjamovic) against Max Gorbunov. Max found himself down two pawns and deprived of the right to castle at an early stage of the game. However, Parth did not realize how badly he had neglected his development in order to accrue these advantages. By virtue of careful defense, Max neutralized Parth's advantages and gained the upper hand. However, an unfortunate blunder late in the game gave the point to Parth.

Prospect v. Buffalo Grove (1): How to Offer a Draw

On October 18, Buffalo Grove beat Prospect 43-25 in a match that featured several well fought games. As I am not going away this weekend and Prospect has a bye next week due to Wheeling's inability to field a team in the MSL this year, I am looking forward to going over the games a bit more thoroughly than I have been able to do for the earlier matches. However, a couple of questions about the rules arose during the match (without fisticuffs thankfully) that players need to be familiar with.

THE PROPER WAY TO OFFER A DRAW

If you want to know whether your opponent would be happy to split the point, the proper way to do so is to make your move on the board, say "I offer a draw," and then proceed to press the clock. A draw offer made prior to making your move is considered illegal and a draw offer made while your opponent's clock is running is considered illegal. The penalty for a illegal draw offer is two minutes added to your opponent's time. Your opponent may decline your draw offer either by saying so or by making a move on the board. Draw offers may not be withdrawn prior to being accepted or declined.


It is important to note that AN ILLEGAL DRAW OFFER CAN STILL BE ACCEPTED! Moreover, if your opponent offers you a draw while it is his move, you can ask him to make his move on the board before you decide whether to accept. You are free to wait to see whether he comes up with a good move or a blunder before accepting or declining. He cannot withdraw his offer before you decide.

THE PROPER WAY TO CLAIM A DRAW BY THREEFOLD REPETITION

Either player may claim a draw if the same position appears on the board three times with the same player to move, but the procedure is different depending on whether it is the claimant's move that causes the repetition or his opponent's although he must have a complete scoresheet to prove the claim in either case. If your opponent makes a move that causes the repetition, you stop the clock and claim a draw. If your opponent does not acknowledge the claim, call a steward who will verify the claim from the sheet. If it your move that will produce the repetition, DO NOT MAKE THE MOVE ON THE BOARD. Write the move on the scoresheet, stop the clocks and claim the draw. After the move is made on the board, the moving party can no longer claim the draw.

The situation arose on 7th Board where Prospect's Dhruvin Talati initially outplayed Buffalo Grove's Ryan McGogagle to gain an advantage of two pieces. Dhruvin then reverted to his habit of playing much too quickly and proceeded to give back the pieces on two consecutive moves. The game reached a rook and pawn ending in which Ryan held the advantage. However, perhaps as a result of his earlier difficulties, he offered Dhruvin a draw which was declined. At one point, Ryan delivered some sixteen checks in a row during which the same position was repeated many times. However, while Ryan offered a draw, he never claimed a draw. Eventually, Ryan simplified to a king and pawn ending in which he was still winning, but apparently having determined that a draw was the best he could hope for, he played too defensively and allowed Dhruvin to turn the tables.

IS IT LEGAL TO TELL YOUR OPPONENT TO START HIS CLOCK?

Chatting after the match, Mr. Barrett correctly pointed out that it is illegal for anyone to tell a player to press his clock. Thus, the Buffalo Grove player who courteously pointed out that his opponent had forgotten to push his clock was actually violating the rules and could have incurred a penalty. When we checked the rules, however, we discovered that the player who has been told to press his clock is also subject to a penalty so the Buffalo Grove player did not stand to lose anything by being polite.

While there is very little difference between how the game of chess is played under IHSA and USCF rules, I have noticed that the IHSA tends to provide a specific penalty for many infractions (e.g., inproperly offering a draw) where the USCF leaves the question of a penalty of to the discretion of the tournament director. At first, this struck me as nitpicky, but I think there is some logic to it. At a USCF tournament, the penalty decision is vested in a director who is likely an experienced tournament player himself and who has no vested interest in the outcome of the game. On the other hand, at an IHSA match, the decision may well be vested in a faculty sponsor for one of the teams who may have little no playing experience. By spelling out the penalties explicit, the IHSA reduces the opportunities for second guessing.

Prospect v. Conant (3): Evaluation

In an earlier post, I speculated that Conant's 1st Board, David Lasocki may have felt overly confident after Peter Dimopoulos gave up a bishop for two pawns. I suspect that I may have been projecting my own feelings onto David because my initial impression was that Peter was in some trouble. In a comment to that post, David informed me that, in fact, he was quite unhappy with his position. It turns out that he appreciated the position better than I did.


It is important to remember that the player at the board usually knows more about the position than the casual observer even when the casual observer has a higher rating. This does not mean that the observer might not see some points that the player overlooks. Sometimes these are simple tactics because that is the first thing the casual observer looks for while the player often gets so engrossed in thinking several moves ahead that he may forget to look at one move possibilities. Nevertheless, the player is the one putting the most effort into the position and he should never blindly accept anyone else's opinion.


David suggests "that a good lesson would be how to accurately assess a position as losing and winning." I absolutely agree. I am just not sure I am qualified to teach one. In fact the more I have looked at his game on 1st Board against Peter Dimopoulos, the more complicated it looks to me. My current thinking (which is subject to revision), is that the momemtum shifted both earlier than I thought when I first reviewed the game and earlier than I thought while watching.


This is the position after Black's 29...Ke6.


Black played the very natural looking 30.c4, which I now think may be the losing move. The problem is that it immobilizes White's queenside pawns and leaves him unable to create a passed pawn. It also leaves an entry point for the Black king to penetrate. On the other hand, after 30.Nf4+Ke5 31.Kg2 Bxg3 32.fxg3, things look much different.

One of many possible continuations might be 32...g5 33.Nh5 f4 34.gxf4+ gxf4 35.a5 a6.

Now, if the Black king goes to f5, White has the threat of b4-b5 creating a passed a-pawn. On the other hand, if Black plays ...e3 or ...f3, White blockades the pawns with Kf3 or Ke3 when Black has too many weak pawns to protect.

I fear this was a position for which no general rules of evaluation exist. Unless you have analyzed something like it before, it may be impossible to know where to start when encountering it for the first time over the board. Still, I guess that is what makes the game of chess so fascinating.

Prospect v. Conant (2): Development

The three major goals of the opening are:

(1) Activating your forces, i.e., development;

(2) Controling the center;

(3) Getting the king to safety, usually by castling quickly.

For more information, see Opening Principles by NM Dan Heisman. The difference in the Prospect-Conant match was primarily the failure of Conant's lower boards to get their pieces activated. In effect, they were fighting with one hand tight behind their back.

For the lower boards, the best way to think about development may be this: The more pieces you have out, the more likely it is that your opponent will overlook one of the threats they pose. On 5th Board, Conant's Chris Ford got in trouble when he sent his knight out without any support allowing Prospect's Mike Zwolenik to concentrate his forces to trap it. On 6th Board, Prospect's Parth Patel used his knights and queen to create multiple threats that overwhelmed Conant's Sai Vagvala. On 7th Board , Dhruvin Tarlati distracted Eric Poczatek with an advanced knight while his bishop and queen combined for the knockout blow. On 8th Board, Conant's Conant's Vlad Petrovic, tried to overwhelm his opponent with his queen alone while Prospect's Mike Busby developed all his forces to take control of the game.

Prospect v. Conant (1): Teachable Moments

Prospect beat Conant today by a score of 47-21. The teams played evenly on the top four boards with Prospect taking 1st and 4th and Conant taking 2nd and 3rd. However, Prospect swept 5th-8th boards for a comfortable win in the match. The top four boards were all close games in which the winners had to work hard to bring home the full point. Two of the wins could easily have been losses and the other two could easily have been draws.

From a coaching standpoint, there were lots of teachable moments:

(1) Don't underestimate your opponent's counterplay just because he dropped a piece. On 1st Board and 2nd Board, the Conant players were each up a piece against the Prospect players. in both cases, however, the Conant players had to weaken their positions in order to gain the material advantage. On 1st Board, Peter Dimopoulos was able to exploit the weaknesses in John Lasocki's position to win the game and Andrew Berowski had very good drawing chances against Greg Ruffing. On both boards, it seemed that the Conant players underestimated the weaknesses they had incurred.

(2) Don't let your opponent's time trouble change the way you play your game. On 2nd Board and 4th Board, the Conant players were in time trouble. Prospect's Kevin Kostka made the mistake of playing quickly in the hopes that John Calash would run out of time, but with less than ten seconds on his clock, John did a terrific job of creating problems for Kevin although Kevin held on to win. On 2nd Board, Conant's Greg Ruffing turned over scorekeeping duties to a teammate when his clock went below five minutes and Andrew Berowski did so as well even though he still had twenty minutes. It is just speculation, but I cannot help but wonder whether Andrew might have seen the threat that cost him the game if he had been forced to take an extra moment thinking about his opponent's move while writing it down.

(3) In an ending where both sides have bishops and pawns and the bishops travel on the same color squares, the pawns belong on the squares of the opposite colors. Conant's Joseph Man played such an ending very nicely against Tejas Shah to bring home the full point on 3rd Board.

(4) No matter how much you like to play the Sicilian Dragon, there are times when you are better off playing ...e6 and ...Be7 rather than ...g6 and ...Bg7. Both Tejas and Peter created problems for themselves by sticking to their favorite development scheme when it really wasn't warranted.

Prospect v. Elk Grove (2): Hope Chess vs. Real Chess

According to NM Dan Heisman, "hope chess" is being played when a player makes a move without trying to anticipate his opponent's best response, i.e., the player simply hopes that he will be able to find a way to deal with it when it appears on the board. "Real chess" is being played when the player considers all the possible responses to his move before making it and only makes a move if he is satisfied that he can deal with his opponent's best response.


Coaching high school students, I see lots of hope chess being played. Sometimes it is inexperienced players who have a hard time anticipating the possible responses to their moves. Just as often, however, it is practiced by players who have decent tactical vision and could probably figure how their opponent might respond if they took the time to do so. Stopping their opponent's plans just doesn't seem to provide them as much pleasure as pursuing their own.

I firmly believe that all chess is good chess and that players should play the game in the way that brings them pleasure. As for me, I don't enjoy being surprised by my opponent's moves (although it happens regularly). I really enjoy games in which I manage to anticipate thwart my opponent's plans so well that he is not quite sure why he lost afterwards. I think that players of hope chess might find they enjoy real chess if they tried it.


Prospect's Peter Dimoupolous has never lacked attacking instincts, but he has developed the ability to anticipate and thwart his opponent's plans as well. On 1st Board against Elk Grove, he took advantage of Nick Estrada's passive opening to take solid control of the game without allowing his opponent any real counterplay. On 2nd Board, Tejas Shah played real chess to recover from a passive opening but then let Calvin Cheng off with a draw when he played hope chess in the ending. On 3rd Board, Mike Zwolenik played too optimisticly against Elk Grove's Javier Morales.

Never Pay Attention to Your Opponent's Rating! Never!

It looks like my streak of gaining rating points for nine tournaments in a row may have ended this weekend in Madison. Just like last February, I won my first three games before losing to Master Alexander Betanelli in the last round. Unlike February's event, my opponent's ratings were a bit lower slower and my rating was a bit higher so the same score will probably knock me down a couple points rather than bumping me up a couple.


In the third round I played the black pieces against a young man named Xiaoming Wang who sported a rating of 1464, which for all I know could have been 400 points under his current strength. He played one of the sharpest lines against my Sicilian Najdorf, 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5. This used to be the mainline in Bobby Fischer's day and it can lead to some extremely sharp positions with White castling queenside and pawn storming Black on the kingside.

I thought I might be about to get my comeuppance for not having done any studying since the since the Chicago Open. One of the risks of playing the Sicilian is that I occasionally get blown off the board with the latest theoretical innovation from some GM tournament. Still, I figured it would be a fun game.

The game did not turn out like I expected. My opponent ended up playing rather passively. He held off castling until he saw where I put my king and then he put his on the same side. The position was very tight for twenty-six moves when he created a weakness that let me penetrate with my rook. Up until that point, I had nothing. After the game, he told me that he had recently studied the opening, but he did not want to play it the way he studied it because my rating was so high.

Since he was a nice young man, I did not want to tell him he was a fool to him to be intimidated by my rating, but he was. The truth is that I am thrilled when my opponents avoid opening theory because I am too lazy to keep up on it myself. I accept that the price of my laziness is going to be getting crushed occassionally by some kid who is booked up on his openings. Luckily, the last few who have done so have had high enough ratings that it has not hurt mine much, but there is no reason this lad could not have clipped me for twenty points.

I haven't been an expert very long, but it seems like more of my opponents cite my rating as a factor in their decisions than they did when my rating was under 2000. They are very silly. As an acquaintance of mine whose rating peaked at 1973 once said "Expert, Schmexpert!"

Prospect v. Elk Grove: Prospect Gets Served!!

(Since I am playing in Madison this weekend, I won't be able to review all the games until next week, but I wanted to report the results of the match.)

In the last few years, I have seen the Prospect players make some really bad moves. Nevertheless, I like to remind myself that they really are not any worse than some of the moves I have made in my own games; they are just more frequent. Against Elk Grove, though, our 2nd Board came up with one that was particularly impressive. After misplaying the opening against Elk Grove's Calvin Cheng, Tejas Shah did a good job of defending an unpleasant position and eventually found a couple of nice tactics to turn the game around. However, he played the ending nonchalantly and eventually found a blunder that turned his easy win into a draw and a drawn match into a loss.

Prospect lost to Elk Grove by a score of 39.5-28.5, giving Elk Grove its best record in four years. Because Elk Grove has been a weak team historically, Prospect's faculty coach Don Barrett decided that this would be a good match to give some of the reserves a chance to play. However, given that Elk Grove had defeated Rolling Meadows soundly in its first match of the season, substituting in four new boards might have been overly optimistic. While the subs triumphed on 7th and 8th Boards, Elk Grove punished Prospect on 3rd through 6th. Still, if Prospect could have gotten a full point on 2nd Board, the match would have been drawn.

A few years back, IM Larry D. Evans wrote an article in Chess Life arguing somewhat facetiously that checks are bad moves. This is plainly an exaggeration since checkmate wins the game. Nevertheless, it is often true that the best way to get to checkmate is by confining the opponent's king rather than by attacking it. I have seen countless games in which players aimlessly chase their opponent's king around the board with checks rather than driving it to the side of the board by cutting off its escape routes. A big part of chess progress is learning to think in terms of denying your opponent the squares he wishes to occupy.

In Tejas game, there were several points in which he could have made his life much easier by taking away squares from his opponent's king. The first point came in the following position.

With 42...Kb3, Black could block out the White king and march his pawn down to a1 without annoyance. However, after 42...a4 43.Kb4 Bc2 44.Kc3, Black still has to figure out how to get out of his own way.

It took Black five extra moves to get his queen. In another five moves, he had another chance to restrict the White king.

The only chance White has to create any problems is by getting his king into the corner among Black's pawns. 53...Qg7+ would have driven the White towards the Black king where it can cooperate with the queen to deliver checkmate. Black played 53...Qe3+ 54.Kf7 Qe6+ 55.Kg7, when he still had to worry about possible stalemates.

Two moves later, Black had the White king where he wanted him.

However, rather than confining the White king and delivering checkmate with 57...Qh7 58.Ke8 Be6 59.Kf8 Qf7#, Black let the White king off the side of the board with 57...Bd7 and was no closer to ending the game after 58.Ke7 Qe6+ 59.Kf8.


I will spare the reader the final blunder that let White off with a draw until I post all the games next week. Moreover, I would caution future opponents not to take Tejas lightly based on his missteps here. He has always learned from his mistakes in the past and I am confident that he will do so again.

Prospect v. Fremd: The Season Begins

On September 28, Prospect opened its season against 2007 MSL Conference Tournament Champion Fremd. Fremd graduated seven of the players it took to the state tournament last year while Prospect returned seven players so Prospect's 6-2 victory was not unsurprising. Nevertheless, few of the victories came easily and I will need to keep the aspirin (or bourbon) handy. My comments on the games can be viewed by clicking on the links.

On 1st Board, Andrew Berowski played the Black side of the Slav passively and wound up with a cramped position. However, Adam Cheng was unable to find a way to capitalize on his space advantage and Andrew handled the ending very well thereby gaining revenge for a loss to Adam at last year's MSL Tournament. On 2nd Board, Fremd's Sarah Harasimowicz wound up with the passive position after playing a line that National Master Dan Heisman describes as one of The Most Common Opening Inaccuracies. Prospect's Peter Dimopoulos was able to capitalize based in part on his experience playing the same line against Andrew in practice.

On 3rd Board, Fremd's Rohika Wagner played a closed system against Tejas Shah's Sicilian and seemed to lull him to sleep with all the pieces still on the board after an hour and twenty minutes and sixteen moves. After another seven moves, Tejas was mated. On 4th Board, Mike Zwolenik beat Fremd's Mihir Awati.

On 5th Board, Kevin Kostka played the King's Gambit against Fremd's Meyo Ramu. Kevin's aggression was rewarded when Meyo went wrong in a position where both player's king's were under pressure. On 6th Board, Parth Patel got away with a reckless attack when Fremd's Greg Bryant's failed to make use of a file that Parth obligingly opened against his own king.

On 7th Board, Dhruvin Talati spotted several nice tactics to beat Fremd's James Cheng. Drhuvin played at a slightly less frantic pace than last year but still managed to complete fifty moves in fifteen minutes. On 8th Board Maksimillion Zwolenik's first time jitters were exploited by Fremd's Chir Norys. Unfortunately, I could not follow the game score well enough to make any comments.

Misc

Bloglink.

Summer Chess: Library Simul

On Tuesday, July 24, the Mount Prospect Public Library sponsored a simultaneous exhibition by area chess teacher Ilya Korzhenevich. According to his bio, Ilya is a Russian Candidate Master which means that he achieved a rating of 2200 in Russia. While this is certainly an impressive feat, his USCF record does not reflect any serious games in the last five years. The only rated chess he has played is seven games of quick chess, one of which was a win over me at the Renaissance Knights Chess Club in 2005.

Given his inactivity, I did not figure that playing against him in a simul would be all that interesting, but I went over to the library anyway figuring it might provide a recruiting opportunity for the Prospect chess team. Of course, once I got there I could not resist sitting down at an open board and playing.

Unfortunately, there did not seem to be any promising youngsters there. One of the high school players got mated in four moves after 1.e4 f6? 2.d4 h6?? 3.Qh5+ g6 4.Qxg6#.

My game was not all that exciting. Ilya allowed a standard tactic in the Sicilian Najdorf which led to an ending where I had a knight and rook against his bishop and rook. While theory states that the bishop is generally superior to the knight in such endings, practice is another matter altogether. Knights require more careful attention then my opponent was able to give while playing twenty games.

Ilya grabbed the pawn with 25.Bxa6?, figuring that he could retreat the bishop to f8 to block the back rank mate. However, he resigned after 25...Nc5! After 26.Ra7 Nxa6, White cannot recapture without allowing mate. He was quite gracious about the loss and he went on to win the rest of his games.

Although I did not encounter any prospects for Prospect, the local cable access station was covering the event and I had the opportunity to babble incoherently in an interview for the Library Life show. Perhaps something positive will come from that. I really should come up with some standard pitch for the chess club that I can deliver if called upon.

Chicago Open (5) -- Happy to Draw

The game that I am most pleased with is the draw I achieved from the following position in the last round. I tend to think that the superior position of the Black king and rook offer my opponent winning chances, but I am not really sure. I suspect that I am going to learn a lot about rook endings by analyzing the game.

White (Me) to move.

Chicago Open (4) -- Who Needs Opening Theory?

As I had done very little opening preparation before this tournament, I figured at some point I would get crushed by some high school kid who was up on the latest theory of the Sicilian. I thought that point might have come in the fourth round when Davis Whaley opened with 1.e4, but after 1...c5, he went with 2. Nc3 Nc6 and then suprised me with the virtually unknown 3.g4!?






After the game he told me that he just wanted to get away from book openings, obviously not realizing how happy that made me. The game wound up in a closed Sicilian sort of position which suited me fine although I could not find a way to punish his agressiveness and wound up with a draw.

My luck ran out in the sixth round, although it was not the Sicilian that did me in. Gauri Shankar played a fairly new idea in the Classical Nimzo-Indian. After 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 0-0 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.Qxc3 b6 7.Bg5 Ba6 8.Qf3!?

I was actually aware of this move and had a vague idea of the idea behind it, but that did not help me much. I got out of the opening alive, but then let him penetrate my position with his queen after which the game was over quickly. I would think that I would have learned my lesson having gotten beat that way in the past, but somehow I always think that I am going to be able to get away with it.

Whaley v. Hart & Shankar v. Hart


My rating after the Chicago Open is 2049. It was the ninth tournament in a row in which my rating has increased dating from March 2006 when my rating stood at 1948. Over those 45 games, I have won 32, lost 9 and drawn 4. I think that the biggest factor in my increase has been my ability to handle lower rated players. In the 32 games in which I outrated my opponent by more than 15 points, I have yield only a single loss and a single draw. However, if I am going to improve on my 2 wins, 7 losses, and 2 draws against higher rated players, I think I am going to have to work on some openings.

Chicago Open (3) -- I Don't Deserve Such Respect

In the third round, I played Michigan's 2006 representative to the national Denker tournament, Timothy Moroney. After sacrificing a knight for two connected passed central, I had reached the following position.

I thought my position was fine, but I was not at all sure how I was going to break Black's blockade. As a result, I was shocked when my opponent tipped over his king. Hart v. Moroney

After the game, I asked whether he really thought that his position wasn't worth playing. He said he felt that there was nothing he could do but wait to be squeezed to death. I suggested that he might feel differently if he had seen some of my other games.

Tim also scored finished 5-2 and we chatted after the tournament while waiting for our $40 checks. As luck would have it, his last round opponent had played a similar sacrifice to achieve passed central pawns. Taking my advice to heart, he fought that one out and won.

Chicago Open (2) -- There is No Justice in Chess

In the second round, Tom Friske outplayed me as White in the middlegame to win a pawn and reach the following ending.



Not wanting to let me have the knight check on d1, Tom decided on 42.Kf3?? which loses to 43.Nc2! Regardless of how White takes the pawn, he loses his rook for Black's knight after which Black picks up the knight with ...Re7+. Friske v. Hart.

Chicago Open (1)

After mediocre results in three previous tries, I finally finished in the money at the Chicago Open. Four wins, one loss, and two draws put me in a fifteen-way tie for 9th and 10th place in the U2100 section and a fat check for $40. WooHoo! I was actually tied for 1st after five rounds with 4 1/2 points, but the competition was stiffer on the last day.

I was expecting my typical mediocre Chicago Open result since I had not practiced or studied much recently, but there were a couple of good omens. First was the fact that my wife suggested that I play. Years ago, I made the imprudent decision to get married on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend so the Chicago Open usually coincides with our anniversary. Theresa is really quite tolerant of my obsession with chess, but I try to pick tournaments that don't try her patience any more than necessary. The second good omen was the lousy weather. My disappointment at past Chicago Opens had been compounded by the feeling that I had wasted the first nice weekend of the summer indoors, but rain on Friday and Saturday made me good about playing chess regardless of the result.

I did not feel like I was playing all that well, but things seemed to break my way. In the second round, my opponent outplayed me in the middlegame but misjudged my counterplay and dropped a rook in the ending. In the third round, I had the better middlegame and misjudged my opponent's counterplay, but he overplayed his attack and I hung on to win. In the fifth round, my opponent resigned in a position that I was not sure how to win. I was probably luckiest in that only one opponent punished my poor opening preparation by playing a theoretical line.

The game I am happiest about is one that only netted me a half point. Despite being down two pawns in the last round, I did everything I could to make my opponent's life difficult and I pulled out a draw after eighty moves. Once I have analysed it, I hope that game will be able to provide my students some lessons in fighting for a draw from a bad position.

Still moving up.

On April 28th, I managed to up my rating to 2026 by going 4-0 to win the Joliet Junior College April Open. I was a bit nervous as I arrived as I had not worked on my game much over the past couple of months. My nervousness increased when I saw high school phenoms Zach Kasiurak and Dan McNally hanging around. Luckily, it turned out that they were there to beat up on each other in the Denker Qualifier.

The Open tournament drew thirty-seven players including two masters, but both of them lost before I had to face them. As a result, I was paired down in every round, making it hard to improve my rating too much, but I managed to put a little breathing room between myself and Class A. Joliet also marked the eighth tournament in a row in which I managed to improve my rating. At the age of fifty, I think I am supposed to be going downhill.

I kind of got the feeling that some of my opponents might have been unduly impressed with my expert rating. My Class C opponent in the first round only waited three moves as White before getting out of book with 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Bg5!? (he obviously did not know how poor my record is with the Queen's Indian and the Nimzo-Indian).

The most recent experimenter with this move is an IM from Bangladesh whose record with it is +1, -5, =3. My opponent enjoyed no more success. In an effort to simplify quickly, he dropped a pawn while trading queens and never got much play.

In round two, I had White agains a 1757 rated eighth grader who played with the aggressiveness one expects from that species. After developing fairly reasonably in a Tarrasch-like position, my opponent decided to go on the offensive with the optimistic 11...h5!?


Unfortunately, with his king still in a fairly wide open center, he never got to generate an attack and he flagged on move 28.

My third opponent sported a 1697 rating and did not play badly, but he never really tried to put much pressure on me with the white pieces. There was certainly no reason for him to be intimidated by my rating as he had beaten one of the masters in the second round. On the other hand, perhaps he had won that game by playing defensively until the master overreached. In our game, a passive pawn move, 15.a3, came back to haunt him in the ending.

Although down a pawn, my opponent could have made my life difficult if he could have created an outside passed pawn on the queen-side. Unfortunately, it was my move and I fixed his pawns with 47...a4! and I was able to win easily with my extra pawns on the other wing.

My final opponent had an 1887 rating and had eliminated the other master in the third round, but he played very passively against my English Opening. Back when I played 1.e4, I spent several years climbing above and slipping below 1800. I finally left Class B behing for good when I switched to 1.c4. A large part of my current rating has come against players who do not specifically prepare for the English and so wind up in passive positions without a good plan. At Joliet, my opponent went with. 1.c4 e5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 Be7 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.Nc3 0-0 6.0-0 h6?!

At this point, I was pretty sure that my opponent had no active ideas of his own. So I concentrated on securing space control and squeezing him into further passivity, and I wound up winning fairly easily.

My next planned outing will be at the Chicago Open where I am sure that I will have no easy games.

Still alive!

To anyone who has checked in only to find that I have not posted anything in a month, my apologies My day job is trading stock options and the recent volatility in the stock market has commanded most of my attention. I hope that I can get back to sharing more of my chess ideas soon.

Staying at 2000 (3) or Getting to 2200

With a three wins, one loss, and a half-point bye at the UW Winter Open in Madison, I managed to increase my expert rating by four points to 2014. In the first two rounds, I met the father-son tag team of Stephen and Chris Holm. I managed to beat both of them, but I did not feel like I was in command for much of either game despite their 1417 and 1685 ratings. After a third round bye for dinner with my son, I met my old friend Chris Baumgartner and I managed to confuse him into missing a knight fork that cost him his queen. When I played here in September, the highest rated nine year old in the country, Brian Luo, and I both went into the last round with 3 1/2 points and he got the honor of playing master Alex Betanelli. This time, Brian was fortunate to escape with a draw in the fourth round against Ivan (Getting to 2000) Wijetunge. This left me as the highest rated player with 3 1/2 points, giving me the honor of being thumped by the master in the last round.

Alex was very gracious in the post-mortem, and his comments helped me see how far I have to go to get to the next level. After Alex's 11th move, we reached the following "Hedgehog" position.



I was pretty sure that I would have a very solid position if I could get ...a6 in, but I could not figure out how to do it because White is threatening e5. I saw 11...a6 12.e5 dxe5 13.fxe5 Nxe5 14.Qxe5 Bc5 15. Be3? Nf4, but I did not see anything I could do against 15. Nce2. After the game, Alex showed me the zwischenzug, 14...Bd6!, when the White queen lacks a good square. After 15.Qe3 Bc5 16.Nce2 e5 17.Qxe5 Re8, White is not going to be able to maintain the extra material. If I ever hope to make master, I am going to have to learn how to find moves like that ...Bd6. I played 11...Nc5 and went on to lose Betanelli v. Hart.

Staying at 2000 (2)

Now that Prospect's season is over, it is time to put my Expert rating on the line again at the UW Winter Open in Madison Wisconsin. Nice long time controls, a $20 entry fee, opponents that I have not played before, and a visit with my son: who could ask for more?

State (2) Player Improvement

Moves like 30.Bc6! make me look forward to next year. With this five-move combination in Shah v. Lieberman, Tejas saved Prospect from being shut out by Evanston in the second round. After 30...Rxc6 31.Rxg7 Nxg7 32.Bxg7+ Qxg7 33.Rxg7 Kxg7 34.Qg2+! picked up the rook on c6 and went on to win.



Compare this to Tejas's 30...Be3?! from Popovic v. Shah in Prospect's second match of the year.

31.fxe3?? Rf1# is a cute two-mover, but so obvious that a player cannot reasonably expect his opponent to fall for it. After 31.Nc4 Bc5 32. Nxa5, White had two connected passed pawns and won without a great deal of trouble.

State Tournament (1)--Disappointing Finish

I drove down to Peoria yesterday to watch the second day of the IHSA State Chess Tournament. Prospect finished 4-3, beating Romeoville, York, Glenbard West, and Richards, while losing a close match to Nequa Valley and getting shellacked by Evanston and Hinsdale Central. It is not a terrible result, but after going 8-2 in the regular season, I thought we might have been able to join Barrington and Palatine at 5-2 . Rolling Meadows, Fremd, and Hoffman Estates also finished 4-3. Buffalo Grove, Conant, and Schaumburg finished 3-4. Elk Grove went 2-5.

The individual board results were slightly disappointing as well. After impressive results in both the regular season and MSL tournament, I had hoped that either Tejas Shah or Parth Patel might break through for a board prize. Neither was able to do so, although Tejas did save the team from getting blanked by Evanston. The MSL did alright though with Zach Kasiurak 6-1 on 1st Board, Rishi Sethi 7-0 on 2nd, Ani Katre 6.5-.5 on 3rd, Mike Yang 6.5-.5 on 6th, and Chuck Novak 6.5-.5.

I hope to take a good look at Prospect's games over the next couple months to get a clearer picture of their strengths and weaknesses, although I already have a few ideas:

(1) Prospect players need to develop more determination when playing bad positions. It seems that after a blunder, they resign themselves to a loss and go down without spending much time on their moves. In the 6th round loss to Nequa Valley, it seemed like the four games we lost were over in fifteen to thirty minutes while the Nequa Valley players made us fight for an hour and a half for the points we got. There are certainly times when the loss of a piece causes a player's position to collapse completely, however, there are just as many times when the position contains defensive resources if the player work to find them.

(2) The players definitely need work on their endgame skills. Part of their lack of gumption in bad positions may simply be the fact that they are not familiar with the kinds of places that draws can be found, so they have trouble coming up with any plan when they are behind.

(3) Some of the players have just enough opening knowledge to get themselves in trouble. There were several games where someone thought they knew the opening that was being played when in fact it was a different variation that presented different problems. Rather than working to figure out those problems, they played the moves they thought they knew and wound up in trouble.

There were certainly some encouraging signs and it was a good season overall. If the players are willing to put in some effort and I can figure out how to communicate things to them, I think next year can be even better.

MSL (4) Playing the Two Knights Defense

I was a bit surprised at first by how frequently the Two Knights Defense occurs in Mid Suburban League games. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 is a pretty natural sequence of moves to play, but it can lead to some really wild tactical variations that higher rated players are reluctant to explore without a great deal of preparation. The Two Knights tends to be more popular with correspondence chess players who have more time to work out the various permutations than over-the-board players do.

The classic response to the Two Knights Defense is 4.Ng5 when the only way for Black to preserve his f-pawn is with 4...d5. After White plays 5.exd5, things get tricky. If Black continues with the natural looking 5...Nxd5, White can throw caution to the wind with the famous "Fried Liver Attack," 6.Nxf7!? Kxf7 7.Qf3+ Ke6. Black winds up with his king in the middle of the board and White winds up with a substantial material deficit. 6.d4 is considered to be a better move for White. After 6...Be7, White continues in Fried Liver style with 7.Nxf7 with the added advantage that his other bishop is ready to jump into the action. As Black encounters so many difficulties after 5...Nxd5, opening theory recommends the unnatural looking move 5...Na5 which may be followed by 6.Bb5+ c6 7.dxc6 bxc6, when White can play 8.Be2 or 8.Qf3.

If Black prefers to be the one to sacrifice all his pieces in a wild attack on his on opponent’s king he may be attracted by the move 4…Bc5 which is known as Wilkes-Barre Variation or the Traxler Attack. If White goes for the knight fork with 5.Nxf7, Black tries to bring the White king into the open with 5...Bxf2+. As GM Nick DeFirmian says in Modern Chess Openings, "These lines are for the adventurous."

I usually recommend 3...Bc5 leading to the Giuoco Piano rather than the Two Knights. 4. Ng5 is not an option for White as the Black queen covers g5, and Black can proceed with ...Nf6 and ...0-0 in a more usual fashion. It just seems to me that there are lots of points in the Two Knights where a strange looking move like 5...Na5 is considered correct while a natural looking move like 5...Nxd5 leads to trouble. There is nothing wrong with an opening like that (in fact, such openings are great for the player who knows the strange moves while his opponent plays the natural looking ones). However, it is hard to play the Two Knights without a fair amount of book knowledge, and young players who have a limited amount of time to devote to chess study could probably use it more profitably elsewhere.

Besides the need for book learning, it takes an instinct (and nerve) for wild attacks as well as an indifference to material deficits in order to play some of the crazier variations of the Two Knights well. After losing on the White side of the Wilkes-Barre Variation against Barrington back in November, Prospect’s Parth Patel decided to venture it as Black in the second round of the MSL Tournament. Although Parth managed to win the game (as he managed to win 80% of his games this year), he definitely came out on the wrong side of the opening. A look at the conservative manner in which he played the opening in his first round game leads me to believe that the Wilkes Barre may not be for him.

State Seedings

Seedings and First Round Pairings for the State Championship were decided on Sunday. My guess is that the regular season, the league tournament and last year's finish at state were all considered in seeding the teams (combined scores are shown in parentheses), although I cannot help but wonder whether the committee transposed Hoffman Estates and Hoffman Estates (Conant). MSL teams drew the following spots:

7 Barrington (17.5)
21 Palatine (16)
22 Mt Prospect(Prospect) (14)
32 Palatine(Fremd) (14)
42 Hoffman Estates (9)
51 Hoffman Estates(Conant) (13.5)
63 Rolling Meadows (9)
64 Buffalo Grove (10)
76 Elk Grove (2)
108 Schaumburg (2)

If there was a mistake, it simply makes Hoffman's job that much tougher as they play 14th seed Glenbard North in the first round while Conant meets 23rd seed Oak Park-River Forest. Rolling Meadows and Buffalo Grove drew the 96th and 97th seeds respectively while Prospect plays 50th seed Romeoville.

MSL (3)--Playing the Sicilian

The Sicilian Defense has been at the cutting edge of opening theory at the top levels of grandmaster play for at least the last fifty years. The Najdorf variation of the Sicilian has been called the Cadillac of chess openings and World Champions Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov played it religously. The most dangerous approach for White these days against the Najdorf among the chess elite is a variation known as the English Attack.

Many chess teachers would advise younger players to avoid the Najdorf variation with its myriad complexities. Some would even advise more advanced players like me to avoid it unless we are willing to put in the time and effort to keep up with all the latest nuances from the latest grandmaster tournaments. I have certainly suffered some painful defeats at the hands of an opponent who was well versed in the latest wrinkles. On the other hand, I have also achieved my biggest successes with the Najdorf such as beating Chikwere Onyekwere (the Champion of Nigeria with a rating of 2273) at the US Open last summer. The fact of the matter is that it's fun to play the openings the pros play and fun is what we are in it for.

In the second round of the MSL Tournament, Prospect's first board Peter Dimopoulos lost the Black side of a Najdorf to an English Attack played by Fremd's Diana Yen. In this variation, the players usually castle on opposite sides of the board and launch their pawns at each others' kings with the hope of producing an early checkmate. Black is often faced with a choice between trying to slow down White's attack or ignoring it and trying to get their first with his own. Sometimes it is hard to do both, as Peter learned. Yen v Dimopoulos.