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.