Vinny's Chess Adventures

My New Blog

2009-10-31T10:03:00.000-07:00

To anyone who might be interested, I am blogging about chess these days at Prospect Chess.

Link

2009-07-22T20:29:00.000-07:00

2008 State: Dimopoulos v. Strunk

2008-02-10T11:02:00.000-08:00

My favorite game came in the third round when Prospect's Peter Dimopoulos upset Lincoln Way's Alex Strunk despite a rating differential of 500 points. Alex played the exotic Black Knight's Tango against Peters 1.d4. Despite never having encountered this opening before, Peter responded logically and aggressively. Alex let his development lag in the hopes of grabbing some pawns.

Both sides overlooked some tactical points that would have been very hard to find in a sixty minute time control without investing a good deal of one's clock, but Peter kept the pressure on and found the very pretty move 22.Nh8! to win the exchange.

A knight is usually at its absolute worst when stuck in the corner so trapping a rook by moving a knight into the corner warrants a lot of style points. Peter missed some opportunities to shorten Black's resistance after this but Alex had been forced to consume most of his time dealing with White's attack.

Two interesting points occurred in the ending where Peter made himself sweat more than he had to. In both cases, Fritz 11 thought that Peter's move was just as good as my proposed alternative, but since Fritz has no sweat glands, I still recommend my move. The first one occurred on his 48th move.

According to Fritz, Peter's 48.Ra5 is every bit as winning as my 48.Kc5, but the virtue of the latter move is that the rook keeps the Black king from ever getting near the White g-pawn. White simply advances the b-pawn until White is forced to give up the bishop.

One of the most important things a rook can do in the endgame is to confine the opposing king.

The next occurred ten moves later when Fritz liked Peter's 58.Ra2+ just as much as my 58.f7. After the latter move, Black queens first, but White queens with check and trades off the Black bishop and queen leaving him free to advance the b-pawn unhinderd. After Peter's move, Black has the opportunity to chase the White king around with checks for awhile.

Click for score and comments.

2008 State: Whining Coaches*

2008-02-10T10:54:00.000-08:00

At one point, I happened to overhear a coach complaining about Barrington and Cary Grove gaining an unfair advantage with the help of GM Yuri Shulman, an opinion that was apparently shared by a handful of coaches. The alleged problem was not that these two schools were paying a grandmaster to provide coaching. Instead, the disgruntled coaches were apparently concerned that Shulman had collected a database of games played by various high school players from his chess camps as well as his coaching and that this database was being used by those two schools to prepare for their opponents in the state tournament. These coaches apparently believe that Shulman’s databases should be open to everyone. Happily, the officials were not impressed with these complaints.

In my humble opinion, these coaches should grow up and quit whining. If your team loses a match, try to set an example of class and sportsmanship for your players rather than blaming the loss on some alleged malefaction. As an expert chess player, I can assure you that the advantage to be gained in preparing for specific opponents in a tournament like the IHSA Championship is minimal. Moreover, differences between schools in the resources they are willing and able to devote to training, coaching, and scouting opponents is a fact of life in every competitive activity. Finally, any player who attends one of GM Shulman’s chess camps is sure to be rewarded by an increase in chess understanding that will vastly outweigh any competitive disadvantage that comes from revealing his playing style.

The biggest hindrance to preparing for specific opponents is lack of time. Other than the first and fifth rounds, players do not know who they are going to play until minutes before the round begins. There is no time to prepare for an opponent even if there were much benefit to doing so.

In my experience, the value of preparing for a specific opponent decreases very rapidly for players below master level. When one grandmaster looks at another grandmaster’s games, he may notice a particular weakness or strength in handling a particular type of ending and take that into account in his games. However, two high school players rated in the 1500’s are never going to be able to make that kind of determination about each other. Moreover, even if they could, they are not going to have the skill to steer the game into that particular type of ending. Even with my rating of 2058, I cannot imagine any situation in which I would not be a fool to forego the move I thought objectively best in the hopes of exploiting some imagined weakness in my opponent’s skill set. Moreover, given the learning curve upon which high school players are operating, it would be foolish to assume that any player’s skill set is the same as it was as recently as a month ago.

I will admit that it is nice to know what openings my opponents are likely to play. If I know that my opponent plays a variation that I have had a great deal of trouble handling recently, I might be wise to avoid it. On the other hand, in The Road to Chess Improvement, GM Alex Yermolinsky says that deviating from openings with which you are familiar for fear of your opponent’s superior understanding is one of the worst evils. He is always delighted when his opponents do so. I know from personal experience that my biggest upsets have occurred in games where I played complex openings against strong competition.

In short, the time a high school player spends looking at his own games in order to identify and correct his own weaknesses is going to be overwhelmingly more valuable than time spent examining a potential opponent’s games in the hopes of identifying and exploiting his weaknesses. The single exception to this would be an opponent who chooses to rely on the surprise value of inferior or offbeat openings. I have only occasionally studied the Wing Gambit in the Sicilian simply because it is so rarely played. However, if I were to know that someone in the field of an upcoming event regularly plays it, I would spend some extra time looking at it and neutralize the surprise factor. Some high school players are attracted to offbeat openings and may suffer from having their repertoires generally known. However, I personally have no more sympathy for players who purposely choose crappy openings than I would have for a high school football team that tried to get by on trick plays.

The second point is that scouting is a fact of life. When a foot ball team makes the state playoffs, they try of find films of their opponents, and, I assume, they have to be willing to trade their own films in order to get them. If these coaches think that there is some advantage to be gained by scouting opposing chess teams, then they should contact coaches in other conferences to exchange databases of games. I think they would quickly find that it is very poor use of their time. As far as Schulman’s chess camps go, I am highly skeptical that he obtains information that gives the teams he coaches any tangible advantage, but to the extent he does, it is no different than coaches who see football players or baseball players at camps they run. They are certainly entitled to use their knowledge when they face those players as opponents. The only thing unethical would be to teach those players badly at camp in the hopes of exploiting those weaknesses in competition, and I don’t think anyone could ever accuse Shulman of that.

Any coach who is interested in scouting players in the Mid Suburban League or in scouting me is welcome to do it here. Barrington used this material to scout and beat Prospect this year, but that does not concern me for two reasons. First, Prospect was not outplayed in the openings which is the only place where Barrington could have gained an advantage. Second, as long as I am a volunteer coach, my goal is to promote chess generally as well as help the Prospect players. If Prospect ever decides to pay me, my attitude may change.

In sum, I hate it when coaches whine about pairings, tie breaks, or steward’s rulings. As far as I am concerned, complaining about scouting is just one more type of poor sportsmanship that sets a bad example for the players. The thing to do when you lose is to congratulate your opponent for a job well done and move on.

*These remarks are also posted on the Illinois Chess Association Discussion Forums.

2008 State: There's 4-3 and Then There's 4-3

2008-02-09T21:35:00.000-08:00

Although Prospect duplicated last year's 4-3 finish and only moved up three spots in the standings from last year's 37th to 34th this year, the fact was that they had a much better tournament. Prospect's average point per match of 41 this year verses 29 last year reflects the fact that they dominated in their winning matches and were very competitive in their losses.

The MSL acquitted itself well with Barrington, Palatine, and Buffalo Grove finishing 5-2. Prospect, Conant, and Hoffman Estates went 4-3. Schaumburg and Fremd finished 3.5-3.5.
Complete results can be found at the IHSA.

Best things about this year's events:

The room was carpeted and quiet. There was a monster truck show going on in the main arena and you couldn't here it in the playing area.

The bookseller had an excellent selection of opening books. Normally, book tables are filled with books about half-assed openings that young players should never touch if they ever hope to improve. This vendor only had a single book about an opening that I would object to seeing one of my players adopt. Everything else was solid books by solid authors.

Worst thing about this year's event:

Whiny coaches complaining about unfair advantages. More about this later.

2008 MSL Tournament (1):Prospect goes 2-2

2008-01-28T11:43:00.000-08:00

The Mid-Suburban League Tournament was played on January 26th. In the first round Hoffman Estates avenged the 52-16 loss that Prospect inflicted last month with 42-26 victory. Prospect got back to even with a 52.5-15.5 win over Fremd in the second round and put itself in a position to play for the top spots by beating Conant 46.5-21.5 in the third round. However, Prospect lost a hard fought match to Barrington in the last round by 47-21.

Prospects lower boards played very well with Dhruvin Talati and Max Zwolenik finishing 4-0 and Mike Zwolenik and Parth Patel finishing 3-1. The complete results can be seen at the ICCA Website.

Tim Just Winter Open: "Guile and Treachery"

2008-01-07T06:26:00.000-08:00

At last year's edition of the this event, I managed escape a losing position by bamboozling the 2nd highest rated nine-year-old in the country, Alexander Velikanov, when he was in time trouble. This left Zhe Quan, who was the top rated eleven-year-old when I played him in 2002, as the youngest player to beat me. Alas, my luck did not hold this year when I faced Alexander as the 7th highest ten-year-old. However, I still managed a respectable 3.5-1.5 score by drawing the 39th fifteen-year-old and beating the 18th fifteen-year-old, the 38th fourteen-year-old, and some crazy old man who was playing his first tournament in twenty-five years.

In the first round, I faced York High School sophomore Byron Chen, who I have known since he was a second grader coming to the Elmhurst Chess Club. The game was fairly even for twenty-six moves when a mistake by Byron gave me a chance to win a piece. However, I thought I saw a way to win an exchange that would have gotten the queens off the board. Since I had less than ten minutes to reach the forty move time control, I thought this the wiser course. Unfortunately, I overlooked a knight fork at the tail end of the combination which enable Byron to restore the equilibrium with bishops of opposite colors after which we agreed to a draw. Byron went on to have a great tournament at 4-1, knocking off Master Chris Nienart. He gained a stunning 80 rating points from 1878 to 1958!

In the second round, I faced fourteen-year-old Aakaash Meduri, who I have also known for years. Aakaash outplayed me thoroughly in the opening and I was expecting to pay the price for my recent lack of study, however, a couple of minor oversights enabled me to turn the game around. In the third round, I finally faced an opponent who shaved. Alan Davenport's son was playing in his first tournament in the reserve section so Alan decided to play in his first tournament in twenty-five years. He could not quite overcome the two decades of rust (which I well understand), but I suspect he will sharpen pretty quickly if he keeps at it.

Round four saw my rematch with Alexander Velikanov who played 6.Bg5 against my Najdorf Sicilian. I got the cramped but solid position that I was supposed to get but Alexander did a terrific job of keeping me tied up. My attempt to generate counterplay backfired with the loss of an exchange which my young opponent returned to reach a won king and pawn ending. Alexander's other victims in the tournament included 2209 Aleksander Stamnov and 2121 Patrick Lacey only losing in the last round to 2365 Mergen Amanov. Alexander boosted his rating from 1956 to 2013.

In the last round I faced fifteen year old expert Trevor Magness who played a system against the English Opening that I had not seen for several years ago and did not remember very well. Amazingly, the game followed book for the first twelve moves when I failed to come up with the plan endorsed by theory. Trevor grabbed the initiative but committed a tactical oversight that dropped the exchange. In the resulting queen and rook vs. queen and knight ending, Trevor had a very solid pawn structure and I had to maneuver carefully to break down his position while keeping his knight from becoming active.

The title of today's post is a reference to a statement made of me by Brad Rosen on his 64 Square Jungle blog: "Vincent demonstrates that every once in a while that age, guile, and treachery will triumph over youth, skill, and brilliance." While Brad is the father of 22nd ranked fourteen-year-old Eric. Brad and his wife Andi are supporters of chess players of all ages. At the Tim Just Winter Open, youth and brilliance came out on top more often than not with several veteran adult players finishing at the bottom of the cross-table.

The important thing is to approach the kids with the right attitude. After my loss to young Zhe Quan in 2002, one of the adults watching the game sought to comfort me by saying "These kids are too tough." In irritation, I responded "No they're not. They're tough, but they're not too tough." They may be young and energetic with more time to play and study then I have, but they still have to find the right moves over the board.

Prospect v. Palatine (3): Guarding f7

2007-12-04T12:22:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-03T09:45:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-30T19:11:00.001-08:00

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!

2007-11-30T19:06:00.001-08:00

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

2007-11-17T18:08:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-16T12:30:00.000-08:00

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)

2007-11-15T19:36:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-06T10:41:00.000-08:00

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?

2007-11-05T15:37:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-05T08:42:00.000-08:00

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

2007-10-22T09:47:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-19T16:03:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-19T13:41:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-19T07:20:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-15T06:13:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-11T18:34:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-10T10:17:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-10-08T05:36:00.001-07:00

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!!

2007-10-05T09:22:00.000-07:00

(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

2007-09-28T06:21:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-30T12:03:00.000-07:00

Bloglink.

Summer Chess: Library Simul

2007-07-25T06:26:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-31T08:45:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-05-30T11:40:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-29T12:27:00.000-07:00

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)

2007-05-29T06:17:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-04-29T08:09:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-03-26T19:13:00.000-07:00

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

2007-02-26T08:20:00.000-08:00

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)

2007-02-14T05:45:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-13T07:16:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-11T09:54:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-06T12:18:00.000-08:00

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

2007-01-31T06:31:00.000-08:00

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

2007-01-30T10:37:00.000-08:00

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.

MSL (2)--Sometimes a Draw is a Good Thing

2007-01-28T13:11:00.000-08:00

It often takes newcomers some time to wrap their minds around the concept that a game of chess can end in a tie. Once they start playing competitively, it often takes even longer to grasp the idea that playing for a draw is the right thing to do in certain situations. This insight usually comes first in games where the player finds himself in such a bad position that his only chance for survival is by making it as hard as possible for his opponent to win. However, it takes a little more experience to recognize another type of situation in which a draw is a proper goal. I am not talking about a player who (wimpily) decides before the first move that a draw is the best he can hope for because his opponent's rating is so high. Rather, I am talking about positions that are evenly balanced in such a way that it is impossible to upset the balance without taking unreasonable risks.

Prospect's second board at the MSL tournament, Andrew Berowski, showed himself to be quick study in these risk-reward calculations. In the second round, he took unreasonable risks in playing for a win against Fremd's Adam Cheng and wound up losing. In the third round, he agreed to a draw with Hoffman Estate's Amy Gill in a position where there was still a fair amount of lumber on the board, but there was no constructive plan available that did not entail substantial risk. Both positions involved bishops of opposite colors (meaning each side has only one bishop that moves on the opposite color square from his opponent's).

In round two, it was Andrew's turn to move with the White pieces in the following position.

Andrew is already down a pawn and he can do nothing to defend his pawn on g5. On the other hand, Black cannot capture that pawn without losing his own pawn on e5. White might consider trying to maneuver his bishop over to g8 where it could attack Black's h-pawn, but it would be hard to get past the Black king and the bishop could wind up trapped in the corner. White simply does not have a reasonable way to play for a win.

Black, on the other hand, does have an extra pawn and grabbing White's g-pawn at the cost of his e-pawn would give him an unopposed or "passed" pawn on the h-file. However, in order to advance, this pawn is going to have to cross some light squares, such as h3 which White's bishop can control from c8. Moreover, if White can trade his f-pawn for Black's g-pawn, the bishop can also control the Black pawn's queening square. Black would need to bring his king up to support the h-pawn, but as long as the White king maintains a defensive position, Black will be unable to do so.

Endings with kings, pawns, and bishops of opposite colors are notoriously drawish. Often, a two pawn advantage is not enough to win if the defender's king is active and his bishop is placed where it can both defend its own pawns and block the opponent's. A player trying to hold on in an inferior position should always consider the possibility of trading down to such an ending. HOWEVER, if there are rooks or queens on the board, the player with the better position can sometimes attack on the squares that his opponent's bishop do not cover, so a player who is looking for a draw must be careful when trying to reach the ending.

In the above position, however, Andrew's instincts were to try to win and he was attracted by the prospect of grabbing Black's a-pawn and c-pawn. Being an optimistic soul, Andrew played for a win with 39.Kc5 and ended up losing when Black queened his h-pawn before White could get either of his pawns to the goal line. Berowski v. Cheng.

After contemplating the perils of unseemly aggression over the lunch break, Andrew reached the following position as White in the third round against Amy Gill of Hoffman Estates and a draw was agreed after White's next move.

It may look there are still a lot of pieces on the board, but after the rooks are traded, it is very difficult to come up with a constructive plan for White. Black's bishop is protected by a pawn and is perfectly positioned to protect its own pawns while blocking White's from advancing. On the kingside, Andrew's only active possibility would be advancing his pawns to pry open Amy's kingside, but White's king would be exposed before the pawns got far enough to make life uncomfortable for Black. So for White, a draw is a good outcome.

Black, on the other hand, had more reason to play on. White's bishop does not protect his queenside pawns from a protected square as neatly as White's does. Black would probably be justified in probing about with her queen a bit before agreeing to a draw, although White should be able to prevent anything too bad from happening. On the other hand, Black may have been reluctant to leave her king alone with White's queen lurking about. Berowski v. Gill.

It is not always easy to tell whether playing for a win is fraught with such peril that maintaining the balance is the best course. A player who agrees to a draw never knows what might have happened, while the one who loses by playing on learns a valuable lesson. Nevertheless, the mature chess player always considers how his opponent might respond to whatever plan he chooses. When he determines that any winning attempt will allow his opponent even greater chances to win, he plays to maintain the balance and accepts a draw as the best outcome.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I may not be the best person to give advice on this topic. I often play several tournaments in a row without a single draw, which I think is pretty unusual for players at my level. I think I let my curiosity about what might happen get the best of me. Nevertheless, when I reach a position where I clearly cannot see a way to make progress without allowing my opponent the better chances, I have no qualms about playing for a draw.

MSL Tournament (1)--Many Surpises

2007-01-28T10:32:00.000-08:00

On January 27th, the Mid Suburban Leauge played its annual tournament, and the event produced a large number of surprises. Despite finishing the regular season 4-6, Fremd High School went 4-0 to win the MSL Tournament. Second place was taken by regular season co-champion Barrington with 3.5-.5 after getting clipped for a draw by Conant which finished third at 2.5-1.5. Regular season co-champion Palatine as well as third place finisher Prospect went 2-2 to finish in a four-way tie for fourth in the tournament with Buffalo Grove and Rolling Meadows.

Despite the disappointing team result, Prospect's Tejas Shah, Mike Zwolenik and Parth Patel managed to take top honors on boards 3, 5, and 6. In any case, Prospect may have been a little bit cocky after its regular season finish of 8-2. Its wins over Barrington, Fremd, Hoffman Estates, Rolling Meadows, and Buffalo Grove were all close contests that were within a move or two of going the other way. Hopefully, this will make the players work harder at state.

Analyzing Students' Games

2007-01-26T08:10:00.000-08:00

My big coaching innovation this year was to have the players use score sheets with carbons at their Thursday afternoon matches so that I could take a copy to analyze over the weekend. With the help of ChessBase and Fritz, I would run through the games and try to come up with some helpful comments which I would print out and give to players on the following Tuesday. This seemed to be a useful tool for several reasons, not the least of which is that I no longer had to worry about players losing their score sheets .

The best thing about writing up my analysis is that it gives me a chance to provide every player some feedback. Some players are always eager to ask me a question or to play a game. Others never want to. These tend to be the “natural” players who have never looked at a book and don’t know (and don’t particularly want to know) whether they are playing the Scotch, the Dutch or the French. I think they are somewhat self-conscious about having their play scrutinized. Often these players have very respectable tactical skills that are hampered by some bad habits. By writing up my analysis, I can point out some basic principles like development and central control that can give them the chance to reach a position where they can put their natural talents to work.

When writing up comments, I always try to focus on principles that I think the game illustrates well. If I sit down with a player to go over a game that I have not seen before, I am usually tempted to comment on every move (especially when many of them are poor). However, many of the poor moves never lead to any problems so pointing them out probably makes little impression. If a player fails to get his king to safety, but his opponent never exploits it, the player is unlikely to appreciate the risk he was taking. Even worse are those bad moves that end up working out well. For example, I might chastise a player for moving a knight repeatedly in the opening only to find that the knight ended up capturing a rook or a queen when the opponent overlooked a simple fork. By focusing only on those errors that really influenced the course the game took, I hope I can offer some insights that the player might actually recall and apply the next time out.

By and large, I try to accept a player’s idiosyncrasies insofar as reasonably possible. For example, some players have an irrational affection for knights and will swap their bishops for their opponent’s knights at the first opportunity. I could point out (and probably will) why the bishop is considered the superior piece in the endgame, but their games are usually decided long before the ending is reached. Moreover, when they do reach an ending, they are usually in such time trouble that the likelihood of overlooking a fork makes the knight a very powerful piece. Under a minute, I think a knight is often as strong as a rook. So I accept their predilection for the horse, and I talk about things like keeping the position closed and creating outposts for the knights, and I suggest waiting for their opponent to spend a tempo on the a-pawn or h-pawn before swapping the bishop for knight.

On the other hand, some players like to invent their own openings and these are usually quite dubious. They may get away with them on the lower boards, but sooner or later they are going to get punished. I try not to be too harsh, but as a wise man once told me, “if there were gold in those moves, someone would have mined it already.”

The possibility of efficiently communicating some opening theory is one of the things I like about my approach. Teachers often advise students to use an opening encyclopedia like Modern Chess Openings (MCO) or Nunn’s Chess Openings (NCO) to determine where their games diverged from the “book” lines. While this is clearly a good practice, it can be frustrating as well. MCO and NCO often don’t deal with the move the student played and he will be left wondering why his move is considered inferior to the book move. I can let them know whether their move was tactically flawed, whether it violates some positional principle, or whether it is simply less fashionable than the book move.

As tempting as it is to take credit for every suggestion I make, I try to be reasonably honest about my use of Fritz. If there is a tactic that I think I would have had a decent chance of finding myself at the same time control, I probably won't mention Fritz’s contribution. On the other hand, sometimes Fritz points out a tactic that I would not have seen if I had stared at the position for days. Then I have to be honest in admitting that I did not find it. Moreover, I try to be honest with the students about what tactics I think they could reasonably be expected to find in G60.

Naturally I cannot force the players to go over my analysis and it is clear from repeated blunders that some do not. However, most of the players do go over the games including some who never seem to be interested in discussing their games individually. Moreover, some who ignored my analysis at first eventually started looking at it as the season went on. In any case, by posting my analysis here, it is available to potential opponents and the players who insist upon repeating the same mistakes will do so at their peril.

Prospect v. Schaumburg

2007-01-24T07:44:00.000-08:00

This is only Schaumburg's second year in the Mid Suburban Leauge. Against the current teams in the league (Hersey dropped out this year after a single season), Schaumburg was blanked in every match last year but for a single draw on eighth board against Fremd for a grand total of 2.5 points all season. This year, they scored 152 points against the same schools and managed to win two matches. Prospect beat Schaumburg 66.5-2.5, but that score belies Schaumburg's improved play. 1st Board; 2nd Board; 3rd Board; 5th Board; 6th Board; 7th Board.

Prospect v. Elk Grove

2007-01-17T06:58:00.000-08:00

I think that many high school players show up for chess club just because it seems to be a pleasant way to kill an afternoon. They know how the pieces move and they enjoy playing, but they are not really interested in delving into the subtler aspects of the game. On the stronger teams, such players fill in the lower boards. On others, they may make up most of the team.

I wish to say that I am a firm believer that all chess is good chess. If a player has no interest in learning chess theory and just wants to move the pieces, I will cast no stones. As my wife will tell you, I spend entirely too much time trying to master this silly game. I am happy to see players like Zach Kasiurak and Rishi Sethi of Barrington who share my addiction to the point where they have worked to become strong players, but I am happy to see players enjoy the game at whatever level brings them pleasure.

Moreover, it is not as far from playing purely for pleasure to being a solidly competitive team. Many anti-theory types have played enough chess to develop very respectable tactical skills. It only takes a couple of players getting interested in aquiring a little knowledge to infect a whole team. Prospect went from 0-10 to 5-6 to 8-2 mostly because one player got the bug and some newer players took their cue from him.

Elk Grove is a school that is still looking for that spark. Poor opening play put them so far in the hole that they never got the chance to demonstrate their tactical skills. Six of their boards never castled, and they all paid the price for it. One player castled when his king was already under attack and castling brought no relief. The only player who brought his king to safety by castling won his game. Here are some games from Prospect's 62-6 victory over Elk Grove: 1st Board; 2nd Board; 3rd Board; 4th Board; 5th Board; 6th Board; 7th Board.

Propsect v. Wheeling

2007-01-16T07:48:00.000-08:00

Wheeling seems to be one of those teams whose players would rather play chess than study chess (which is probably much healthier than my obsession with the game). My general impression is that their tactical skills are not much worse than Prospect's. Nevertheless, Prospect won the match 62-6 because Wheeling's players did not pay attention to basic opening principles like development, control of the center, and king safety. They found some good moves in the middlegame, but, unfortunately, their positions were already under intense pressure by then. If they put a some time into a book like Discovering Chess Openings by Emms, I think they could be very dangerous. Another good resource is Dan Heisman's article, Opening Principles, from ChessCafe.com. Here are some of the games from the November match: 1st Board; 2nd Board; 3rd Board; 4th Board; 5th Board; 6th Board.

Prospect v. Rolling Meadows

2007-01-11T11:48:00.000-08:00

Prospect beat Rolling Meadows 43-25 in November: 1st Board; 2nd Board; 3rd Board; 4th Board; 5th Board; 6th Board; 7th Board; 8th Board.

Prospect v. Conant

2007-01-11T10:49:00.000-08:00

In its last match of the season, Prospect lost to Conant 38-30, thereby finishing with a 8-2 record. For the first time all year, Andrew Berowski, Tejas Shah, and Parth Patel all went down to defeat in the same match. Moreover, they all lost on pretty simple tactical oversights that left them with no chance to salvage the game. Perhaps they had gotten overconfident, but hopefully they have learned that they cannot take any moves for granted.

I missed the Conant match because I was in Madison visiting my son at the University of Wisconsin, and my biggest regret was not seeing how excited the Conant players were about winning. In the five years I have been helping out at Prospect, this is the first time anyone has been excited about beating Prospect. Two years ago, the team was 0-10 and a win over Prospect was about as exciting as Grant Hill beating that little fat kid at basketball in the Sprite commercial a few years ago.

Unfortunately, being unable to watch the games made it difficult for me to decipher some of the scoresheets. Here are upper boards: 1st Board; 2nd Board; 3rd Board; 4th Board; 5th Board.

Prospect v. Hoffman Estates

2007-01-09T17:06:00.000-08:00

Although posting our match results here will help all the teams in the league scout each other, Don Barrett (Prospect High School's faculty chess coach) pointed out that it will make Prospect the easiest team to scout. I pointed out to him that as a volunteer coach, my loyalty is to the game itself rather than Prospect's chess team in particular. Should Prospect care to pay me, I might concern myself with its competitive advantage. Otherwise, I would rather post my analysis in the hopes of generating chess interest throughout the league.

In fact, Don likes the idea of posting the games and I am optimistic that it will not significantly impair Prospect's chances. The worst case would be that a Prospect player (or any other for that matter) repeats a dubious opening variation and his opponent is ready to take advantage of it. Since I think that I have done a decent job pointing out poor opening play, that would mean that the player failed to learn from history and suffered the natural consequences thereof. My idea of the best case is a player becoming familiar with the basic traps and typical piece and pawn deployments of a new opening after seeing that a potential opponent plays it. (An excellent book for these purposes is "Understanding the Chess Openings" by Sam Collins reviewed at ChessCafe.com.) Then both players get a better position out of the opening and play a more interesting game.

Here are the games from the October Prospect-Hoffman Estates match that Prospect won 39.5-28.5: 1st Board; 2nd Board; 3rd Board; 4th Board; 5th Board; 6th Board; 7th Board; 8th Board.

Prospect v. Barrington

2007-01-09T10:09:00.000-08:00

Here are the rest of the games from the Prospect-Barrington match: 1st Board; 2nd Board; 3rd Board; 4th Board; 5th Board; 6th Board; 7th Board; 8th Board.

Prospect v. Buffalo Grove

2007-01-09T06:40:00.000-08:00

Prospect beat Buffalo Grove in December by 42-26. 1st Board; 2nd Board; 3rd Board; 4th Board; 5th Board; 6th Board; 7th Board; 8th Board.

I hope that none of the players will take offense at the bluntness of any of my comments. As my analysis was prepared based on my familiarity with the Prospect players, I may have sugar-coated my comments on their blunders in order to be encouraging while being more frank about their opponents' errors, particularly if the error was of a type that the Prospect player is himself prone to make. I apologize for any offense I may have given. Moreover, I can assure every player that for every bad move I point out in any of these games, I could find an equally bad move that I have made in one of my games (although I probably don't make as many of them in the same game).

Prospect v. Palatine

2007-01-08T14:31:00.000-08:00

Now that I have figured out how to use ChessBase to create web pages with playable games, I am going to try to post some of the games from Prospect's matches this year along with my analysis. I expect these to be of interest mostly to players and coaches in the Mid Suburban Leauge, but I would be happy for any feedback from other coaches who have worked with players at a similar level. Some of the games from the match that Prospect lost to Palatine by a score of 43.5-24.5 last October are posted here: 1st Board; 2nd Board; 3rd Board; 4th Board; 5th Board; 6th Board.

Staying at 2000

2007-01-08T06:34:00.000-08:00

The title of today’s post is an homage to Ivan Wijetunge’s “Getting to 2000” blog in which he chronicles his ambitious goal of increasing his rating from 1800 to 2000 between June 2006 and the February 2007 rating supplement. As it was nine years from when I first cleared 1800 in 1997 to when I hit 2000 in September of 2006, I thought his schedule was rather optimistic.

I put my Expert rating on the line for the first time last weekend at the Tim Just Winter Open. My chess activity for the last four months has pretty much been limited to coaching and the rust showed in the first round when I lost to 1865 rated Mikhail Korenman. Mikhail is running for the USCF Executive Board and I guess he knows one vote that he won’t be getting. In the second round, I was fortunate enough to meet a player who was even rustier than me. Steven Napoli had not played since last year's Winter Open, and I managed to whip up a mating attack against his 1.b3.

I came closest to losing my expert rating against the third highest rated nine year old in the country, 1903 rated Alexander Velikanov. I went pawn hunting with my queen and ended up losing a piece for two pawns. Luckily, Alexander missed a chance to get the queens off the board and I managed to bamboozle him in time pressure to recover the piece and reach a winning rook and pawn ending. (The game is posted here.) That leaves eleven year old Zhe Quan as the youngest player to beat me. I played a bit better on the second day with a draw with 1958 Daniel McNally and a win over 1800 Aakaash Meduri.

Ivan did not reach his goal within the time limit he set for himself, but I hope he will keep on trying. I had been bouncing around the upper 1900’s for three years before I was able to string together five decent tournaments in a row to reach the goal I had set many years earlier. I hope I can hold Expert for awhile. At the ripe old age of forty-nine, it is hard for me to believe that Master is a realistic goal, but you never know.

Some Thoughts on Tie-Breaks

2006-12-16T10:40:00.000-08:00

Going into the last week of the season, Barrington, Prospect, and Palatine were all tied at 8-1. Barrington had beaten Palatine. Palatine had beaten Prospect. Prospect had beaten Barrington. In the last week, Palatine and Barrington won their matches while Prospect lost to Conant leaving Barrington and Palatine tied at 9-1.

Not surprisingly, Barrington felt that they should have been declared MSL Champion by virtue of their head to head victory over Palatine. The Illinois High School Association tie-break rules gave the nod to Palatine, however, as they had the better margin of victory over the schools with the better records such as Prospect, Conant, and Buffalo Grove. http://www.phs.d211.org/activities/ChessTeam/

My own view is that the tie-break system is pretty reasonable. Had it been Palatine that lost in the last week instead of Prospect, the title would have gone to Barrington rather than Prospect. Even though Prospect beat Barrington, Barrington was the more dominant team against the rest of the league. It would probably seem wrong to Barrington (as it would to me), that the title should turn entirely on Rishi’s minor oversight in an otherwise very well played game rather his team’s consistently strong performance throughout the entire season.

My hope would be that this might be an opportunity to teach the players a valuable lesson about sportsmanship in the case of a close call. Some times in life, there are decisions that could go either way. There are two well qualified candidates for a job, but only one can be hired. Two talented performers audition for a single role. A closely played basketball game turns on a ref’s call as time is running out. In these cases, the final result is always going to be somewhat arbitrary.

There is always a temptation to feel screwed when you wind up on the short side of a close call, but I think it is the coach’s job to set an example for the players. I think the coach does his players a disservice if he does not teach them that no system for resolving close calls is perfect and that a result is not unfair simply because it is not the one you think is best.

JUST FOR THE RECORD: I have no reason whatsoever to doubt the sportsmanship of the Barrington team or coach. My remarks were motivated by a tournament several years ago in which a coach encouraged his team to believe it had gotten screwed because the tie-breaks favored another team that had lost to the coach’s team.

First Post

2006-12-11T08:19:00.000-08:00

I am a volunteer coach for the Prospect High School chess team in Mount Prospect, IL. We finished 8-2 in our matches this year in the Mid-Suburban Chess League which is composed of teams from the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago. It is, as far as I know, the first time Prospect has been over .500 for a very long time. I am also a reasonably active player myself, and I recently made expert for the first time.

The team's most impressive match was the upset of undefeated Barrington. The most interesting game from that match was on first board where Prospect's Mike Pozsgay had white against Barrington's Zach Kasiurak. Mike's USCF rating is around 1100, but it dates from his junior year and he has been playing much stronger this season. He had been talking all season about meeting Rishi Sethi who has been Barrington's first board for the last couple years with a rating in the 1800's. We did not know that Freshman Zach would be playing first board against us with a rating over 2000. Luckily, Mike had been unable to learn much about Rishi's opening repertoire so he had not done any specific preparation.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Bc4?! I try to play a variety of lines in practice against Mike but I never tried the Kan Variation. Mike figures he can meet it in the same way that he would meet the Najdorf. 5... Qc7 6. Bb3 Nf6 7. Nc3? Bb4 8. Bd2 Bxc3 9. Bxc3 Nxe4 10. O-O !? I give Mike a lot of credit for this. He realized that he had misplayed the opening and he came up with a way to try to find some compensation for the pawns he dropped. 10... Nxc3 11. bxc3 Qxc3 12. Re1 Nc6 ?! Zach was playing pretty quickly and he whipped this out automatically, but it ends up giving White a lot of play. 12... O-O ! would have prevented the knight from gaining the outpost at d6. 13. Nf5 O-O 14. Re3 Qf6 15. Nd6 g6?! As White has no immediate threats, Black probably should have concentrated on untangling his Q-side with something like 15... b5. I suspect that Zach figured that sooner or later his superior rating and the two extra pawns would be enough. 16. Rc1 Nd4 17.c3 Nf5 18. Rf3 Qe5 19. Nc4 Qc7 20. g4!? A good practical move that keeps Black in a defensive frame of mind although it creates a lot of weaknesses. 20... Nh6 ?! Black keeps responding to White's threats without creating any of his own. 20... b5 !?would have given White something to think about. . 21. Rh3 Kg7 22. Nd6 f6 23. g5 Ng4? This was Black's chance to finally evict the pesky knight from d6. with 23... Nf7 !? 24. gxf6+ Kg8 and the White knightmust give up his outpost after which Black unravels his Q-side and exploits White's weak pawn. 24. gxf6+?! Releasing the pressure.24. Qd4 ! would have left the knight on g4 with nowhere to go. 24...Nxf6 25. Qd4 Qa5?! Still not 25... b6 ! with the idea of untangling the Q-side and challenging the White queen with ...Qc5. 26. Re1 Kg8 27. Re5 Qd8 28. Rg5 Qe7 29. Nf5?! As on move 24, White opted for a forcing move over one that would have ratcheted up the pressure. 29.Bc2 ! looks like it is winning for White.

Due to Black's snarled Q-side, White is effectively two pieces ahead. By adding the bishop to the attack, White can afford to sacrifice one of his extra pieces on g6 to expose the Black K. 29...Qg7 30. Rhg3 Kh8 31. Bxg6 h6 32.Qh4. 29... Qa3! This was the move that Mike had overlooked. At this point, both players were pretty short on time and Zach demonstrates the tactical superiority of an expert. 30. Nh6+ Kg7 31. f4 Qc1+ 32. Qd1 Qxf4 33. Rhg3? Ne4 34. Rf3? Qxg5+ 35. Kf1? Nd2+ 36. Ke1Nxf3+ 37. Ke2 Qg2+ 38. Ke3 Qg1+ 39. Ke2 Qxd1+ 40. Kxd1 0-1.

The match turned on Peter Dimopoulos's upset of Rishi on second board. After defending a cramped middle game well with the Black pieces, Peter somewhat recklessly decided to play for a win in an ending where he had a knight against Rishi's bishop with pawns on both sides of the board. After methodically punishing Peter for his optimism, Rishi made one of the most natural mistakes in the book when he assumed that his opponent would recapture his pawn after 46.fxg5+?.

As we all know, chess is not checkers and Peter played 46...Ke5! After 47.Kb4 Kd4 48.Kb3 Kd3, White cannot stop the e-pawn and Black queens first.