Friday, November 12, 2010

A Challenge to the GambitKing

Chess.com
There are a few ways White can get a very reasonable advantage in the Latvian, Kosten's objective work The Latvian Gambit Lives! accepts this.
For instance, chapter 4 deals with Bronstein's Variation, 6. Be2, and he says;
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Nxe5 Qf6 4.d4 d6 5.Nc4 fxe4 6.Be2

Black to move



In his excellent book 200 Open Games, David Bronstein goes into a deep discussion of how he came to discover the strong move 6.Be2 (which is odd, as it had already been analysed by Betins).  In essence, his idea is to stop Black's queen from settling on the important square g6, from where she simultaneously surveys g2, protects the e4-pawn, and also allows the king's knight to develop naturally on f6.  The other advantage of 6.Be2 is it's flexibility: White can attack the black e-pawn with Nc3, and, if necessary, with f3 and yet is ready, should Black play ...d5, to play Ne3 and c4.
Black has tried many replies:
A 6...Nc6
B 6...Qd8
C 6...d5?!
D 6...Qf7?!
E 6...h5?
... without ever finding one that is completely satisfactory.
-Kosten
Deep Rybka 3 also likes this approach, giving White a score of +0.91 at depth = 18 in this line:


by Musikamole
California United States
KyleJRM wrote:
The cure is to set up a realistic training regimen based on what some of the experts out there have said. Think of chess as less an accumulation of knowledge and more of a training of skills, like an athletic program.  You could read all the books in the world about running, but you won't complete a 10k until you get on a treadmill or road and start building yourself up with a daily grind.
I am beginning to see the light. 
The basics of your training regime should be:
1) Tactics! TACTICS! There are two schools of thought. One is that you should be practicing tactics until your eyes bleed, the other is that you should limit it to a bit of time each day (but never miss a day) because an adult brain can only absorb so many new patterns at a time. I prefer the latter, but the former would be okay too.
The key here is pattern recognition. You know how when you first started playing, the very day you learned the rules, you had to stop and think "Okay, the knight moves like this, so he can capture the piece on that square."  But now you can just glance at the board and immediately know, because it flashes in your mind without you having to think that out? That's how you have to be with every tactic. The more tactics training you do, the more often your brain will flash "Pinned piece!" or "Removal of the guard!" or "Mating pattern!" at you in the game, not only with what is on the board but with what the board would look like if you made your possible moves. You'll not only see more tactics, but more importantly you'll keep yourself out of them for your opponents.
It has taken a while, but I am just starting to get this flash of recognition.
2) Play a slow game and take your time. Think hard about each key move, not only what you want to do but what your opponent can do in response. Then when it is over, use a higher-rated friend or computer to analyze it, especially if you lost.
I tell my music students all of the time to slow down, play accurately, THEN gradually speed up. The turn based games at this site are helping.
3) Annotated master games. I kind of consider these optional until higher ratings, but others would disagree. I do them anyway, but I'm not sure how much I get out of them. If you have a lot of books, you may have some good collections.
I have far too many annotations of master games.

The main theme here is that none of us are smart enough to skip the basics, but almost all of us feel like we are when we are starting out. Most of the advice that floats around here (including mine) comes from Dan Heisman, a popular trainer and writer of the Novice Nook columns at his site, danheisman.com.
I don't have the exact quote in front of me, but he's basically said that if you study enough to memorize most of the 2,000 basic tactical motifs by sight, go over a few thousand master games and play enough slow games that you've had 100 moves that you've analyzed for 10 full minutes, you'll be a highly rated chess player threatening to reach at least expert.
Yes. It's a lot of work, with no short cuts.
Unless you just don't have the mind to learn the tactics, that's all just putting in the work over a matter of years. But less than a few percent of his students ever actually do all that work, and those are people paying him serious money to learn chess. We all just want to hear some basic principles that we can apply to our games like "This is how you keep your pieces active."

Outstanding post!
I spend money both here and at www.chesstempo.com to practice tactics. Chesstempo is especially good for me because I can log on at work during lunch and do a few tactics, since the site is not blocked by the server. Chess.com is blocked because all gaming sites are blocked.
My stats at www.chesstempo.com. 
Stats for standard tactics
Rating: 1373.1 (RD: 40.76) (Best Active Rating: 1403 Worst Active Rating: 829)
Active Rank: 5519/7438 (Better than: 25.8% Best Active: 2018 Worst Active: 5816)
Problems Done: 1074 (Correct: 807 Failed: 267)
Percentage correct: 75.14%
Average recent per problem time spent 136 seconds
FIDE Estimated Rating based on standard tactics: 1622

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So, I do practice tactics daily, but not until my eyes bleed. Laughing
I agree. There are no shortcuts to chess mastery. I'm a big fan of Dan Heisman's Novice Nook, and I listen to his video lectures over at ICC. Dan gives beginners like myself the tools. We need to take those tools and get out there and exercise them.

11th November 2010, 09:59am
#20
by Musikamole
California United States
blueskies88 wrote:
Musikamole wrote:
Back to mobility.
One thing I am finding useful is simply viewing the games of masters on a regular basis. I've been in a rut with 1.d4 on Live Chess, with my dark square bishop getting stuck and having nothing to do. This game has sparked some ideas regarding this piece. I found 13.h3, followed by 14.Bh2 extremely clever. The scope of White's dark squared bishop is tremendous! It's also the final piece moved to secure the win with 50.Bg5.



 Loved this game. I am not one for studying chess. I just play. You inspire me to study. Thanks.

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