A Series of Games

Last week, I played 4-5 games in a bar with my friend who has an expert rating (he peaked at about 2200).  I've never won a fair game against him (I won once, but he'd given me a takeback and some advise).

Each time I was white, I played e4.  He met it with the French twice (his specialty), and won quite soundly.  In another, he played the Sicilian - an opening I don't understand and get frequently lost.  In fact, I lost in each and every game I played him, as usual.  HOWEVER, I almost won one.  He blundered, and I was up a piece.  I tried to trade down too quickly, while his Queen was mopping up loose pawns.  The endgame saw my Bishop and 4 pawns versus his 7 pawns.  With shoulder-to-shoulder passed pawns, and his King on that side to support it, he managed to clear them down to the bottom to promote a Queen and it was game over.  It was an exciting game, but a real heartbreaker to lose.

In future, I'll try to write these matches down to show you how I did (good or bad).  Be aware though, that these games are casual - played without a clock, usually over a drink or two.  So even my "near win" should be put in persective as we're not playing in tournament conditions here.

The Study of Chess Tactics

“Chess is 99% tactics” - Rudolph Teichmann

To become a serious chess player, you need to begin studying.  As players improve, book study becomes an increasingly important path to improvement.

The first question that every chess student must tackle first is what to study!  There are general chess treatises which cover the entire game, as well as books for specific topics.  As a player improves, the books he or she requires to get better become more and more topic specific.  E.g. a beginner would find a book on the Nimzo-Indian opening useless in its complexity.  In contrast, a master level player would find value only in books devoted to dealing with an entire sub-variation of the Nimzo-Indian defense.

At my current level of play (roughly a 1400 ELO), books covering the entire game, such as The Mammoth Book of Chess are of limited use.  I know how to move the pieces, I know notation, I know the basic openings, etc.

Much better for me are books dealing in further detail with the topics I mentioned in my last post, which are:

1.      Openings

2.      Strategy (Middlegame)

3.      Tactics

4.      Endgames

5.      Annotated Games

I will deal with the pros and cons of each in a series of posts, along with which books I am currently reading (or thinking about reading).

As the quotation at the top of this post indicates, this post will be about Tactics.  From a study perspective, Tactics provide the most “Bang for your Buck” at my level of play.  Tactics involves the ability to calculate forced move combinations which provide a decisive advantage.  It is also the ability to recognize patterns to know when a pre-existing tactic is there to look for.

The best way to study tactics is through the use of chess puzzles.  To be honest, this is one of the easiest ways to study chess.  As a work-commuter who takes the train, chess puzzles are also “train friendly” in that I generally do not require a chess board in front of me to solve them.

I have recently finished reading through Chess Tactics for Champions; which was a wonderful tactics book.  Each type of tactic was broken down and explained, and then a series of exercises (50 or 25 depending on the topic) was given for each.  I will certainly give a full review of this book in a later post.  However, after a 2^nd read-through, I noticed I had started to memorize the solutions.
So I ordered a new chess puzzle book: Learn Chess Tactics. This books seems to be along the same line’s as the Polgar book, so I’m looking forward to more of the same.  I will let you know how it turns out as I finish more of it.

In my next post, I will cover the importance of Opening study at my level, and the books I am checking out at that level.

The Path to Improvement

There are 2 paths to improvement in chess.  Experience and Study.

My improvement in the last year has been weighted too heavily on the "experience", but unfortunately, of the wrong type.  I've been playing a lot of 5-minute games on ICC, just because they are easy to play.  Unfortunately, these quick games don't allow for much growth in understanding.  Games with much longer time controls are preferable for improvement.  The only thing 5-minute games train is your ability to think quickly.

To change this, I'll be playing more 15-minute games.  These are not long games by any means; but, they provide the wherewithal to think rather than react during each move - and blundering should become less of a factor in each game.

To really improve from where I am though, requires something other than playing games.  What I truly need is far more study, and that means more attention to BOOKS.  I've divided the types of book study into 5 necessary categories.  These are Tactics, Openings, Strategy, Endgames, and Annotated Games.

In my next post, I'll talk more about the relative importance of each category, as well as which books I'm using to deal with each category - and why.

A Lifetime's Journey

This blog will chronicle my growth and improvement as a chess player.  I will detail the steps I take to improve.

I have never played in any official event.  So I have no official rating.  I do play on ICC, and I will provide you those ratings as they currently stand to give you an idea of where I am at in this journey.

15-minute games = 1450
5-minute games = 1075
1-minute games = 800

When playing over a board, I can easily defeat most casual players I encounter.  Recently, there have been a few exceptions.  I made a friend in the last year who is an expert level player (rated between 2000 and 2200).  He has provided me the inspiration to improve -> probably because I don't like to be beaten so badly!

The journey of improvement begins now!