Rio Rancho Open Tournament Recap

OK so the wife and I and our trusty four legged friend leave late Friday morning heading towards New Mexico. The trip was pretty uneventful although the beauty of the landscape always captivates me.

 

See what I mean?

Anyway since I planned this trip a wee bit better there were no late night blind dashes through uncharted highways. We went at a more relaxed pace and arrived unfrazzled at our hotel room.

The next day I arrived at about 8 am and went into the tournament hall. The inside of this place was a departure from the warm sunny New Mexico morning. The bar was poorly lit and there was a smoky haze throughout the room. Although the smell of cigarettes was overpowering, I detected a faint smell, lurking underneath, barely detectable. Yes it was quite faint, but unmistakable, a smell from my days back in NYC when I ran with a chess gang; gun smoke. Yes folks a man was shot and more than likely killed in this very room, no more than 30 – 40 minutes before my arrival.

This kind of thing happened pretty frequently in the old days. Two guys would start bullshitting about Morphy or Fischer being the best ever and before you know it heated words turned into heated barrel and someone was dead…

As I make my way across the room my eye catches an old sign above the registration table, it read:

If you don’t want something unfortunate happening to you avoid the following

1. The London System
   
2. Time Delay Clocks
   
3. Algebraic notation
   

We don’t cotton to none of the above.

Well now I’m feeling a bit sick to my stomach, I mean not only were these guys’ chess bad asses but they were OCG’s, Original Chess Gangsta’s. You don’t mess with crazy bastards like this.

What? Well I’m sure…

Yeah, you know it’s called artistic license…

I’m putting the facts in, just with some pizzazz.

I’m sure they are fully aware…

Geez there are like THREE FREAKING PEOPLE THAT READ THIS BLOG WHAT DOES IT MATTER???

*SIGH*

OK Mrs. Wang is giving me grief about the opening of this story. She doesn’t think anyone would believe this, and that chess players are nowhere near that dangerous or violent. Unfortunately she is correct. The tournament was held in this place.

 

Hardly a haven for scum and villainy, but bad ass chess players would have made for a more interesting albeit less accurate story, I was still going to put my game annotations in the post, so the most important facts would be in.

As for facts, I had an upset stomach the entire weekend. I think it was road food, you know McDonald’s and other fast food stuff during the trip over, that and a bit of nerves. Nothing major, but I had Pepto with me the whole time.

Anyway the place was actually well lit and temperature controlled perfectly, not too cold or hot. There were four long rows of tables that comfortably held all of the players. The cash prizes were based on having 80 total entries and 82 showed up for the tourney; so the organizers chose their spot wisely. I suspect the place would have accommodated another 20 players easily, so kudos to the organizers for picking such a good spot for the tourney.

Another fact, they had a vendor there that I bought a time delay clock from, yes I finally went over to the dark side. A couple of weeks ago I drew a won game because I got into a time scramble, and I figured that a time delay clock would be a good solution to this happening to me again. What can I say? I’m a sellout. The clock only cost me $ 37.50 with Batteries! Sweet deal so how could I say no?

There was also another vendor, whose name I can’t remember, but he had a bunch of books (in descriptive notation) and he had published several monographs (also in descriptive) His shirt had the following on it. Chess is a Royal game that deserves Royal Notation P-K4! I mean he was pretty passionate about this. A few of the local players buying from him also seemed to share his opinion about descriptive notation.

My first game is against a young man I believe to be about 13 years old, rated about 1800. I have white and he plays a Sicilian, of course! Now I normally don’t praise my opponents play, which I hope is not a sign of being a poor sport but I’m really focused on my play, after all it’s my blog. But I have to say he played quite well. He had some attacking chances early on the queenside, I defended and hoped he would fall into one of the many traps, but he didn’t. Instead he regroups his pieces to go back towards the Kingside where I get my turn to attack. Anyway the game is here.

So I’m 0 for 1 at the tournament, but I’m not down about it. I think I played pretty well, I had some good tactics involved in the game I just had an inaccurate attack and I was punished by a player that has almost 300 points on me, not a completely unexpected result.

In round two I play a much older gentleman, about 100 points below me and I have white again! I play 1.e4 and he plays the Accelerated Dragon, in turn signal chess style.

What, you’ve never heard of turn signal chess? Well it’s like when you get behind a slow driving senior citizen who has had their turn signal on for about 35 minutes; it makes you crazy and impatient. Well he was slow, and I don’t mean slow, I mean S-L-O-W. He took forever to move and I had a good position against him in the early middle game.

I was confident that I would bring home this point and get back on track. Problem is I underestimated this guy and I thought I was so much better, that the point would just win itself. I played a bad move from this position, and he won his pawn back. Now instead of just admitting that I’ve made a mistake and regrouping and getting back into the game, I try to complicate matters and he begins to unleash a pretty mighty can of tactical whip ass on me. I mean he beat me LOUD! Bottom line, when he won, he had 17 minutes left on his clock, I had 51. I played too fast because I underestimated my opponent. I think it is better to play the board not the man, at least when you don’t know the man that well anyway.

So now I am 0 for 2 and yes I am pretty pissed off. My dark half was pretty mean to me;

Evil Wang: Dude, you suck!

Good Wang: Leave me alone.

Evil Wang: I mean really, you studied and prepared for this thing and you’ve lost two games in a row.

Good Wang: Look…

Evil Wang: Hell, you could have lost your first two games without studying.

Good Wang: It’s complicated, I just underestimated the old guy, and…

Evil Wang: Dude, shut up already. You should just quit chess, sell all of your shit and start playing World of Warcraft, like any self – respecting nerd would do.

Good Wang: I’m not a nerd!

Evil Wang: REALLY! You’re going to put this conversation in your blog aren’t you?

 

Well that was true, so I am a nerd. But really so what? It’s not exactly news to me, I play chess and I blog about it so, yeah guilty as charged.

What was really killing me is that I was losing my ass, and I’ve spent money, invested weekend of free time and hours of preparation to come 400 miles to New Mexico and lose my first two games!

Me and Mrs. Wang go out to lunch and I tell her that if I don’t win my round 3 game, I’ll drop out of the tournament and we’ll head home early. Although she’s not crazy about the idea of me quitting, she’s cool about it. Now kids I will tell you that you should never tempt fate like this, it’s simply not good.

In round three I am paired up against another 12-13 year old. This time I have black, and I’m actually relieved, no pressure. We have equal ratings so it should be a good match. The only thing is he is also 0-2 at this tourney and he’s likely to be desperate.

He opens with 1.e4 and I whip out my Alekhine (hmmm, that doesn’t sound right) He proceeds to play the 5 pawn variation of Alekhine’s defense. Ok before you start to look this variation up, I’ll let you in on a little secret; it doesn’t exist. The funny thing was that he played the first 5 moves quickly and confidently, then he . played 6.f4?! We ended up in this position, and 10 moves later in this position. 

Now I’m happy.  Long story short, I win.  I play a couple of nice tactical moves, again nothing mind blowing but I was able to make a series of small threats to get the advantage. 

 

So I tempted fate and won anyway.  Still I don’t think I’ll do that again.  Things are looking up, unfortunately you will have to wait until next week to see how this story ends for this tournament. 

Have a good weekend folks. 

Tournament Update

OK I won’t have the update until Wednesday.  I have a lot of crap to take care of and there is a lot of game analysis that needs to be done.  I would like to thank everyone who responded to my last post.  I’m not sure what I am going to do, but you all have given me much to think about.  A lot will depend on whether I commit to continuing such a heavy focus on tactics training or not.  This should all be a bit more clear when I post the games I played over the weekend, suffice to say I am pleased with my performance although I didn’t exactly hit a home run.

Pride and Sorrow

This is the phrase most often associated with Paul Morphy, brilliant, but such a short career. The same can be said of Bobby Fischer, and well it’s the theme of my (belated) weekly post.

 

First Michael Jackson passed away today, what really surprises me is how bummed I am about this. I remember Thriller coming out as a kid and being completely blown away that one album could have so many hits. Then Bad came out and I thought, “Man, he looks weird.” By the time Dangerous was released in 1991 I think it was apparent to even the casual observer that something was seriously wrong with him. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding him in the past 20 years but it’s still a loss. There you have it the pride and sorrow…

Farrah Fawcett, well if you had a pulse in the 70’s you knew about the poster & Charlie’s Angels. She was an American Icon, plus I remember as a kid that she was married to the Six Million Dollar Man, which I thought was super cool. I mean I had a crush on her but I figured at that tender age that if I couldn’t have her than at least a cool dude like the Bionic man should.

Now on to my chess adventures…

Last week was busier than I anticipated, I studied but I didn’t keep a draft of my blog throughout the week so I don’t have stats and such. I did two days of circles, tidied up my opening repertoire studying and looked over some past games. I did have to work Sunday which is when I normally annotate my games and post but since I was working this didn’t happen.

The local tourney that I was using as a warm up was last Saturday, I took a bye in round one because trying to acclimate to a non-vampire schedule is hard to do and I have a tough time making a 9AM game. I was falling asleep during my first game as it was.

I lost the first round to a kid rated 100 points more than me, on the white side of an Accelerated Dragon. This kid has become my KING KONG. He has whipped me like a tied up goat 6 times in a row now. White, black, it doesn’t matter, he just beats me senseless. Oh well. I will say that despite my weariness I got a good position and had a tiny edge late in the middle game. However instead of consolidating and getting ready for a long grind, I played cheapo, impatient moves and lost my ass. You are probably wondering why I haven’t posted any games this week, well; I’ll get into that later.

In round two I was playing my beloved Alekhine against a kid within 9 rating points of me. I played pretty sloppy in the opening and early middle game, woke up for the late middle game and early endgame and actually had drawing chances. I had a passed pawn (6^th rank) + a bishop + rook vs. 2 rooks. In a time scramble the kid drops a rook for nothing and I force an exchange of rooks and have an h pawn and a white colored bishop (this is the right color by the way) and I ended dropping the pawn. I had 17 seconds left on my clock and I don’t have a time delay on it. Maybe it is time to invest in a clock that has a time delay.

In round three I get another Alekhine against a kid rated 50 points higher than me. I play fairly well, and end up with a draw again! I had a chance to win but I didn’t play accurately enough, draw is a sensible result.

I lost 11 points and went out with a score of +0 -1 = 2 for a total score of 1.5, considering that ½ a point came by way of a requested bye, not too hot.

So here’s the pride/sorrow list for ya

PRIDE	SORROW
Improved my results with the black pieces	Played shitty
Fought hard to get a draw, YAY!	Played shitty
I only lost 11 rating points.	Lost yet another Sicilian game as white
I know why I lost, it’s not a mystery this time	Chess Assistant 10 Crashed on me, again**
Feeling pretty good about this upcoming tourney*	I have to change my white repertoire***

 

What? Oh the asterisks (*) well let me explain.

*Because I had to work last Sunday I get a comp day this week, I picked Thursday. So I will have off Thursday through Sunday for the upcoming tournament, which gives me an extra day to get on a normal sleep schedule.

** Chess assistant crashed on me for the last time! This happened after I got my weekend games annotated and well, now they are not, hence no games posted this week or even game positions, I just don’t have the energy. In fact I just re entered them back into the computer, so yeah, it kind of sucks.

The folks at Convecta are nice and all, but I can’t keep doing this. I can’t help but to feel that this happens because they force you into Chess Assistant World, where you save your games in CA format instead of .pgn format. Anyway whatever the reason I went out and got ChessBase Light premium. The main difference between it and full blown Chessbase is that the max size of a database is 32,000 games. As I mainly use a database just to store my own games this should suffice. The real whammy is that I have to convert all of my CA games into .pgn format. The utility that does it in CA screwed up half of my games so I’ll have to manually enter 79 games into Chessbase L

***I have won exactly one game since Jan of 2008 against the Sicilian. In that time I’ve faced the Sicilian 6 times out of a possible 23, far less than I’m used to seeing it. This is probably the biggest reason for my slow and steady improvement, I haven’t faced my nemesis that often, otherwise I’d still be rated in the low 1400’s.

This is pretty devastating to me, but I really hate playing against the Sicilian. With my dismal +5 -11 =2 I think it is time to face facts. I either

1. Need to learn a new Anti-Sicilian.
   
2. Need to start playing the Open Sicilians
   
3. Just switch to something else altogether.
   

I don’t see the point in 1, I really don’t want to learn how to combat the Sicilian all over again by not playing into normal Sicilian lines.

With number 2, well that’s a lot of theory and a lot more pain and suffering involved OTB all over again.

That leaves number 3; a lot of theory, but I can hardly imagine that I’d do worse against anything than I do against the Sicilian. I’m already somewhat familiar with the Reti and I might trot it out this weekend, but I’ll have to wait and see how I feel at game time.

Oh well so that is it kids. I am off to watch a few episodes of How I met Your Mother (hilarious) and off to bed. In the morning Mrs. Wang and I & our dog begin hurtling towards New Mexico for the Rio Rancho Open!

Have a good weekend.

PS> Farbor, I’ve tried, but I can’t seem to get rid of those strange symbols in CA when I convert over from pgn. As you can probably tell by my post, I’m pretty much done with CA.

Tournament Study Routine (I suffer from CSS Can’t See S**T)

Monday:

Did 41 problems on level 20 of CT-ART Scored 80%, best so far!

Worked through CTTP for about 25 minutes, only got 3 pages through, like I said earlier this is the toughest chapter.

Played 2 G15’s.  Man am I rusty, I played two really terrible games, it’s been 7 weeks since my last OTB game and 3 1/2 since my last G15.  I really need to knock the rust off.

I played against a Scandinavian which I normally eat up and missed a simple tactical shot at move 19 that would have given me an advantage, instead I blundered a few moves later and lost the game.

I played an absolutely awful Alekhine in my second game.  I was cramped and overall didn’t play like me.  I lost and I rightfully deserved it.

Kept entering my repertoire in Chess Assistant, working through the Moscow Variation of the Sicilian Defence.  I am now wondering why this thing gives me fits, apparently you have to go back an look over your repertoire choices from time to time, to make sure they are still fresh.

 
 

Tuesday:

Skipped CTTP, because I got carried away with my opening repertoire database entry.  I took 50 minutes to do this today.

Did another 41 problems on level 20, scored a respectable 77%.

Played a G15 once again terrible, I can’t seem to actually see anything at the board, it’s like I’m paralyzed.  I got a good game but lost on time, I don’t quite know how to remedy this.

 
 

Wednesday:

Another 41 problems at level 20 only scored a 69%.  Just fantastic now my tactical drills are sucking too!  This is not good…

Worked through CTTP for another 25 minutes, I only got through 2 pages this time.  One of the examples in the book was just fucking wrong!   The game continuation was, well just stupid; it took me awhile to figure it out.

Played 2 G15’s, I lost my first one, a Colle.  Good news is I played the opening correctly, bad news is I made a stupid counting error and got the worse position out of it.  Good news, I got a chance to redeem myself a few moves later, bad news, I screwed that one up too…

My second G15 I won, yay, finally!  I played ok, my opponent blundered a piece.  I played pretty well to seal the deal, but I missed a forcing move, I still won, but the best continuation escaped me. 

Overall I’m still playing pretty shitty; I have to confess to being a bit concerned about the upcoming tournaments.  My tactics are dull to say the least and I am in this constant haze of indecision.  Nothing left to do but try again tomorrow.

 

Thursday:

Did another 41 problems in CT-ART, scored 80% again but it took me a little over an hour.  I will slow down my pace on CT-ART problems in order to improve my results.  A minute and a half is a reasonable amount of time per problem.  I was really tired (still haven’t been able to sleep more than 4 hours at a clip) so I took a nap before work.

Friday:

Did nothing today!  I don’t know if it was the 5 hours of sleep I got last night or the fact that I didn’t have work OR go to school today, but I was feeling too good to stay in the house for long.  I ran errands instead.

I got my car detailed, just in time too, it was getting a bit funky. Bought a Father’s day gift for my…well my father, parked myself in a Barnes and Noble for awhile and had a $5 cup of coffee bought some clothes, actually some shirts, and I had dinner with Mrs. Wang.  Awesome day, but it won’t improve my chess. I’ll hit it hard tomorrow.

.

 

Saturday:

Slept 9 hours last night! WOOHOO! I haven’t slept that long in over a month! I feel fan-dam-tastic! Made myself a bowl of oatmeal and started studying…

Did 2 sets of 41 level 20 problems, got 73% and 79% respectively; it took me a total of an hour and a half to complete both sets. Overall a little better but I don’t seem to be making big strides with this. I spent the rest of the day with the wife shopping and hanging out, something about me working nights and not seeing me too much….

So much for hitting it hard today, I’ll have to start up again tomorrow

Sunday:

Did the last 40 problems for level 20, took me 41 minutes and I scored an 86%! This is an all time high for me. I finished the third pass at this level at a total of 78%, a 4% increase over last time. For those keeping score at home I did my first circle at 70%, second at 74%, and my last at 78%, I’m averaging a 4% increase with each successive attempt.

Finished CTTP it took me 4 hours total. Seeing as I spent extra time during the week on G15’s and opening prep, I skipped that and will pick up again on Monday.

 

Overall not too bad I kept the schedule flexible as I still work and have other obligations. I will start throwing down some book reviews this week so check back often. I am going to start with Endgame books, and surprisingly there are 5 book reviews that I can do. I had no idea I had so many endgame books.

 

Have a good week folks.

 

School’s out for summer!

Mirrored here.

School's Out!

 

  

WOOHOO!  Finished my accounting final and I have 6 weeks of no school!  I am so excited I could…I could…well I’m not exactly sure what I could do but I’m pretty damn happy.
So I guess I’ll just train myself silly.  There is a “big” tourney coming up in New Mexico.  I would have much rather be going somewhere else, as I’ve already played a tournament in NM, but everywhere else that has a tournament during my Summer break was too expensive, started too soon after the end of school or just plain too inconvenient to get to.  So New Mexico it is.

It is the Albuquerque/Rio Rancho Open.  It is a 5 round Swiss @ G90 on the 27th & 28th of June. I will be playing in the U1800 section. Things really worked out well for me as there is a local tourney the weekend before that will allow me to get warmed up and get into game shape as it were.

I am going to utilize my newfound appreciation for free time to guide my preparation for this tournament. I have a schedule all made out and ready to hit it hard starting tomorrow. My training will break down as follows:

G15’s – 6 hours (12 games)

Analysis – 6 hours (1/2 an hour for each game)

CTTP – 4 hours (should take me that long to finish this book.

Circles – 9.3 hours (This should keep me sharp)

Opening Prep – 6 hours

Endgame Prep – 5 hours

 

I’ve allowed 15 minutes a day for opening prep. It won’t necessarily happen every day though, it just depends if I goof an opening in one of my games & I need to check something out. I will be keeping track, so I’ll know how much time I actually spent my each phase of study. I think my opening prep will be closer to 2 – 3 hours but we’ll see.

Well I’ve got to get some sleep now, I’m exhausted from all of the accounting mumbo – jumbo, besides I’ve got to get to start my study regimen tomorrow.

 

Have a good week folks.

Week 6 of CCC

As is the case now my blog is mirrored here.

Glass Chess Set

 

 

 

I bought this set years ago at the Village Chess Shop.  It was between this one and another set where the “black” pieces were frosted like the white one’s are in this set and the white pieces were clear.  Ultimately I thought this had more contrast although I should have gotten the other board, as the white and black squares on this one are too similar for my taste.  Unfortunately I’m far too rough with my pieces when analyzing for this to be a viable everyday set for me. 

 

 

Monday:

Tidied up my databases, I mean I literally had files and crap all over the place on my computer, well, no more.

  

Tuesday:

Did 50 problems on level 20 of CT-ART, scored 72% again in 45 minutes.  So far on my second pass I’m averaging 72%, my first pass was I scored 70%.  I guess that’s progress, albeit slow.  The funny thing is the problems I know I bang them out instantaneously.  The ones I don’t recognize right away, it’s almost like I’ve never seen them before, no matter how long I look at it, I will get something wrong.

 

Wednesday:

Started Lesson 6 in CTTP, this lesson gave me a hard time last go around so I’m re-reading it.  I also did another 50 level 20 problems in CT-ART.  Got 83% (my highest score so far) in 39 minutes (my shortest time soo far).

 

Thursday:

No chess for me today, got home a little later than normal and couldn’t get to sleep until 7:00AM!   I did play some “correspondence Chess at Chess.com, more on that later.

  

Friday:

Worked on Lesson 6 in CTTP some more.  I’m going through this bad boy really slowly.  I find a lot of the combinations in this lesson to be “speculative” inasmuch as they go on for so many moves that I don’t have a completely clear picture in my head of the final position.  I can always get the correct first 2 – 3 moves but I’m not sure what everything will look like in my head at the end. 

These are the hardest types of endeavors to begin in OTB play.  I know because when I started playing in tournaments I was fresh off of doing a bunch of tactical problems and suffice to say I thought I could sac all the time and I would come out on top.  Needless to say when this blows up in your face a few times it tends to make you a bit gun shy.

  

Saturday:

I did the last 36 problems on level 20 and scored 78%.  This completes my second go around (dare I say circle) on level 20 and I scored 74% a 4% increase from my first go round, but still very far away from my goal of 95% on a level before progressing to the next level.

 

Sunday:

 

 Finished my accounting, one last week and I will be done for the Summer!!!

 

Weekly Wrap up:

Well I have two internet (slow, correspondence games) going at chess.com, but once they are finished I will not start any more.  While it is great fun to really be able to think about your moves and it makes you feel all smart and even a little bit like a titled player, I don’t think it will help my OTB results that much.  Bottom line is that it is a different form of chess and if I want good OTB results nothing is going to help me more than mimicking those settings as close as possible.

 

Post Script:

I had quite an increase in weekend activity, I know that a big part of this was BDK mentioning I had some good book reviews on the site, and I’m sure the promise of book reviews by a fellow patzer had something to do with it as well.  Anyway this got me to thinking I should write all of the book reviews I possibly can.  I figure I have another 12 or so reviews I can do right away, so I’ll be posting 1 or 2 a week until I get them all done. 

The links to the posts will be in the “Book Reviews” Tab on the top of the page.  I was also wondering if anyone had a book review they would like to share here just e-mail it to me and I’d be happy to post it.  I think its always good to get a fellow patzer’s perspective on books that come out.  My e-mail address is wango@chess.com

Have a good week folks.

Chess Advantage in Black and White Book Review

The Chess Advantage in Black and White

Larry Kaufman

McKay Chess Library

Target audience 1400-1800 (I think)

First of all let me say that putting a complete repertoire for both the white and black pieces in one book is a daunting task.  We’ll disregard all of the research that goes into the book for a minute, and focus on the fact that the author will have to have his repertoire choices fight with each other at some point in time.  Mr. Kaufman advocates lines that are more positional and less theoretically heavy.  This should get the reader to familiar positions without falling into any traps.

He has a nice setup, every opening is introduced at the begining of the chapter with statistics and general ideas laid out.  He then goes on to give the opening moves with variations listed and notes on where to find that variation discussed in the chapter.  He presents the material through annotated game fragments.  He’ll let the reader know the outcome of the game and,  when appropriate give improvements.  This was a great way to present this repertoire as you see the same themes and patterns over and over.  It also saved space as he didn’t include complete games which probably made this hefty (497pages) book even heftier.

Some folks have complained that there wasn’t a index of variations, which I understand is a pain, but how would you go about putting one together?  For white alone you would branch off to a half dozen second moves!  After all after 1.e4 black can play e5, c6, c5, d5, g6, b6.  By my estimation the index of variations would have to be about 10 pages long, forget it, look at the table of contents to find what you’re looking for.

With the White pieces the author suggests the Ruy Lopez exchange variation which I believe is a good choice.  It is a classical opening but doesn’t contain reams and reams of analysis as many of the other Spanish lines.  He also recommends Moscow/Rossolimo variations against the Sicilian.  This proves to be an economical choice because you have the same ideas, exchanging the light squared bishop for a knight and hoping to damage the opponents pawn structure.  Seeing as you will most likely see these two openings a combined 80% of the time at the patzer level this takes care of most of the work you will have to do with the white pieces.

Against the Caro-Kan he suggest the Short variation which is an advance variation.  I have won many games in slow time control games online with this variation and this made me very confident when facing the Caro.

Against the French he advocates the Tarrasch variation which is good but I never quite got it.  No matter how hard I study this thing, I ALWAYS end up dropping a pawn against the French.  Again this variation is more positional in nature and at the Patzer level it is seen very infrequently.  Most of the people I played it against confessed that they spent little to no time studying it because they never face it.

Against the Pirc and Modern the author goes with a controlled space grab and the postions offer white more space and white is slightly better in all lines.  This book helped demystify these defenses for me and gave me tremendous confidence when facing these lines.  I no longer feared the Pirc or Modern after this book.

Against the Alekhine he recommends the exchange variation which I think is very hard for Black to play against.  I play the Alekhine exclusively against 1.e4 and this is what I least like to see.  Against the Petroff he recommends the Kauffman attack which I found to be loads of fun for white.  The added bonus is that like the Tarrasch against the French NONE of my opponents had seen this.  This was an added bonus.  By the way this attack is not named after the author it is named for an Austrian Master who was active during WWI.

For the white pieces the repertoire is solid and cohesive you should end up with similar ideas every time and that should put you in the driver’s seat.  You won’t be in the sharpest lines or the most topical but the ideas are easy to grasp and it should do well for weekend chess warriors like myself.

Now we come to the black repertoire…

This is where the author almost lost me.  When I first got the book I was assuming he’d got with a Philidor Defense, or a Caro-Kan or possible a classical Sicilian.  But he chose to play the open games.  Which makes sense seeing as the white repertoire is so classically influenced.  Problem is he chose the Berlin defense against the Spanish.  Talk about a class A snoozefest!  This is absolutely no fun to play as black.  The Berlin arises after 1. e4, e5 2. Nf3, Nc6 3.Bb5, Nf6 4. O-O, Nxe4 5. d4, Nd6 6. Bxc6, dxc6 7. dxe5, Nf5 8.Qcd8, Kxd8 9. Nc3, Ke8  leaving us with the following position. 

I don’t know about you, but i really don’t want to play this way with the black pieces.  Apparently it is hard for white to get an advantage, but on the flip side I don’t see too many chances for black to have any fun either.  However I must say that this choice while wildly unpopular with BDK and myself makes sense when you think abou the context of the book.  It’s not mainstream, it’s not too theoretical and is simple to learn.  Hey you can’t get everything.

Being that you won’t be playing the Sicilian with black in the repertoire there is no need to go over all of the Anti-Sicilian lines, however being that you will be playing the open games the author had to include defenses to the Italian Game, The Scotch Game, The Four Kinghts, The Ponziani, the King’s Gambit, the Center Game/Danish Gambit, Vienna Game/Bishop’s Opening!  While these are not all necessarily sharp that is a lot of stuff to cover in open games.  Again at the patzer level you can expect to see the Danish and King’s Gambit quite a bit. 

Overall I wasn’t too happy with the Black side of this repertoire vs. 1e4.

As bad as this section was in my humble opinion the author more than made up for it with his coverage of 1.d4 defenses.

He recommends the Semi-Slav defense against 1.d4.  Now this may seem like a departure because the Semi-Slav can be very theoretical, but he presents this material in such a clear detailed manner that I couldn’t help but fall in love with this defense right away.

He has a great introduction to the defense, which includes how to play the opening moves so you don’t get tricked by a sneaky transposition.  This was incredibly helpful and this section is worth the entire price of the book for me.

He recommends the Meran variation, and the Moscow when white avoids the Meran.  Overall great stuff and this was one of those times when I just “got it”.  This might not be to everyone’s liking as if white decides to go for an Anti-Moscow you end up with this insanity.

1.d4,d5 2.c4, e6 3.Nc3, c6 4.Nf3, Nf6 5.Bg5, h6 6.Bh4, dxc4 7.e4, g5 8.Bg3, b5 9.Be2, Bb7 10.h4, g4 11.Ne5, h5

Now this is fun!  Although probably not to everyone’s taste.  This is what puzzled me, why such fun stuff here, but such a drag against the Ruy?  People with better ratings than I can probably better answer that.  The only drawback is that the author’s recommended move order allows the Marshall Gambit.  I won’t go into detail here, but it is a very aggressive and I suspect completely sound gambit for white.  So far none of my opponents have had the stones to play it but I imagine that further up the ratings ladder there are plenty who will; I’m not looking forward to it.

The author goes on to adress 1.c4 when your opponent skips out on an early d4, as you can trick your opponent into playing into one of the Semi-Slav move orders he gives.  He also goes over the various 1.d4 2. other than c4 lines.  Once again everything seems to fit into the repertoire quite nicely.

Overall this is an excellent book.  Barring the open games as black I’ve used everything else in here.   My copy is pretty beat up from the constant use over the past couple of years.  AND ONCE AGAIN I SEE IT IS OUT OF PRINT!!! Currently it’s going for $54.95 from the used booksellers at Amazon.  So if you see this at a used bookstore and it costs less snatch it up!  Put it on Ebay if you don’t intend to use it yourself.  See money making advice here as well as book reviews, how helpful am I?

Chess Openings for White, Explained Book Review

Chess Openings for White, Explained

Lev Alburt

Chess Information and Research Center (CIRC)

 For Players of all levels (says so on the back cover, so it must be true.

Ok this book is like a staple at this time so my review will do little to alter its place on the chess scene.  This is a 543 page behemouth!  I mean seriously this thing is massive.  It’s also quite expensive at $29.95.  Hold on a second whilst I check to see if its still available on Amazon…Sweet it is and it cost $19.95 there.   this is a complete white repertoire in one book.  It goes by the variation tree method, that is there are only a few complete games, and they are all the way in the back, and don’t cover all of the lines that are in the book.  This just has sequences of moves with some explanation, but you won’t get to see the plans carried out very far with example games. 

Now although this thing is big enough to be an effective doorstop it has a copious, and I mean a copius amount of diagrams.  I mean a lot!  There are 4 per page so a bunch of the pages are actually taken up by diagrams.  This is good, because you’ll need them.

First we get 73 pages of fluff.  Now I appreciate the history of the game and all that good stuff but c’mon 73 pages.  I think that space could have been better used to put in annotated games.  Anyway the Author suggests the following lines.

Scotch Gambit as white, and gives various replies to the Two Knights Defense, Petroff and Philidor defenses.  He advocates the Grand Prix attack with 2. Nc3… 3.f4.  This is a good recommendation because it’s not too theoretical (as compared to the open Sicilians) and it frees up a lot of study time.  For me however the Grand Prix Attack is just one of those openings I never got, but I know a lot of people who use it with success.

Then we get to the French Defense.  Now the Grand Prix portion of the book is 37 pages long.  The French Defense is 104!  Now for a defense that is 3rd in popularity at the Patzer level as well as at GM level this seems like a lot to have to absorb.  Now it does make sense as he is recommending a more open and attacking repertoire than Kaufman does in his book, but it still seems like a lot of work for the number 3 defense that you are going to see.

He lumps the Center-Counter (Scandinavian) and the Caro-Kan together as they end up with similar pawn structures.  He recomeneds the exchange variation, which at first I thought was quite odd.  Most Caro players don’t even sweat this thing, as it’s thought to lead almost immediately to equality.  However it seems pretty wide open and like a good choice for an attacking player.

This book is excellent although I can’t seem to shake that problem with the French Defense.  It seems as though something else with a little less theory could have been picked.  Overall I’d say this thing is worth the money.  There are tons of diagrams and the author points out critical positions in blue print/pictures. 

There are three slight problems I could see with this book.

1) This thing was all the rage a year ago so it is possible that many people will be familiar with the lines. 

2) I looked up the line to the Alekhine, as I play it all the time as black.  The author omitted a variation that is better than the response that he gives in his book.  I found this odd as the book I got it from was published in 2004, so the info was available.  Normally I wouldn’t even mention it, but when I was going over the Alekhine section the move black is “supposed” to make didn’t make sense to me, and I immediately thought of the other move, before looking at my Alekhine book.  This may be a problem with some other lines as well.

3) The book’s binding is shitty.  I didn’t use this book that much an in under a year the book has seperated from the cover and a few pages are loose.  From a book that didn’t get used that much, well its shitty.

Despite that I would recommend this book if you are looking for one stop shopping for the white pieces.  I heard a rumor that Alburt will release another volume dealing with 1.d4, but no word yet.

Chess Openings for Black, Explained Book Review

 This is the sister companion to the previous book.

The presentation is the same, and the same poor binding issues affected my copy of the black repertoire book as well.  This was also a wildly popular book the past two years so the possibility of these lines being well traveled by many of your OTB opponents is pretty high.  This time we get only 56 pages of fluff before hitting the repertoire.

We get the accelerated Dragon as black.  This is a solid choice and as good a place as any if you are going to take up the Sicilian.  The other benefit is that when dealing with the anti Sicilians you won’t have to face any Bb5 lines.  Another point of note is that since you will always be fianchettoing early it won’t be a huge deal for you to face the Grand Prix attack.  Black is normally “forced” to fianchetto in these lines, so if you play a Sicilian where that’s not normally part of the plan this could cause some problems.  In the Accelerated Dragon you always fianchetto so it’s no big deal.

Against 1.d4 we get the Nimzo-Indian, Bogo Indian Complex.  While no one would argue that the Nimzo is one of blacks best choices against 1.d4 there are definitely a lot of positional considerations to take into account.  Many of these were beyond the grasp of this reviewer.  Granted I’m only a class C putz, but I think it’s a bit beyond alot of folks that this book is intended for.

Once again everything is covered, the English opening as well as all 1.d4 openings where white avoids 2.c4 Although I like the book I don’t think it’s as good as the the white repertoire book.  This is probably due more to a bias on my part than anything else.  It just seems that in the white book there is a definite aim to get the reader to play attacking chess while with the black pieces the author seems to want you to really hold back with more positional openings.  I know that you are a move behind with black but the whole thing didn’t have the same cohesive feel as The Chess Advantage in Black and White, by Larry Kaufman. 

I would recommend it if you want to start playing the Sicilian, I think the simple plan in the Accelerated Dragon is a good jumping off point.  As far as the Nimzo, I think a book with complete games would probably be a better choice.  This would allow you to get a better feeling for the ideas in the opening.  Something that I don’t think transfers as well with a variation tree book such as this one.  I also think there are more “fun” ways to play this opening, as it has attracted the worlds best players, all who are different types of players.  Kasparov and Karpov don’t play the Nimzo the same way.

Starting Out: 1.e4! Book Review

Starting Out: 1e4!

Neil McDonald

Everyman Chess 1600-1800 (maybe, it’s hard for me to tell)

Ok so there is no nice way to say this so I’m just going to come out and say it…

This is not a good book.   See my addendum at the bottom.

This is a white Repertoire book, by a very accomplished author.  His recent books for Everyman include Chess Secrets: The Giants of Strategy and Starting Out: The English.  He is also the author of The Art of Planning in Chess: Move by Move.  So why am I telling you all of this?  Well because I am hardly at a level to criticize such an accomplished chess author.  I am a fair to poor player, however I am also a purchaser of chess books, and this is what qualifies me to be less than happy  completely satisfied with this purchase.

First, as I look at Amazon this book is currently unavailable, I don’t know if it was because it was unpopular (it’s 1d4 sister is still available and they were released the same year) or if it’s just that Everyman is pushing all of its book into ebook format.  You can get the ebook from the Everyman Chess site fore $19.95.  Everyman has been putting alot of their Starting Out: series in ebook format.  This is cool because you can just download it, no waiting for a delivery.

Now on to the bad stuff.  If you play 1.e4 you will have to face 1….c5 A LOT!  At my level of play I see 1….c5 about 65% of the time.  I have adopted the Grand Prix attack (hated it) and now I use a Bb5 system.  In other words Anti-Sicilians.  I do it to keep me from having to face some booked up uber opening dork across the board from me that happens to know all the latest wrinkles in the Najdorf. 

Now normally on this blog I will say that most of my opponents are all that booked up.  However the Sicilian, well it attracts some theory freaks.  Many of the variations are so heavily laden with tactics that if you are trying to figure them out over the board with G60 time controls, well suffice to say that you are setting yourself up for sadness.

I, you, we all have limited time for chess study.  That’s probably what leads people to buy Starting Out books to begin with.  With all of that said, how the author could suggest to the reader that taking up open Sicilians in a book that comes in at just under 200 pages, is beyond me.  Now in his defense this part of the book is the largest, it takes up 76 pages. 

Now I realize that if you take up e4 and decide to play the open Sicilians you’ll have to buy many books.  And Mr. McDonald states that doing this early is better for you.  But this borders on insanity.  I don’t think that this book is enough to get you started playing open Sicilians as white.  You’d have to get a few more books and then of course you’d have to read them!  Time and money are just not on most of our sides when it comes to chess endeavors, so I think this advice was misspent (on me anyway).

The rest of the book is all good.  You get the Exchange variation against the Alekhine, which I think is the best choice for white if he doesn’t have all the time to learn the four pawns attack.  He suggests the Panov-Botvinnik Attack against the Caro-Kan and the Korchnoi Gambit agains the French.  All of the lines make sense in that they are all aggressive approaches by white. 

As in the Usual Everyman Format these are presented with complete games.  Which I think is usually the best way for patzers to learn openings, however I think that when an opening or repertoire is incredibly sharp the variation tree method is probably better.  Let’s face it, with really sharp stuff, you just have to memorize the moves period, a variation tree will help you do that better than looking at annotated games.  At least when you are first learning the opening.

Bottom line, don’t buy this book.  I think that there are better repertoire books out there for you to spend you hard earned duckets on.

Ok since I moved the book reviews I have to soften this wicked final line.  The book is a buy if you are considering saying, “To hell with it, I’m facing the Sicilian head on, and no girly man Anti-Sicilian stuff for me!”  It is a good introduction, but be aware that you will have to get a few other books and STUDY YOUR GAMES EXTENSIVELY, he doesn’t have you puss out with quiet lines, Bg5 against the Najdorf and the Keres Attack vs. the Scheveningen, these are not for the faint hearted.  Suffice to say I didn’t care for the book, but other braver souls might find that this is exactly what they are looking for.