My Big Announcement

Ok kids here goes. You won’t find this exclusive scoop in Chess Life, on Chess.com, on Vicary’s blog or anywhere else.

Are you ready?

I will tell you that I am going to do something that I said I would never, ever, do.

No, not star in gay porn.

Not straight porn either

Not vote for a Green Party candidate.

 

I am going to…

Wait for it…

Make sure that you’re not drinking anything; I don’t want a bunch of people to be spitting up on their monitors and what not.

Ok, ready?

 

I am going to…

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Play the Open Sicilians as white!

 

I KNOW!

AMAZING, HUH?

Before I am inundated with messages let me explain myself, there are a few things that led up to this decision.

1. My chosen Bb5 system, is well beyond my grasp.
   
2. I’m not going to learn another anti-Sicilian line. I’ll try to play against it full bore, no holds barred, and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll become a 1.d4 guy, period end of story. I’m giving myself 7 OTB encounters to get this right.
   
3. Well this is a little more in depth than a bullet point can sum up so …
   

Two and a half years ago I worked through Chess Exam and Training Guide by Igor Khmelnitsky. I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who wants to improve. Here is a breakdown of my scores at that time.

Category	Score
Calculation	1930
Opening	1830
Strategy	1617
Recognizing Threats	1530
Middlegame	1506
Attack	1502
Counterattack	1465
Sacrifice	1463
OVERALL	1450
Defense	1388
Tactics	1374
Endgame	1340
Standard Positions (endgames)	1110

 

Standard positions are standard endgames (K+R+P vs. K+R kind of things)

I knew ahead of time that my tactics sucked and when I saw the rest of this list I was like, “Great, I have good calculation skills and good opening knowledge” but that was it. So I worked on my tactics and I did some endgame studying. But I ignored my strengths! In other words I ignored any possible “style” I had. Now when I say style I am merely referring to my strengths and weaknesses (S&W).

I think it is easy to see and try to fix what we are bad at and ignore those things that are strong suits for us. I will refrain from using the word style because it gets too much ego involved. I think it is enough to understand what you do well, and what you don’t. Not to say that I can out – calculate any opponent, but it is my relative strength, so I should try to stick to that.

To this end I can play many openings pretty well. I have used the Modern in 2 OTB and I’ve won both games. I have played the Sicilian 4 times as Black and am 2-2 with it one of the lines I never studied, I have played some openings only after seeing them in a book once and have not embarrassed myself.

More importantly I’ve never been in any trouble in the first 15 moves of a game. I can honestly say that I have never lost a game due to an opening blunder, I play them pretty well. I falter in the middle game, where I’m afraid my tactics are still doing me in. I’m not dropping pieces but I do drop the odd pawn, or end up in a bad position because my opponent has built up tiny threats. So at my level theory isn’t that important, playing to your S&W is.

I’ve played pretty well as of late and that is due to my mini circles and my reading Chess Tactics for the Tournament Player (CTTP), by Alburt. I think that this is where Michael De La Maza’s methods can be improved upon, at least for those of us who are unable/unwilling to slave away at 1000 tactical problems for the next six months. Doing problems is essential, but you need to see some instruction as to when a tactical situation can arise in a game. CTTP Lessons 5 – 7 are great for this. They showed me how and when an attack may be possible and when a “quiet” move was appropriate. You are simply not going to glean this from tactical problems.

So, simply put my Anti-Sicilian line was not in keeping with the rest of my training routine. I should be trying to be a little more aggressive with the white pieces, going for an attack early on, hence my choice. What I will tell my opponents from the outset is this, “Look I don’t think you got the stones (ovaries for the ladies) to play this Open Sicilian. Even if you do you’re going to lose cuz there’s only one badass motherfucking chess gansta at this table and that’s me!”

Ok so I’m not actually going to say that; one, it’s terribly rude, and would be especially offensive since I play against many scholastic players; two, well it’s just out of character for a chess tournament, but I will be thinking it, and it’s the thought that counts!!!

My last game in the tournament I played white, and I used the Reti, why? because I didn’t want to face the Sicilian. I could try to bullshit you all and say that it was because I wanted to play something different, but really it was because I was scared. Well it’s time to put my big-boy underwear on and become un – scared, my therapy will be to dive right into the thing I fear most.

By the way the game was a draw. I had a clear advantage, but the idea was scary. I had to put my Q deep into enemy territory and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to extricate her safely. The idea was a long drawn out positional one where I was going to create a passed pawn. I didn’t have the stones so my opponent got counter play and a good position against my listless play. I only escaped by going for complications, and trading a B+N for a R and making threats along the 7^th rank. He offered a draw after he showed that he could force perpetual check.

I wasn’t upset, in fact I was kind of proud of my escape, but it helped me realize a few things.

1. I played like a puss.
   
2. I can calculate short tactical lines better than long positional ones, thanks to my emphasis on tactics
   
3. I should play for more complications, I enjoyed my games immensely when I did this. It is a bit tiring but it was the most fun I’ve ever had at a tournament.
   
4. I should never play like a puss again.
   
5. I finished 2.5 out of 5 against some pretty good competition, not a bad result.
   

 

So that’s it, that’s my story, in an effort to play more aggressively and play to my strengths I’m taking the Sicilian head on. I am working through Chess Exam and Study Guide again to see how my ratings have changed if at all. I am trying to fit in 3 – 4 hours of chess a week while I’m in school, mainly focusing on tactical work. I don’t know if I’ll keep to the Comprehensive Chess Course or not. I am beginning to think that doing mini – circles coupled with working through increasingly difficult tactical books would be a better way to go, and this would build upon MDLM’s methods, which I am eager to test out on mortals with jobs and shit to do in their lives. We’ll have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I was actually thinking of creating another blog dedicated to my Sicilian games, but I can barely keep this blog up to date. What I have decided to do is make a new category. Everyman has a new book titled Seven Ways to Smash the Sicilian by Lapshun and Conticello, I like the alliteration and was thinking of naming the new blog category in a similar way. I like “Smashing the Sicilian” but its already being used. So I am open to ideas, I do have one idea and if someone can guess it you can have the remainder of my Starbuck’s Red card. I’ll give you a hint, it keeps with the alliteration idea and is inappropriate, deadline for submissions is Monday 9:37PM. BTW I think I have like 97 cents left on the card so you know, you can get like a 1/3 of a cup of coffee or something with it.

 

Well I hope this lived up to the hype, I am sure everyone will be talking about this around the water cooler at work come Monday.

More importantly I hope this kept you somewhat amused and entertained for however long it took you to read it, as the news isn’t really important at all.

 

Have a good weekend folks.