Ok so I took a week off from work.  I just needed a break before the busy summer period begins.  That special kind of crazy will be starting next week when I get back and will last all the way through to September. 

So what did I do with my week off?  Not a damn thing.  Obviously I wasn’t posting, I just sat around at home and read, and studied chess mostly.  I really dove into my endgame training.  Other that that I completely blew a week of my life without accomplishing a damn thing.

Final verdict….BEST VACATION EVER!

Sweet now that that’s done it’s time to get to the end of this thing so I can enjoy mindless posting again.

I am often asked the question of how I learn new openings. 

Ok, so no one has ever asked me that but I know alot of folks who struggle with openings and the question always arises as to what the best way is to learn a new opening.  So here is my feeble attempt to describe to you how to do it.  First off I don’t change my openings very often.  When I do add a new opening to my repertoire all other chess studying will cease for at least two weeks as I learn it.  This is a huge time investment and one I’m not willing to make often because I’m not doing tactics or endgames or playing serious chess when I’m learning a new opening.

I strongly believe in the book method.  There are a lot of others that swear by databases but I don’t get that much out of doing things on a 2 dimensional screen.  So I kick it old school when it comes to learning a new opening.

Yes this can get pricey, but if you are smart about it you can get all the books you need for an entire repertoire for less than $100.  First, buy everything at Amazon.  The discounts are great and if you buy more that $25 worth of stuff at once you get the free super saver shipping, which is essentially a step up from slow boat from China, but hey it gets there.

You will need a good introductory opening book.  Something that just gives a brief overview of the openings.  Nothing really in depth, this will be what you go through to get a basic idea of what you’d like to play.  This book should have a lot of explanatory prose as well as some number of different variations.  (ie symbol talk, no words just a bunch of figurines and numbers).  You should also consider getting a encyclopedic opening book as well, something like Nunn’s Chess Openings, or Modern Chess Openings, but more on that later.

Currently there are, well a ton of introductory books on the market.  I would avoid anything that consists of two volumes.  Problem, they are thick books which mean they cost a bit of money and you will need to buy both if you’re going to get complete exposure to openings.  Gambit currently has one titled Mastering the Chess Openings by John Watson.  He is one of my favorite authors, but this book is actually in 3 volumes!  That’s $60 right there!  I don’t know how the book is intended to be used but I assume they are introductory in nature.  Volume 1 is 288 pages long.  I am now looking at a Ruy Lopez book that I own that weighs in at over 360 pages, and that’s a repertoire book!  So all of the Ruy lines aren’t covered.

Eric Schiller has a nice one volume book titled World Champion Openings.  It’s nice because well it’s one volume, and it does have a brief bio of all the former and current world champions in it.  My only gripe is that he puts a bit too much of his own opinion which can give begining players a false view of the opening. 

For example he states that he can’t recommend the Benko Gambit as anything but a drawing weapon (or something to that affect).  I’m sure that when two 2700+ GM’s are at the table maybe so, but at da’ club the Benko is just as good as anything else.  Overall a good choice and even if you don’t buy it on your first go around I think it’s worth having eventually.

My personal choice is Mastering the Opening, by Byron Jacobs.  This is a slim volume, it is only 176 pages long, but it gets right to the point.   And of course as I am writing this I see that Amazon no longer has it available.  You can get it from some of the used book sellers associated with Amazon, it starts at $5.95.  A bargain by anyone’s standards. 

I like both of these books, I prefer Jacobs, but Schiller casts the net wider.  He deals with all of the 1.d4 openings that don’t follow up with an immediate 2.c4.  So the Trompowski, Torre, Colle, London et al are all in there.  Jacob’s book gives a better presentation with the selected games.  For example he’ll do a brief intro to the opening with typical plans for both sides, tips warnings etc and then show 2 - 4 games.  Most of the time it is split 50-50.  Two wins for white two for black. 

This is important, because if you fall in love with the Modern Benoni after reviewing the game Gurgenidze - Tal 1957, a beautiful game where Tal makes attacking seem so simple, you can review the game Kasparov - Juratev 1977 where Gary crushes his opponent.  It just gives a bit more balance to the process.   However there is no mention of the Colle, Trompowski, or the London, in other words, no coverage of openings that you are likely to see a lot of at the patzer level (1000 - 1600).

Whatever you decide get the book and start reading.  Just go over a few sample games, and see what tickles your fancy.  Then, play blitz chess. 

Yeah,  that’s right, I said it, WHAT!?!

Play blitz with the opening you’re thinking of taking up.  G5 is great for this.  Why is this beneficial?  Well two reasons.  First it will get you a lot of exposure to an opening in a very short amount of time.  Second people on ICC play some freaky shit at short time controls, speculative gambits and the like.  This way you can see some of this stuff early and you won’t be freaked by it when and if someone plays it against you in a serious game.  Do mini-post mortems on the games and save them, especially the wild gambit stuff.  You’ll want to refer to this stuff later.   Don’t go crazy analyzing the games, just see how you did in the opening and assess the middlegame positions.

After a day or two of this you should start seeing some typical patterns.  Reasses your choice at this time.  Do you like the positions you end up with?  Would you feel comfortable playing this?  If not, no worries, scrap it and move on.    If you do like it, then move on to G15. 

This is a good time control to try your opening out, it is pretty easy to pick up a G15 game on ICC and it will give you some time to think and actually play a game.  If you lose a bunch of games with it don’t freak, it’s new it will take some time to get used to.  Bottom line is if you’re losing a lot be honest as to why you’re losing.  If you keep getting whacked in under 20 moves it could be tactical, or you just don’t get what’s going on.  If you’re losing all of your games in less than 20 moves regardless of the opening you use then you probably need tactical work more than opening prep.

After a few games, do your assesment again.  If all is good then start trying it out in longer time controls G30/5.  That’s game in 30 minutes plus a 5 second delay.  This part will take a bit longer, first the games are longer and it will take you a longer amount of time to get someone to play you with a G30 ad.  Also enlist the help of your friends.  If you know some pretty decent chessplayers that face the lines you want to play, ask them to play against you a couple of times.   Getting their input will be very valuable.   If you still like your choice after all of this, look into buying a book about it. 

ONLY AFTER ALL OF THIS IS DONE SHOULD YOU SPEND SOME OF YOUR HARD EARNED CASH!!!  I’m going to sound like a dick here, but do as I say not as I did.  I have a ton of opening books that I bought because I saw a game or two, played a couple of blitz games, did well with it and BOOM bought a book.  See I skipped the other steps, because I was sure that it was all good for me.  Problem is after getting the book and playing some slower games I found out I actually detest the Modern Benoni and I completely don’t get how to play it.  Ask Chessloser, I gave him an almost brand new book on it last year.  

Other than the obvious cash lossage that can occur, you will be tempted to try and stick with an opening you don’t like/understand because you’ve already spent money on a book.  This is not good.  You are now punishing yourself with a shitty opening because you were stupid to buy a book so early.  Double whammy! 

I recommend the Everyman Starting Out series.  Good presentation, good authors and alot of explanations and tips.  Two gripes with their books.  One, they seem almost allergic to putting an index of variatios at the end.  This is just one of the great mysteries of life, no one seems to know why they do this.  Two, the books binding isn’t the greatest.  More of their books have loose pages than of any other publisher that I own. 

One tip, don’t confuse this series with the Play the…series.  The starting out series is an introduction to the opening, it will be a broad base to most of the popular variations.  The Play the… series is usually a repertoire book with a set of lines to be played against your opponents responses.  So Play the Caro Kann will not cover all of Black’s responses to the advance variation, just what the author, in this case Jovanka Houska is recommending in the repertoire.

Now we come to the encyclopedic tome, I have a copy of MCO 14 that I refer to from time to time.  It is useful but I’ve had it for almost two years now, and I use it maybe 2-4 times a year.  It is helpful when you get a game with a line that’s not covered in your Starting Out book, but most of the time I’ve been able to figure out what to do on my own during a post mortem.  Nice to have but far from a necessity.  Since MCO15 has just been released you can probably get a copy of MCO 14 pretty cheap, so that’s a consideration.

Well I see that our time is almost over.  Just a reminder, the author of this post is a 1500 rated class C patzer and not an authority on anything other than being himself.  This is just stuff that I’ve picked up over the last year and a half in my quest for chess improvement.  I hope this helps you learn a new opening and more improtantly I hope it helps save you some cash. 

Ok so last time I said that there would only be 4 chapters to part 1 but this had to be said, and well it was awkward putting it at the begining of part 2.  BUT…

Before we get started I have to add some folks to the blogroll.  In my last segment of Be the Next You DK-Transformation stated that he was adding me to his blogroll, so I will do the same.  He’s definitely opinionated, but has the ability to disagree without being disagreeable, something I strive for everyday in real life, as I tend to be quite opinionated as well.

Next is Getting to 2000, who has added me to his blogroll and again I will do the same.  I will also start going to his blog regularly now so that I can become more acquainted with him, he is also rated about 1800+ which makes him terribly cool.

Ok now on to the posting…

The next subject to tackle is what and how to study.  These are the $64,000 questions.  I don’t have the answers, otherwise I would be much higher rated than I am.  On top of that people much higher rated than me disagree on the answers.  What I can tell you about is what I do know, from my whole one year of experience.

First, there is no magical elixir.  No one method of study that will jump your rating up hundreds of points and get you to Grandmaster status in 12 months and have chess groupies tossing undergarments at you.  Chess is like any other field of study, you have to study and take time out to follow a plan and stick to it and then wash, rinse, repeat, until it starts taking hold.  This  seems to be the hardest thing for us (by us I mean improving adult players, especially those of us who blog) to come to grips with.  I’m not quite sure why either.   I could be wrong on this one but you are reading this so you sure as shit haven’t found the magic either have you?

There have been a couple of things happen lately that have shed some light on this.  First I spoke to chessloser last week and we both admitted to playing too much blitz.  Here’s the thing, we both know better.  Blunderprone too has admitted to wasting many hours away playing blitz.  This is quite simply not good and for the remainder of this year I will play no blitz.  I mean it, zero, zilch, nada not one game below standard time controls on ICC.  That would be anything below G15, which, by the way is still pretty fast.  You can all feel free to look me up on ICC, my handle is wango.  There that’s done.

Secondly some folks have posted interesting things lately.  Robert posted this which references this article here at Jeremy Silman’s site.  Now I alluded to not making the most of my chess “knowledge” back in chapter 4.  I merely brushed it off as not really being able to play chess, and instead thinking that there was a gap between my knowledge and applying it to OTB games.  Rashid Ziatdinov sort of agrees, although to him the problem is more basic.  He believes I simply don’t know chess!  OK for all both of you that regularly come and read my babbling this is hardly a surprise.  Once again you’ve waded through my inane rambling to come to a, “No shit!!” type conclusion.

But this is a little different.   What you and I and even some very strong players who have complimented me on my chess “knowledge” seem to be missing is that this knowledge is like chess theory.  I have no intention to completely bastardize what Mr. Ziatdinov was saying in his most excellent article but theory and practice are two seperate things. 

Theory in this case doesn’t refer to opening theory which in my mind is a misuse of the word theory, but it is the generalities of chess.  Like “develop your pieces before starting an attack” , “rooks belong behind passed pawns”, and “open up the position if you are ahead in development”.  Mr.  Ziatdinov’s arguement is that the true language or in this case the true playing of chess is not the moving of the pieces but the actual calculation of variations.  This encompasses what I’ve been feeling for a very long time.  We can understand some complex stuff, but playing really comes down to calculating variations.

Here’s an example from one of my own recent stinkers.

I’m black.  My opponent has lost the right to castle, his rooks aren’t connected and his pawn structure sucks.  I am on the attack, so what should I do?  Well first and foremost I will find a way to lose, I mean, come on, it’s what I do.  But I should open this position, it will give my bishops, and especially my rooks a way to come into the game.  Now for some reason I rejected exf3 not once, but twice over the next two moves.  Why might you ask?  Well because I knew that despite all of the bad stuff my opponent had going on, the material balance was even.  So I didn’t want to do anything that would drop material.  I didn’t like the look of 21)…exf3 22) gxf3, …. then 23) Rg2 threatening my bishop. 

So for some reason I didn’t even bother calculating my 23rd move!  Forget that, I didn’t even bother to see what my 22nd move was going to be.  I merely looked at the position saw that he could threaten my bishop and I stopped calculating.    Then I bullshitted myself (remember #4  from my list a few weeks back?)   I told myself that by moving the K Rook over and getting my N into play was good chess and I was doing the right thing.  I played 21)…Rfe8  22) a4,…and then…

Well I noticed after 21) …Rfe8, well let’s see if you all can see what I saw.

Notice that the Q, both R’s and the light squared bishop all sit on…that’s right kids the same color square!  What red flag should immediately go up for you in this case?  That’s right, a KNIGHT FORK!  It’s ok, just shout them out when you know them.  Once again I ignored the posibility of exf3 and instead lost the game in two more moves, yes his Knight on d4 came into the game and filled me with sadness. 

See not only did my knowledge not help, it actually allowed me to bullshit myself and play lazy chess.  I have never once in the past year have anyone say to me that chess can only be expressed by concrete variations!  Once again if you haven’t read Mr. Ziatdinov’s article go to Jeremy Silman’s site and read it.  It was quite the eye opener for me. 

So now I hear the collective groan as everyone comes to the same conclusion, “This guy is just a Knight Errant in disguise!  He’s going to tell me to do the circles and have a nice day.  WHAT A DICK!”  Well no, here’s the thing, this chess improvement thingy should be somewhat fun, and I honestly have not heard of anyone else that has had the kind of success that MDLM had with the circles, they all seem to experience a burnout after the circles.  Granted most of them have shit like jobs that suck up their time so maybe that’s it  (my understanding is that MDLM was doing nothing but chess during the circles)  But the concrete variation thing can be developed many different ways.

If you are game collection guy, then going over GM games a la GM-RAM could definitely help, Mr. Ziatdinov is the author of the GM-RAM book, so I will assume that this works.  Certainly going over Tactical puzzles will help with this as well.  But this is why I like doing them from a book rather than a program.  I always feel like I can cheat a bit when I use CT-ART.  I just have to get the first move then the computer plays the responese, I don’t feel it’s the best for visualization.  Writing down the moves forces me to see the resulting position in my head. 

The next issue is the endgame.  Drunknknite responded to Chessloser’s inquiry into Old-Timey chess  here.  The endgames are what Drunknknite think are important.  Now him I really listen to him because he actually used to be a patzer and now he’s an expert and he’s board 1 for our T45 45 team.  But c’mon most of my games don’t go to and endgame, so how’s this helping me?  Well we can at least agree that the premise here is to get better at calculating variations and if you go with me on this one come take a look here.

So tough-guy, what’s the outcome with white to move?  I’f you’re like me you think whit can win it.  But can you express it as a concrete variation?  I can’t, and to tell you the truth I might accept a draw in this situation if I was scared enough of my opponent.  The answer is with best play, black can stretch this out to 9 moves which ends in checkmate.  Anything else allows white to queen earlier.  This is why the endgame helps.  I know for a fact all of you have been in an endgame situation where you had no idea what to do.  General rules pretty much suck then, you have to be able to work this out very clearly in your head.  In case you were wondering the solution is 1)kf5, Kh6 2)e5, Kh7 3) Ke6, g5 4) Kf7, g4 5) e6, g3 6) e7, g2 7) e8=Q, g1=Q 8.) Qe4+, Kh6 9)Qh4#  See  concrete variation all the way to the end.

Ok now if I could calculate stuff like this over the board I’m guessing my rating would be looking a lot better than it does now.  Don’t get me wrong in both of my feeble examples the general rules of positional ideas did indeed show the path, however without the concrete analysis it is almost useless to continue on, you can actually create a situation where its like you’re playing blindly.  In my first example I ignored myself, shuffled pieces around for a few moves and lost.  The second example I would accept a draw in a won position.  This is not good.

So how do I do it.  How does this former class E patzer now improved to class C patzer  study?  Well I’m in a different situation, we all are so adjust as necessary.

1st.  Yep kids you are going to have to do tactical puzzles, I really can’t find a way around this.  It helps your tactics, and it helps your visualization.

2nd Go over and annotate your games.  Even the really painful ones.  Now is a good time to go over a quote from Khalil Gibran

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses
your understanding… 

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within
you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy
in silence and tranquillity:

 

 

 

 

 

Ok so I ran across this quote awhile back and thought it was deep and I have been waiting for an appropriate time to use it.  But damn if it’s not hard to work this one into a conversation.   But I firmly believe that we shy away from annotating our games, especially painful losses, because, well they are painful.  But I really started to show improvement when I did this religiously.

3rd Endgames, do puzzles and such, this really helps me visualize and understand what it is I should be doing.  As an added bonus it also helps your endgames

4th is my dessert.  A book I work on part time that is just an extra something that I do for fun.  RIght now it’s Silman’s How to Reasses Your Chess Workbook.  I really enjoy this book and after I get done with it I’m going to hit Botvinnik’s 100 selected games.

What’s that?  A schedule?  Yeah but my situation…But…

Ok here it goes.  FIrst there are two tournaments a month where I live, they are both G60 tourneys.  I only go to one a month.  I try to make sure there are 4 weeks between tourneys. 

First week after the tournament.  I do a 1/2hour of tactical puzzles a day followed by annotating one game from the last tourney a day.  This is a Monday - Thursday thing.  The tactical warmup will help me to see things in my game review.  Typically it takes an hour to annotate my game.  This is only 4 days of study which helps because I’m normally a little chessed out after a tourney.

Second week, no games I just study two hours a day M-F.  An hour of tactical puzzles and an hour of endgame puzzles.  The only deviation is when I have T45 45 league games going.  I have to play these because my teammates are counting on me.  The day of a game there is no studying, just playing and annotation will normally happen sometime over the weekend. 

Third week I replace a day of study with a G60.  This is what I play so it’s what I play online.  It can take awhile to get a game so while I’m waiting I go over tactical problems.  The day after I cut my study time to a half hour on each and save an hour for game annotation.

Fourth week.  Three G60’s.  M, W, Th.  I then annotate the games the day after.  I am now ready for the tourney. 

On the weekends I will post, if I have something to say, or I will dip into my “dessert” book.

That’s the way it’s supposed to work anyway.  This upcoming tournament will be the first time i’ve done it this way.  Up until now I’ve just done tactical problems and played G30+5 with game annotation.  I’ve added endgame study to my routine, added longer time control games, and I’m doing this chess thing for no more than 10 -12 hours a week.  No I don’t watch much TV, only 4 hours a week at most.  I am also now preparing for a tourney a bit more professionally.  The bottom line is day to day may be less fun with less playing and no blitz, but hopefully the tournaments will be much more enjoyable, especially if I can win a couple of them

Well my friends, if you’ve read this far, you must be so desperate to improve that you are willing to listen to me, or you are merely a glutton for punishment, or both.  Whatever the reason I thank you for visiting my own little corner of the internets.  Until next time 

Ok so over the weekend I played in one of the monthly local tournaments and I scored a 2.5 out of 4.  I have been scoring 2.0 for the past 6 months.  So while I did a little better than normal, certainly nothing to get giddy about, I am approaching giddyness.  Not quite giddy but approaching giddy.

My first game was against the board 1 for the high school team.  He’s rated 1855 and has improved from 1400 a year ago.  He’s been studying hard and it shows he’s become quite the monster.  I’ve recently been trotting out the Reti (1.Nf3) as something to use against lower rated opponents (yes there are still players out there lower rated than me) and I’ve scored +2 -0 =0 so far.  Now I know this kid is booked up, and I really didn’t feel like playing an open Sicilian against him, so I figured what the hell and away we went.

Round 1 game is here.

Brief comments are.

14) I should have captured with the pawn instead.  My opponent didn’t have to capture the Knight he could have moved his N to d5 when I really don’t have a good response to that.

1 Nf5 is more aggressive.

22) Bxf6 This was a lot of damn work just to create a weakness on the K-side.  I guess that’s what its like when you play strong opposition.

23) Probably Nh4 with the idea of putting my N on f5.

27) e5??  I saw the tactic against f2 like 3 moves earlier.  For some reason I just stopped calculating variations at this point and I blow the game.  The position unravels quickly and I do what I should do against a player rated 1855…I lose.

Overall not too bad, I put my Reti to the test against a strong opponent and I can honestly say it held up well.

>
Round 2 was against another of the H.S. kids he too has improved in the last year.  He’s up from the low 1300’s to a current rating of 1578. 

Round 2 is here.

7)…d5 looks good

8)…d5 still looks good

9)…hmmm…d5 is still probably pretty good here.

12)…d5 is good here

13)…d5 is still good

Well for you kids keeping track at home d5 is a useful move in the Alekhine’s defense when black has decided on capturing with the e pawn.  As I play it exclusively against 1.e4 you think I would just  know shit like this and play the move.

From move 23 on out it’s a bit hairy.  I underestimate white’s chances with the b pawn, but overall I rate the position as about equal if not -/=. 

24) He should have played c5.

33)…Rg5 Behold the power of the two bishops.  This “quiet” situation quickly blows up and he was completely caught off guard with my next move.

34)…Qxh3  I haven’t done a detailed analysis yet, but I don’t believe there is any defense.  I don’t think he saw that his K would have no escape route.

Round 3 was a bit of a scary game as I had A LOT of problems with development.

The game is here.

2) Nc3 Ok so junior here isn’t eating the mushrooms, he instead is heading towards a Vienna game.  If I wanted to take a nap I would have stayed my ass at home.

2)…d6 but you see wang is clever I will transpose into a Pirc, or so the kid thinks.

4)…e5! Now my nefarious plan is unveiled I have transposed instead into an improved Hanham variation of the Philidor Defense!

7)…c5?!  After he made his 7th move it occurred to me I hadn’t looked any further than move 6 in my Philidor book.  Seeing as I have never actually had a cause to play this OTB I haven’t really had to study it.  So now I make a Pirc freeing move with my e pawn all the way up at e5.  I doubt this is book and now I’m getting a serious case of the AH SHITS!  See how clever I am, even I know not what I am doing…

8)…Nxe5  Once again I think capturing with the pawn is better. 

9) Nx5 luckily for me this kid was really obliging.  This is one of like 3 moves that he makes (or doesn’t make) that facilitate my ultimate victory.

12)…Qxd6 I don’t see anything better.  Now I’m pretty well screwed my light squared bishop will have a hard time coming into the game and my Q-side is going to be under a lot of pressure.  SHIT!

15)…h5 give the bishop some breathing room.

19)Rg3?  Was he not  accommodating?  What sucks about this for him is that his position which I have as +/= turns to crap really fast.

24)…Rb7  I know that in the resulting endgame I’m going to want the R here anyway.

28)…b5?  Old habits die hard I had to give him one more opportunity to get back into the game.

29)Ra8?  What did I say about him???

33)…b4 Not really good.  Our resident H.S. Coach and my part time game reviewer/coach put it simply to me.  The advantage that I have on that side of the board is only one, his bad pawn structure.  On the other side I have his bad structure and two extra pawns.  I should be playing there instead.

The rest is pretty simple although I will probably look over the endgame again to make sure I get the concepts down.

Round 4 was me with the white pieces.  I played the Reti again, and once again against another 1592 rated H.S. kid.  I drop a pawn early, becuase I was trying to be cute, when I should have been playing sound chess.  He then blundered a N to me and we got into a B+N+N+3P vs. B+N+5P endgame.  I think it was a win but damned if I could figure it out.  I will probably spend a good 2 hours going over this one.  At move 50 I offered a draw, which he accepted.  It felt kind of shitty, but I was tired, and I really couldn’t find a way to victory.  Besides I figured it was better than possibly dropping the game.  I also figured a draw against someone 150 points higher rated than you is OK, even if you have the white pieces.

Here’s a recap.

Overall 2.5 (+2 -1 =1)

My performance was 1748

I gained 87 rating points.

I came in third.  Behind the kid from round 1 (he scored 4.0) and the kid I drew with (he finished with 3.0)  I now have a rather large trophy with what looks like the Burger King King on it, and he’s holding a scepter, kinda strange…Not to mention the King always kinda creeps me out with that oversized head of his…

I played well against people in the top of the C class and I played well against a class A player.  Not bad for a Patzer who has done no studying in the past three weeks!  The difference this tournament was that since I knew I hadn’t studied I resolved to focus better than I had ever done before.  I was the most focused on my games than I have ever been in the past.  I didn’t walk around and I didn’t look around at the other games either.  I just played my game.  This might also explain the throbbing headache I developed by the middle of my 3rd game.

Next tournament is in 4 weeks, I will implement my new study plan tomorrow.  I’ll let everyone know how it’s going with weekly updates.  I will also be starting on part 2 of my epic, “Be the next You”, soon.

Until later kids have a good week, and good chess to you all.

Hey guys we need to go to the website and declare our interest in the upcoming league. So take care of that and I will submit us to play in T37!  Drunknite are you still interested?  If so send me a message with your ICC handle and register with the T45 45 page.

Ok first for a few shouts to my peeps :)   (Man I’m getting more street cred every day)

Congratulations to Polly on her excellent results at he Saratoga Open!  5.5/6!!!  An impressive result indeed and I have a strong feeling she’s on her way to getting her rating up into the 1800’s again.

Congratulations to Drunknite as well.  USCF Expert.  WOW an actual no shit title.  Great job.

DK informed me in a response to my chapter 3 post that he was adding me to his blogroll.  This is an honor indeed.  I consider him to be one of the “elder statesman” of the chess blogosphre this has more to do with the age of his blog not him by the way.  He is respected and always up for a good conversation/debate.  One of those rare souls who can disagree without being disagreeable.

Ok now time to finish up part one of this monster (FINALLY!)

Things I’ve learned this past year in competetive tournament chess.

1.  There are far too many of my fellow adult players at tournaments who are social retards.  This sounds harsh but there are alot of very strange people out there man.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not 1 in 5 more like 1 in 8 0r maybe 9 but man is that more than enough. Between arguing with kids that are young enough to be theirs, to being rude, to having poor hygiene, well let’s just say there are some folks walking around at tournaments that need some medication, seriously some of these peolple desperately need to get laid.  You know the guy, I’m sure every club has one, he spends alot of his time between games mumbling to himself, carries a small treasure trove of books, mostly opening manuals and may even have the entire ECO by his side.

What I haven’t been able to figure out is this; were they always like this and they were drawn to chess, or were they once normal and chess ate their minds?  Just in case it is the latter, Chessloser you have my permission to shoot me dead on site if I become one of these folks.  I’ve already left a notarized letter for my wife in a safety deposit box.  So if it happens she’ll know why, don’t worry, she will thank you.

2.  Winning a chess game is really, really hard!  Ok so file this one under d for DUH!?!  But it is amazing to me how many won games I have seen blown (not just mine either) and how many hopeless situations I’ve seen pulled out to a draw or even a win.  This shit just isn’t as easy as all the super GM’s make it look. 

3.  Chess improvement is really, really, really hard.  Ok so this is a double DUH!?!  But really I can tell you in my one year of study and tournament experience there is no magical elixir, no one method that is going to make you as strong as you would like to be.  To boost my rating by 150 - 200 points in one tournament I’d have to go like 3.5 in one of the monthly tournaments against the standard competition which would likely include 1 class c, 2 class b, and 1 class a player.  No small feat (see #2 above).  So this is why getting your rating up quickly is difficult.

4.  Chessplayers are really good at bullshitting themselves!  Look kids, I know you (I) had a great position until x happened, but the bottom line is this, every game you win, is because your opponent made mistake(s) that you capitilized on.  So when you lose it’s safe to say that your opponent did the same to you.  You lost, accept it and move on with your life. 

I no longer give excuses for my losses.  I analyze the game and try to learn from it, but I don’t say if only…Well if only I were a better player this shit wouldn’t keep happening to me!  I would win won games, and be a super famous chess sex symbol and have lots of hot babes throwing their undergarments at me.  But I’m not better, I lose won games and I make alot of mistakes, that’s why I’m studying to get better.  (that and the hot babes thing) I do pinpoint my errors so that I can get better, but I don’t make excuses for my losses anymore.

5.  I get nervous at tournaments.  Ridiculous, with all of my life accomplishments and competing in judo you’d think that a simple game of chess normally played against a child who I could easily take in a fight wouldn’t rattle me.  But I have to tell you there is a ten year old out here that scares the Bejesus out of me.  He’s tactically brilliant, rated ~1950 and he’s such a cute kid.  But man, he’s mean across that chessboard.  It also doesn’t help that he’s got a MonRoi.  That just adds to the mystique, and scariness.

6.  Chess knowledge does not equal chess skill.  I’ve got a fair bit of chess knowledge in the ole melon.  I’ve even had one Master tell me I understand the game much better than my rating suggests.  Problem is, I don’t play the game much better than 1417. so that’s my rating.  Understanding might be one key but actually playing the game is what counts see #4 above.  Playing and understanding are two different things.  Michael de la Maza pointed this out in his book.  He was learning about chess, just not how to play better, until of course he developed his study plan.

7.  Studying openings are both overrated and underrated.  You need a repertoire to get going but spending large amounts of time is unnecessary.  Your opponents don’t know anymore than you do.  Get something reliable that you like and more importantly know how to play and go with it until you go up a class.  When you move up an entire class then add one opening to your repertoire, this should keep any excessive switching to a minimum.

8.  Most people don’t define what kind of chessplayer they are.  I’m not talking about positional or tactical, I’m talking about what kind of chess do you play?  I’m hearing alot of blank stares so I’ll go into more depth…

The type of chess you play will be primarily determined by what’s available to you.  For instance there are two clubs in my area that hold tournaments every month of the year.  They are both G60.  I played in over a dozen tournaments last year.  All but one was at G60. 

This means that for all intents and purposes I am a G60 player.  This is something that I think is missed by alot of authors.  Dan Heisman for one recommends that you play in tournaments of G90+.  This sounds like excellent advice, problem is there are few tournaments with a time control over 60 that I can realistically make.  Don’t get me wrong I believe that Mr. Heisman makes excellent points about improvement when it comes to adult players, and I happen to like alot of what he says and the folks who use him as a trainer are very happy with him.  I’m just saying that it’s not possible for everyone to get out to longer time control tourneys.  The point is taken though, play at slower time controls whenever possible.

9.  Blitz is the devil’s work on earth.  It’s fun, gives you the impression that you are actually playing “real” chess.  Real being anything that will help you prepare for the chess you actually play over the board, but you’re not, you’re BULLSHITTING yourself.  See #4 above yet again.

10.  Blogging is FUN!  Ok so this one is also fairly obvious but for those of you out there that are new and are thinking about blogging here it is.  I’ve had a ton of fun communing with my fellow chess addicts and have felt a little bit more normal for my obsession, seeing as I share it with so many others.  Plus I got to meet chessloser in real life, that alone was worth the price of admission, which coincidentally was nothing, blogging is free, which isn’t any kind of testament to how I feel about CL, I like him, he’s a true friend, but, nevermind you get what I’m trying to say.  Stop shaking your head at me, it’s getting late over here.

11.  Your improvement plan needs to take into account #8 above.  I know that technically this should have been #9 for continuity sake, but this is my big finish to this post.  My next post will be dealing with this.  An honest to goodness look at how I improve and how I prioritize my time for study.  This will be how I tackle my second year of competetive chess.   I will begin with openings; how I chose my repertoire and how I went about learning my specific openings.  Notice I didn’t say How to do these things, I’m merely going to share with you how I did it.  Hopefully it will help you out as well.  You might think to yourself, “WOW that was really helpful, wang actually knows a thing or two.”  Or you might say, “Nah, he’s full of shit, I’ll do it my way.”  Either one is fine by me.  My wish is that you can take something useful away from it, like I hope you took something away from part 1. 

Well kids I am about out of time, so I will leave you with a See Ya! and good chessing to you all. 

Ok, I’ve gone over the game, so here is my analysis.  Unfortunately WordPress doesn’t allow the pgn viewer in the page so you’ll have to go over the game with the notes seperately.  I will have the game pop open in another window for ease of following along.  The game pgn is here.

I normally don’t go over my thought process, I just analyze the game, without going too deep into what I was actually feeling/thinking at the time, so bear with me.

3)Bb5 - Sicilian Rossolimo my standby against all evil that is the Sicilian Defense.  Positional in nature, but tactical shit can go down quickly, especially if your opponent fails to castle early enough.

3)…Nd4?!  I know this isn’t the greatest, but like all things Sicilian related you can get your feelings hurt if you just brush it off carelessly.

4) Nxd4  This is a good move, he’ll have to recapture.  This 1. doubles his pawns  2.  Leaves me better developed.

5) 0-0 Makes sense to do it now especially since I know that he’s going to start kicking my bishop around a bit.

5)…a6 What did I tell you?

6) Bc4  I think this is a bit more flexible.  I keep the Bishop pointed at the F7 square and if I get an opportunity I might be able to retreat it to f1.  It probably won’t happen, but if I go to a4 it definitely won’t happen, so more flexibility is better.

6)…e6 My opponent doesn’t like the bishop looking at the f7 square.

7) Re1, Qc7 Developping my rook, giving the bishop a place to possibly redeploy from and putting pressure down the e file.  Q e1 is possible as well, and what I would normally play, but given that I still have my bishop on the board, i chose the rook move.  The Q goes to c7 in alot of Sicilians and here she does so with a tempo, not a bad deal for black Qe2, b5  I know I have to retreat the bishop, but I want to double the Q and R on the e file anyway and this defends the B.  I didn’t see any sneaky tactics by moving the Q instead of just retreating the B so I thought it was ok.  He kicks my B again, but seeing as I want to open the center, I think I’ll want the B on c2 shortly.

9) Bb3, e5  My B should be ok here for now.  He locks up the pawns, but I think I see some possibilities down this file.

10) c3, dxc3 11) Nxc3, Bb7  Let’s get rid of some of these speed bumps!  I capture with the N because it develops another piece.  Normally P’s on c3, d3, and e4 are a pretty good thing, but I’m thinking I’m ahead in development so lets stick with this right now.

12) d3, Nf6  I took 14 minutes on this move.  I see his K in the center, I’m better developed and castled, so I’m thinking d4 might be ok, but he doesn’t have to take the pawn, in fact I finally realized that after 12)…d6 the pawn structure woud be locked up and although I’m still ahead in development, I can’t really make anything out of it.  So instead, I overprotect my e4 pawn and prepare my really inactive B to go somewhere.

13) Bg5, Be7 Ok I’m pinning the N to nothing but this B pretty much sucks anyway, and if I could trade him off and double the K side P’s I’d be happy.  His B promptly goes to prevent the doubling, he doesn’t have any good squares for it anyway.

14) Rad1?!  Well probably not dubious, but I pussed out here.  I spent 11 minutes on this move.  I have an advantage, I’d say I’m better, but it is all based upon 2 things.  First he’s not castled, second I’m ahead in development.  14) d4!  is probably better.  After considering the responses…14)…d6 is probably best when I can push 15) d5 and lock his bishops completely out of the game.  But it’s not the kind of advantage I think I know what to do with.  Possibly follow up with f4, but the resulting positions weren’t clear in my head and past experience has shown that it’s best to play it safe when thats the case.

15) d4, exd4  Now if we trade off P’s my R is placed on the d file.  I will own the center of the board.

16) …Qe5  Ooops, didn’t see that.  Damn opponents they always seem to have their own plans…

17)Bxf6, Bxf6  I didn’t like that B anyway.

1 Rxd7, Bc6  P grabbing, old habits… Crap, I wish I would have locked that B out of the game now.  My vision of getting doubled R’s on the 7th rank are done for the moment, advantage slipping.

19) Rdd1, b4  Double shit!!  No place left for the R to go really, and now my good N is going to get traded for his less than excellent B and he’s going to try and take me to an endgame with opposite color B’s.  Advantage almost gone, I’ll still have an extra P that I’m going to razz up the board and use that for counterplay.

20) Nd5, Qxb2? 21) Nxf6+  Triple shit!!!  I took all of 5 seconds to play Nxf6.  Purely gut reaction.  All I saw is that I lost my extra P.  It took me 18 moves to get it, now it’s gone.  But what I should have seen is Ne7+!  This is a forcing move.  The opponent has to respond to the check and if he captures with the B, the Q drops for free.  Anything else drops the white B.  For example 21)…Kh8  22) Qxb2, Bxb2  23) Nxc6, Rac8  24) Bd5  OR  22) Nxc6, Qxe2  23) Rxe2, Rac8  24) Bd5 followed by Red2 and I’m A OK!

21)…Qxf6  Now it is complete, advantage gone.  I’ve got an extra P in the center he’s got two connected P’s on the wing.  The rest of the game will revolve around this imbalance.

22) e5 Might as well start taking advantage of my imbalance, push the pawn and kick the black Q at the same time.

22)…Qg6  Treatening mate at g2.

23) f4, Kh8  Protect the eP and protect against any annoying mate threats at once, seems like a good deal to me, but my Q is stuck defending g2.  He moves his queen off of that diagonal which stops any discovered checks.

24) Rf1?, Bb5  Now this was done with good intention, I wanted to advance the f P and create some weaknesses on his K side.  Unfortunately Bb5 skewer’s my Q and R and I was lucky to have had a B to intercede.  This could have been the game loser for me.

25) Bc4, Bxc4  26) Qxc4, Qb6+  27)Kh1, Rac8  Now I feel that old familiar feeling, I’m going to lose this game.  The recapture was necessary, but now my K is just as unsafe as his.  I guess it’s just the price you pay for advancing K side P’s for activity.

2 Qe4, a5  Let’s get back down to business, advancing my center P’s.  He advances on the Q side.

29) Rb1, Rc3  Let’s try to slow these P’s up a bit.  Although I’m not liking his R on c3, I have no way of getting it out of there.  This is begining to feel bad…

30) Rfe1, Qe6  Overprotecting my e P  He’s going to be my baby, my key to winning this thing and bringing glorious victory to the Patzer Boyz.  Ok he’s blocking and threatening my a P.

31) f5, Qxa2  32) e6, fxe6  33) fxe6, Qc4  I took only 40 seconds to decide on f5.  I decided I was playing for the win and I saw that taking the a P wasn’t going to be good for him  my P’s were better, as I could Queen with mate threats, and he couldn’t. 

34) e7, Re8  Sorry you can’t exchange Q’s yet

35) Qf5, Qg8  36) Qxa5, Rcc8  37) Qxb4, Qf7  Let’s get these guys off the board now, because they have no oppostion to them, my opponent has to blockade my mighty P on e7, so he’s stuck defending for a few moves.

3 Re2, Qc4  39) Qb2, Rc7  Wrong R :)  I think Rb2 would have been better and I wouldn’t allowed my opponent to get another shot in.

40) Rbe1, Kg8  Now my R’s are doubled up, I can concentrate on getting my K some luft with h3 and getting my Q safely on the h1 - a8 diagonal to prevent perpetual.  He’s bringing his K over to win the e P.

41) Rf2?  Playing for a cheapo.  Fortunately for me my opponent played into it.  He took the P and loses the game after that.

41)…Rcxe7?  This drops a R

42) Rxe7  The R can’t be recaptured, because of 43) Qb8+, Qc8  44) Qxc8+, Re8  45) Qxe8#

42)…Qc8?  There isn’t anything much better.  Qc1?

Oh well that took a long time, but I analyzed my game, which is part of the improvement plan and I got to blog!  So two birds with one stone and all of that.

Ummm…I mean, of course I won.  I played better

Ok I can’t even begin to fake it when it comes to T45 45 games, because I’ve been losing my ass at these things.  That is only my second win in 12 tries.  These have not been my strong suit.  But here’s the game.  I will go over it tomorrow and annotate it, but if you nice folks see anything please feel free to give me your opinions.  My initial feelings were that I had an advantage after 12)…Nf6, but I didn’t know how to press it home so I settled for 13) Bg5, followed by 14) Rad1.  With the idea of just getting my development done and having a slight edge going into the middle-game.  Tell me what you think.

This is more of a rant than part of any coherent train of thought, and to be honest it might be pure ignorance on my part.  But I’m tired of databases and I’m tired of computer’s analyzing our games.  Now I know there are some of you out there that swear by using databases to learn an opening and analyze your favorite line, but is this really learning?

First off looking at the first 20 moves of a game between grandmasters doestn’t do it for me.  The bottom line is I can read the descriptions and the annotations but the likelihood of me getting into these positions is pretty slim overall.  At my level opponents deviate from “book” fairly early.  I know that I should understand why the deviation is wrong, but even when I understand why it doesn’t lead to a clear win.  It leads to a +/= position which with equal material early on in a game means I have alot of opportunity to blow it.   Basically I feel that doing it this way you’re simply nodding when you play over the GM games.  You’re saying, “Of course!  It’s so easy!”  Yeah well it isn’t, and it isn’t because you really didn’t learn anything.  It looks easy when you look at someone else do it, but the same can be said of alot of other things as well.  Skiing doesn’t look particularly hard, but I’ve never done it, so what the hell do I know.

The same holds true for letting fritz or any other program annotate my games.  At first I thought it was a swell idea, I mean the computer is way stronger than I am, so it should prove useful.  Until I got positions that were technically better for me but required me to play another 20 moves of brilliant tactical chess to get the win.  One problem with that; I gauge my tacitcal skill at about 1600 level which means once again I have more than ample room to go wrong with the game. 

Don’t get me wrong I’m not some unibomber type that thinks that machines will be the death of us, but I think they rob us of our creativity in chess.  They keep us from being ourselves.  This is not to say I don’t use programs, there are certain things I use them for.

Things I use Fritz for:
Storing my games, annotations are all done by me

Checking endgame play, once I get into a position where I know the tablebases can pick up from I let the computer show me the way.  This is due to the fact that there is a no shit best way to continue in endgames.

Storing my opening repertoire, I only do this for quick reference.  I plug the games in from the books I have, but I don’t learn the opening this way.  More on how I learn my repertoire later kids.

Things I don’t use Fritz for:

Analyzing my games.  After I annotate one of my games I have fritz blundercheck the whole game with my annotations.  This just ensures that I didn’t do anything truly stupid.  Unless Fritz finds something that drops a pawn it will not give any suggestions.   By the way he/it hasn’t found a one pawn blunder in about 6 months now, which means that my blunders are still losing games, but I’m not dropping pawns and pieces anymore, so that’s good.

Learning my openings or anything for that matter.  As I already stated, I don’t care for this method, It doesn’t work for me.  I also don’t get much from pushing the button on the screen to advance the moves.  I find good old fashioned wood pushing to be far better for my learning. 

I usually go over my games with two boards an analysis set and a regulation tournament sized set.  The analysis set usually has a critical position of the game while I work through the problem on the regulation sized set.  I make my notes and only when I’m done do I start entering the moves into a database.  Yes this is an extra step, but I just seem to catch more when I’m at a physical board. 

So what’s the deal with all of this?  Well the whole point is to be the next you.  Grandmasters have to play certain lines and memorize openings because they are playing other GM’s.  Annand has to know the Botvinnik variation of the Semi-Slav down cold for his upcoming match with Kramnik, because he’s playing Kramnik!  These guys don’t have a choice, but the rest of us do.  I have improved over 400 points in my first year of competetive chess, without memorizing openings, without becoming some type of shut-in who does nothing but tactical puzzles all day. 

Most of this has happened while analyzing my own games and learning the game, all aspects of it and not just a narrow portion.  Oh and by the way it’s been done while having fun and learning about myself, my approach to chess, and in a way my approach to life. 

Analyzing your games is of the utmost importance.   I know it can be painful, I have had to dissect my stinkers, I mean really dissect my stinkers in excrutiating detail.  This is painful, it hurts but it reaveals alot about my game.  Even my wins have been helpful.  For instance I have become almost a complete pussy when I have a won game.  I will pick sub par moves to preserve the win.  As long as you win I guess it doesn’t matter but because of this I’ve let some games become alot more exciting than they should have become.  Ironic huh, play like a puss so you can snatch the easy win then end up playing alot harder because you were scared.

Although it’s painful it must happen if you are going to get better.  I have found that I had certain notions about my game, before I started analyzing them.  Alot of preconceived notions about my game were wrong, but I would never have realized it wre it not for the game analysis. 

That’s pretty much it, I have nothing witty to send you off with.  I can say this however, “Step away from your computer!”.  Be yourself, and don’t worry about -/= or +/= positions, play the chess you were meant to play, not something that someone else says should be played.   This goes primarily for the opening, but it goes for your game analysis as well, if you don’t start trying to find the best move for yourself, how are you making progress?  Having Fritz spoon feed you isn’t going to help much.

Well Chapter 4 will be out next week and then I’ll be starting on Part 2.  The last chapter is all about with what I’ve learned and my experiences in my first year of competetive chess.  I hope you will find it informative and helpful in dealing with your own addiction.

Later kids.

Ok So I may suck at chess but according to some website that misspells stupid I’m pretty smart.  So at least I have that going for me…Thanks for the link to the test Edwin.  Well now I know I’ll have a good day.

WHEW!  Ok now that all of that’s over….

I know you folks have no idea what I’m referring to, but suffice to say there has been much afoot in the wang household lately.  Nothing of too much importance, just work and whatnot, but I am back and ready to become an active member of the blogosphere once again.  I know that there are literally 2 or 3 of you that are actually happy about this

 Well first let’s address the blogroll…

I’ve noticed over the past few weeks that some nice bloggers have added me to their blogroll.  I however being the big suck that I am have not responded in kind.  This is adressed now. 

First we have Polly who has such a cool name for a blog that it makes mine seem terribly feeble in comparison.   Castling Queenside is her internets home and she does a great job of describing tounaments and very eloquently details her experiences and it always reminds me of why I play chess…the adventure.

Next up is http://lousyatchess.blogspot.com/.  I don’t know why but I can’t link the title, it keeps coming up as the whole url, so there it is.  This is a harsh assesment of his chess skills but once again I must admit it makes my blog title seem well… a little less clever than I thought it was when I opened up shop.  He is of course a kindred spirit as he is an adult player trying hard to improve like most of us.  His rating is still higher than mine, so I guess if I went that route I would have to go with ReallyLousy@Chess, and it just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Then there is Drunknknite, who is following the unwritten rule  (who knows it may be written at this point) at the Reno Chess club, that if you’re going to play there, well you need to start a blog as well, otherwise they kick you out.  Seriously I don’t know what Warheit is doing to those guys but it seems like there is a new Reno Chess Club blogger every week. 

On a sad note, samuraipawn had to leave the world of chess blogging and stepped down as the secretary for the Knights.  He has also deleted the blog which really sucks, so unfortunately I am removing him.  But if he should resurface, he will go back up in a minute.  I didn’t get a chance to know him that well, but he was kind, a good blogger and wanted to be a member of the Patzer Boyz so that makes him cool.

Which reminds me…The Patzer Boyz Live!  I was able to get some guys to join the team from ICC at the last minute and we have a 5 man team going in T37.  We are an U1600 team, a weak one at that.  We are the only one’s in the division without one 1700+ player on our team.  We have drawn one match and lost three, but everyone is having fun and overall we’ve played some good chess, despite our lower ratings.  I have to play the last game of this round tomorrow night.  If I win we will draw this round as well.  We are almost certainly eliminated from the playoffs, but who cares!  We’ve had fun and are already looking forward to T38, where we will unleash a bloody and terribly violent revenge on those who have mocked us.  Ok so nobody has mocked us, in fact everyone in the league seems to be very nice and sportmanlike, but I’m using it as inspiration to get the troops riled up!

Liquid Egg Product has a tournament going with some other bloggers, I would have like to have joined but I was in limbo for the last month, so I wasn’t able to.  If they do the tournament of LEPer’s again I’d be happy to join.

Now I know what all both of you are thinking…

What happened to the epic 8 part post? 

Where is all of this mad chess knowledge that wang said he was going to bestow upon us?

Well kids its coming.  I will post part 1 Chpater 3 later in the week.  It is titled “Rage against the Machine.”  The final chapter of Part 1 will likely coincide with my one year anniversary in serious tournament chess.  It will be titled…well I’m not quite sure yet but it will be a summary of my first year in competetive chess.  I have learned alot this last year, about chess, myself and the way I think, adult chessplayers and other stuff.  I just hope I can distill it into something coherent and understandable.  Let’s just say that I think alot of what we’ve been told is not quite right or accurate for adult players.

I have made significant gains this year, although I believe them to be largely despite myself and my efforts and not because of them, but more on that later.  I have to go read and respond to other people’s blogs, study a little bit and cook dinner.

Later folks.