I think that's a great idea whiskeytown!

Just for you guys, I think I'll tweet the moves when I play.

Using an electronic device to transmit moves during the game. Howard won't be suspicious at all '_'

Thanks Allen.

lolz

Here are my first two games from the Premier division of the Western Class Open. I probably won't play tomorrow because chess tournaments are just too grueling. In the first game I played moves 36-40 with about 2 minutes till the next time control with the strategy of don't hang anything. Postmortem I like 37...Ke8. I blame the last few moves of the second game on low blood sugar. Seriously. Brutal.

[Event "4:06 PM"]
[Site "Western Pacific Open"]
[Date "2010.04.24"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Someone"]
[Black "Allen"]
[WhiteElo "1750"]
[ECO "B37"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6 3.c4 Nc6 4.d4 cxd4 5.Nxd4 Bg7 6.Nc2 Nf6 7.Nc3
O-O 8.Ne3 d6 9.Be2 Bd7 10.O-O a6 11.Ned5 Rb8 12.Be3 Be8 13.f4
Nd7 14.a3 e6 15.Nb4 Nc5 16.Bf3 Qc7 17.e5 Rd8 18.Nxc6 Bxc6 19.Bxc5
dxc5 20.Qe2 Bxf3 21.Rxf3 f6 22.exf6 Rxf6 23.g3 Qc6 24.Re1 Rff8
25.Qxe6+ Qxe6 26.Rxe6 Rd2 27.Nd5 Rxb2 28.Rf1 Rd8 29.Rfe1 b5 30.Re8+
Rxe8 31.Rxe8+ Kf7 32.Re7+ Kf8 33.cxb5 axb5 34.Rb7 c4 35.Nb4 c3
36.Rc7 Bd4+ 37.Kh1 Rb3 38.Rd7 Bc5 39.Rc7 Bxb4 40.axb4 Rb1+ 41.Kg2
Rb2+ 42.Kf3 Rxh2 43.Rxc3 Rb2 44.g4 Rxb4 45.Rc8+ 1/2-1/2


[Event "9:42 PM"]
[Site "Western Pacific Open"]
[Date "2010.04.24"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Allen"]
[Black "kid"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[ECO "C42"]
[Result "0-1"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Nc3 d5 6.Qe2 Be7 7.Nxe4
dxe4 8.Qxe4 O-O 9.d4 Bb4+ 10.c3 Re8 11.Ne5 Bd6 12.Bd3 f5 13.Bc4+
Be6 14.Bxe6+ Rxe6 15.Qxf5 Qe8 16.f4 Nc6 17.O-O Rf6 18.Qd3 Rd8
19.Qc4+ Kh8 20.Be3 Nxe5 21.fxe5 Rg6 22.Qf7 Be7 23.Qxe8+ Rxe8
24.Rf3 Rb6 25.b3 Ra6 26.a4 Rb6 27.b4 Rc6 28.Bd2 Kg8 29.Raf1 Ra6
30.a5 b6 31.Ra1 c5 32.b5 Rxa5 33.Rxa5 bxa5 34.d5 Bd8 35.e6 c4
36.Rf4 Bb6+ 37.Kf1 Rf8 38.Rxf8+ Kxf8 39.Ke1 Bc5 40.Kd1 h6 41.h4
Ke7 42.Bf4 Kf6 43.g4 g5 44.hxg5+ hxg5 45.Bc7 a4 46.Kc2 Ke7 47.Ba5
Bd6 48.Bb4 Bxb4 49.cxb4 a3 50.Kb1 c3 51.b6 axb6 52.b5 Kd6 0-1

Quick comments;

In game 1, you've got a winning endgame. Under no circumstances should you allow White to capture your c-pawn. You basically traded it off for White's h-pawn and gave your advantage away. This game should have been 0-1

Also, you liberated White's king from the back rank by check him up to f3. Ideally, you would keep him trapped on the back rank.

I know this opening well since I've played the Nc2 retreat as White many times. White was too quick to play the maneuver Nc2-Ne3-Nd5. The knight usually needs to patiently wait on c2 in a defensive role to keep Black's knight off the d4 square.

I'm not sure your 14...e6 is the right approach to remove the d5 knight. It weakens your d6 pawn too much.

Game 1 shows the downside of the Accelerated Dragon as it leads to passive positions easily. Nevertheless you manage to untangle and get activity with Rd2 and even produce a winning endgame (R+B vs. R+N plus queenside majority). Unfortunately you don't have the technique for the conversion yet, but that is just normal for this level.

Game 2 was just brutal. No need to go into details. Your first big mistake was that you allowed him to use his king to blockade your pawns. 39. Ke1 must be replaced with d6, regardless what the engines say. Your move wins as well, but it is not good technique.

After the exchange of bishops it is still a draw, but only with precise moves. You did not know the pattern that the two pawns indirectly help each other when they are on the same rank, so you forced yourself into zugzwang The correct defense was not to allow the pawn to get to c3 by controlling that square. You can just move back and forth Kc3-Kc2-Kc3-Kc2 and it is a draw, because his king is tied to your pawns just as well .

Game 2 Quick Comments:

Obviously, you already know that 48. Bb4 gave away a win.

There's an endgame lesson to be learned. Black's pawns on a4 and c4 can't be captured by White's king despite being isolated pawns. The pawns can cooperate and prevent capture. When one pawn is approached, the other advances and threatens promotion.

50. Kb1 is the losing blunder. Black's response of 50...c3 wins and in fact is the only move which doesn't lose.

Instead of 50. Kb1, White can force a draw (and has no better option) than shuttling his king back and forth on the c3 and c3 squares. All Black can do in response is to shuttle his king between the d6 and e7 squares.

http://www.amazon.com/Dvoretskys-End.../dp/1888690194

There is no way around it!

Yep, I have it. A+ book

Also read Just the Facts by Lev Alburt. (not sure if someone reco'd that already or not, if so, i obv.
concur).


Allen: I'm a little surprised that you said chess tournaments are too grueling, when you've played poker I'm sure for many hours in a day on a somewhat regular basis? Or at the very least playing even more hours of poker during a poker tournament stretch.

A chess game is 4 hours of intense concentration over the course of 4 hours. Then you do it again after trying to choke down some food. Poker is 1/2 hour of concentration over a span of 10 hours. Of course, I'm much more experience at poker so most plays are natural as can be and I can find them without breaking a sweat. Even so, I don't find a slow chess game online or live with a friend stressful at all so there is just something about the tournament setting that ups the pressure. I need to convince myself to just have fun.

Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual is too much for Allen right now. Alburt's book is a far better choice simply because it's smaller and focuses more on what a player of Allen's strength needs.

Yes Dvoretsky's book is way too difficult. It takes me like an hour to find the solution to one of his problems only to find out I am wrong.

I meant that it's good to have as a reference and also to look at the most basic examples at least.

Majority of Endgame studying time should be spent looking at Just the Facts of course.

I don't know, Christopher Harrington from Reno, distant cousin of Dan and Padraig, didn't give it a stellar review and he smashed me in the rook endgame earlier in this thread.

http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Chess-...0&pageNumber=2

On Amazon.com, it has twelve reviews. 8/12 give it five stars (of five). 2 give it four stars. 2 give it three stars.

His main complaint seems to be that it's boring, but that's a really common complaint regarding endgame study no matter what text is used. If you find the same problems with the Silman book, I'd recommend watching Karsten Mueller's DVD's and using Silman or Alburt as a guide for which endings you should learn. Karsten is a well regarded endgame expert and a GM and his deep voice and significant German accent make the videos really entertaining.

Oh, and how's training coming? Several hours a day can get rather tiresome after a while. Still keeping up okay?

I saw it got good reviews. I was just noting that it's a small world after all.

And the training is going well thanks, swingdoc. I don't feel like I'm doing any tiresome training, just having fun. It's hurting my golf game though.

Haha that's funny that your opponent reviewed it.

I remember reading it when I was a C player and I def. enjoyed it.

The title is "Just the Facts" so it probably isn't as "fun" as a Silman book on the Endgame (maybe).

I am not sure, in fact I don't think that any book is too complicated for an intelligent person. I'd rather know how it works exactly than getting an approximation that is simplified for beginners. The goal is to emulate an expert chess algorithm after all.

Take the pawn endgame from the second game for instance. Dvoretsky shows a rule for this "machine". The pawns build a box and if that box touches the first rank, the pawns win on their own. Similar to the "Quadratregel" for the pawn vs. K race. Can it get any easier than this?

Btw, I wanted to add something about the thought process and intuition. In chess the correct solution is sometimes counterintuitive as it was in this specific endgame. If the human has the task to "watch" both pawns, he would intuitively assume a position in the middle of both pawns. This is our way of optimizing things. If either pawn can run, we need equal distance to both of them, so it takes us identical effort to do the job. The problem is that this works for exactly one move and then we must spoil this construction.

This is zugzwang in chess or the link between time and space. We know zugzwang from backgammon too. Imagine you constructed a perfect prime, but your opponent still has many pieces in his backfield. You cannot improve, he can and so you must destroy your own perfect structure.

I think the mistake in the second game was very instructive. It also brings up the subject of how to lose a tempo. Knights cannot lose a tempo, pawns can lose a tempo on their first move. All other pieces can lose tempi. The king for instance does it with triangulation.

Ok, I got carried away too much. Allen, just remember that you must read Dvoretsky. Regardless how good you are, it will make you better!

I don´t think anyone has ever ,,read" Dvoretsky, nor does anyone need to. Just like you don´t read a dictionary or an Encyclopedia. Nobody at the ,,improver" stage of chess needs to bother with Dvoretsky. People who are already pretty good MIGHT use it and look at SOME examples in all sections. It´s no question a great book, just not to learn how to play basic endgames. I´ll speak for myself and say that Paul Keres´ and Yuri Averbakh´s basic endgame books are pretty good, dunno the Silman one, but knowing some of his other books, his should be too.

Well, I have read it. Reading doesn't mean studying though. I did not set up the positions, I just read the text and looked at the diagrams.

I do not understand why people shy away from the arguable best coach and trainer there is in chess. Only because you felt that Dvoretsky was too complicated for you doesn't mean that he is too complicated for everyone.

Should a beginner read "Mathematics of Poker"? Well, it certainly doesn't make him an expert. On the other hand, he will realize that poker is more than just playing certain hands from chart and making a continuation bet. If anything, it will prevent the Dunning-Kruger-Effect (my favorite as of late) when incompetent people think that experts only cook with water. I have "read" that book also, which means that I skipped the calculations and concentrated on the conclusions. So far it didn't hurt.

You can do that because you're a good enough player to figure out what will help you. If Allen really just grabbed that fat tome and diligently worked his way through every line he'd almost certainly end up wasting hundreds of hours since he wouldn't remember or be able to use 95% of what he just studied.

Don't get me wrong, Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual is a FANTASTIC book that I use all the time. It's just unlikely to be a really good fit for a newer player without anyone to guide him.

I'm sorry, but I completely disagree with those saying that Allen should try to read Dvortesky, it's simply too advanced a book for his level of player imo. Frankly even if it were not, it's simply not the sort of thing one should concentrate when attempting to reach about ~2000 level (and this is not just me saying this, I mentioned this to a few IM/GM friends of mine who completely agree).

I don't buy the argument that simply because a person is intelligent that "no book is too advanced". No matter how bright a person is, there are things which if a person tries to learn (not just in chess, in almost anything) that if they do not have a grasp of the fundamentals of the things that come before it, no amount of intelligence is going to overcome it. Would you suggest a very bright five year old read a book on advanced algebra if they weren't yet familiar with basic addition and subtraction?

As I stated in my earlier post and as many others have said, sticking to tactics training as much as possible and keeping things like endgame study to a minimum is probably the best advice.