Master Game Analysis: Petrosian v Korchnoi, Leningrad, 1946

I had the idea last year to try to memorize great games. I found that my memory is not good enough, and the games I memorized slowly ebbed away, if I did not refresh them.

So a new attempt is born. The idea is to weekly annotate a master game and post it on my blog. I will attempt to study the game following the advice of Soltis in "Studying Chess Made Easy".

I will chose games that have been well annotated, but I will not look at the annotations or use an engine until after I am done. Important moves that I did not comment on will become Flash Cards.

In this first attempt, I did not spend enough time on the third pass and missed two very important things and did not do enough analysis of the tactics. Two flash cards and reset of expectations of how much time I need to set aside for this task.

This is a very short game. Petrosian made a rare (at the time) opening move, and two very Petrosianish moves during the game that I missed on my analysis. One improving his queen while hindering his opponents plan, and the other offering material (a pawn)

Tabiya: Ruy Lopez, Exchange

White players may choose the Ruy Lopez Exchange variation against stronger players, because of its drawish reputation, likewise for the deferred exchange. I am trying 1.e4 e5 in my online games and run into several Ruy exchanges.

This may be a mistake, as a strong player should make good use of the two bishops, while white's the long term endgame advantage of the pawn structure is far away.

Ruy Lopez Exchange:

After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.O-O Kaufman recommends 5...Bg4. The mainline 5...f6 holds onto the e-pawn and a positional struggle ensues.

Ruy Lopez Exchange after 5...Bg4

 6.h3 will be met with h5, and white cannot afford to take the bishop, because he will have to return the piece and give black a fierce kingside initiative. 7.d3 Qf6  This is my Tabiya for the Ruy Exchange:

Ruy Lopez Exchange: Tabiya

I will attack on the kingside. If I castle it will be queenside. This will not be the kind of quiet game a player choosing the exchange should be expecting.

Ruy Lopez Deferred Exchange:

White can defer taking on c6.  1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.d3 Nd7:

This is quieter than the line for the exchange. Though white has "wasted" a move with 4.Ba4, I will also lose tempo getting my Bc8 developed. I will most likely castle kingside and try to impede d3-d4 to avoid the "lost endgame" pawn structure. 7...Bg4 is not as strong as in the regular exchange, because the black queen cannot pop out to f6 easily.

Reassessment

I have reviewed my games of the last year.

I am knocking on the door to expert. I have achieved what most people that reach class A have achieved. I have eliminated (most) gross errors from my game and am generating plans. I have become difficult to defeat. I play solidly, and wait for my opponent to make an error. This works for most players weaker than me. My tactics and endgames are stronger.

I often get slightly worse positions out of the opening. Sometimes, I lose a pawn and have to go in search of compensation, or have to give up the exchange to free my game, then I go looking for tactics to recover. I resists doggedly, and try to make complications for my opponents to wade through. Masters and strong experts usually find their way through. Weaker experts and class A players usually allow me to draw and sometimes win.

Breaking through to the next level will be helped by the book I have started to read: Soltis's What It Takes to Become a Chess Master. There is a lot of good material for me in the book, but no magic bullets. Primarily it is a guide to studying master games. I will write up a review, when I am done reading.

The new revised PLAN:

• Continually, Play 6-10 correspondence games 3 days/move 
• Continually, create new flash cards
• Daily, 15min tactics (blitz mode) 
• Daily, 15min endgame problems
• Daily, 30min read/study a chess book on treadmill
• Weekly, review games in my openings from "The Week in Chess" (treadmill activity 30min daily)
• Weekly, annotate one master game (post here)
• Weekly, local chess club -- participate even if I don't feel like it -- maintain good attitude
• Weekly, document a new Tabiya (post here)
• Monthly, Solitaire chess column in Chess Life

Extra task list for the plan:

• Finish flash card applet (create) and app (review)
• Finish PGN to Epub program
• Create Tabiya list (flash card for each)

Candidates 2013

I should have made a post about this earlier. The Candidates tournament is nearly over. The winner will play Anand in a match for the World Champion Title.

The live coverage has been fun. Nigel Short may be a bit opinionated, but he is fun to listen to.

http://london2013.fide.com/

TCCL 2013 Seventh and Final Round

Zach Adams and I played a game very similar to our game two years ago in the MN closed 2011, except this time I did not goof up and we settled into a draw.

The ending was R+B of opposite colors and symmetric pawns. My pieces were a little more active, and Zach had only a few seconds on his clock; however, we were the last game, but one, and I have seen Zach play accurately enough on fumes that this game was a draw.

Over all, I think the Rochester teams did well in the TCCL this year. Our gold and silver teams did well enough to stay in their sections, while the bronze team did well for their rating, but will not advance.

I am looking forward to next year, already.

Opening Study

I am happy with my opening repertoire.

I am unhappy with the results of my opening studies.

I forget critical moves in the main variations, while remembering trivial lines that I have never seen in a game.

I am going to rethink how to study openings from the ground up.

Why study openings? To improve our play. There are several aspects:

• To better understand the middle game plans that occur from an opening.
• To better understand endgame structures that happen from an opening.
• To become familiar with the tactical ideas that occur and spring from an opening
• To save time in a game by making decisions ahead of time.

Memorizing lines is a problem for those of us with less than grandmaster memories. The main problem is that there is too much to remember. Since memory fades over time if not refreshed, most of us will reach a point where the amount of time to study openings will only be enough to refresh what we have already memorized. There will be no room for improvement. Some solve this problem by choosing lines that are not as challenging for your opponent, but are easy to grasp like the Colle. Others make the mistake of choosing offbeat lines like the Grob.

With clear knowledge of an opponent, you can do a more in depth study of lines before the game. From a few moments between rounds to months before a major match, the study will have to be adjusted to the time available and your knowledge of your opponent.

I think I need to drastically trim the size of my repertoire tree for line memorization. I still want to document and comment a very large tree, but only do memory training on a much smaller subset. I should train on the larger tree only in subsets for know upcoming opponents.

I need to come up with a better way to organize Tabiya and be more precise in defining those in my Repertoire. I should write a monograph on each Tabiya that is like a very verbose Stoyko exercise.  In particular, I should note paired moves. I should also create a flash card for each Tabiya. Eventually, I should use my collection of Tabiya to extract games from the WeekInChess weekly game download to review.

Paired moves is a concept I came up with a while ago. The idea is that the problems presented in an opening have a limited number of ways to address. Each move to address a problem may have a natural response. A good example of this is in the closed Ruy Lopez is the point when white directly defends his e4-pawn. Black must address the Bxc6 and Nxe5 threat. You should have selected ahead of time whether you are going to play ...d6 or ...b5 (assuming Morphy's ...a6 has been played), depending on how white defends the pawn. For instance, your paired moves might be (Re1, b5) (d3,d6).

(An aside: Here is a good reason for every chess player to be familiar with the Ruy Lopez, it is a good place to find any kind of example you might want, and it is continually used as example material by writers)

Programming problem with chess app

Just venting a bit

I am working on an Android app to help me study chess. I hope to make it useful enough to sell.

I want to use text areas and chess fonts to make some of the programming easier, but all of the good free fonts are not working with Android. (Except ChessAlpha2, which is not free for commercial use)

I guess it is known that some fonts just silently fail, but I cannot find what makes them fail. (I could fix them).

(If the app caught on I was intending to add a free upgrade to allow for various fonts and pay for a ChessAlpha license then)
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