Chess Strategy

Magnus Carlsen - Ivan Cheparinov
2007 World Cup, Khanty-Mansiysk

I was annotating this game for Chessdom, and since there were some wonderful ideas in the unbalanced endgame, I decided to share them here.

If we strictly count the units, material is even, but in the actual games evaluation depends on many relative factors such are pieces’ coordination, king safety, passed pawns etc. Two important features for White are advanced pawn on g6 and ‘one extra piece’ on the board as Knight, Bishop and King can cooperate with great effect. Black, on the other hand, has possibility to create distant passed pawn on the queenside and his Rook is pressing on the weak “a” and “c” pawns.

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Dr. Anthony Saidy - Robert Fischer
New York ch-US, 1964

Without pawns on d4 and d5, White would even have a slightly better endgame. In this situation, Bishop is limited with its own pawn and one of White pieces will be tied for defence. Knight, on the other hand, can jump over the barriers. No one can claim for certain if Black is winning or position is a draw, but White is condemned to long, passive defence.

1…Nf8

White King can quickly reach the center, but then what? It can’t go any further or get involved in active operation, and Black can take his time to improve the Knight first. Ne6 will have an eye on d4 pawn, thus keeping one of the White pieces in passive position, and support future advance on the kingside.

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It’s been a busy time with the World Cup, so for now just a quick reminder on why is chess such a magnificent game. Regular articles to be posted later this week.

Ortueta - Sanz

by Bogdan Girmacea

The first one to give great contribution about this subject was Aron Nimzovitch in his famous book “My System”. He says that the group mobility of pawns, and not the mobility of one pawn, can become a great fighting instrument, which usually leads to decisive advantage. Why is a mobile group of pawns so important? Because a mobile group of pawns can:

a) control a lot of important squares on the board
b) limit activity of opponent’s pieces
c) give attacking chances to the side that has them
d) give space advantage

But let’s see a concrete example to understand better. I will show you the game Spassky - Petrosian, from the 1966 World Championship.

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For the first time I was on other side of the table. Frederic Sellier asked me for interview with Pokemon Chess Blog and I gladly accepted. I would also like to thank Frederic for his help in providing contact with GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and other French bloggers.

Read the interview

When evaluating position, we should consider factors with their static (absolute) and dynamic (relative) value. So, counting pawn islands, weak squares, pieces’ placement, safety of the kings etc is the first step to be taken. Next is to reconsider each of the assessments in respect of their correlation with other factors, both static and dynamic, and time potential. Time potential means how fast can factor change, to better or worse, and how can this influence with other factors. This is where chess becomes hard and we have to make choices on what is the (most) important feature in the given position.

Let’s see what are the factors in diagrammed setup. White has three pawn islands, black only two. White has to take care of c4 and possibly a2 pawns, while black keeps eye on c7. Pawn a2 is potential passer and both kings seem to be safe at the moment. Nd5 and Bd4 are wonderfully anchored in the center, Bh4 is not that bad either, Rb1 is on the open file, Re8 is on the semi-open file, while black pieces on the a-file might be a bit misplaced.

Now it is important to revise everything said above and see how these factors behave in the real-time, ie next couple of moves. With locked pawn structures, real-time can be extended to 15 or more moves.

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On Creta I had a chance to meet and talk to many Grandmasters. Andrei Volokitin, member of the Ukranian national team, is one of the authors of “Perfect Your Chess” that I praised so much. He prefered to give more writing credit to his coach IM Vladimir Grabinsky.

Turkish player GM Suat Atalik and coach GM Predrag Nikolic were particularly friendly and we chatted almost every day. GM Efstratios Grivas was Turkish captain and someone pointed out that I should take a look at his books.

From the list of seven Grivas’ book I decided to take a look at “Modern Chess Planning”. The training format immediately caught my attention. Grivas provides 75 superb practical examples where it is important to make the right plan. Once the critical position is reached, he guides the reader with a clear explained selection of possibilities and challenges you to find the right path. Detailed solutions are provided, with a full discussion of the pros and cons of the various options.

Here is one sample, try to solve it. White is to move:

Judgement: White has the advantage, as he has two (good) minor pieces against a (quite passive) rook. Unfortunately for Black, his extra pawn is of no importance, as it is isolated, weak and blockaded. Moreover, Black’s e-pawns are more like weaknesses, as are his b- and g-pawns. Some attention must be paid to the white king’s position, as its central presence offers Black some chances for counterplay.

Planning - Choose one of the following three plans:

A: I should attack the e-pawns, starting with the one on e5. This can be done by manoeuvring my minor pieces (by Bf1 and Nd2-c4) towards that target and also involving my queen via b5 or c3. Black will not be able to defend this weakness, which will eventually drop. Then I would go after the e6-pawn.

B: I should exchange my a5-pawn for Black’s on b7. Then my a3-pawn will become passed, giving me an easy win. I can do that by playing Bf1-b5 and then a6. After the pawn exchange I shall play Bd3 and advance my a-pawn.

C: I am sure that I would like to exchange queens at a favourable moment and then proceed with all my forces against the opponent’s b-pawn. But Black would never accept this trade, so I must force it by attacking the black king. By manoeuvring my pieces against the black g6-pawn (Ng5, Bf1-d3 and Qe4) I would be able either to exchange queens and easily win the endgame or deliver checkmate.

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Dear readers, apologies as I haven’t updated the site for awhile. I’m currently working as a reporter from the European Team Chess Championship that is taking place in beautiful Creta Maris in Greece. Some photos bellow, we should be back on track around 10th November.

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This is the game I played last weekend in a team event. Similar to “5th Deadly Chess Sin”, I will reproduce my thoughts that occurred during the clash. Note that I didn’t run the moves through the chess program, if you find any tactical flaws, please mention it in the comments.

Goran Urosevic - Boban Stojanovic

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3
In the first round, I played the Catalan and lost the game (will post that soon). This time I wanted to try something else.

4… Be7 5. Bg5 h6
I don’t know if this move order (more common is 5… 0-0 and h6 later) has any significance in the sense of allowing/avoiding certain lines. While 6. Bh4 would have been normal transposition, I was happy to get off the hot lines of the Orthodox Queens Gambit, and quickly snapped on f6.

6. Bxf6 Bxf6

I grinned while taking on f6 and I think my opponent saw that. The thing is that in the last year’s league I lost only one game, and it was because I started a combination to win the bishop’s pair, while blundering simple intermediate move (zwischenzug). That was one of the most embarrassing defeats ever, in only 17 moves. I remember how one of the team-mates criticized me for “recklessly running after the pair of bishops”. I was happy to show him this time how “universal” player I am by giving the bishop for knight on 6th move.

This continuation is, of course, well known in the modern opening theory. White will quickly finish the development while black will be a bit passive for awhile, because his bishops can’t easily reach any of the good diagonals. By removing Nf6, black is losing some of the control over e4 and d5, and we will see how could white exploit this advantage.

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Another sample from “Perfect Your Chess”. GM Volokitin and IM Grabinsky are commenting game moves as the best continuation, but I think there is even prettier tactical motif.

White to move, suggest your solutions in the comments.

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