Grand-Prix Attack and a draw

My latest club game was a Grand Prix Attack - but with an early e5 ... It turned out that we both got our moves wrong and my opponent was more than happy to take a draw ... !

1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 e5 4. f5 Nf6 (Fritz recommends 4.fxe5) 5. Nf3 a6 6. a4 d5 7. exd5 Nxd5 8. Bd3 Ndb4 (surely Knight f4 and Ive had it!) 9. Be4 Qf6 10. O-O Be7 11. d3 h6 12. Bd2 Nd4 13. Nxd4 cxd4 14. Nb1 Nc6 15. Na3 O-O 16. Nc4 Bd8 17. Qh5 Rb8 18. Rf3 b5 19. axb5 axb5 20. Na3 Rb6 21. Rg3 Qh4 22. Qf3 Qf6 23. Qh5 Qh4 0.5-0.5

I parked the game there - too aware of the tactical possibilities for both sides ... Just one example: 24. Qxh6 Qxg3! 25. hxg3 gxh6 and Black wins the pinner and a piece outright! It was probably wrong to walk away from this with such a strong position though ... ! Truth is I got the jitters! The following day at the cafe my chess playing colleague found loads of great lines for White that I really didn't see during the game. I need to get accustomed to properly analyzing the lines that look promising rather than relying on intuition all of the time!

I feel pleased to get a draw against a player with an ELO rating of 1832 though :). It's the way forward !

PGN Viewer courtesy of http://chesstempo.com/

Who wants to improve their chess tactics?

If the answer is yes, then I have just the thing for you -

Chess Exam and Training Guide: Tactics by Igor Khmelnitsky - International Chess Master

This is a training resource written with the same ideas in mind as Ray Cheng's 600 Practical Chess Exercises ... You need to look at both the tactics for and against you to be sure that the tactic you 'think' you have is sound.

You are presented with 60 tactics problems. After completing several of these and keeping your score you are given an interim report (a bit like at school!) My tactics have consistently been around 1700-1750, but I would really like to improve on this!

On the whole - I feel I am improving - why? - because I am getting into the habit of assessing ALL candidate moves and looking at as many continuations for BOTH sides. I have experienced many 'Eureka' moments in doing this - e.g. when I was just about to discard a tactical idea because "it looked wrong" - I forced/trained myself to look a little further each time - and sure enough - the reasons/evidence popped out showing me that I COULD play the tactic afterall - the tactic was sound in fact!!

The same is true of the tactics you DON'T want to discard because they "look right" ! - I trained myself to look a little further and found out that with scrutiny, the tactic that originally looked great turned out to be completely unsound !!

This technique, I have found can be learnt and is down to self discipline and habit as much as anything ... I recommend this book to help you train!


Chess Exam - Igor Khmelnitsky

Sicilian Defence with a pin on b4

This was an interesting game - I thought my opponent wanted to play the Grand Prix Attack against my Sicilian - but he opted for 3.Nf3 instead of 3.f4 ... As it turned out we wandered unwittingly into a very sharp line that neither of us were 100% with!

I had the edge throughout the game, purely due to confidence rather than anything else ... Solid development moves were all that was required from Black - keeping the queen and Knights at bay and away from key squares!

1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 e6 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. d4 cxd4 5. Nxd4 Bb4 6. Nb5 d5 7. exd5 exd5 8. Qxd5 Qe7+ 9. Be2 Nf6 10. Qd3 O-O 11. O-O a6 12. Na3 Ne5 13. Qg3 Ng6 14. Qe3 Qc7 15. Qg3 Bd6 16. f4 Re8 17. Be3 b5 18. Qf2 Rxe3 19. Qxe3 Bc5 0-1

PGN Viewer courtesy of http://chesstempo.com/