Wednesday 31 January 2018

When 1690 plays 1390

what are the differences between the styles of play in this game? The difference is that of technique - development and the conception of a plan. The lower graded player is not properly developed whereas the higher graded player considered development very carefully and capitalised on the 1390s lack of development.

The 1690 has managed to plan an attack against their opponents king, no matter how simplistic... 
Finally they used tactics to issue the knockout blows and checkmate the king!

The lessons for the 1390 player should be:
1) Bring all your pieces into play as expediently as possible.
2) Look out for enemy attacks and tactics against your king.
3) Plan your own attacks and make threats - the tactics will follow!

As usual, any comments welcome ...

Kings pawn




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

Tuesday 30 January 2018

Accepting Chess Losses

Become "robot-like" and objective. How would a computer accept a loss? The answer is quite simple: It would not care. Nor should you. Computer's don't have emotions. Nor should you. Ignore the number of losses and the magnitude of the decrease in rating. Analyse how the losses were made. If, from a human perspective you're blundering, then stop playing for a while. You are either tired, chasing your grade, trying too hard, or bored of chess at the moment and lost for inspiration. Computers possess some of the strongest skills in the world of chess and the strongest ones learn from previous games of which there are millions - why shouldn't you imitate their behaviour if you want the same results? Start your new chess career from now: Become a chess-terminator!

Wednesday 24 January 2018

Grand Prix Attack game leads to draw

I tried to use the Grand Prix Attack in my first club game of 2018.  I had a huge time lead during the 'middle game', but my opponent found what looked like a simple way to equalise by doubling rooks on the f file .... I was a pawn down, so accepted the draw that was offered!

As usual, any comments welcome ...

Grand Prix Attack




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

Monday 22 January 2018

How to defeat Scotch Terrorist Attack

I had an interesting game online this evening.  It reminded me of a game I played in the Portsmouth Chess Congress some years back.  I enjoy playing the Scotch game and my opponent played 4.Qh4 - "The Terrorist Attack".  This can get quite sharp and White has to play it accurately to not let Black  get an advantage!  The trick is to sacrifice the e4 pawn early on ... The result being that black has a lone Queen in play with the hope of being assisted ONLY by a bumbling pair of Knights ... White should win if they manage to get all their pieces in play, whilst Black struggles to develop their Bishop and Rook, partly due to forfeiting their right to castle.

You'll note from this game that I could have won my opponent's knight earlier on with a simple f4 pawn push, but failed to spot this ... It was only after replaying the match that I realised!!

Enjoy the game .... !



As usual, any comments welcome ...

Scotch Game




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