Smack my bishop (into shape!) - The training log

Lucena

Here's yesterday's game:

http://www.chess.com/blog/Binouzenours/how-not-to-play-against-the-kia-and-still-draw

@Valmont
The line where I took with the knight on e4 looks quite playable, but only if Black follows up with 0-0-0.

I'm fairly happy with myself for hanging on in a bad position and getting a draw. Playing good chess doesn't necessarily mean playing perfect chess!

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Going to work on a bit of Yusupov before heading to bed. I'm in the zone!

Valmont

You played well in the rook endgame to draw I think. I thought he would have converted one of his queenside pawns? I liked 31...h6 I would never have foreseen the need to play that.

Mustafa Chess

I thought White was going to win that game for sure. Did he miss something?

Lucena

Valmont wrote: »

You played well in the rook endgame to draw I think. I thought he would have converted one of his queenside pawns? I liked 31...h6 I would never have foreseen the need to play that.

Yeah, I was kind of proud of that move as well! I think I was fairly aware of the back-rank mate theme in the game, as White was under threat from something similar earlier in the game. If White played 28. Re7, for example, I would have mated him in two moves with 28...Re1.
Also round about this time in the game I was wondering why my situation seemed more active. The answer I came up with was that White's king was trapped on the back rank because his pawn structure f4-g3-h2 was open towards the centre, his king couldn't 'nip round the back' and escape via h2, for example. This gave me the idea that I might need to make my own luft on h7, which I ended up doing.

Lucena

Mustafa Chess wrote: »

I thought White was going to win that game for sure. Did he miss something?

Welcome to Boards, Mustafa Chess!

Well, apart from 32. Rb5, which would have left him in a slightly better position but still having to work for the win, he should have played 30. Rf1, giving up the pawn, but then placing the rook on White's 2nd rank by 31. Rf2

If Black now exchanges rooks, White has a winning endgame with a passed a-pawn, and 3 versus 2 on the kingside. If Black doesn't exchange straight away, the king can go to g2 on the next move, and is therefore no longer trapped, avoiding the situation that actually happened in the game.

Lucena

Finished Chapter 17 last night, Stalemate Motifs. It's classed as a tactics chapter, but seeing as there's generally very little material left on the board for stalemate to happen, it had a very endgamey flavour.

At this rate, I might finish the book before the end of the month:cool: , so it won't have too much time to have an impact on my play. I wonder long-term how much of the information I'll retain. Maybe it's like learning a language, if I follow up with the next book, it'll build on what I've just learned, cementing it into place.

Current Fide rating: 1711

Valmont

I'm still struggling with 'the value of the pieces'; I can't let go the puzzles I don't get so I go back to them for a few days in row hoping something will pop out. I don't know if I retained much from the lessons but the puzzles have definitely improved my overall tactical ability and calculation.

Lucena

I think that the real work, and learning, happens mostly in the puzzles. If the book didn't have the end of chapter puzzles, I think I'd forget everything soon after learning it.

Mustafa Chess

Seems to take a lot of effort to actually win these endgames.

Lucena

Mustafa Chess wrote: »

Seems to take a lot of effort to actually win these endgames.

Well that’s the thing, over the board, and especially at amateur level, while it’s important to know the theoretical evaluation of a position, there’s still a lot of potential for making the opponent work hard for the win even in losing positions. Had my opponent played perfectly, from say move 25 on, he would have won.

There’s a book about this theme called “How to be lucky in chess” by David LeMoir. I’ve only had a quick look through it, but basically the author’s not too worried about perfect play. He gives lots of examples where his position is quite bad, and shows how he can makes things awkward for the opponent, trying to force mistakes.

In my game from last Sunday, did my opponent presume the win was in the bag (two passed pawns!!) and mentally take his foot off the pedal? I don’t know, it didn’t really come up in the post-mortem analysis, but it seems likely. He should have snuffed out all Black’s activity before pushing the pawns.

Mustafa Chess

I prefer attacking games but I end up in bad endgames and then get outplayed.

Lucena

I know it's easier said than done, but you sometimes have to look at what will happen if the attack peters out and a lot of the pieces are swapped off. In fact, this may be the defenders best option, exchanging as much material as possible and heading for an endgame.

Out of curiosity, what endgame knowledge do you have, Mustafa?

brilliantboy

Mustafa Chess wrote: »

I prefer attacking games but I end up in bad endgames and then get outplayed.

If that's the case then it's probably your attacking that needs the work

Lucena

Playing KIA guy again this afternoon. Against 1. e4, he used to play the Sicilian, but recently seems to be playing 1...d6, followed by Nf6, g6. I've always had a repertoire against the Sicilian, and I've just had a quickish look (30 mins) through some lines against 1...d6, so I'm not going in totally blind.

Fingers crossed!

brilliantboy

Lucena wrote: »

Playing KIA guy again this afternoon. Against 1. e4, he used to play the Sicilian, but recently seems to be playing 1...d6, followed by Nf6, g6. I've always had a repertoire against the Sicilian, and I've just had a quickish look (30 mins) through some lines against 1...d6, so I'm not going in totally blind.

Fingers crossed!

Treat it like a Dragon.
Trade dark squared bishops on h6/g7, crack open the h-file, sac, sac, mate.

Valmont

Have you looked at the Austrian attack? My KIA player didn't use it but I liked the look of 1. e4...d6 2. d4...Nf6 3. Nc3...g6 4. f4 for a very strong centre and plenty of attacking prospects.

Lucena

Yep, I played the Austrian attack. I lost the game after giving away a pawn in the opening, having to play some acrobatic moves to try to stay in the game. Will try and stick it up later today.

brilliantboy

Lucena wrote: »

Yep, I played the Austrian attack. I lost the game after giving away a pawn in the opening, having to play some acrobatic moves to try to stay in the game. Will try and stick it up later today.

I've always thought it suicidal to go into a sharp theoretical line in something like the Pirc or Alekhine because invariably the other guy is going to know it better than you, thus negating any advantage that theory gives.
Better to pick something slightly rarer that he's not used to seeing and just play chess.

Lucena

brilliantboy wrote: »

I've always thought it suicidal to go into a sharp theoretical line in something like the Pirc or Alekhine because invariably the other guy is going to know it better than you, thus negating any advantage that theory gives.
Better to pick something slightly rarer that he's not used to seeing and just play chess.

That's a fair point. Possibly when playing against "lesser" openings, the tendancy in preparation is to go for agressive lines.

"Hmm, my opponent plays the Pirc, what shall I play against him? I'll have a quick look throught the different variations, see if there's anything interesting.
Classical, ok.
150 Attack. We'll see
Argentine attack. Maybe
Austrian Attack. Hmm, says here it's a direct, agressive line. I'll have some of that, sod this slow manoeuvring lark."

Maybe it's just me that thinks like that though!

Lucena

I know this is going to sound strange coming from someone who is writing about working hard on becoming a stronger player, but I’m still not convinced it’s actually possible to improve at my age. As I said when I started this thread, when I started playing, I quickly reached 1700 and then plateaued. When I look at the rating curve for any adult players in the area, it’s exactly the same; they hit a plateau and then stay around that level forever.
I also wonder whether I’m not, in some way, blocking my own progress by putting up mental barriers.

As an example, there’s a local player, rated around 1400, always has been, probably always will be. Whenever I play him, and generally beat him, I always offer to analyse, more out of politeness than anything else, because I know it’s wasted on him. Why?
A typical post-game analysis session will go like this:

Me: You shouldn’t have exchanged pieces here because that gave me the open file.
Him: Yes but if you’d taken with the pawn instead, my position was ok.
Later in the analysis:
Me: You shouldn’t have headed for the endgame, because my king was better placed and could start eating your pawns before your king got anywhere near mine.
Him: Yes but if my king had been nearer the centre the endgame would’ve been ok for me.

It seems he doesn’t want to know where he went wrong, which would imply that he made bad decisions, but seems to spend his time putting up mental barriers to convince himself that his position would be ok if only cosmic forces/luck/fate weren’t conspiring against him.

Do I have similar mental barriers? I always try to analyse with my opponent after a game, and try to accept advice and analysis, so I don’t think I have mental barriers, but maybe I have others that I’m not aware of. Maybe that’s the nature of mental barriers, we’re not aware of them.

Anyway, I’m not about to give up just yet, maybe it just takes a lot of work to make progress, and I haven’t done enough yet. If I ever make the 1750 mark, I'll consider I've made progress, but anything below that would be just the small variations everyone's rating goes through.

cdeb

I've seen players who've retired and then gained 100+ points in the subsequent years. It's certainly possible - it may require more work, but that's all. There are those alright who are happy to pooter around at their level and enjoy the game - and best of luck to them. But with work, you can improve at any age.

Valmont

I don't think age has much to do with it. I suspect that the better you get it's harder to find exactly what you need to work on to improve. At the moment anything I read or any puzzles I do generally cover something that needs drastic improvement so my rating has doubled since this time last year even though my focus is haphazard. Perhaps you need to really think about what aspect of your game would give you the highest boost. Do you think the Yusupov book is too easy for you?

brilliantboy

It's easy to underestimate just how much chess people who started as kids have played.
The advantage you have is that you can take a more structured and intelligent approach to improvement and cut out a lot of the superfluous stuff that the average player does.

Blackburne started at 18 and 3 years later beat Steinitz. I'm not saying that an equivalent feat is possible in the modern age, but come on, when you sit down at a chessboard it's just some guy sitting across from you, nothing special, someone just as unremarkable as the rest of us.

Lucena

@cdeb
There's a guy in my club who's retiring in a few months. He's going to use his time to work on his game, and reckons he can gain 100 points or so.

@Valmont
No, I'd say the Yusupov book is pitched at roughly the right level for me. Apart from a couple of chapters that I found ridiculously hard, most of the end of chapter problems are challenging i.e. I have to work hard on them, but doable.

@brilliantboy
Superfluous stuff like buying an opening book on the Sicilian when you're only rated 1100? Yup, guilty as charged.

Lucena

Have finished another two chapters of Yusupov (18 and 19), and managed the impressive feat of finishing chapter 19 in one 24-hour period!

I'm on holiday this week, and hoped to get another chapter done today, but so far I've just done the examples part of chapter 20 (Positional Play - Weak Points). I had hoped to do the whole chapter, but I had to sort out my bookings for my summer holidays (yeah!!!) and for the tournament I'm doing this weekend. My OH is also on holiday so I couldn't blank her out entirely, so we watched some of a box-set this afternoon. I have the feeling this is going to be a hard chapter to pass, as I'm weak positionally and the moves are less obvious in positional problems.

Regarding the tournament, it's a 7-round Fide-rated open over 4 days. Just like before every other tournament, I'm starting to get stressed as if it was an exam coming up, with the list of things I feel I need to revise, and that I should've done long ago:

- Sort out a repertoire with e4 against the Caro-Kann, the Pirc-Modern, 1...b6, the Scandinavian
- Revise my Sicilian as Black, as well as the QGD against d4
- Go over some endgame positions I should have mastered at this stage. No matter how many times I look at the Philidor, I still don't feel I grasp it properly i.e. that I'd play it properly over the board. I think I should be ok in the Lucena position though!

Thing is, I'm probably working as hard as I can, and at my level, openings aren't generally where the game is won or lost, so maybe I should take it easier on myself. Besides, it's only a game, not life or death, but having said that, when you put a lot of work into something, irregardless of how unimportant it is, it's always horrible when it doesn't work out.

Valmont

Will you move on to Boost Your Chess 1: The Fundamentals when you've finished this one? I do not understand the chapter on centralising the pieces at all and I think it's quite telling that the examples are taken from games by Nimzowitsch, Fischer, and Keres!

Lucena

@Valmont

I was considering maybe doing some work on endgames once I finish the first book, but then again, maybe a more efficient use of my time would be to stay going with Yusupov's course. The idea is that all areas are covered progressively, therefore the holes in my game should be both identified and to an extent, filled in.

I've been getting a bit of a buzz off working on Yusupov these last few days, a bit like going for a tough cycle. It's hard and punishing, but you feel great afterwards. Hopefully I'll be able to keep that going once I start back to work next week.

Mustafa Chess

Keep up the good work I always was impressed with Yusupov's beard

Lucena

Mustafa Chess wrote: »

Keep up the good work I always was impressed with Yusupov's beard

Thanks! I'm growing my own beard at the moment, hopefully it'll help my results!

Mustafa Chess

What is the origin of the title "Smack my bishop"

Lucena

It's a play on words of a 90s tune by the Prodigy which was called 'Smack my bitch up'.

Lucena

Well tomorrow's the big day, start of a 7-round, 4-day chess tournament.

Based on last year's first round pairings, done on a Swiss system, the player nearest to 1711 (my current rating) played a 2200 or so, so if the same happens tomorrow, I'm fairly sure of my first round result. The real battle will probably start in the second round.

Need to keep an eye on time in my games, it's 90 mins + 30 secs per move with no other time added, and I'm often in time trouble in my games. Based on the problems I've been having with the positional chapters in Yusupov, it seems to be because I have trouble finding a plan. I'm hoping that if my positional understanding improves, it'll save time over the board.

Fingers crossed!

Valmont

Good luck, Lucena. We expect post-mortem analysis for each game, or at least the interesting ones!

Mustafa Chess

Mustafa Chess wrote: »

Seems to take a lot of effort to actually win these endgames.

Endgames are where the real fun begins!!

Mustafa Chess wrote: »

What is the origin of the title "Smack my bishop"

Lucena wrote: »

It's a play on words of a 90s tune by the Prodigy which was called 'Smack my bitch up'.

Love it

Lucena

Valmont wrote: »

Good luck, Lucena. We expect post-mortem analysis for each game, or at least the interesting ones!

Well, I'll be staying on my own in a hotel room in the evenings, so I should have some time to stick up the games, even the rubbish ones.

@bluewolf

Thanks for your appreciation! Strangly enough, despite the name, I hadn't listened to the tune in years. I'd also forgotten about the 'controversial' video, which was the first one I posted, but decided to replace by a safer version!

Anyway, off to bed, up in six hours, so already starting with a sleep deficit.

Lucena

First round pairing, I've black against a 2380 rated player! :-)

Valmont

Try some Red Bull to get you over the sleep deprivation then catch up tonight.

Lucena

Just after losing there now, it was an interesting game, and I wasn't completely ridiculous. Time for lunch and psyche up for next round.

L1m1tless

Good luck in the next round!

Lucena

I have white against a 1464. Never a fan of playing weaker opposition, if you win well it's normal. If you lose, you lose big.

Anyway, I just need to get the head down and play chess, play the position, not the opponent.

Aaaaarrggghhh! I've just seen my opponent's 11 years old. The dreaded improving junior!!

Lucena

So here's my game against the IM. All in all, fairly happy with the game, didn't make a complete tit of myself, and managed to stay going with some sort of plan despite being down material.

http://www.chess.com/blog/Binouzenours/first-game-against-an-im

I was actually very relaxed during the game, probably because the result was a foregone conclusion so no pressure, and I also managed to avoid time-trouble!

Lucena

So I played rubbish against my 1464 opponent, and lost badly. I just wasn't seeing moves, I made at least five tactical errors in this game. Possibly I did expend a lot of energy against the IM, and it showed here. Now that I think of it, it's not the first time that I've turned up to a tournament already tired, find myself losing after a long battle against superior opposition (I tend to be just under halfway in the ratings at the start of the tournament, so I always get 'paired up' as opposed to paired down) and then lose badly in the second round to vastly inferior opposition (more than 200pts). I need to get my sleep sorted, something it have trouble with. There's always one more thing to do before going to bed, such as posting on boards.

http://www.chess.com/blog/Binouzenours/crash-and-burn-against-the-dreaded-improving-junior

So I'm running a 16 point defecit so far, and tomorrow the horror continues, as I'm paired up against:

IMPROVING JUNIOR II (1669 Fide, 13 years old)

Valmont

What was wrong with 38... Qxc4 in your game against the IM? I liked your knight sacrifice, it gave you lots of compensation. I think 9...cxd5 looked better too, he gained a lot of space on the queenside after c5. In the other game, would 14.Nxd5 have been better if you played Qd2 first to guard the b pawn or was that wasting time? Nothing terrifies me more than kids getting their queens out early!

Lucena

Valmont wrote: »

What was wrong with 38... Qxc4 in your game against the IM? I liked your knight sacrifice, it gave you lots of compensation. I think 9...cxd5 looked better too, he gained a lot of space on the queenside after c5. In the other game, would 14.Nxd5 have been better if you played Qd2 first to guard the b pawn or was that wasting time? Nothing terrifies me more than kids getting their queens out early!

*WITH RUSSIAN ACCENT*

If Black take bishop, white play knight g5, is mate.

*With normal accent*

Regarding 9...cxd5, having played the King's Indian Defence for a long time, I seem to have a preference for closed structures, so for me, White playing c5 fixed and defined the central structure. Whether that's the correct plan or not, I've no idea!

Lucena

Don't have time to post up the games now, but after an extremely tight game against Improving Junior II which went down to a pawn endgame, my opponent pushed for too much and ended up losing, when a draw would probably have been the correct assessment of the position. Very happy with the result, especially as having looked at his recent results, he's taken out a good few 1800s and 1900s recently. Strangely enough, he also chose the same line of the French as IJ 1, until I found out during the post mortem that they play in the same club. The post mortem was also very interesting, my opponent pointed out lots of times that if I'd played certain moves, he had planned to play x, y and z. So either I'm lucky and didn't see how complex the game was, or my move filter is very efficient, saving me from analysing too much!

When we were analysing the endgame, another of his clubmates came over and said, 'oh you just need to look at the corresponding squares, remember we saw that with our trainer, with all the Post-it notes'. This is what I'm up against, improving juniors with trainers armed with obscure endgame knowledge AND Post-it notes!

I'm also immensely pleased with my second win today as Black against a 1480 (or so). I got the pairings online, had 30 minutes to prepare, found 1 game that my (12 year old) opponent had played a year or so ago, luckily it was a Sicilian, so not only did I know she played e4, but I also managed to have a quick look at the line that came up in the game. My opponent made one small imprecision with White, a pointless h3, and I managed to punish her with great vengeance and furious anger all the way to the finish. Out of politeness, thinking the difference in our playing strength made it a waste of time, I offered to analyse, which she accepted, and it turned out she was able to analyse tons of lines very quickly, more quickly than I was. Is this a case of youth calculating tonnes of lines and wisom calculating the correct ones? Probably, but once these young'uns get wisdom and their superior calculational ability, we're all toast.

Speaking of toast, I smell burning. Ah, that'll be me going down in flames with Black against a 2000 tomorrow.

And speaking of burning, I couldn't resist this 'fin de siècle' classic:

Valmont

Have you accidentally entered the junior section of the tournament? Please put up the game with the unnecessary h3; I see some of my opponents make such time-wasting moves but its sometimes difficult to know how to wrest a decisive initiative from it.

Lucena

No smell of burning this morning, but another tight victory for Lucena that went down to the endgame. I won't have time to put up any games for the next couple of days, as my OH is joining me this evening so no time for Boards, but rest assured Valmont, I'll post the h3 game early next week.

Generally speaking though, playing h3 just wastes a tempo and gives the opposition an extra move to contest the centre. In the case of my game, there was a tactical solution, but that's down to the specifics of the opening more than a general rule.

Valmont

A win vs a 2000 is a big milestone!

Valmont

You can't beat an expert level player in a tournament and not show us how you did it! Or is there some novelty you're intent on keeping secret?

Lucena

Well Valmont, today is your lucky day! My OH is away for the week for her work, I'm not arbiting a school team competition, conditions are perfect.

I have to put up that h3 game as well. But first, I've got to drag myself out of bed, walk the dog, have some breakfast (fresh baguette from the village bakery with homemade jam) and then sit out in the sun while drinking my coffee.