Friday, December 12, 2008

Chiv Chat

This and that for your attention this Friday morning.
  • We learn from the ECF that Bob Wade's funeral will take place on Tuesday next week (the 16th); 10.15am at Eltham Crematorium, Crown Woods Way, Eltham London SE9 2AZ, with a gathering to follow afterwards nearby at The Jolly Fenman, 64-68 Blackfen Road, Sidcup. All are welcome and more details are here, where there's also an email address to send condolences. I imagine more than a few of our readers will try to attend Bob's funeral to pay their respects.
  • I've played two juniors these last couple of weeks - and each game they (with white) played a positional system based on d4 and a kingside fianchetto. Is it just a coincidence, or are kids nowadays trying to play like Kramnik? Certainly my approach to the opening two decades ago was very different: wait for your opponent to castle and go the other side; knights can only move forward, that kind of thing. Just like Kasparov, Tal, Morphy, I supposed, whom I somehow contrived to idolize as heroes of hacking. Which probably explains why said two juniors are commonly refered to as promising, a word never banded around while Chivers was in shorts.
  • When a game plunges headlong into some hair-raising theory, the kind Grandmasters have analyzed out to move 30 and Rybka plays at 4100 Elo, I too feel young again - but not in a good way. The best analogy I can think of is that I feel like a toddler playing around with nuclear weapons. And so it was last night when in a nasty Najdorf I stumbled into a line "known to be bad for black from a Fischer game in the 70s", my opponent told me afterwards. Here's the position after 11.Bd5! with myself to move with black: 
  • What would you do? My reasoning went as follows. 11... exd5 is clearly bad, and white threatens to play b4. If I stop that with 11...b4 then 12.Bxb7 Nxb7 13.Nd5 (or even just 13.Na4) looks great for white. So I should protect the b7 bishop with my queen. How . . . ? Ah! 11...Qb6 looks like the best bet, because then the slight looseness of the knight on d4 might make it psychologically uncomfortable for white to play the immediately crushing 12.Bxf6 followed by 13.Qh5 (or some version thereof.) And guess what? It worked. My opponent instead played the slightly-less-than-immediately crushing 12.Bxf6 gxf6 13.b4 Nd7 14.Bxe6 and I eventually scrabbled to a draw. He said after that he'd intended Qh5 at some point but forgot about it. I'm pleased - but still, a very talented three year old could probably have done better than me, except they're all playing like Kramnik nowadays.
  • Finally, we've had nerd points, we've had Nostradamus points, we've had disco points, we've had couch potato points, and today we have Nice Person Points on offer for anyone who can think of a better name for these kinds of posts - the kind where the current writer witters on about whatever's been cluttering up his bricabrac of a consciousness of late. Surely you can beat 'Chiv Chat'? No points for 'Posts no-one reads to the end', which I hope I've just ruled out.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can I suggest 'en passant' as a possible title for this kind of post?

Angus

Anonymous said...

BTW, Tom, in your Najdorf game, why do you say ‘11… exd5 is clearly bad’ - is it intuition or calculation?

FWIW, after 11… exd5, I can see 12 ed+ Kd7 (12… Be7? 13 Nf5) 13 b4 Na4 (the only square now that the King is on d7) 14 Nxa4 ba 15 c4 when White is a piece for two pawns down but I guess has good compensation in the form of development and an attack. Is that what you saw and thought?

Angus

Anonymous said...

This topic is a bit open so I thought I'd try the following.. As the people on this website seem to work hard on their chess, I wondered have any of you thought about, or tried, on-line coaching in any form? I know there are a few websites offering all sorts of options. Some include coaches, some offer test and some seem to offer a software bundle to cover everything. Does anyone have experience of these things? Do you know of anything worth considering for an average(ish) club player in 160's? I'm guessing something long term rather than a quick fix. Please help....
- Tickly

Tom Chivers said...

En passant. Like it.

Yes: Intuition, based on the line you gave. I found the Fischer game too, this one.

Tom Chivers said...

Hi Tickly. I've not had any online coaching. I know it is available though. Rowson gives some examples of his actual online coaching in his two books on chess improvement; I think his coaching looked quite good.

Btw, I have some slightly unusual opinions about chess coaching. If you're interested, check out I & II here.

Anonymous said...

Nice game by Fischer... and now I see that I forgot to mention Qxa4 in the line I suggested. Only after that capture would White have two pawns for the piece.

Re training (not quite the same as coaching, I know): there was an interesting-looking piece on Chessbase the other day... about how the mind works and the relationship between the conscious and the sub-conscious. It recommended, so far as I could see (after a brief read) and as I think you did, training the mind by simulating tournament/match conditions and analysing game positions.

Angus

Phil said...

Here is what white should have played in your game:

http://www.chess.com/games/view.html?id=168128

Mike G said...

Re these d4 and kingside fianchetto lines ... I think they come under the general leading of trying to bore your opponent until he eventually loses interest and blunders (a strategy which occasionally works in my experience).

Another opening which comes in the same category (in my opinion) is the London system. I had more than one junior play this against me at a Richmond Rapdplay about a year ago and it was so boring I almost lost the will to live. Does anyone have a decent line against it? I even got the Andrew Martin DVD and tried to play it myself but I managed to lose (my opponent played all the wrong moves according to the DVD), so no luck there.

Anonymous said...

En Passant is already taken - a book of poetry and games by Cathy Forbes.

PG

Tom Chivers said...

Poetry by Cathy Forbes? That has to be a must read.

Anonymous said...

I've got a signed copy!

PG

Tom Chivers said...

You lucky, lucky fellow . . .

Anonymous said...

How about Chivarivari?

PG

Anonymous said...

For topicality: Pick 'n Mix?

Angus.

ejh said...

Tombola?