Break.............

Taking a break from blogging.....................! Good luck to you all!

Theory vs Practice - Queen vs 2 rooks

In my last blogspot , I posed a question on who wins in that battle of Q vs 2P; I was more interested in 'how' though. AOX replied with Qh2, there was no Qh2 as it was black to move (and not white).  AOX sealed the discussion though, by mentioning that the King should move towards f4. Correct. That game was one I played as White. Either way, White had a very strong chance of win but definitely had to know 'how'. There was a fair chance of a misstep, taking into consideration that we are dealing with players rated around 1500, and one wrong step may cause difficulty for white and end up as a draw. I don't think there was a win for Black either way as the best chance was a draw.

I was reviewing game 5 of World Chess Championship with my students. At the above position, it is obvious that Carlsen had a knight vs Anand's bishop. Carlsen had double pawns as well. When I review games with my students, we do it OTB 1st. After we finish the game review OTB, we switch to  the computer review. When we were reviewing the above position OTB, obviously the students mentioned the 2 'weaknesses' about Carlsen's position. When we switched on the computer review, Houdini didn't show any significant disadvantage for Black.

Again in game 6 (position below), it is obvious that Carlsen is battling with double pawns on his side. The machines did not show any weakness though.

I was playing a tournament game with a ~ USCF 1600 rated player (higher than my rating).  I won this game comfortably. When we were reviewing this game after it was over, we paused at this stage where I was left with a Queen & a Rook whereas my opponent was left with 2 rooks and 2 bishops (position below, White to move). We calculated the piece values and my opponent said he should won if not for the mistakes he made. The value of the pieces was higher for him, but I said I will win 9 times out of 10 if I have the queen. We argued back and forth, he refused to believe that having a Queen was superior to having 2 rooks. Because theoretically, 2 rooks have more value than a Queen. Does it work like that though?

I will show you one more example. This time I am illustrating a higher rated game, not at the 1500 - 1600 level. A tournament game between a US National Master vs another similar rated player (not NM, but slightly below). Black had 2 rooks, a bishop, a knight and 4 pawns. White (National Master) had a queen, a rook and 5 pawns. Picture below, Black to move. They did not have any advantage with the positioning of the pieces or the pawns. Black made a mistake very soon, was down a piece and never recovered and White won comfortably from that stage.

In all the above games, the machines are showing that neither side has significant advantage. It is very easy to look at the computer analysis and say that the positions are even. But, is it that easy and straightforward? What do you think?

At the level (1600/ 2200/ Super GM) these games were played, does the inadequacies (having knight vs bishop/ double pawns/ Queen vs 2 rooks) matter? Or not? My opinion is that the inadequacies do matter in practice though in theory the positions are even.

May not matter so much at the Super GM (Carlsen/ Anand) level or the Koumoudo/ Stockfish 3500 rated level. But, the inadequacies do matter below the 2500 rating level, they make a difference.

Even though the positions are even, it is hard for the player with double pawns to chalk out a win. It is easy for the player with a bishop to win vs the opponent's knight in the end game. It is easy for the player with the queen to win vs the opponent with 2 rooks. In my honest opinion, it is an excuse for my 1600 rated opponent to think that "I made a mistake, otherwise 2 rooks can match the queen". My opponent had to coordinate 4 pieces while I was at ease to slide my queen all over the board to take out the pawns and pieces with forking the king and the pieces. I think for a 1600 rated player, it is very hard to coordinate 4 pieces when playing with an opponent with a queen and a rook. FYI, me and my opponent replayed the game from that position and I won again. I even offered to play with 2 of my pawns off the board. Not just 1600 rated level, I have shown you above a game involving a NM as well to support my point of view.

Discuss......



Q vs 2P endgame puzzle

Black to move, who wins? or draw? Based on the natural  assumption that a Queen is better than 2 pawns, white has the psychological edge. Sure? We will discuss in the comments section. This is a ~ 1500 rated problem.

Delighted to lose - Mate in few

You teach your students all tactics, give suggestions. You play games with them. You watch them trying to get better than you. You start playing a game with your 8 year old student. All of a sudden you watch him smile and tell you that you will be checkmated. You sigh and continue playing but get checkmated in few...

I encountered such a situation today in practice. I played this game today (my rating swings between 1400 - 1500 just FYI) with one of my students, 8 yr old. He said you lost the game, well I couldn't figure that even when he said that. Ha! Black to move, Mate in few (you figure that out....!).

I have few posers to you:

1) Try solving this problem - Black to move
2) Tell me the rating of this tactic (Don't tell me I shouldn't be rated around 1400 hahaha.....)
3) I guess I have to admit and accept that this student is beyond my skill. He is 8 yr old and has been growing very fast in chess. What should I do with him?

Nevertheless, it is delight to see him do tactics everyday. It is a delight to see him yell that he solved XYZ puzzle while he does that. That is all one thing but I was delighted to see him show his skills in a game to beat me to pulp and laugh at me. I couldn't help but smile back at him......

Blunders and silence.....

There are blunders, there are bad blunders, there are worse blunders and then there are absolute blunders. I am just kidding! Blunders are blunders no matter which piece you lose. It could be due to oversight, it could be due to lost focus.

 

It is one thing to make a blunder when you are down in pieces and position and another thing to make a blunder when you are up. See below photo. White is up nicely and just has to push his pawns down. No big deal. No resistance actually! Comfortable position. Instead, blunders to take f7 pawn.

 

 

 

A one off mistake, right? Anyone can make a blunder, even Grandmasters have made blunders. What if the same player does make another blunder like this in the same tournament. The player is rated ~ 1300 FYI. So, this is not a beginner making such blunders.

 

I often see players getting restless having worked too hard. It is appropriate for every player to peak right at the tournament. If the player peaks before the tournament, then we can just sigh off. Sometimes if the players peaks off few days before the tournament, and then pushes too hard before the tournament, such blunders do happen.

 

What do you do when you see such blunders repeating in practice games? And then tournament games? What do you do? The ideal thing is to take few days off (= silence), relax in life, after that keep practice to a minimum and then play lower rated players in tournaments to win confidence. When you gain confidence, step in. The bad mistake would be to continue to test yourself in tournament games when you continue such blunders. You will lose badly and then it will devastate your confidence.

 

When you make blunders, silence is all that is needed. There is time to work hard, then there is time for silence, in life!

Having fun at the Tournnaments?

Chess tournaments =

intense competition,

testing your (latest) mastered skills,

excitement of ratings increase,

rush of tactics,

tiebreaks,

strategy run,

trophies,

prizes,

awards,

 pairings

 etc etc etc and etc.

Do you have fun at the Tournaments?

What kind of fun?

What if you were a player?

What if you are a coach or a parent?

If you are a player, what do you do in between games?

Do you tour places if you are playing a multiday tournament?


Kids have lot of fun at the tournament. See photo below, it is a common sight that kids want to play with chess pieces building towers. It is a joy to watch the kids play chess seriously. It is a joy to watch kids running around at the tournament venue playing with each other. Kids who go to higher ratings miss this kind of fun. As the ratings go higher, they move into adult/ open tournaments where they cannot mingle with kids anymore. That kind of sucks the fun out of their tournaments. It is our responsibility as parents and coaches to find fun for them in multiple ways = take them to movies they like, take them to places like Disneyland for tournaments, bribe them with goodies etc. Ofcourse, these kids with good ratings do deserve bribes. :)) 

Sometimes it does get boring if  the games are scheduled at a specific time instead of asap. Sometimes chess tournaments are outdoor events, especially when they are in summer and when they are at a sports festival. Parents do talk about what is going on with their kids at schools. Coaches talk about the latest, exciting and new rise of talented players. Sometimes players do use chess tournaments as social gatherings, usually at club levels.




Chess is a serious game. But, it all boils down to saying that we should have fun no matter what type of sport we are playing. Have fun irrespective of the results.....!


p.s: What chess piece do you see the above 1st paragraph as? :D

Speed thrills....

 

In the last few months, I lost games that I should draw against; I drew games that I should win. As a result, my USCF rating dropped ~ 200 points. Age catching up? Loss of focus? Worldly problems? I didn't know. For one or two matches, I didn't care so much. Actually any player can lose 200 points from the peak, no big deal. But, the player should know the quality of his game over a period of time.

 

Last week, I was playing a game against a player who was 300 points higher. I was unable to see more than 1 move ahead. I couldn't see any tactics. I very well know that is not who I am.

 

So, I put myself to a test. I opened chesstempo.com, started doing tactics. I don't practice tactics myself regularly. I teach  tactics to students, analyze games but don't do tactics or puzzles as a habit myself. I do tactics occasionally though. When I started doing tactics on chesstempo.com, my rating dropped 250 points one day. I was shocked this time. Dropping points on USCF is one thing, because we can lose games based on many factors. But, chesstempo is another thing. It only involves your thought process to do tactics and nothing else. I looked back on what I was doing wrong....

looked at the big picture.

 

Like everyone else in this world, I am also a slave to my mobile phone. Not so much as everyone else, I think. I don't do texting, nothing. But, when we have a smart phone and we have tools that we can do, we won't sit quiet. Chess.com app, other chess apps made their way into my smart phone in the last few months. So, I started playing 30 min games on chess.com. Then, I started playing 5 min games. I played 100s of them in the last 2 - 3 months. It thrills to play speed chess. We don't waste too much time to finish one game, we don't need to wait for the other person for a long time. And we can play many games in one hour. I didn't give 2nd thought on what I was losing by playing Blitz games.....

 

 

 

If I am not wrong, playing blitz is what has been killing my ability to think properly. Hikaru Nakamura is the king of speed chess (he recently lost those titles as well), but many famous players are of the opinion that speed chess is what is holding Nakamura from becoming World No. 1.

 

So, what is the comparison between Nakamura and me? Nothing much except both of us are chess players. I think speed chess affects players of all levels. World class players to beginners. During speed chess, we don't have the time/ chance to frame and think tactics too much. We just play on our intuition. To be precise, it even kills our tactics skills.

 

Just my honest opinion.

 

So, are there no benefits to playing Blitz games? I think there are!! We want to practice openings. We could do that against a software in a computer. But, if we want to do it against humans, we can do by playing Blitz games. If you want to practice variations in long games against humans, it is possible but takes a long time. Other than this, I don't see much of value in Blitz games. At least to me, my style of game. Other players may have different thoughts, others may see value in Blitz. I respect their opinions......

 

I stopped playing lot of Blitz games immediately. I still do, because I have the craving but I reduced that habit a lot in the last few days. Instead, I am practicing tactics on chesstempo.com  ....We will see how my rating graphs goes....

 

Ciao!