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| Former World Champion - Gary Kasparov |
The Club has been a busy place the last few weeks and we
thank everyone for their attendance. We had 18 players – two weeks in a row
We will try to run a Speed tournament on January 7 or 21st
– or both days! Hope to see you there. As always, it’s a fun event and prizes
for the young players.
Now for a little chess coaching advice:
I teach and coach chess to children – usually from ages 5 to
12 years old. Sometimes I get early teens that I coach.
One of my older
students asked a very good question – “When does a good chess player stop
thinking of making just general good moves and start thinking of calculating an
attack?”
My first knee-jerk reaction was to answer with, “Well, we
have to go find a good chess player and ask him or her.” But since that would
tarnish my coaching status, I had to have a better answer.
The answer is, “When you can predict and limit your opponent’s
responses to your forcing moves and you are pretty sure of the best time to
start the attack. And the timing of the start of the attack is the most
important part of the calculation!”
The more powerful a move is, the more important it is to
time it correctly. Don’t make it too soon and don’t make it too late.
Let’s consider other situations. A poker player wants his “Ace”
in the hole and not on the table. That way, he can “raise” at the correct time
to trap his opponent. Raise too early and you lose profit. Raise too late and
maybe you get re-raised because you gave time (cards) to your opponent that
allowed him to make his hand better than yours.
A billiard player doesn’t knock in the easy balls close to
the pocket first. He saves them to set up his next shot when all other shots
are difficult. That way he remains in control of the table.
So the timing of your “check”, “fork”, “pin” or “sacrifice” move
is usually the most important part of the move. The calculations must be done
to determine how ‘forced’ your opponent’s next moves are and have you covered his
limited responses correctly.
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| Black to move. Is it the correct time? |
Let’s look at an example:
Black has a king-side attack, while White has a queen-side
attack. It is the old race to see who gets there first. Black to move.
Black is considering either the attacking move of ...fxe4, a
developing move …Rf7 or Rac8, or a simplification move of …a6. He throws out …a6
and Rac8 because he feel …a6 liquidates material to a bigger advantage to White
and …Rac8 is too slow and leaves the a-pawn under siege without helping out in
the king-side attack.
(Note: Igor liked both …a6 and …Rac8 slightly better than
Rf7 [1.1 and 1.3 vs 1.4, and White with the advantage], but that is not
important here).
All three of those move require little calculation as they
are improvement moves that must wait for White’s response. So with …Rf7 as a
fall-back plan, now Black has to calculate whether the timing of opening up of
his opponent’s King-side in now.
Black calculates that;
1. …….. fxe4!
2. fxe4 Nxh3
3. Bxh3 Rf3
And White’s position is in ruins. After Black played
1. …….. fxe4!
White quickly realized it was his turn to calculate. He saw
that 2. fxe4 was no good. It was time to get to work and try and find something
else. After a half hour, White found this variation;
2. Qd1
? Nxh3
3. Bxh3 Rxf3
4. Qf1 ……..
Rather than capturing with fxe4. (Note: the ugly and hard
for a human to find, 2. Kg1 was what Igor says keeps the game at only a (-.8)
for Black).
But Black still had;
5. ……… Raf8
6. Qg2 Rxf7
7. Bxf2 Rxf2
8. Rxa7 Rxg2+
9. Kxg2 Qg5+
Resigns
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