The Livingston County Chess Club meets every Monday night between 4pm and 10pm
at the Buffalo Wild Wings in the Green Oak Mall in Brighton, MI.
Stop in for some friendly chess, good food and 'refreshments'.
Everyone of all ages and playing strength are welcome to attend. And free lessons to all beginners!
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Our Action Tournament will finish this Monday evening. The time limit is 25 minutes for the game with no delay or increment.
We will probably start it around 6:30 - 7pm. Here are the pairings with the player with the White pieces listed first:
Board 1 - Pete B - Mike N
Board 2 - Sam T - Ken T
Board 3 - Thomas V - Vince V
Board 4 - AJ E - Curt S
Board 5 - Wes S - Desmond W
Charlie S = Bye
Now some free advice. Remember how much you paid for this, however.
One of the best training methods used by chess instructors is
to give their students chess puzzles to solve. Not the crazy manufactured
puzzles that are built by someone to make us search for possibly hours (yes –
hours) to find the solutions. I am speaking of puzzles, usually taken from
actual games or common game situations. These puzzles help students see some
repetitive themes, patterns and
structures that occur in a chess game and will help them “see and remember” the
correct paths to take advantage of these situations when they occur.
But there is something unrealistic about puzzles. Even those
that come from actual games. Think of a chess game as a living thing. Every
move is connected to another move. We are all human and where we just were or
just experienced will influence what we think of next.
For instance, you look at a puzzle that came from a real
game and it state's “White to Win”. You immediately start to look for the
attacking moves that will propel White to victory, either by mate or by winning
material Good, that is what you should do.
But let’s say this position was from a game that was in a magazine,
and you were playing through the game from the start. Let’s say White’s king
was being chased around in the preceding moves by Black and to survive White
had to move some of his pieces to either bad or unprotected squares or both! Now
for whatever reason Black had stopped the aggression and made a move that finally
gave White an unforced move turn. What is the White player’s mindset?
Is he thinking “Ok, lets win the game now!”? Or is his mind
in a place that says, “Regroup! Protect the king! Protect these hanging pieces!
Move something to a better square!” You know he is.
There are a lot of people with very strong puzzle solving
skills but can’t seem to translate that to their games. THIS is the reason why.
Emotion, or as it is usually called, being human.
Computers have two advantages over humans. Obviously calculating accuracy, but they
have none of the emotions (both positive and negative feelings) that trip up
humans. Games are sometimes lost by blunders due to succumbing to pressure put
on by our opponent and also by getting careless and relaxing when we are
winning. Computers have no such minefield to cross.
So what is the take-away from this?
Absolutely do puzzles! But also play through games in books
and magazines from the start. Cover up the last three to eight moves and try
and guess the winner’s moves. This way you can practice being on the lookout
for the win, but also staying mindful that the opponent still can fight.
Not that there are not enough things to think about during a
chess game but try to get in the habit of regardless of whether you are under
attack, or the game looks dull and tensionless, look for an attacking move.
Look for a sacrifice. Look for an overworked defender on your opponent’s side
and make him choose who perishes.
Confession is supposed to be good for the soul. Your humble
scribe is very good at doing this when he is losing already! Then the imagination
kicks in…big time! But why am I horrible at this when winning or in an even position?
Does the word “lazy” or the phrase “not working hard enough” have a place here?
Strive to pretend that every and any position is a “puzzle” with a quick win. At least take a look. A brilliant move may just be available.
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