Chess Training

Knight for a Bishop Exchanges Here is something to think about. Exchanging a Knight for a Bishop usually has a profound effect on the game and the color complexes you should be seeking to forward your Initiative and play on. To get our minds thinking in the right direction, here are some general rules you can use. Here we use the terms "Knight Side" and "Bishop Side" to denote the side that traded off that particular piece. If you own the Knight, and you exchange it for an opponent's Bishop, then you will gain an advantage of the Initiative on the same color as the Bishop. Ex.; Your N x wB = + White Initiative for "Knight Side". This makes perfect sense as the opponent no longer has the Bishop of that color to defend with or play on that color squares. If you own the Bishop, and you exchange it for an opponent's Knight, then you will gain an advantage of the Initiative on the opposite color of the Bishop. You should attempt to follow thi...

The Bangiev Method Decomposed     I do my best to operate within this strategic framework, with mixed results. So I've been trying to decompose this method into something a bit more concrete. The B-Method begins by asking the same three questions at each move of the game: 1) The Strategy Question (SQ) 2) The Direction Question (DQ) 3) The Color Question (CQ) After answering those three VITAL questions, we can continue with three more questions: 4) Put to Question which pieces, i.e., challenge. In turn, this will determine... 5) ...Candidate Moves, and one will be noted as ... 6) ...The Game Move. Naturally, one has to understand the question before one asks, so lets try and decompose each question in simple(r) terms. The Strategy Question (SQ)  The Strategy Question is the starting point in Bangiev's B-Method. It seeks to give the player a consistent starting point from which to develop the correct plan from the central pawns based on the players' pers...

"...out of the lingering mist appeared the devil with a chess set..." Not dead yet. Because of my nature, I sometimes get carried away with trivial things that occupy my time, diving headlong into the fray only to come out the other end completely churned and sand-tossed by the surf. So was the past few years with regards to games. Euro games to be exact. They left a bad, unsatisfying taste. I ran the gamut. Found that I dislike them for the most part, prefer 2-player games of war, and so I have arrived back to where I belong. I did retain several 2-player war games in the process, which I hope to get played here and there. I have to rediscover my love of chess. Today begins that journey. In this post, I want to further define the GCTS and how it relates to actual chess books that I use. This is more for my own benefit than anything else. I find it useful to enumerate such things so I don't have to "reinvent the wheel" at a later date and not recall the deta...

A.S. Suetin wrote a book titled "Three Steps to Chess Mastery", Pergamon Press, 1982. Here are some excerpts (in some cases, not verbatim) from the section titled "The Player's Laboratory". This book contains some of the best self-training advice you'll find outside a Dvoretsky / Yusupov book. Working on One's Own Games For a player wishing to improve, the cold analysis of mistakes is not enough. The problem is simultaneously to establish the psychological cause of these mistakes. Not sparing your pride, you should frankly re-establish the course of your thinking, endeavoring to give answers to approximately the following questions: What specific variations did you calculate, when considering your moves, especially at the turning points of the game? It is very important to note what you missed in your calculations, and what your opponent showed you in your joint analysis after the game. What considerations were you guided by in choosing your pla...

An American Hero Photo courtesy of Johannes Fischer Hikaru Nakamura, The premier United States Chess Champion, contemplates his next move against the opposition. Players come and go in the USA chess scene, but Nakamura seems to possess a certain staying power, especially across the broad spectrum of chess competition that he calls home. From anywhere to being one of the top players on ICC in bullet chess, to the Chess960 World Championship, Hikaru has shown a desire to compete with the best of the best at all various incarnations of the game we call Chess.

First, let me say that I make no claims to the accuracy of the following analysis of this game. The goal of this article is to articulate and demonstrate 'how' to use the "B-Method" during play. I make many assumptions during this analysis, and the plan I undertook during the game could easily be the incorrect plan given the specifics of the position. However, I do hope that it serves as a fairly clear example of how to implement the "B-Method" in your games. This game was played from May to July 2009 on an email server, so it serves as a good training ground for using the "B-Method", as I am able to make notes into Chessbase as I ponder my moves over the course of the game. The opponent will remain anonymous, and I will pick the game up at move 27. As is required for using the B-Method, this game is considered from only one side - Black's perspective. 27.Rexc2 Ok, let's begin this exercise with a quick review of the B-Method Squares Strate...

I want to write today about something that I believe every non-professional chessplayer encounters occasionally, and that is "Going Stale." What does that mean? Specifically, I'm talking about that time when you are approaching the end of a study cycle and you begin to pick up some games to try out your new-found skills in chess, whatever that may be: a new opening, endgame knowledge, middlegame strategy, etc. You soon discover, much to your horror, that you seem to be 'fighting' the board and the pieces at each step of your game. The openings you mis-play, you select offendingly bad plans in the middlegames, and you cannot even hold a Philidor's Position in a Rook Endgame. Simply Horrifying. Why does this happen? As you study (not 'play') chess - any aspect of it: openings, middlegame, tactics, strategy, endgames - your mind tends to 'change modes' where the importance of the 'game' slips from becoming something related to the final sc...