Chess Training

Even hard-working chess-playing bloggers get some time off! I'll be posting less frequently over the summer months. My idea is to get into a weekly update on Sundays as time allows. Meanwhile, if anyone would like to share their training experiences, ideas or thoughts, feel freel to add comments to any of the relevant posts here. Good Luck and Good Chess!

Position of the Bulgarian Chess Federation The forthcoming tournament for world championship in Mexico starting on 11th September 2007 represents the end of one cycle that extends over the period after the tournament in San Luis (Argentina). As it is well known, Veselin Topalov became World Champion there. Considering the great interest in the world he accepted to play a match with Vladimir Kramnik in Elista even though he was not obliged to do so. Moreover, Veselin Topalov agreed that the loser of that match would not be allowed to play in Mexico because, according to FIDE regulations, adopted on 10th January 2006, every former World Champion or a chess-player with a coefficient over 2700 could, under certain conditions, challenge the World Champion to a match. On the basis of this position, the Bulgarian party asked for a new match for the world title and provided the required amount of two million US dollars for the purpose. The arguments FIDE submitted against playing a match for t...

Every club player occasionally has to battle frustration and disappointment in his play and results. Part of the solution to this recurring problem is to examine your losses and discover, in a practical sense, what the biggest flaws in your game are at that moment. To simply think that you get beat by 'tactical tricks' is a cop-out. It avoids answering the tough questions about your own play - something that humans, in general, have difficulty doing. In our own selfish way, people generally overlook their own flaws. Being self-critical is an important step to improving your game and creating a realistic assessment of your chess skills. For example, I recently played a game in which I, as black, managed to get an advantageous position. Everyone knows the ideas behind the Poisoned Pawn variation of the Najdorf and the inherent risks involved in that variation. Of course, I was very much aware of it, and even though the actual opening was not the Sicilian, the same themes and idea...

I had the pleasure of playing in the Category A section of the Eastern Class Championships this past month in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. This was the perfect opportunity for me to see if my self-training methods have come with any meaningful results. Being rated at 1819 entering the tournament, I was in the slightly unfortunate position of being rated just high enough to play in this category, so I knew I was in for some tough games throughout the event. I wanted to prove that I had improved enough over the past couple months of training to belong in this group of players, and being a fairly large event for this part of the country, there were going to be some tough fights ahead - I was ranked about 20th in a field of 29 players for this section. First, let me recap how I trained the past couple of months. I focused on the two areas I felt I needed the most help - plan construction and endgames. Plan Construction In reviewing my past several tournaments over the course of the previous ...

Here is a useful training technique you can do with your chess partner as suggested by Jacob Aagaard in his great book Excelling At Chess. Using a position from a master game, talk about the position in general terms to try and find the correct plan of action. Ask questions about the pieces and the pawn structure, open files and diagonals, outposts for knights, etc. It is important to vocalize these thoughts as, in general, we listen to ourselves much more than someone else (no surprise there, eh?). A good methodology is to start with comparing the pieces. Select a piece from each army by deciding which ones will be likely traded for each other and compare them objectively. Is the bishop 'good', 'bad', or 'active'? Does the Knight have potential good outposts? Which files are likely to be opened and can any Rooks take advantage of them? Continue on to discuss plans of action, ideal squares for the pieces, which is your worst piece and how to improve it (as Aaga...

Kramnik - Aronian Rapid Match The Week In Chess reports World Champion Vladimir Kramnik plays World Cup Holder Levon Aronian in a rapid match May 4th-6th, 2007 in Yerevan, Armenia. Two games will be played each day. The time control will be 25 minutes for the whole game with an increment of 10 seconds per move. The match is organized by the Armenian Chess Federation.

See what anti-draw measures result in the tournament in the fifth Breizh masters in Guingamp (France) between at Lyceum Le Restmeur a Pabu. The women's section had a total of 7(!) draws throught 9 rounds of play, for a draw percentage of 15.55%. The men's section resulted in 16 draws for a draw percentage of 33.33%. Although the men's section was more than twice the women's draw rate, it is still far below the usual ballpark 50% draw rates we see at IM/GM tournaments. Players were required to play a minimum of 30 moves prior to a draw offer. Breizh Masters