The Chess Mind

Here's the position, again:


Wotawa 1963; White to move and draw

Were you able to solve it? White cannot allow Black to queen, so he must take the pawn. But which way? To figure that out, we must first figure out what Black is up to. After all, Black is not exactly promoting anything on the kingside, while a 4-0 queenside majority is normally enough to force a queen (and then some). We then notice that White's king is rather constrained, and a move like ...f6+ or ...h6+ puts it on the edge of the board, awaiting a cruel fate.

The problem with ...f6+ is that after Kh5, it will be impossible to mate with ...g6. That's because White will have Kh6, and Black can't put his king on g7 while his pawn remains there. So now we can work out the threat: Black will play ...h6+, scoot his king to h7, and play ...g6#. Note: even a White queen, with the move after ...Kh7, will generally be powerless against this idea. In fact, there's only one promotion square for a new queen that will allow a white queen to cope with this possibility.

If you hadn't worked it out before the hints, those will probably get you most if not all of the way there. But if not, that's okay too. You can find the solution here.

Well, it's at least relatively easy. (But not trivially easy. Black has a threat!)


Wotawa 1963; White to move and draw.

The solution will be given tomorrow.

In a couple of recent games at the Maia Chiburdanidze Cup, the talented young Slovenian IM Anna Muzychuk had a couple of textbook tactical finishes.


(Source: Wikipedia, Photo: Paweł Suwarski)

In the first, she was the victim:


Dzagnidze-Muzychuk, Maia Chiburdanidze Cup 2009, Round 6: White to move and win.

And in the second, she got to be the hero:


Muzychuk-Galojan, Maia Chiburdanidze Cup 2009, Round 8: White to move and win.

The solutions can be found here.

A couple of days ago, I presented this position



from a game between reader Tomislav Damjanovic and ChessMaster personality "Buck". It's White to move, and while there's more than one good move here, it seems to me that one continuation - the one White found and played - is significantly better than the others. Did you find the solution? The answer is here.

Here's a position pregnant with possibility:


T. Damjanovic - "Buck" (A ChessMaster "personality")

White (to move) has more than one good option, but what's best? The answer will be given in a day or two.

Here's the problem, again:


Wotawa 1937, White to move and win:

As noted in the earlier post, White has loads of extra material, but Black's passers are very dangerous. And the other relevant issue is the precarious location of Black's king. At the end of the day, that's what matters; as an old chess friend liked to say, what counts is that we get the guy with the hat on his head. (Of course, the bishop has one too, but never mind!) When you think you've got it figured out, or are tired of trying, click here.

Another nice Wotawa study from the Dvoretsky & Pervakov book:


Wotawa 1937; White to move and win

White has lots of extra material, Black has the dangerous passed pawns. How will White win this? The answer will be given tomorrow - please save your comments for that post.

Here's the problem, presented yesterday:


Wotawa 1935

It's White to move and win; can you solve it? The answer, which I sincerely hope you'll try to work out for yourself, can be found here.

Here's a neat little study from the Dvoretsky & Pervakov book:


Wotawa 1935; White to move and win.

I was pleased to solve it, and somewhat surprised by the way it happened. It's not that the position is that difficult, but the solution came to me in a flash (after thinking for a while - not right away!), as if it were a gift and not the product of mental labor.

However you solve it - as long as it is you who solves it - I'm sure you'll enjoy the success of figuring it out. I'll give the answer in a day or two; meanwhile, if you have comments about it, please do not include anything that could be used as a hint (or worse).

It has been a while now, but in this post and then this one, we took a look at this position:



The primary task was to analyze the position after 11.Rf3 Bxc3 12.Bxh7+ Kxh7 13.Rh3+ Kg8 14.Qh5



and to see what you could come up with. Some of you undoubtedly worked everything out, but for the rest of you, you might want to have a look at my ChessVideos show this week (link here). I cover this position in some detail, but only after first giving an overview on the typical themes and preconditions for the "Greek gift" sacrifice. Have a look - it's free, requires no special software, and is available on-demand for the next five weeks or so.

* (Actually, it's last week's show, but ChessVideos.tv needed to switch servers. Everything's back and running at full blast, it seems.)

Earlier this evening, we had a quick play (g/10) at the club, and in round 1 I reached the following position (with White):



Black has just played 15...Rh3-h6, saving the rook and preventing mate on e6. With two extra pawns and Black's miserable king where it is, it's clear that White is winning with room to spare. But what's the best move? The answer is below.

From the first round game Akobian-Hilton, Foxwoods 2009:



It's White to move, and while almost any normal move is "winning" (White enjoys a decisive material advantage and a better position), let's look for the best move we can find.

The game (and the answer), with my comments, can be replayed here.

In this post I presented this position:



It's White to move, and the task - nay, the enjoyable pleasure! - is to evaluate 11.Rf3. Is it tactically justified? By this I mean, will White have any compensation for the material he's sacrificing? Further, even if it is justified, there's the further question as to whether it's best. For now, though, let's focus on the first question. There have been a number of comments (see this post, set up specifically for that purpose), and since several respondents seem unaware of the "Greek gift" concept, let me help you along. The key sequence to analyze is this: 11.Rf3 Bxc3 12.Bxh7+ Kxh7 13.Rh3+ Kg8 14.Qh5



and now 14...f5 and especially 14...f6 need to be examined. Have fun!

I'd like to generate some feedback on this post from people who have taken the time to analyze it (without their computers, of course). My preference is to avoid having solutions posted to the question post, but since I'm up for feedback people are welcome to offer it here.

That's in effect the question from Amanuel, who writes (via email; lightly edited):

Hello FM Dennis Monokroussos

Everybody knows the most important aspect of chess is the ability to perform calculations, thus the reason why we all solve puzzles. However, nobody ever says which type of puzzles is better. I normally solve 100 puzzles, from [website], correctly each day to improve, but most of them don't feel like real life situations and usually have some sort of clue. Should I continue doing these puzzles that are fairly easy, or try going through the carefully selected puzzles from [tactics book]?

Thank you for reading my message, posting so many instructive videos, and for updating the blog so frequently and with such interesting material.

Perhaps it isn't addressed as often as it should be, but it's untrue that "nobody" ever discusses which kinds of puzzles to work on. For one thing, I've addressed this topic before, and I'm sure I'm not the only one to do so. In fact, I've addressed the issue fairly often, and probably will again. The following is a brief summary of some of my thoughts on the matter.

Basic tactical competence (definition): When I say that a player has basic tactical competence, I mean at least two things. First, they've reached a point where it's very rare for them to blunder mate or hang pieces. Maybe it happens sometimes, especially in time trouble or in a very difficult position, but it's not a besetting problem. Second, the player is familiar with basic ideas like generic double attacks, knight forks, pins, skewers, smothered mate and so on, and is capable of finding and applying such tactical themes in their games.

Step one (for beginners and tactically weak players): For players who lack basic tactical competence, the biggest need is to improve one's board vision and to learn elementary tactics. Simple, rote learning is very useful here.

Step two (for average club players who have reached basic tactical competence): Overlearning elementary tactics by continuing to practice them on a regular basis is useful, but it's time to move up to more challenging positions. (These can be positions that don't fit into the obvious categories, or if they do, the way in which they do isn't obvious to someone who has been working with the basic books.) Thus you consolidate your gains, the ideas you already know, but start to stake out new ground. This should start happening around 1500-1600 USCF/FIDE. (I don't count internet ratings here, which are very hard to calibrate with tournament ratings.)

Step three (for strong club players): The occasional look at elementary tactics is still worthwhile, to keep sharp, but the focus ought to be on more and more challenging material. If step one is 100% basic tactics and step two about 50-50, maybe give or take 10% either way, I think step three should be 80+% challenging tactics. Even this should be somewhat fine-grained. It's not necessary that all one's tactical work be migraine-inducing; I'd say around 1/4 to 1/2 of the hard work should be extremely hard. As with actual playing, a challenge is good, but if there's almost no chance of rising to the challenge it's good to aim a little lower most of the time.

As for particular works, I've listed them even more frequently, and don't really feel like doing so again at this point - interested parties can search my blog for specific resources. I'm also not interested in repeating myself this time around because it doesn't matter that much: there are tons of great tactics books out there. The key is to use them!

Here's a position from a blitz game I played at the local club this week:



Your task, if you choose to accept it, is to assess the aggressive 11.Rf3. Is it tactically justified, and even if it is, is it best? Of course, you should try to analyze this without using a chess engine.

Yesterday I presented these positions; in both cases, it's White to move and draw.





Were you successful? The first one is very simple - it's something you either "see" or you don't, but practically no calculation is required. The second is more challenging, and includes an attractive false lead.

The solutions are here, for anyone who might need them.

Here are two puzzles for your solving pleasure. The solutions will be given tomorrow.





It's White to move and draw in both cases.

This position appeared in a recent issue of Chess Today:



It's Black to move and win, from the game Baklan-Hammer, Cappelle la Grande 2009; click below for the solution.

From the game Solodovnichenko-Laxman, Gurgaon Open 2009:



Black has just grabbed a bishop with 32...Nc5xe4; how should White recapture? The answer is here.