Amazing Read

I just started reading Yasser Seirawan's Winning Chess Tactics, and I can't put it down! It's absolutely amazing.

Most books I've read (or tried to read) have been either too basic to keep me interested, or too difficult for me to read in a reasonable time frame and apply concepts properly in my games. This one is just right, though. It's easy enough that I can work through it at a reasonable pace, yet challenging enough that I know I am learning.

If you are looking for a chess book, I highly recommend this one!

Slowly improving.

I've managed to bring my standard turn-based rating up above 1200 on chess.com. I think it's more accurate. I entered two big tournaments when I first signed up, and was overwhelmed by all the games. I didn't have time for them all and ended up throwing a bunch of them away.

I've been working on my game and improving in all areas, so I'm hoping to break 1300 soon.

Annotate your games with Scid and Crafty

Right after completing a game, I plug the PGN into Scid and annotate it with my freshest thoughts from the game. Use the comment editor window for this, and remember to store your comment before moving on. At this point, I'm not even concerned about analyzing it to see if my ideas are any good... I'm just putting down what I was thinking so that I don't forget when I go back and look later.

It's a good time to get somebody else's thoughts on the game after you've gone over it briefly for yourself. I personally post to chess.com's game analysis forum, where anybody can comment. Any useful comments can be added to your initial annotation.

Now, I would recommend you use a chess engine to fine tune your analysis. I use Crafty, which is quite strong. I'm really only interested in lines that it finds more or less immediately, so I set it to spend 1 second on every move. I do a blunder check with a threshold of 1 pawn. The only purpose of this is to highlight missed tactics.

If Crafty reports a blunder, I will first examine the suggested line. If the error is immediately apparent and obvious, I will add it to my existing annotation. If it's obscure or nuanced and I wouldn't expect to find the move in game, I simply discard it. In other words, we're looking for human moves, and if it tells us computer moves we can happily ignore it.

Sometimes Crafty will highlight a move as a blunder, and give a preferred line, but it won't be obvious why. This usually happens when your opponent has missed some tactics. In this case, it's useful to look at the engine's recommendations for your opponent's response. This gives you a chance to become aware of your blunders, even if you "got away with it" at the time.

As long as we know we're looking for human moves, moves that we can expect ourselves or our opponents to make, we can get the best of both worlds by using engine analysis after we articulate our own thoughts and get feedback from other players when possible. If we mindlessly feed our engines game after game and look at hundreds of computer generated lines without understanding the nuances of the situation, we won't learn a thing.

During this whole process, feel free to elaborate on any ideas that come up, and note plausible variations that you might see. You can also run engine analysis on your variations, so you don't end up including lines with horrible blunders. They'd be counterproductive if you ever looked the game over again.

After we're done with all that, we should have a great record of the game with a full, detailed annotation. The process of creating it will hopefully have led to some insights, and it will be a great reference and study tool.

Here's the result of my first attempt, that I created as I was working out the process:

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2010.08.19"]
[Round "?"]
[White "MarshallScott"]
[Black "tambata79"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1190"]
[BlackElo "1374"]
[TimeControl "15|10"]
[Termination "tambata79 won by checkmate"]

1.e4 c5 2.f4 d6 3.Nf3 Bg4 4.Bb5+

{Making it up as I go along at this point... Not playing any opening I know of.}

4...Nc6 5.Nc3

{Developing... protecting the pawn, mainly. I'm sure the bishop will have to move soon.}

5...Nf6 6.d3

{Seems natural.}

6...a6 7.Ba4 b5 8.Bb3 Nd4 9.O-O a5 10.a3

{odessian on chess.com suggests an alternative:}

( 10.e5 dxe5 11.fxe5 Nd7 12.Bxf7+ )

10...a4 11.Ba2 Rb8 12.Ne2

{I wanted to break the pin, and I thought black might play b4 anyway. Also I might win a pawn if he doesn't take one of my knights.}

12...Nxf3+ 13.gxf3 Bh3 14.Rf2 Qd7 15.f5 g6 16.Nf4 gxf5 17.Nxh3 fxe4 18.Bxf7+

{I think I might get some compensation and expose his king.
Crafty reports a blunder here, based on a line assuming fxe4, when I was intending Nxe4 as my plan. I'm just ignoring it, even though it says I'm losing a piece and a half, just because it's so weird.}

18...Kxf7 19.Ng5+ Ke8 20.Nxe4 Rg8+ 21.Rg2 Rxg2+ 22.Kxg2 Nh5 23.Qe1 Qf5 24.Qh4

{"24. Nxd6+ would have been nice." -PVKeeper10 on chess.com}
( 24.Nxd6+! )

24...Bg7 25.Bg5 Nf6 26.Bxf6 Bxf6 27.Nxf6+ exf6 28.Re1+ Kf7 29.Re3

{Kind of a weird move, I guess. Its only purpose was kind of a blockading idea, so I can play c4.}

29...Rg8+ 30.Kf2 Qg6 31.Re1

{Embarrassingly, I'm really not sure what I was trying to accomplish here. Crafty finds a 7 pawn error and suggests a complicated line starting witth Ke2 that results in an even position after taking the rooks off the board.}

31...Qg2+ 32.Ke3 Qxc2 33.Qxh7+ Rg7 34.Qh5+ Kg8 35.Qe8+ Kh7 36.Qxb5

{Crafty notes this loses the game (black has Re7+) and suggests:}
( 36.Qh5+ Kg8 37.Qd5+
( 37.Qe8+ Kh7 38.Qh5+ Kg8 39.Qe8+ {dschaef2 on chess.com suggests the possibility of perpetual check.} )
37...Kh8 38.Qxd6 Qxb2 += {HT} )

36...Kh6 37.Re2??

{Knew I was just trying to buy some time until I came up with a concrete idea. Had no idea it would be this disastrous!! Crafty thinks I should draw with perpetual check:}
( 37.Qe8 Rg2 38.Qf8+ Kg6 39.Kf4 Qd2+ 40.Re3 Qxb2 41.Qg8+ Kh6 42.Qh8+ Kg6 43.Qe8+ Kh6 44.Qf8+ Kg6 = )

37...Re7+ 38.Kf2 Qxe2+ 39.Kg3 Rg7+ 40.Kf4 Qe5# 0-1

Scid

As a big fan of free software, I have fallen in love with Scid. It's a free chess database application, which will be familiar to anyone who has used Chessbase. While it's not as polished as a commercial product like Chessbase, it is just as powerful. It works great for storing, viewing, analyzing and annotating collections of chess games.

There is a great article on how to set up Scid and fill your database with a ton of games, over at the Scid users group on chess.com. It's a very basic, but easy to follow guide to installing on an Ubuntu machine, that should also be helpful for users of other operating systems.

Required Reading

I've been thoroughly enjoying Predator At The Chessboard, a book published online for free at chesstactics.org. It's a nice course on tactics, and the site even includes a fun tactics training web application. I'm even considering purchasing hard copies that I can take with me when I venture out into the real world. Highly recommended!

Here are some other books that I have my eyes on:

Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner To Master
How to Reassess Your Chess: The Complete Chess-Mastery Course(Exp. 3rd Edition)
The Reassess Your Chess Workbook
The Amateur's Mind: Turning Chess Misconceptions into Chess Mastery
Play Winning Chess
Winning Chess Tactics, revised (Winning Chess - Everyman Chess)
Winning Chess Strategies, revised (Winning Chess - Everyman Chess)
Winning Chess Openings (Winning Chess - Everyman Chess)
Winning Chess Brilliancies (Winning Chess - Everyman Chess)
My System
My 60 Memorable Games
Life & Games of Mikhail Tal
Attack with Mikhail Tal

Plan Of Attack

I've learned a lot in the past few weeks. I'm ready to move onto my next phase of study. In a couple months, if I keep up a disciplined approach to the game, I hope to be able to play in my first tournament without embarrassing myself.

Instead of playing a lot of games, I will be focusing on away from the board study. I find that I end up making the same mistakes frequently. While part of that is due to lapses in concentration, it also has a lot to do with the tendency to put myself in the same situations. I don't think I can make a lot of progress without changing my habits.

I'm putting together a book list, which I will post in the next few days. First up are tactics. I will read these at a comfortable, relaxed pace, because after a couple new tactical ideas further study offers diminishing returns.

I've also got ideas about using flash cards or some kind of computer based tactics training. I haven't decided which route to go, but both have their advantages. I may end up using both. In either case, the idea will be to drill certain patterns into my head so that I recognize them a lot easier. The goal is to see them instead of looking for them.

I will not stop playing completely, but I will attempt to analyze every game I play. The process will be somewhat time consuming, as I am structuring it to be thorough. I will be using a number of tools and resources that I've found, and combining my personal thoughts with computer analysis, historical results, the collected wisdom of strong players, and perhaps even personal recommendations from higher rated players or coaches.

I will post more about this as soon as I am satisfied that I have a strong system in place.

Carlsen Versus The World

Recently, Magnus Carlsen recently signed a deal to model clothing company G-Star's fall collection. Not something I particularly care about, but the news made its rounds online, through chess sites and blogs.

Today, I looked in my inbox and found some related news that I am actually excited about. Carlsen is also going to be playing a game of vote chess on the internet. Anyone will be able to vote for the best move, with the help of insights from a team of top players lead by Kasparov.

Check out the site for the match, and sign up for e-mail updates.

A pretty convincing win. I was playing the King's Indian Attack, which I have been playing a lot lately. Not knowing much theory, I'm naturally drawn to a system like KIA. I don't have to memorize a lot of moves, and I can achieve the standard formation no matter what my opponent does. Plus, I can play the same with black and white, and use a lot of the same ideas.

Here, my opponent lets me accomplish my most basic plan without trying to interfere. I delay taking the center, until I can take and hold it with a huge build up on the e file. When I begin my push, he lets me advance to e5 and then attacks my pawn without thinking and loses the exchange. I get a bishop and knight for a knight and a pawn.

After he loses the center, I easily find a winning attack. He has trouble coming up with a plan and ends up hanging pieces. I take a couple of them before he resigns.

First!

I'm still setting up the blog, but I'm excited to get some content added. In a few minutes, I'm going to play a game and blog about it.