3 Ms Of Chess: Mate

Triumph · May 12, 2013, 11:38am

Greetings,

This week’s position comes from:

Paul Anderson v Douglas Anderson (Online Game Viewer: cschess.webs.com/ )

White to move; Mate in 6.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the chess Moms out there!

As is my custom, I publish a chess loss from my Mom’s ex-husband in lieu of an actual gift. Well, this year my son and I did create a video of her time on The Price Is Right. So, that kind of counts:

matthewsclub.webs.com/apps/video … e-is-right

I took some pictures during the final round of the Bobby Fischer Memorial tournament:

I took some pictures during the second round of the Wednesday Panera tournament:

cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =179105824 Brian Rountree
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =179105825 Alex v Isaac
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =179105826 Anthea v Mark
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =179105827 Alex Freeman

Colorado Springs now has a GM in residence! GM Tejas Bakre is offering lessons for $50/hr to individuals and $75/hr to groups. You can contact him at tejbak@gmail.com.

The events shown below are ones that have been or will be advertised in Chess Life or Chess Life for Kids:
Date Event Location TLA in Affiliate

2013-05-25 2013 Colorado Children’s Rapid Chess Open (QC) Greenwood Villago CO 2013-05 CL T5016398

Read The Newsletter!
cschess.webs.com/apps/blog/entri … chess-mate

Game Of The Week: 3 Ms Of Chess: Mate
This Week In Chess: Speed Marathon Results
Tuesday Night Chess Tour Cumulative and 2nd Quarter Standings
video: youtube.com/watch?v=qbdSq1raBOg

2013 Calendar Of Events for the Colorado Springs Chess Club:

cschess.webs.com/apps/calendar/

For additional events, see the following websites:

Denver Chess Club: DCC (denverchess.com)
Colorado State Chess Association: CSCA (colorado-chess.com/)
Wyoming Chess Association: WCA (wyomingchess.com/)

ps - Newsletter preview with pgn:

Game Of The Week

When I started playing tournament chess, I read a pamphlet from GM Arthur Bisguier about how to improve at chess. Since I had been crushed by him in a simul, I was more than willing to take his advice, even though I knew little about what a GM was. He had a list of 10 principles to keep in mind when playing. I thought that was a little too complicated for me to remember.

So, I condensed those ideas into what I considered the 3 strategies of chess. I also wanted something easy to remember so I decided to use the trick of alliteration to make them even more unforgettable. I called them the 3 Ms of chess:

Mate
Material
Mobility

The idea was that every chess move was an attempt to accomplish one of these three strategies and provided an ordered thought-process in choosing a move.

The 1st priority chess strategy (Mate) was to protect your King from checkmate. Once you decide your King is not in harm, you can strategize about trapping your opponent’s King.

The Mate strategy involves understanding the basic mates. Basic mates are where your opponent is left with just a King versus your small army of one or two pieces.

Easy = having 2 Rooks, 1 Rook or 1 Queen
Medium = having 2 Bishops
Hard = having Bishop & Knight
Need Help = having 2 Knights
Insufficient = having 1 Bishop or 1 Knight

I quickly mastered number 1 and have stayed there ever since. Numbers 2-4 are so rare I have never had to use them in a game.

As my rating began to climb, I noticed some differences between how I thought about chess and how my opponents did. One difference was in the priority of the Mate strategy. I seemed to put far less importance on it than they did.

I knew that I needed to check for mating attacks and defend them, which I did. Mostly. It seemed that when I got mated it was just poor defense or an oversight. I would also try to set up cheapos, which I did. However, that method was very seldom successful.

So, I thought I would check the numbers to test my feeling on this strategy. Out of my 672 tournament games only 146 (21.73%) ended in mate or were mating at the final position. In addition, only 43 of those games (6.40%) were where I was the one getting mated.

Clearly, the vast majority of my games were won or lost because of the other two strategies.

“Whoever sees no other aim in the game than that of giving checkmate to one’s opponent will never become a good Chess player.” (Euwe)

So, I began to rethink the goal of chess. I am sure I was taught the object of chess was to trap the King. In fact, the USCF rules list this as the goal of chess. However, in my world of adult tournament chess this was more of an exception than the rule.

My goal was to win.

It didn’t matter to me how I got the W. A win was a win. I realized that no matter what you called it, a win was getting your opponent to resign. If he did not resign, then you would have to force him to resign by the rules.

Of course, there were draws but that just meant you failed to achieve your goal of resignation.

Draws are the same as resignation. You either agree to draw or you force your opponent to take the draw.

Outcomes In Chess:

Resign
Time (auto-resign)
Mate (auto-resign)
Forfeit (auto-resign)
Adjudication (either)
Draw
Insufficient Material (auto-draw)
Repetition (auto-draw)
Moves (auto-draw)
Stalemate (auto-draw)

I decided to check my chess match with my dad to see how the numbers compared. Out of 53 games,only 8 (15.09%) ended in mate or were mating at the final position. In addition, only 3 of those games (5.66%) were where I was the one getting mated.

Here is an example.

Anderson,Paul -Anderson,Douglas [A36]
13–12-9 Email, 03.01.2004

1.c4 c5 2.g3 g6 3.Nc3 Nc6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.b3 e6 6.Bb2 Nge7 7.e3 0–0 8.Nge2 b6 9.0–0 Bb710.d3 d6 11.Qd2 Qd7 12.Nb5 Bxb2 13.Qxb2 a6 14.Nbc3 Ne5 15.Rad1 Bxg2 16.Kxg2 Qb7+

The reason the numbers are lower than my USCF games could be that my dad and I were playing an email match where there is little incentive to play out games that are clearly over. So far, it looks like neither player has made any effort to get to the King until now.

17.e4 f5 18.f4 Ng4 19.Qd2 Nf6 20.Qe3 Rad8 21.Kg1 Kf7 22.Qf3 h5 23.exf5 Qxf3 24.fxe6+ Kxe6 25.Rxf3 d5 26.Re1 Kf5

[Event “13-12-9”]
[Site “http://cschess.webs.com/”]
[Date “2004.01.03”]
[Round “?”]
[White “Anderson, Paul”]
[Black “Anderson, Douglas”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “A36”]
[PlyCount “59”]
[EventDate “2003.11.01”]
[TimeControl “0”]

c4 c5 2. g3 g6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. b3 e6 6. Bb2 Nge7 7.
e3 O-O 8. Nge2 b6 9. O-O Bb7 10. d3 d6 11. Qd2 Qd7 12. Nb5 Bxb2 13. Qxb2 a6 14.
Nbc3 Ne5 15. Rad1 Bxg2 16. Kxg2 Qb7+ 17. e4 f5 18. f4 Ng4 19. Qd2 Nf6 20. Qe3
Rad8 21. Kg1 Kf7 22. Qf3 h5 23. exf5 Qxf3 24. fxe6+ Kxe6 25. Rxf3 d5 26. Re1
Kf5 27. Nd4+ Kg4 28. h3+ Kxh3 29. Nd1 Ng4 30. Re2 1-0

Peace be with you,

Paul Anderson
Chess Coach (cschess.webs.com/coaching.htm)
Cell: 719-233-1426
Facebook: paul.anderson.904750
Twitter: @cschessnews
Youtube: cschessnews

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3 Ms Of Chess: Mate

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