Greetings,
This week’s position comes from the Game Of The Year.
David Hartsook vs Paul Anderson (Online Game Viewer: cschess.webs.com/ )
Black to move and come up with a joke for ALL White’s pieces on the back row!
The Pikes Peak Open has been rated:
uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php … 2-10224098
Congratulations to Tim Brennan, Colorado’s newest expert!
New Photos:
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =182286121 chess row
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =182286122 becca v alex
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =182619683 anthea v alex
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =182619684 isaac v james
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =182619685 jason v brian
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =182846724 dean v mark
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =182846725 kevin v alex
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =182286185 anthea & tim
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =182619998 peter v richard
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =182619999 daniel v william
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =182620000 alex v anthea
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =181803212 thin ice
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =181803462 Paul
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =182286174 knight odds
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =182846939 shogi
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =182971876 alfonso v benito
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =182971877 gene v duwayne
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =182971878 sara v brian
cschess.webs.com/apps/photos/pho … =182971879 daniel & shirley
Read The Newsletter!
cschess.webs.com/apps/blog/show/ … the-year-x
- Game Of The Week: Game Of The Year X
- This Week In Chess: Speed Results
- Tuesday Night Chess Tour Cumulative and 3rd Quarter standings
- Pikes Peak Open Standings by Buck Buchanan
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:
End Of The Season
Monday, August 12, 2013
Well, another chess season has come to a close for me. It is time for me to move on to managing the website for my other hobby (spamfootball.webs.com/), but I will return after the football season ends. Before I go, I wanted to clean up some loose ends.
Of course, you can still send in news items or articles during the off-season, and I will email them along to the subscribers. Any games I receive will be stored at the Colorado Springs Chess News’ Yahoo! group (games.groups.yahoo.com/group/cs_chess/). You can also join the group to keep receiving chess games all year round.
So, before I finish typing my chess thoughts for another year, I want to thank all the people who sent in games and articles, all the people who took the time to tell me something nice about the newsletter, and all the people who take the time to read this.
Game Of The Year
Wow! It has been 10 years of the Colorado Springs Chess Newsletter. I didn’t notice until the Game Of The Year, which is now the tenth one. Usually at this time, I look over the past year’s statistics to see if it was a good or bad year for me. With completing my 10th year, one would think it was good, but I don’t always feel that way.
Looking over the statistics helps me get past the bad feelings that linger from my losses (and I had a bunch of them). They bring me back into balance and force me to look at what I did right and what I did wrong. This year, they gave me mostly good news:
Same number of upsets as last year (2)
81.88% overall winning percentage (record: 2012 - 78.48%)
2116 peak CLUB rating (record: 2012 - 2067)
89.02% CLUB winning percentage (record: 2011 - 83.33%)
2058 peak USCF rating (record: 2012 - 2029)
48.5 most USCF-rated wins (record: 2012 - 46.0)
4.5 fewest CLUB-rated losses (record: 2011 - 7.5)
9 prizes won (record: 2001 - 12)
In addition to the statistics, I also earned my 1st invitation to the Colorado Closed Challenger and tied for 1st place, just missing out on tie breaks for an automatic invitation to the 2014 Colorado Closed. It was my best tournament ever, and I selected my best game from the event as the Game Of The Year, which I wrote about for the Colorado Chess Informant earlier this year.
2013 Colorado Chess Informant Articles:
3 Ms Of Chess: Mate ([cschess.webs.com/apps/blog/show/ ... chess-mate](http://cschess.webs.com/apps/blog/show/26159418-3-ms-of-chess-mate))
3 Ms Of Chess: Material ([cschess.webs.com/apps/blog/show/ ... s-material](http://cschess.webs.com/apps/blog/show/28434181-3-ms-of-chess-material))
3 Ms Of Chess: Mobility (see below)
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 plan to get your opponents King. However, in most chess positions checkmate is a long way off. So, now what do you do?
The 2nd priority chess strategy (Material) was to gain a more powerful army than your opponent. This idea involved not only a simple piece count, but also the understanding that each piece has a different value. Learning tactics was the key tool to implementing this strategy. However, in most chess positions you cannot capture a more valuable piece. So, now what do you do?
The 3rd priority chess strategy (Mobility) was to gain more territory for your army and make it faster than your opponent. This strategy was far harder to understand than the others as it involved both the ideas of space and time. Understanding how to maximize the movement of different pieces was not easy, but it was all there was left. If I wasn’t moving a piece to Mate my opponent’s King or capture Material, then the move should have been improving its Mobility.
I soon began to notice that the different Material value of the pieces was directly related to their level of Mobility. The fastest piece, the Queen, was worth far more than the slowest, the Pawn. However, there was no Mobility Value Chart that told me how to maximize each piece.
Of course, many games and the lessons from loses gave me the feeling that the different pieces liked different things in regards to Mobility. So, I created my own chart:
Mobility Preferences Of The Pieces:
King likes Endgames
Pawns like being Passed
Rooks like Open Files
Bishops like Open Diagonals
Knights like Outposts
Queens dislike Openings
As I began to understand these preferences, I realized that a lot of creating Mobility is related to the Pawn structure. A Pawn is Passed when it has no opposing Pawns in its path and the adjacent files. Similarly, a Knight has an outpost when it is supported by a Pawn and has no opposing Pawns in the adjacent files which can attack it. Open Files and Open Diagonals are a line of squares that contain no Pawns.
The King and Queen were a little different, as their very high Material values discouraged their Mobility in the Opening. However, the Queen becomes useful in the Middle Game as it can activate like a Rook or Bishop. The King almost always waits until the Endgame.
I also noticed that the different phases of the game favor different pieces. The Middle Game is the time to activate the more mobile pieces (Rooks & Bishops). While the Endgame is the time to activate the less mobile pieces (King & Pawns).
Of course, I realized that I could also move a piece to reduce my opponent’s Mobility too.
“Though most people love to look at the games of the great attacking masters, some of the most successful players in history have been the quiet positional players. They slowly grind you down by taking away your space, tying up your pieces, and leaving you with virtually nothing to do!” (Yasser Seirawan)
Here is an example:
Hartsook,David (2077) -Anderson,Paul (1999) [B06]
Colorado Closed Challenger Colorado Springs (4.3), 21.04.2013
1.e4 c6 2.d4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.Bc4 d6 5.Be3 Nd7 6.Qd2 b5 7.Bb3 Bb7 8.f3 a5 9.a4 b4 10.Nd1 Ba6 11.Ne2 c5 12.dxc5 Nxc5 13.Bd5 Rc8 14.Nd4 Qb6 15.Nb3 e6 16.Nxc5 dxc5 17.Ba2 Qc6 18.Bb1 Nf6 19.c3 0–0 20.Kf2 b3 21.Re1 Rfd8 22.Qc1 Nd7 23.Bg5 f6 24.Bh6 Ne5 25.Bxg7 Kxg7 26.Kg1…
“I noticed a long time ago that Josh Bloomer has an uncanny knack for keeping his opponent’s pieces restricted. Magnus Carlsen described that as his style on Charlie Rose. There are many terms for keeping your opponent’s pieces on the back rank.” (Brian Wall)
Game Of The Year X
chessvideos.tv/chess-game-re … p?id=83049
[Event “Colorado Closed Challenger”]
[Site “http://cschess.webs.com/”]
[Date “2013.04.21”]
[Round “4.3”]
[White “Hartsook, David”]
[Black “Anderson, Paul”]
[Result “0-1”]
[ECO “B06”]
[WhiteElo “2077”]
[BlackElo “1999”]
[PlyCount “70”]
[EventDate “2013.04.19”]
[TimeControl “5400+30”]
- e4 c6 2. d4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. Bc4 d6 5. Be3 Nd7
- Qd2 b5 7. Bb3 Bb7 8. f3 a5 9. a4 b4 10. Nd1 Ba6 11. Ne2 c5 12. dxc5 Nxc5 13.
Bd5 Rc8 14. Nd4 Qb6 15. Nb3 e6 16. Nxc5 dxc5 17. Ba2 Qc6 18. Bb1 Nf6 19. c3 O-O - Kf2 b3 21. Re1 Rfd8 22. Qc1 Nd7 23. Bg5 f6 24. Bh6 Ne5 25. Bxg7 Kxg7 26.
Kg1 c4 27. Qe3 Rd7 28. Nf2 Rcd8 29. f4 Nf7 30. h4 e5 31. h5 Qd6 32. Re2 exf4 - Qh3 Qe5 34. hxg6 hxg6 35. Ng4 Qc5+ 0-1
Peace be with you,
Paul Anderson
Chess Coach (cschess.webs.com/coaching.htm)
Cell: 719-310-9635
Facebook: paul.anderson.904750
Twitter: @cschessnews
Youtube: cschessnews