Playing on

It's a really difficult skill to move from defence to offence in chess. Imagine you've been soaking up pressure for a good while, and then your opponent makes an inaccurate move, or a few inaccuracies. Suddenly you have the chance to take the initiative and go for it. But this psychological shift is difficult to put into practice.

For a lot of players, when the pressure comes off, they are first and foremost relieved that they have survived. This doesn't lend itself to picking up the gauntlet, and going for the win. There can also be a lack of objective assessment. For instance, if I feel my position has been difficult, then I might be looking at the negative sides in my game rather than objectively assessing who is in the better position. Finally, there is an energy factor. It is generally tougher to defend than attack, and after a tough defence it might be that a player just doesn't have the energy to turn things around and start playing for a win.

My game is generally based on stodging positions and especially with Black, holding on to some fairly ugly positions int he hope that I'll be able to equalise and then take my opponent on in the endgame, where I feel confident. In the Box Hill Chess Club Championship which is coming to a close, I have had 2 positions where my opponents have offered me draws that I'd like to look at.

Here I was Black against young FM Luis Chan who had just played 17.Re1 and offered a draw. For the previous 15 moves I had basically grovelled, trying to cover any weaknesses I might have and develop some pieces. White has some difficulties with having over extended on the queen side, and I declined the draw offer and played on. The game should have ended a draw, but after some adventures from both sides, I managed to win this game.

This position is from last night, where White, FM Eugene Schon, has just captured my rook on c8. He offered a draw here, and after some contemplation I agreed. Again, I had been trying to equalise in this game for about 15 moves and I have probably just done it. I feel that I could have played on in an attempt to get something from this position, but my fighting spirit just wasn't at the same level. In this position, White is a pawn up and has the bishop pair, but Black will regain the pawn on d6, and Black's knight will probably be at least as good as either of White's bishops. White's pawn weaknesses are an issue.

So how to explain why I decided to play on in one game, but not in the other? To be honest, I can't explain it, it is totally inconsistent, and that has been a factor that has plagued my play this year. So for the rest of the year, I intend to play on whether I want to or not! I will force myself to keep playing moves, and to seek chances while there is still something in the position, a la Carlsen!

Perhaps I can also inspire others to not give in too easily to the temptation of taking a draw. After all, the logical conclusion to this is that eventually, our fighting spirit will wear down, and we won't put up the best defence in positions. So taking draws early, may lead to us losing defensible positions, because we can't put up enough of a fight.

Panchenko's Endgame Defence

This was the position I left on my blog yesterday, an exercise from Panchenko's book, "Mastering Chess Middlegames". Black is in a tough spot and has to find the best defence. So let's look at some candidate moves.

1. If black tries to defend the pawn on b6, there are 2 ways to do it.

- 1..Rb8 pinning the pawn on b6 doesn't look good and white can simply advance his c-pawn to exploit the pin 2.c4 Kg8 3.c5 followed by cxb5 with a winning advantage
- 1..Rf6? is strongly met by 2.Rf1! forcing an exchange of rooks. This is what actually happened in the game. White's king is more central, and his pawn structure is better. The game finished. 2..Kg8 3.Rxf6 gxf6 4.Kf2 Kf7 5.Ke3 Ke6 6.Kd4 Kf5 7.Kd5 1-0

2. Counter attack

- 1..Rc8! this gives the best chance for a draw, activating the rook, getting the king into the game, while trading pawns. To go for this, these basic endgame principles needed to be followed, and an assessment of the position with 3 v 2 pawns as a draw needs to be understood. 2.Rxb6 Kg8 3.Rb5 Rxc4 4.Rxa5

This is actually a good position to study and practice, as well as positions with an extra pawn on the king side. Black should be able to hold a draw here, but getting to know some technique wouldn't hurt!

Have a look at this classic position from the game Ftacnik-Littlewood Hastings 1982. The attacking rook is placed passively, and Littlewood decides to protect his passed pawn with his king. Ftacnik uses this to get his own king moving on the other side of the board.

It's white to play. Perhaps you could try this position as both black or white against a computer, or friend of about a similar strength to you before you look at the game continuation which is here.

Back to Chess

My plan was very simple. I took a break from playing, studying and writing about chess and intended to enter the 2016 Australian Chess Championship and start to work towards that. In reality, the break lingered for a couple of weeks more than I'd intended and I've found myself struggling to get back to work again.

Today that changes! Yesterday (a few days ago now, as Google created a protocol which prevented me editing and posting this blog last week) I paid up and entered the 2016 Australian Championship and currently the field is strong. My FIDE rating of 2166 is a long way behind the next lowest rating of FM Gene Nakauchi at 2244. I understand that many more players will probably enter, but I'll still see myself in the bottom half (probably the bottom quarter) of the field. So unless humiliation is my one goal in playing this tournament, I'd better get down to some training.

Training vs Coaching

As a chess coach a subject that has always interested me has been the compatibility between coaching others and self improvement. I recently got a copy of Alexander Panchenko's excellent new book Mastering Chess Middlegames. Panchenko was offered a position as a chess coach in the early 1980's not long after becoming a Grand Master, and he set aside playing goals to achieve coaching goals. This suggests that the 2 are not compatible. If one is always looking at the needs of others, preparing training materials for players often at a lower level than the actual coach, and devoting analysis time to improving weaknesses in other players games, then there is little time or energy left to work on your own game.

This is what I found when I started working for Chess Kids as a coach 10 years ago. Working on teaching methods, learning philosophies, presentation skills has enabled me to be a respected school coach, and junior coach, but it initially affected my own game detrimentally and I'm not sure my game fully recovered. I have managed to differentiate between coaching and playing. They are now 2 different activities. Coaching is work, playing is fun, coaching is a job, playing is my hobby, etc. But, of course, as an amateur player, how far can I expect to improve, especially at the age of 49? In fact, should I even be thinking in terms of improvement, or just looking to enjoy the playing side of things?

While I do enjoy the playing side of things, I am still motivated to strive as much as possible to achieve the best results I can, so I'll be putting in as much work as I can spare to my own game, and maybe my students might be rewarded with some new materials that I find! Can I improve? Well, I guess that it is possible, but it gets increasingly harder as the years go by. By assessing my weaknesses I suppose I can strengthen my game, much like the way I try to get my students to improve. However, I am critical of my play in all areas of the game. If I really narrowed things down a bit, I suppose at the level I'm at, I have a weak knowledge of openings, and my calculation is sometimes blurred by assumptions about positions. I'm overly fond of space as a concept (and subsequently a poor defender), and struggle to find reasonable plans in messy positions.

I'm sure other players might have different ideas about my weaknesses, and I know there are many other weaknesses in my game, but these are some big ones to be getting on with.

Here's an example of Panchenko's training technique. In the chapter on 'Defence' he says "one should never forget about the possibility of sacrificing material to create a fortress", and then shows the following classic example:

 White to play can draw by sacrificing the bishop and then covering all entry squares.

1.Kd1 Rh2 2.Ke1! Rxg2 3.Kf1 Rh2 4.Kg1 Rh8 5.f3 leaving the following position where neither black's king, nor rook will be able to penetrate.

Panchenko says in the introduction to the chapter on defence:

The defender should strive for a type of position where the drawing chances are greater(opposite coloured bishops, rook endgames, fortress set-ups, etc).

Of course, it takes study and experience to know which sort of positions are more drawish than others. Here's the first exercise from Panchenko's chapter on defence, which I'll give the answer to tomorrow (assuming Google doesn't decide to create protocols which prevent me posting - apologies to you all for taking so long to work out how to overcome said protocols)

Black to play and draw