ChrisL64

chess

Nov 26, 2024 ∞

Reshevsky-Bisguier, 1957



This is where—JUST in the nick of time—former wunderkind Samuel Reshevsky puts the hurt on Art Bisguier in game 3 of their 1957 match (Reshevsky ultimately won 6-4). Famous, not too difficult, and rather pretty. What do you do?

Analysis board

Nov 19, 2024 ∞

'Tis a Good Move



Perhaps because I am an ancient (unwise) elder, I feel the little thrill of serendipity more often in the chess world than any other community I am knowingly, intentionally part of.

A few days ago I was thinking about the burgeoning chess and chesspunks communities on Bluesky, and Jonathan Tisdall was one of the first on my list, despite not being quite as active there now that he is happily retired.

Less than two hours later, while leafing through The Most Amazing Moves of all Time by John Emms¹. I came across the position shown here. I recognized it—and the astonishing move white found—immediately. What I didn’t remember, probably because I learned about the game before Twitter was a thing, was that the move was the work of none other than gmjtis!

But it doesn’t stop there. The next morning, before I’d had a chance to share the position, the latest Sjakksnakk podcast popped up in my feed and by this point you know who the guest had to be: Jonathan Tisdall.

And one more amusing coincidence: they talk briefly about The Good Knight chess pub, which I’d posted about a few days before.

You can view the complete game (“Tis Not Dull”) on chessgames.com. I’ve also shared the game with some annotations regarding a few discrepancies in accounts of the game.

Strangely, Tisdall’s amazing game doesn’t appear to be in Mega Database! But I did find two other games that reached the same position years later: Jevtic-Prokopisin, 1995 and Sipos-Torma, 2000.

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1. Author of a few other excellent books as well: (the other) Simple Chess and The Ultimate Chess Puzzle Book. ↩︎

Nov 19, 2024 ∞
Hello and Good Knight
My partner (in life and crime) returned from Norway with a perfect gift for me: a t-shirt from The Good Knight chess pub. Excuse the wrinkles and my photography 😝!

On the reverse, the famous Morphy “Opera” game:

And, the game for your viewing pleasure:

Nov 14, 2024 ∞

Taimanov-Golombek, 1952



Seeing Douglas Griffin had updated his fabulous Mark Taimanov page led me on a little walkabout and…synchronicity!

In this position from Taimanov-Golombek, 1952 (see my recent post about Golombek’s Capablanca’s Best Games), Taimanov found a dagger of a move. What is it?

View on Analysis Board

Nov 14, 2024 ∞

Capablanca's Best Games (Golombek and Nunn)



The Capablanca book I most want to get my hands on is Capablanca’s Best Games. Specifically, the new (1997) edition edited, revised, and expanded by the illustrious John Nunn¹.

However, the few (used) copies are expensive, and I’ve promised myself (and my long-suffering partner) to curb my book habit a little bit.

Books about Capablanca vary a great deal in quality, even more than usual. You’ll find many details on the problems (and successes) of various Capa books in Edward Winter’s² write-up “Capablanca Goes Algebraic.”

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1. In addition to being a brilliant chess player, peaking at world #9, and one of our best chess writers today, Nunn went to Oxford at 15, becoming its youngest graduate in more than 450 years. Oh, and then went on to get a PhD in mathematics, studying “finite H-spaces” (whatever those are). ↩︎

2. If you have any interest in chess history, chess books, and chess writing—or just enjoy when someone armed with serious research skills and facts at his disposal takes down chess authors who appear to have neither—you owe it to yourself to delve into Winter’s site (and get his books). It’s a true treasure trove. ↩︎

Nov 12, 2024 ∞

Morozevich v Kokarev



Alexander “Moro” Morozevich, facing Dmitry Kokarev in the 2019 Russian Team Blitz Championship, found a sweet move to here to effectively end the game. What was it?

Analysis Board

Nov 8, 2024 ∞

Szablewski v Radjabov, 1996



Playing with the black pieces on his way to winning the U10 group in the 1996 European Youth Chess Championships¹, a 9-year old Teimour Radjabov finds the best continuation against Mikolaj Szablewski. Can you do the same?

Analysis Board

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1. Also taking first place in the same tournament, Ruslan Ponomariov, future FIDE World Chess Champion. ↩︎

Nov 6, 2024 ∞

Marin-v-Ljubojević, 1987



Yesterday I shared a puzzle I learned about via one of John Nunn’s books.

Today, Douglas Griffin—translator extraordinaire, man of a million photos, and apparent possessor of a photographic memory—shared a cool photo of Ljubomir “Ljubo” Ljubojević in action against Mikhail Tal in the 1979 Interzonal tournament in Riga.

The picture prompted me to look through my sprawl of notes and I found the interesting position depicted above, which I’d stumbled across in Chess Tempo many years (practically a lifetime) ago. The puzzle position comes from a game featuring Ljubo who, walking on a knife’s edge, finding a brilliant sequence that definitively nailed down the win against Mihail Marin in the 1987 Interzonal tournament in Szirak, Hungary. Can you spot what Ljubo did¹? And did you (ahem) discover the hidden point of that first, completely non-intuitive (to this patzer), move²?

Here’s the funny thing: the top three in this tournament would advance—along with six more from two other Interzonals—to matches which would ultimately decide who would face the winner of the 1987 Kasparov-Karpov World Chess Championship³. Ljubo placed a respectable 7th (out of eighteen), but a playoff was required to determine the third coveted spot. A playoff between Lajos Portisch and none other than…John Nunn! Sadly for residents of the Nunn Nation of Nunnistan⁴, Portisch won two straight games to send Nunn home.

I love these kinds of unexpected, serendipitous connections.

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1. Narrator: ChrisL64 did not. ↩︎

2. Narrator: ChrisL64 misses again. ↩︎

3. The one in which Kasparov, down 12-11 to Karpov, would come back to win the final game and retain his crown. ↩︎

4. Nunn Stans? Nunnsters? Nunnites? Nunnians? ↩︎

Nov 5, 2024 ∞

Mihail Marin on the "Information Explosion"



There is an almost unanimous opinion that, in chess as in other fields, the beginning of the third Millenium features an explosion of information without precedent.

To me, this seems a bit exaggerated. I remember that as a kid I found similar statements in many of the opening monographies of the ’80s, the ’70s and even of the ’50s. Believe it or not, a similar “informatic explosion” is described in the introduction of the first edition of the Bilguer, the Chess Encyclopaedia of the 19th century.

—Mihail Marin
—found in Old Wine in New Bottles

"Mihail Marin (ROM)" by Federació d'Escacs Valls d'Andorra is licensed under CC BY 2.0 .

Nov 5, 2024 ∞

A Tale of Two Mugs



Today’s coffee mug alongside yesterday’s. Fitting since today is election day here, and yesterday I was again mourning the passing of Chess24.

Nov 5, 2024 ∞

Lautier-Bologan, 1999



Speaking of Joel Lautier the other day, here’s a position where he found a nice tactic against GM Viktor Bologan in 1999. Not a difficult puzzle, but the full zillion points if you calculate all three significant lines!

Analysis Board

Nov 4, 2024 ∞

Gasiorowski-Gawronski, 1994



White found an amazing resource to save this game. Can you find it?

This is one of the many excellent positions found in John Nunn’s book Learn Chess Tactics. Here’s how he describes the puzzle:

“White is a piece down for one pawn, and his threats on the kingside appear to have come to nothing. Indeed, if Black were now given a free tempo to play …Rg8 then White would be facing inevitable defeat. All this means that if White is going to try something, then he must do so straight away.”

Analysis board

Nov 3, 2024 ∞

GM Joel Lautier on the New in Chess Podcast



Lautier has an amazing inside perspective on Fischer in his long twilight years and his own battles with Kasparov before serving as a second for Kramnik when he took the former’s throne. And more! → NIC Podcast #44 - GM Joel Lautier

Nov 3, 2024 ∞

Korchnoi v Guevara



When Korchnoi plays chess, he forgets about everything. Tal once told me that before a simultaneous display in Havana, Viktor was told: ‘You will be playing Che Guevara. He is a rather weak player, but he loves chess passionately. He would be delighted if he were able to gain a draw.’ Korchnoi understandingly nodded his head. A few hours later he returned to the hotel. ‘Well?’ Tal inquired. ‘I crushed them all, all without exception!’ ‘And Che Guevara?’ ‘Che Guevara? I also crushed Che Guevara — he hasn’t a clue about the Catalan Opening!’

—Genna Sosonko
—found in The Essential Sosonko

Oct 30, 2024 ∞

McShane-Mirumian, 1999



A young Luke McShane has just made what seems like a reasonable move with 22.Rd3 … but Vigen Mirumian has a cruel surprise in store. Full imaginary points only if you account for the three significant lines, not just the first move!

Try it on Lichess

Oct 29, 2024 ∞

Shelby Lyman on Bobby Fischer



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“When he [Fischer] was at the board playing, it was like God was playing,” says Shelby Lyman, who narrated the eventual, inevitable world championship match for public television.

“The purity of his thought, the search for truth, the ability to go to the core of a problem. Bobby never looked for an easy move that would blow away his opponent. He looked for the truth in chess.”

—found in “Life is not a board game” [archive]
—Peter Nicholas and Clea Benson
—The Philadelphia Inquirer (Jan. 18, 2008)

Oct 24, 2024 ∞

The Perfect Path



There’s been a long¹ discussion on the Chess Dojo public Discord² involving, among many other topics, the perennial favorites of practice and training vis-à-vis playing, aka consolidation of knowledge into skill.

Today, one of the central participants described an acquaintance’s “problem”:

This is true [that one’s primary reward should be grown, not winning or losing] but playing matters and so if you end up in this container of studying, it becomes relatively more appealing than playing

I say this bc this happened

A guy enjoyed studying more than playing and then didn’t play

[…]

Like this guy studied good stuff but never wanted to play If he simply played Guy would have skyrocketed And he enjoyed studying for the sake of studying

[…]

Like when he did play, he demonstrated very clearly that he learned stuff

So it showed up It’s just he found it stressful And he had no incentive bc studying by itself was satisfying

I was struck by the rueful tone, describing this poor guy who fell into the trap of enjoying studying and learning as if he’d been saddled by an addiction or something.

And I get it! Chess is a game, and the most popular goal for most people with most games is to win³. But I would argue not only that this isn’t the sole goal, but that any emotionally healthy approach to a game necessarily includes enjoyment and fulfillment in addition to⁴ winning.

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying studying more than playing, even to the exclusion of playing altogether. Chess is a game to be employed in whatever ways make us feel the best. No one reading this is, or is ever going to, rely on chess for their livelihood. My number one question when I see people expressing significant, non-transient anguish over their rating or their lack of progress as measured in wins and losses is: do you enjoy playing? And my number one suggestion, if they do not, is to stop, take a break, and find a different, better⁵ game. If the break becomes permanent, that’s fine!

Chess players seem particularly prone to persisting in playing a game they’ve stopped enjoying. This powers the obsession with ratings, which is the fuel for all kinds of toxic garbage fires, both psychologically and for the community. There are all sorts of reasons for this, many of which exist in other games, but the effect seems more widespread, more painful, and more common than the rest. I suspect this is the hellish confluence of:

• The explosion of online chess, which has popularized modes of chess that were mere diversions (blitz), if not practically impossible to play (bullet, hyperbullet), for most of its history.

• The integration of video game mechanics that are particularly suited to those modes, including a baked-in emphasis on ratings.

• The understandable embrace of chess by video game enthusiasts, and those communities' cultures and expectations.

• The deeply insinuated (and deeply mistaken) conflation and association of chess skill with general intelligence.

It’s wild to me that despite ratings systems existing for only 15% of the game’s long history (and being excellent at just one thing: matchmaking), a chess world without rating⁶ is inconceivable to many. I don’t mean just the creeping toxicity of the quantification, mistaking the number as a measure of worth (self- and otherwise), or the ratings shaming, or the use of rating as a cudgel or (inaccurate) barometer of accuracy or authority. I don’t even mean people mystified by the mechanics of tournaments and other competitions organized without rating as we understand them today. I mean people who are astonished by the notion that people would still play if there weren’t a visible, public rating.

At any rate, my point is that all of these things conspire to rob so many people of the pleasure and fulfillment of studying the game, of doing calculation work, solving puzzles, playing over incredible games, mastering an endgame technique, speeding through a tactics set, staring slack-jawed at the beauty of a combination or the mesmerizing geometry of a sequence…closing, for no good reason, a door that opens onto a whole world of enjoyment and satisfaction.

It’s maddening and saddening. Because the truth is altogether simpler: the best path—the only perfect path—is the one that satisfies and fulfills you, regardless of how many games you play. And the reverse is true as well: if you only like playing and competition with others, that’s great too! Some of the happiest chess players I know are those who just have fun playing (often obscene numbers of games), not caring about their rating other than being happy that the number does its job, matching them with folks with whom they can reasonably compete.

Which isn’t to say finding one’s own path is simple. I’ve fallen prey to this dynamic many times in my life, letting a spirit of competition or level of mastery steal my sunshine from a wide range of pursuits⁷. It’s been such a common difficulty in my life that a central point of therapy for me has been finding a way to be a happy amateur at something and not measure my worth by my place in some hierarchy of achievement. But that’s the goal, and I can attest there are few things that rival the feeling of finding, and walking, that path.

Photo by Sebastian Unrau on Unsplash

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1. Like, exhaustingly long. ↩︎

2. I realize this little sample might not be selling it, but the Discord’s conversations encompass a wide variety of topics by and for players at all levels. And everyone is welcome! https://discord.gg/kg6FqdRU ↩︎

3. Not every game, of course, but the great majority of folks understand a game to be something akin to BoardGameGeek’s definition that a game is ‘an activity in which one or more people compete or cooperate toward a goal in which one or more of these individuals – dubbed “players” – either wins or loses.’ ↩︎

4. Beyond winning, in fact. ↩︎

5. By definition, if they don’t enjoy chess, any game they do enjoy is better. ↩︎

6. I dream of such a world (and I am not alone in doing so), as I will write about here ad nauseam in the future, I’m sure. ↩︎

7. Including writing poetry, origami, guitar, racquetball, book art, and even baking! ↩︎

Oct 23, 2024 ∞

Tactics Training the Right Way(s)



In the grand scheme of things¹—even before losing the ability to visualize—I’ve never been a particularly good chess player. But I’m an excellent educator and learning designer with a passion for chess.

Through a combination of my own experience, exploration of pedagogy² and research, and synthesizing the advice, regimens, and recommendations of a host of chess coaches, players, and improvers, I’ve put together solid approaches for adult chess improvers³.

Over the next few days⁴, I’ll be sharing some different techniques, tools, sites, and apps for tactics training for three different⁵ purposes:

1. Pattern Recognition
2. Calculation
3. Visualization

While these will necessarily contain some idiosyncratic choices, they will together provide solid, specific answers to some of the most common questions about tactics training.

There is almost no question that tactics training is at the heart of any chess improvement program, though arguments about the specific proportion of time one should spend will never be settled⁶. I’m focused on enjoyment and chess as a support for positive mental health, so not particularly interested in those debates…and they are largely irrelevant to what I will be sharing anyway!

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1. In the minuscule scheme of things, for that matter! ↩︎

2. Most often, if one wants to be pedantic about it, andragogy, but in practice practically everyone uses “pedagogy” to refer to the art and science of teaching both children and adults. ↩︎

3. There’s been a marked increase in resistance to, and complaints about, the term “adult chess improver” lately. I’m not one of those folks. If you are, substitute whatever term makes sense to you. ↩︎

4. Ideally. It could be the next few weeks or even months. ↩︎

5. Naturally, there will be a fair amount of overlap. ↩︎

6. Such are the vagaries of education research, in general, and the paucity of research into chess improvement, specifically. ↩︎

Oct 20, 2024 ∞



A little tactic for your pleasure. White to move.

[try it on Lichess]

Oct 20, 2024 ∞

Taking Myself to the Dojo



A few days ago I joined the Chess Dojo. I’ve heard so many good things about it over the last six months that I likely would have joined, despite the fact that the training plans themselves are freely available for anyone to browse and use on their own with a free account.

First, the three “senseis” are not only highly esteemed members of the chess community, generally, but each are high on my own list of awesome chess folks as well:

• Jesse Kraai achieved a PhD in Philosophy¹, earned his GM title at the advanced (in chess years) age of 35, and actually stopped playing chess for a three years while he wrote Lisa: A Chess Novel².

• David Pruess, an excellent teacher a mainstay of chess.com video lessons and explainers for years before departing for better climes³, is an excellent teacher by any measure, but learning he also has aphantasia—but is still a strong IM who can play blindfold chess—was a key factor in my deciding to play chess again.

• Kostya Kavutskiy⁴ is also an excellent teacher whose presence in the chess world has been quickly growing thanks to his acumen, ability to explain chess in a way mere mortals can understand, and one of the calmest demeanors this side of Rosenstan.

Second, I do love me a structured program that can bring more order to my training and studying, but my reason for joining, rather than just using the plans on my own, is the aspect I’m also the most nervous about: the community. Befitting its name, the Chess Dojo requires⁵ sparring, analyzing, playing, and engaging in “post-mortems” with other Dojo members. I’m hoping this part of the program will be the prod I need to overcome my reluctance to actually play in addition to the studying I enjoy so much.

As they say in the Dojo, “Let’s gooooooooo!"

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1. Without being broken by the experience, at least not wholly, an admirable outcome in itself, not to mention his dissertation: Rheticus’ Heliocentric Providence : a study concerning the astrology, astronomy of the sixteenth century. ↩︎

2. And it’s actually good! ↩︎

3. France, at the moment, I believe, and I wouldn’t blame him a bit if he never returned to the US. ↩︎

4. Check out Kostya’s Kostya Goes for GM newsletter/project. ↩︎

5. Nothing is truly required: advancement to higher rating bands in the Dojo is purely based on ratings improvement. ↩︎