|
| << SEARCH MORE | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The first Internet-based FIDE Arbiters' Seminar | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 For two weekends in July, 17 participants from across North America came together virtually, to take part in the first ever Internet-based Arbiter Seminar! The seminar is a recent addition to the requirement for those seeking recognition by FIDE for the title of FIDE Arbiter, but it also opens a new way in the training of the Arbiters globally. Traditionally, this seminar has been held in a physical location with lecturer and participants traveling to some destination, established by the seminar organizer. Unfortunately the traditional format of the seminar requires considerable financial expenditure by the organizer and participants. As such, some national federations have not had the opportunity to organize this required seminar. The idea for the Internet-based Arbiters' Seminar began in March 2010 during the first arbiter seminar held in the United States which I organized. I discussed this concept with David Sedgwick from England, who was acting in the capacity of Chief Lecturer. David in turn referred me to the Chairman of the FIDE Arbiters' Commission, Mr. Takis Nikolopoulos to discuss the matter further. Takis explained to me that the idea of organizing a FIDE Arbiters' Seminars on the Internet had been already discussed in the FIDE Arbiters' Commission's meetings in the Halkidiki 2009 FIDE Congress and the Commission was trying to find a way to organize the first on line Seminar. So we discussed the details and found it to be a worthy experiment to undertake and as such the Internet-seminar (hereafter referred to as webinar) was born, with Takis serving as the Chief Lecturer, and myself as the Assistant Lecturer, webinar moderator, and technical support. It was decided that as it would be the first time that such a Seminar was organized, the participants would not be charged a fee and the Lecturers would receive no stipend. The technology chosen for the webinar was a combination of Dim Dim and Skype. While Dim Dim is capable of handling voice conferences, it only provides a localized US phone number at no cost. Toll-free calling is available for an additional fee however we did not wish to experiment with this added cost at this time. Through the combination of Dim Dim and Skype, we were able to display the slide show presentation that Takis had prepared, while speaking at the same time. We maintained all participants on 'mute' to reduce background noise, and if there were any questions, they could utilize the public chat feature in Dim Dim where either Takis or I would respond. The Seminar was held over two weekends (10, 11, 17 and 18-July), in three sessions of five hours each, while the last session was for the Examination test, that was sent to the participants and returned by them by a specific time, via e-mail. The participants who will achieve at least 80% in the test (which included 36 questions with 100 points maximum), will be awarded a norm for the title of FIDE Arbiter, according to the Regulations for the title of Arbiters. During the sessions all the Arbiters' issues, according to the Regulations of the training of the Arbiters (Laws of Chess, Tournament Rules, Titles and Ratings Regulations, Systems of games, Swiss pairings Rules e.t.c.), were discussed and analyzed, while the differences in the regulations between USCF and FIDE were mentioned. The participants had the possibility to ask questions and receive answers through the chat window. In conclusion, both Takis and I found the experiment a success, with minor technical and logistical issues, which will be worked out during a second experiment, after we deliver our report to the FIDE Arbiters' Commission in September at the FIDE Congress.  Below are some feedback received from the webinar participants: - "I thought that the on-line seminar is a great idea. There were a few technical issues that seemed to work themselves out. The exam questions were good, and covered a wide range of topics, and challenged our knowledge. More time for the test would be recommended especially for those that are typing challenged. All in all it was a good experience. I do like, very much, how you kept on top of the technical issues, and your hosting. Takis is a very good presenter." David Kuhns, Minnesota USA - US Chess Federation National Tournament Director and Chair of USCF Rules Committee - "Overall, the seminar seemed to be quite successful to me. I was pleasantly surprised how well Skype and Dim Dim worked for the presentation. How cool was that -- Takis at home in Athens, Greece, presenting to attendees scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico! I was really glad that between the two weekends, I spent a good bit of time getting familiar with the FIDE web site and the handbook." Ken Ballou, Massachussetts, USA - US Chess Federation National Tournament Director - "It's amazing to me that I was taught by a guy in Greece in a seminar organized by a guy in Chicago with fellow students from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. As a whole, I think the seminar was excellent and went really well. I appreciate the opportunity to attend this seminar because I probably wouldn't have done it any other way. Previously, I've read up on the differences between FIDE and USCF and structured the U.S. Masters Championship so that norms could be achieved. Nevertheless, it was good to step through all the rules again. I think future seminars would be very worthwhile and if we could get more FIDE arbiters in the U.S., there would be more FIDE tournaments in the U.S. which would be a good thing." Kevin Hyde, North Carolina, USA - US Chess Federation National Tournament Director - "First I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for giving me the chance to take this seminar on line, I want to assure you that your efforts are appreciated and that you have my gratitude. I was thinking what I improve on this seminar, and I could not think about one thing that I would change. With this seminar on line, you are opening new ways for the FIDE family to grow and to improve the quality of the tournaments around the globe. When actions as this seminar, I hope then one day chess will be recognize as a sport everywhere and some day will be part of the Olympics. The seminar by itself was very well structured and presented, and the participants added to the learning experience. Their questions and their experience and of course on top of all this Takis' high level of professionalism and knowledge." Andrei Botez, Canada - Canadian Chess Federation Tournament Director The Internet Arbiter Seminar was a great experience. I would like to say thank you to Mr. Muradian and Mr. Nikolopoulos for coming up with this wonderful idea. A major advantage of having such seminar is that it reduces arbiter's costs to travel to a place that have such seminar. As a University student, I could not afford to travel outside my province to take the FA seminar even though it is my dream to someday obtain the FA title. So, when I saw this idea on the website, I was so excited and quickly send an email to Mr. Muradian and Mr. Nikolopoulos. Thanks to them for giving me this great opportunity to attend this seminar. Secondly, the power point slides presented in this seminar was nicely organized and easy to understand. The slides can be helpful tool when studying for the examination. Thirdly, it was a great honor to be taught by one of the top arbiter in the world, Mr. Nikolopoulos. Mr. Nikolopoulos gave many examples and it was interesting to hear how things are different in European tournaments. Mr. Nikolopoulos was also very good in answer any questions that were brought up. He also used the online whiteboard to explain some of the concepts (i.e. calculating norms, ratings, etc). Even though sometime there were problems regarding the audio (either very noisy with background noise or no sound at all). Mr. Muradian was there to fix the problem and the seminar was back in session with minimal delay. Mr. Muradian took his time to notify everybody the start of meeting. Initially, I had family vacation on the same two weekends but decided to skip them to join this Internet Arbiter Seminar. But, I have no regrets because I learned many new things that I have never learned before in my life. So, thanks again Mr. Muradian and Mr. Nikolopoulos. Simon Ong, Canada - Canadian Chess Federation Tournament Director Mr. Takis Nikolopoulos International Arbiter Chairman, FIDE Arbiters Commission Mr. Sevan A. Muradian North American Chess Association International Arbiter and International Organizer | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:51:10 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Brits and Social Media | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This seems to be ruining a perfectly good ad banner, but I suppose it's one way of emphasising the message. In case you miss it, the British Chess Championships are underway! A couple of things about the BCC coverage. First, they've got a dedicated Facebook page, and secondly, a Twitter account. Two very good ideas, especially for well-established regular events. The Facebook page allows you to publicise the event while the tweets keep those who can't make it abreast of happenings during the event. Now I know we all just miss TCG's live blogging. As it happens, I've discovered a new tool for this purpose. Google Wave. Here's how it's done. There's even a chess example here!  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:57:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chess and Marketing | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A video for an herbal supplement uses chess as a marketing tool in a rather amusing way. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:14:22 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Double Exchange Sacrifice | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
While exchange sacrifice is a very common strategical tool for achieving positional transformation, a double exchange sacrifice is rare guest in the tournament practice. The material deficit is bigger and it is harder to obtain positional compensation. In addition, the opponent can always be alert to give one exchange back and kill the counterplay, while still keeping some extra material at hand. In our example we have a setup that resembles pawn structure resulting from Nimzo-Indian or Ragozin defence. White’s position looks very appealing at the first glance. He has pair of Bishops and prepares to roll the central pawns with e3-e4. Black h5-pawn also seems to be running ahead of the time and can become target for White pieces.  White’s next move looks natural, the Knight presses h5 and supports the advance e3-e4. (...) © Goran Urosevic for Chess Strategy, 2010. | Permalink | No comment Add to del.icio.us Search blogs linking this post with Technorati Want more on these topics ? Browse the archive of posts filed under Lessons, Positional Sacrifice. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fri, 25 Jun 2010 04:59:15 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Errores en la Apertura – Minijuegos (2) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Lo veremos en esquemas de Como muchos errores, las causas son múltiples. En este caso pareciera que puede tratarse de una jugada “normal” o automática, sin tener en cuenta los elementos de la posición y lo inconveniente de esta jugada, que debe llevar a la derrota. Lo llamativo es que muchas veces no es percibido por el rival que también hace una jugada “normal” o automática. Como dijimos en nuestra primer nota (Errores en la Apertura – Minijuegos), no se trata de memorizar las secuencias, sino de entender los por qué y los procedimientos. No se trata de otra cosa que aplicar la comprensión a principios que rigen en una partida de ajedrez. Entendiendo esto, no sólo evitaremos errores sino que aprovecharemos los del rival. Hay que tener en cuenta el concepto de analogía, ya que estos recursos son válidos para cualquier momento de la partida. Hace poco un amigo me mostró una de sus partidas, donde el Negro (otro amigo) había jugado Cbd7 en una Pirc o Moderna. -Esto que jugó tu rival es un error y es conocido. En esta estructura no es bueno jugar Cbd7. Siempre da temas de ataque. Tenías que buscar, teniendo en cuenta que | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 15 Jun 2010 09:14:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Natalia Pogonina Interview For Sport.ru | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 On her blog Natalia Pogonina has posted an article from her sport.ru live online interview. Viwewers could send their questions and her answers were happily published real-time. From that interview I'd like to point out a few interesting answers: Q: Whom were you rooting for at the World Championship? Why? (Traglodit) A: I can't say I was actively rooting for someone, but I like Topalov's agressive and risky style.  This answer made me giggle for one basic reason. I was rooting for Anand the entire match. I think Natalia just had to be different from me.  Q: Do you like clubs and hanging out? (Oleg Haliulin) .A: Rarely visit them, I am not a fan of clubbing. Only in chess would such a question be asked in an open forum. Why is it we suffer such peculiarities? Q: If you became FIDE President, what would you change? (Andrey Santalov) A: Stabilize the World Championship cycle. Find respectable sponsors. Promote chess in the media, including TV and Internet. Expanding the geography of top events. Serious and constant work connected with the support of developing (in the chess sense) countries. Becoming part of the Olympics. Changing the rating system. I like all of these ideas (well, actually the last two I really have no opinion of because it doesn't seem to matter all that much). I think if she were running for office i'd probably be singing her praises right now but, alas, to my knowledge she isn't a candidate ... it just goes to show that those who are most interested in what's good for chess are busy playing. Natalia, I know you or Peter are gonna read this so here's my personal message to you: A very well answered interview altogether. Steering clear of those questions that really had no place and being prepared for the obvious (women in chess, having a family) questions. And most importantly, staying far away from the political questions. At any rate, it's always good to hear from you and you're doing all the right things to publicize yourself on the internet. I'd like to think I've helped pave the way for chess professionals to use the internet as a marketting tool but people like yourself deserve all the credit for having the sense to latch onto the idea and run with it! That's it folks. There's no more of my commentary for the day. Go play some good chess. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leon rapid takes off today | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
By Leontxo Garcia Garry Kasparov said in 1998: “Leon is a symbol of the chess avant-garde”. The central strand of this tournament has always been the innovation, in order to make it attractive to the general public: electronic boards, live internet broadcast with high quality commentators (seven times Spanish champion GM Miguel Illescas and IM Michael Rahal) and earphones for the public. The two main novelties in 2009 were a big success, and therefore will be repeated in 2010: the excellent Auditorium will be the venue, and the Castilla and Leon TV has scheduled a special coverage, including live broadcasting of some games. Such an elegant stage requires great actors, as the four already engaged for 2010. Levon Aronian, current Grand Prix champion, is one of the Big Five beyond any doubt due to a very universal style, pretty uncomfortable for his opponents, and comes from a country where chess is as popular as football.
Boris Gelfand, current World Cup champion, has demonstrated that, in top chess, being older than 40 doesn’t necessarily imply being on the decline, if you combine outstanding talent with huge homework.
Over the last two years, Leinier Dominguez has made clear he’s ready to stay at thetop of chess for a long time, thanks to his excellent preparation, professionalism and cold blood.
In 2009, Paco Vallejo went over the 2700 Elo points mark, and his bravery and creativity at the recent Linares tournament, where he was praised by all his opponents, indicate his ceiling is still far away.
The tournament rules, written by the renowned arbiter Joaquin Espejo, state the two strongest players (Aronian and Gelfand) can only meet in the final. Their respective opponents became known after the drawing of lots, which took place on Thursday, June 3rd at the Conde Luna hotel.
The semi-finals will be: Vallejo-Gelfand (Friday 16.30 CET)
and Dominguez-Aronian (Saturday, 16.30 CET).
Four games will be played in every match, with 20 minutes per player plus 10 additional seconds after each move. If necessary, blitz tie-breaks (five minute games) will decide. The Leon organizers, whose director is Marcelino Sion, maintain that social and professional chess should function like communicating doors. Even more now, when the latest scientific studies indicate that the frequent practice of chess improves the delay of brain aging, and therefore could be very useful to prevent Alzheimer’s disease, apart from what we already know since almost a century ago: chess teaches how to think. The parallel activities are consistent with that idea: a simul by Aronian, a lecture class by Illescas, another lecture on “Chess as a social tool” by journalist Leontxo Garcia, a chess cinema week and a Young Talents tournament. Despite the big economic crisis, everything will be sponsored by a balanced combination of public bodies and private companies: a clear sign of how solid this tournament is.
Link | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fri, 04 Jun 2010 08:20:26 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| De igual a igual frente a un GM de Ajedrez | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GM Iván Salgado -Yorch [A90] 1.d4 e6 Los jugadores de Francesa suelen elegir esta jugada. Siempre recuerdo un comentario de Petrosian, respecto de su partida con Larsen en San Antonio 1972, tras 1.d4 e6 y que palabras más o menos, era así: "¿Qué es esto? Una invitación a 2.c4 f5 ¿Por qué no 3.g3 Cf6 4.Ag2 d5 Ciertamente, aquí parece aconsejarse demorar d5, jugando 4. __, c6. La idea de 4. __, c6, es “desmotivar" a las Blancas a jugar 5. Ch3, que podría ser respondido con 5. __, Ae7!, favoreciendo una estructura con d6 y e5, aprovechando que el Ch3 no controla la casilla e5, con lo que, además, se puede privar al Caballo Blanco de “su" casilla f4, amenazando con que quede de invitado durante muchos movimientos (p.e. Mils Michaelsen-Eckhard Schmittdiel, Bundesliga 1997/8, que siguió: 5. Ch3, Ae7!; 6. 0-0, 0-0; 7. Cd2, d6!; 8. b3, e5; 9. dxe5, dxe5; 10. Cf3, Dc7; 11. Ab2, Cg4!, defendiendo e5 por medios agresivos; y que terminó con victoria Negra en 36 jugadas). Sin embargo, en mi ánimo estaba, precisamente, jugar contra Ch3, porque considero que no es tan fiero el león como lo pintan. Una única cosa más, antes de seguir con la partida. Para aquéllos a quienes no les guste enfrentarse en 5.Ch3 Tal y como decíamos, una vez 5...c6 Ya tenemos el famoso Muro de Piedra, o Stonewall, que es, precisamente, lo que yo quería jugar: Stonewall contra formación Blanca con Ch3. (Yorch) 6.0-0 Ad6 Esto no tiene ningún misterio. En efecto, hoy en día se juega mucho más que Ae7. Mi intención era tratar de demostrar (o de comprobar) que el Caballo de Rey y el Alfil de Dama Blancos se pueden estorbar, poniendo en tela de juicio la estructura Blanca. (Yorch) 7.Af4
Lo usual y aparentemente el mejor plan de las Blancas. Plantea el cambio del Alfil “bueno" del Negro. (luigi) 7...Ae7 Tampoco nada novedoso. Ahora, se trata de demostrar si, en efecto, el Af4 estorba al Caballo de h3, atascando la posición Blanca. Véase cómo, además de por lo dicho, el que se muevan dos veces seguidas el Alfil Rey Negro, no puede verse como una pérdida de tiempo, porque, en todo caso, podría recuperarse más adelante, con un hipotético g5, que lo atacaría, a la vez que dejaría fuera de juego al Ch3. (Yorch). El Negro tiene su plan y su idea. La textual es la elección de estos tiempos. [Es posible 7...0-0 8.Dc2 ( 8.Axd6 Dxd6 9.Cd2 b6 ( 9...Ce4; 9...Ce4) 10.Tc1 Cbd7 11.b4 a5 = 1/2 Tunik, G (2505)-Gleizerov, E (2576); RUS-Ch, Krasnodar (1),2002.) 8...b6 ( 8...Ca6; 8...dxc4; 8...Ae7) 9.Tc1 ( 9.Cd2 Ab7 +/=; 9.Axd6 Dxd6 =) 9...Ae7 10.cxd5 cxd5 11.Cd2 Ad7 12.Ac7 De8 13.Cf4 Cc6 14.Ae5 Tc8 15.Dd1 Cg4 = Illescas Cordoba, M (2598)-Vaganian, R (2600); Casino Barcelona (7), 2007 (0-1/43) (luigi)] 8.Cd2 Db6
Soy jugador de Francesa, y ese movimiento de Dama me es conocido y, además, me gusta en esta posición. Me parecía un movimiento ágil, que ataca a la vez los Peones de b2 y d4; y, por otro lado, no me apetecía experimentar con las variantes que terminan con un Caballo Blanco en f3 y otro en f4, ni tampoco con el cambio en f4; situaciones que habitualmente vienen tras 8.__, 0-0. (Yorch) [Plausible espíritu. Interesante plan. Una jugada no común, sólo encontré 4 antecedentes. Un par del IM FIDE noruego Yvan Bern, varias veces representante Olímpico, GM de Ajedrez Postal y Campeón Mundial en el 17th WCh ICCF (Federación Internacional de Ajedrez Postal), celebrado entre 2002 y 2007. Los que han jugado 9.cxd5 [Creo que es la mejor forma de afrontar el esquema Negro. De esta manera, se defienden los dos Peones. Podrían buscarse otras soluciones, pero no me disgustaban. Por ejemplo, con el sacrificio de un Peón: 9.Dc2 Dxd4 10.Ae3 1/2 Linna Asko-Bern, I (2592); Corr WCh-17th, 2002 10...De5 11.Af4 Dd4 12.Ae3 repitiendo jugadas y forzando las Tablas.; O, más bestia, con el sacrificio de dos Peones, como, en Yakovich-Bern, Bergen 2002: 9.Cb3 dxc4 10.Cd2 Dxd4 11.Dc2 Cd5 ( 11...b5) 12.Cxc4 Cxf4 ( 12...Dc5) 13.Cxf4 0-0 14.e4 Df6 15.e5 Dh6 16.Tad1 g5 17.Cd3 f4 18.Tfe1 Ca6 19.Cd6 Cc7 con juego complejo. (Yorch) Esta fue la elección del GM inglés Keith Arkell en la que parece ser la primera partida en que se jugó 8. ... Db6. Una de las posibilidades lógicas en la posición. Se abre la columna c. El Negro tiene varias posibilidades y su sufrido Ac8 tendrá más juego. (luigi)] 9...cxd5 [No es bueno 9...Cxd5 10.Cc4 Db4 11.Dc2 Cxf4 12.Cxf4 Ag5 13.Cd3 De7 14.e4 +/-; Si era posible 9...exd5 10.Cb3 a5 11.a3 0-0 12.Dc2 Cbd7= (luigi)] 10.Cb3 La jugada que salta a la vista, protege al mismo tiempo ambos peones (b2 y d4) . Acá se ve la diferencia con la variante principal 8. ... 0-0, ya que el Cd2 suele jugarse normalmente a f3. Puede decirse que ésto da sentido a la jugada 8. ... Db6 en lugar de 8. ... 0-0 No parecen mejores ni 10.e3 ni 10.Dc2 (luigi) 10...Ad7 [La “natural" 10...Cc6 no me gustaba. No parecía bueno que, tras esa jugada, el Peón de e6 quedara sin la protección de 11.Tc1 Entre las jugadas posibles, el Blanco elige la “natural" ocupación de la columna abierta. (luigi) 11...Ca6 Desde la anterior, ya vislumbré, más o menos, cómo iba a quedar el teatro de operaciones, con posibles Ab5 o Ab4, 0-0 y Tac8, y me gustaba. (Yorch) 12.Ag5 He de reconocer que esta jugada me sorprendió. ¿Yo había tenido razón? ¿Se estorbaban el Alfil y el Caballo Blancos? (Yorch) El Blanco planea la reorganización de sus piezas y mejorar su acción. (luigi)
12...0-0 [Ciertamente, me pensé seriamente 12...Rf7 sin embargo, no yo quería que mi Ae7 dejase de controlar c5, y sabía que, tras Rf7 Negro y un Cf4 Blanco, existía una posibilidad muy seria de romper mi estructura. Tras Rf7, aunque juegan Negras y no Blancas (y me faltaría un movimiento), veía que Axf6 tendría que ser contestado con Axf6, para evitar gxf6 o Rxf6?? (horrible jugada). Con 12. __, 0-0, pretendía responder al Axf6 Blanco con Txf6, antes que hacerlo con el Alfil y perder el control de c5. (Yorch); No creo que haya problemas en jugar 12...Rf7 13.Axf6 Axf6 14.Cf4 ( 14.Cc5?! Cxc5! 15.dxc5 ( 15.Txc5? Thc8 -/+) 15...Db5 16.Cf4 Tac8 =/+) 14...Thc8 15.Dd2 Aa4 16.Tc3 Txc3 17.bxc3 Tc8 = lo que no quiere decir que sea mejor que la efectuada en la partida. Lo que quiero resaltar es que el Negro tiene varias posibilidades y esto es indicativo de la corrección de su plan, la comprensión de la posición y su toma de decisiones es consecuencia de todo ello. (luigi)] 13.Cf4 Activa el Caballo. Ésta fue la idea de Ag5. Es bueno observar que el Alfil no tiene casillas de retroceso; por eso suele aconsejarse no jugar Ag5 habiendo hecho g3, salvo que la intención sea canjearlo. Esta es la valoración del Blanco cambiarlo si fuese necesario por el Cf6 y si fuese posible por el Ae7. (luigi) 13...Tac8 [Hay que pelear por la columna “c" y seguir metiendo presión sobre c5. Yo seguía con mi leit motiv: si a 13...Tac8 14.Txc8 Txc8, seguía manteniendo el control de c5, pese a Axf6 y Axf6.; Pensé como alternativa 13...Aa4 pero me pareció que 14.Tc3 solucionaba los posibles problemas Blancos: si luego venía 14...Tac8 parecía que las Negras estuvieran ayudando a las Blancas a mejorar su posición (y, si era 14...Ab4 tras 15.Te3 tampoco me gustaban las Negras. (Yorch)) ; Durante los análisis previos me parecía interesante, aunque complejo 13...h6 14.Axf6 Axf6 15.Dd2 ( tal vez mejor, aunque pacífica sea 15.e3 Rh7 16.Dc2 Tac8 17.Dd2 Ae7 18.Txc8 Txc8 19.Tc1 Txc1+ 20.Cxc1 g5 21.Cfd3 Cb4 =) 15...g5 16.Cg6 Tf7 17.h4 gxh4 18.Cxh4 Ag5 19.f4 Axh4 20.gxh4 Tg7 y no me disgusta la posición de las Negras, pero hay que animarse.; Lo primero que se me ocurrió y me parecía interesante, como dije en su momento, era 13...Aa4 14.Tc3 Ab4 15.Axf6 Txf6 16.Te3 Ad7 17.a3 Ad6 y hay un aparente y delicado equilibrio. No creo sea preferible a la jugada en la partida. (luigi)] 14.Ch5 Esto sí que me sorprendió, pero pensé: “tanto tiempo para reubicar Caballo y Alfil, ¿para ahora cambiarlos?". Ciertamente, pensé que algo debía de estar haciendo bien. (Yorch) Llamativa jugada. Aprovecha la indefensión el Ae7 y eso es un recurso táctico; planteando la posibilidad de cambiar ya no sólo Axf. No se veía nada muy interesante para el Negro. Podía haber cambiado directamente, podía haber jugado Dd3. Pero el Negro no tiene problermas, así que realiza una simplificación y tratará de generar una mayoría de peones en el Flanco Dama y explotar alguna debilidad estática del Negro (e3). (luigi) 14...Txc1 Yorch decide cambiar y parece correcto. Tiene la posibilidad de ocupar transitoriamente o no la columna c, seguir su plan y permitir los cambios al GM. El Negro debe estar satisfecho de la posición conseguida y sus posibilidades. El GM debe encontrar algún plan que desbarate los del Negro y eso implicaría asumir algunos riesgos. Marchamos hacia un pre-final y eliminadas varias piezas ver si hay chances de desnivelar. [ Ahora 14...Aa4 15.Tc3 Tc4 no da mucho y tiene varias intermedias para analizar. (luigi)] 15.Dxc1 Aa4 [ ¿Qué debía mover aquí? Creo que 16.Axf6 [Es lo mismo 16.Cxf6+ Axf6 ( 16...gxf6 17.Ah6 +/=) 17.Axf6 Txf6 (luigi)] 16...Axf6 17.Cxf6+ Tal vez haya otros planes, pero seguramente este cambio es necesario. El Af6 apunta al d4 y a b2. No parece bueno dejar la pareja de Alfiles ni tendría mucho sentido el Ch5. (luigi) 17...Txf6 [Es posible 17...gxf6 pero no aporta mucho y obviamente la textual es lo lógico. (luigi)] 18.Cc5 Lo lógico era mover el Caballo y no permitir el cambio en b3. En esta casilla genera un cambio que da alguna chance. [No promete mucho 18.Cd2 Cb4 19.Cf3 Cxa2 20.Dc5 Dxc5 ( 20...Ac6) 21.dxc5 a5 22.Cd4 Cb4 23.Ta1 Ae8 24.Txa5 Cc6 y no se ve que las Blancas puedan llegar a mucho. (luigi)] 18...Cxc5 19.dxc5
[La verdad es que no me gustaba un Peón Blanco en c5, pero lo aceptaría si, a cambio, podía llevarme el botín de un Peón (¿?). Para la textual 19.dxc5 tenía pensado 19...Da6 y, tras la defensa (o el movimiento del e2), 20.Te1 hacer 20...Ab5 y tomar mi botín. Pero la vida no era tan bella: 21.Df4 impedía indirectamente tomar cualquiera de los dos Peones, y mi gozo en un pozo.; También luego de 19.dxc5 Da6 20.Af3 mis anteriores planes se derrumbaban y no tuve suficiente tiempo para seguir buscando soluciones (iba un poco apurado en ese movimiento). Si hubiera visto lo que aconseja Luigi en sus comentarios 20...Da5 21.a3 Dc7 22.De3 f4 23.Dd4 Ab5 24.Tc1 creo que lo hubiera hecho, pero no lo vi. La verdad es, que tras el shock de no haber visto a la primera la posibilidad de 21. Df4, tras el hipotético 20.__, Ab5, creo recordar que descarté totalmente 19. __, Da6. (Yorch); Las pequeñas posibilidades del Blanco necesitan de 20.a3 Lógica. Ahora el Negro debe mostrar su idea. De paso se prepara la cadena de peones con b4. (luigi) 20...Dd4 No es la única opción del Blanco. Aunque no se ve que sean mejores y si que no sean muy útiles. [ Desde luego no 20...Dc4?? 21.Dxc4 dxc4 22.Axb7 +- (luigi)] 21.e3 Vuelve a interrogar a 21...Dd3 Mi idea era mantener centralizada 22.b4 Una jugada lógica, natural y necesaria para mejorar y activar las piezas. (luigi)
22...g5 [Ciertamente, valoré 22...Db3 pero me pareció que ayudaba a las Blancas a hacer jugadas útiles, como Da1, controlando la gran diagonal y dejando espacio a su Torre.; También estudié 22...e5 pero 23.Db2 me forzaba a defender mi flamante e5 con mi Torre y no me apetecía ni esclavizarla de esa manera ni sacarla de la columna “f".; Por contra, 22...g5 me pareció interesante: actividad en el Flanco de Rey, con mi Torre en lo que me parecía una buena posición, y mi Dama centralizada. 23.Db2 (Yorch); Como dije en su momento no esperaba esta jugada, sino 22...e5 pero como bien analiza Yorch 23.Db2 Te6 deja un cómodo juego al Blanco y el Negro tiene que estar únicamente esperando y sosteniendo la posición.; Pero tras la modesta 22...Tf8 23.Db2 Db3 24.Dd4 Te8 25.Ta1 a6 26.Af3 Ab5 27.Ad1 Dc4 28.Ah5 g6 29.Af3 Dxd4 30.exd4 Rf7 más allá de buscar otras posibilidades o líneas que la dada, a título ilustrativo, no se ve que las Blancas vayan a ningún lado. (luigi)] 23.Db2 Por fin, 23...Rg7 [Otra posibilidad era 23...Rf7 para evitar la clavada, pero, tras la llegada de 24.Tc1 El Blanco tiene alguna iniciativa, aunque nada muy concreto. El Negro debe tomar decisiones correctas y varias posibilidades. Puede esperar o puede intentar algo no tan pasivo. (luigi)
24...f4 [Aquí, lo cierto es que busqué alguna posibilidad de poder terminar merendándome el a3, pero requería mucho tiempo intentarlo y resulta que, mientras, las Blancas también jugaban. También estudié 24...Db3 pero, tras 25.Dd4 habría sido necesario 25...g4 y, desde luego, no me había metido en ese avispero para terminar cerrando el Flanco de Rey. (Yorch); Yorch es consecuente con su plan y eso es muy plausible. El GM deberá trabajar para demostrar su teórica calidad y superioridad. 24...Db3 25.Dd4 a6 26.Ta1 Dc2 27.Af3 Ab5 28.h3 Ac6 y da la impresión que las Negras sostienen la posición. (luigi)] 25.exf4 [¿Por qué no 25.gxf4? ¡Ojalá! Me hubiera encantado poder jugar contra un GM a dar mate (aunque fuera solamente a intentarlo). (Yorch)] 25...gxf4 El Blanco debe ahora jugar con precisión para mantener la ventaja. El Negro tiene un plan claro y activo para resistir. (luigi) 26.Te1 El Blanco amenaza el peón e indefenso y planea reagrupar sus piezas alrededor de ese tema y ubicada su Dama en e5 acceder a la retaguardia del Negro (luigi). 26...Rf7 [Deshago la clavada. La otra posibilidad era 26...fxg3 27.hxg3 Df5 pero no me gustaba dejar que hicieran las Blancas 28.f4 (Yorch); Tras 26...fxg3 27.hxg3 Df5 me parece interesante 28.b5 (luigi)] 27.De5 [Vi la posibilidad de 27.Af1 pero me gustaba 27...Df5 (Yorch) Lógico. 27...fxg3 [Valoré 27...Dd2 pero no me gustaba nada la idea de 28.g4; 27...fxg3 Aquí quedó la partida. El GM no movió en tiempo y se le cayó la bandera. Evidentemente, tendría que haber seguido 28.hxg3 y mi intención era seguir con 28...Dd2 Ahora me parecía mejor, aunque no podía evitar la que me disgustaba, 29.f4 Creo que habría jugado 29...Ad7 porque me preocupaba la presión sobre mi e6, que se podría incrementar, en su caso, con Ah3, aunque no ahora mismo, porque, en caso de, por ejemplo, 29...Rg7 30.Ah3 podría ser contestada con 30...Ac2 y el Peón es intocable, ante la amenaza de Ae4. (Yorch));
27...fxg3 28.hxg3 Dd2 29.f4 Rg7 30.Af1 Ae8 31.f5 Af7 32.Te2 Dg5 33.fxe6 Dxe5 34.Txe5 Axe6 35.Ag2 Rf7 36.Axd5 Axd5 37.Txd5 Re7 38.Rg2 Ta6 39.Td3 Ta4! Un difícil final de Torres y peones en el que obviamente las Blancas llevan la ventaja. No parece muy fácil encontrar el camino hacia la victoria. Una tarea que dejo a los lectores. Tal vez alguno sea capaz de demostrar si hubo mejores caminos o si ahora los hay. (luigi) En fin, no niego que las Blancas estén más cómodas y que seguramente lleven ventaja; y tampoco niego que el GM exprimiría el Final y terminaría ganando la partida. Pero, eso ya es otra historia. (Yorch)] 0-1
POSICION FINAL
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mon, 31 May 2010 10:09:59 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Errores en la Apertura – Minijuegos | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hace tiempo miraba mini-partidas y trataba de emprender la difícil tarea de clasificar errores. Los hay de todo tipo. Los hay de muy buenos jugadores y de flojos jugadores. Seguramente hay multiplicidad de causas. Recuerdo de niño haber leído una nota sobre una partida perdida por un GM (creo que holandés) ante otro GM (creo que Petrosian); por estar escribiendo una postal a la familia, quiso jugar Considero que no está mal darle un vistazo, no para memorizar, sino para entender, ya que en este caso lo que parece absurdo, responde a principios que rigen durante toda la partida de ajedrez. El mecanismo es el mismo en la jugada 5 que en la 55. Empecé por ver partidas de 2009 y lo que va de 2010, en que el error terminó en derrota en 10 o menos jugadas. Aproximadamente el 0.1% (1 de cada mil) de mi base de datos. Lo más llamativo, es que buscando en la base general encontraba una y otra vez los mismos errores. No ya los que tienen el mismo chiste táctico, sino idéntica burrada.
Greco (1600-1634), fue el mejor en su época y se lo considera el primer profesional del Ajedrez (así lo afirmaba entre otros Botvinik), ya que ganó dinero por jugar. Escribió libros de ajedrez, compuso problemas (el conocido Mate de Greco) y finales (ponemos el más conocido para que se entretengan resolviéndolo).
Juegan las Negras y consiguen Tablas. (Pequeña ayuda: los peones de columnas a o h –es decir los peones de la columna Torre-, que coronarían en casilla distinta a la del color del Alfil propio, salvo casos excepcionales –Rey adversario lejos-, no consiguen su objetivo.
En
Todas las partidas y comentarios pueden verse en los magníficos visores de la página. También pueden descargarse.
Se aceptan aportes, sugerencias y consultas sobre el tema. En caso de interesar se le dará continuidad a este tema. {iframe height="730"}visor3/visor.php?archivo=ERRORES_EN_ LA_APERTURA.pgn?lenguaje=spanish{/iframe} | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 26 May 2010 07:09:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Recursos Tácticos: Doble de Caballo 3/3 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ocho ejercicios tácticos presentandos a modo de problemas para que sean estudiados desde la propia página o bien ser descargardos y dedicarles algún tiempo más.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Thu, 22 Apr 2010 23:00:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| My Favorite Chess Books For Teaching And Learning | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top ten lists are extremely popular in modern society. Chess isn’t immune from this phenomenon. All around I see lists of the best world champions, the best players never to be world champion, the top ten games of all time, etc. Even those who seem resistant to the mass hysteria pay close attention to the FIDE rating list and the national rankings. Having said all that I’m infected with the bug myself. I set out writing this blog post to give all my readers a glimpse into my way of thinking as well as recommending some very useful books. The following list is in no particular order and certainly isn’t comprehensive. Too often I think when we evaluate chess books we’re looking for a panacea to turn us into chess calculating machines. Such a book or collection of books does not exist. However, if I were asked by a student “what book should I read about chess?” I have little doubt that one of these books would be on the tip of my tongue.  1. Chess 5,334 Problems, Combinations, and Games - Laszlo Polgar Any chess teacher worth their salt knows a little something about the training the Polgar sisters received at the hands of their determined father. This book, manual, reference, or whatever you want to call it is a glimpse into the main tool of the chess coach: directed practice.  2. Zurich International Chess Tournament 1953 - David Bronstein I discovered this book on my own some time ago and I enjoyed it as a trip through professional chess history. Years later I was discussing great chess classics with some trainers whose experience far outweighed my own and was a little surprised to hear them talk about this book as a necessity. I had accidentally stumbled upon a brilliant gem. Consider yourself educated where I had been ignorant.  3. Think Like A Grandmaster - Alexander Kotov Kotov experienced success as a chess player and teacher but he recognized that his greatest idol, Mikhail Botvinnik, really was far beyond him. This knowledge led to a great adventure that Kotov is willing to share with us. It is a good lesson to realize the superiority of others and yet have the bravery to stand up and ask “why are you better?”. I remember when I was training with Grandmaster Gregory Kaidanov he produced an old Russian copy of this book that was so used the pages were falling out. That’s as good a recommendation for this book as I needed.  4. Play Like a Grandmaster - Alexander Kotov Some of the ideas in “Think Like A Grandmaster” are a bit innocuous and this is Kotov’s attempt to bring a better understanding of those concepts as well as adding to the methods of the previous book. If you loved “Think Like A Grandmaster” you’ll love this one.  5. How To Reassess Your Chess - Jeremy Silman I can sing the praises of Silman all day but two of the most valuable concepts are the idea of reassessment and imbalances. Reassessing your chess involves a breaking down of your play and rebuilding from the ground up. Ideas that you have about chess can many times be toxic to your improvement … get rid of them. The idea of ‘imbalance’ is much simpler. Better pawn structure, the two bishops, bishop vs. knight, etc. It’s a matter of classifying advantages. Not an entirely new concept but certainly effective in practice even today.  6. Art Of Attack In Chess - Vladimir Vukovic I don’t know many people who have even heard of this book. It’s not a read for the feint of heart. You have to be dedicated to your own improvement to wrestle this book. In my early days of playing chess I called myself a “positional” player. All this means is my unwillingness to calculate led to small attacks, a preference for closed positions, and little desire for all-out assaults. It may have its faults but this book will get your mind thinking more about attack. It was more important to me that my paradigm of thinking shifted than any other help this book could have given me. It can help you too.  7. Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual - Mark Dvoretsky Many students who have come to me complained that their previous instructor spent weeks or months going over king and pawn endgames with them. Books like Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual are not for the average player. I have tried many times to read this book from cover to cover only to give up. I haven’t got the patience required and for that reason I recommend the use of the manual as a reference only. I have been congratulated many times for fighting the clock and winning in a long endgame at the club/hobby level and it’s because of this book. If you can finish it in a few sittings you’ll be a Grandmaster of the endgame.  8. I Play Against Pieces - Svetozar Gligoric Little known and unappreciated, this book stands in my mind as the book I wish Petrosian had written. I like to think of Gligoric as the Petrosian of Yugoslavia. Petrosian was certainly the better player of the two but Gligoric’s home analysis and recollection of the games in this collection is still very instructive. It’s a good manual of what a positional player should be. The key here for all players is this: If you like positional play you need to steer the game in that direction and see how that is accomplished. If you’re a tactical player loving complication and you get bored with positional games you need to know how to survive without making gross errors in your desperation to steer the game. The true genius is two sided and you have to cultivate a love for tactical and positional play in yourself.  9. Modern Chess Planning - Efstratios Grivas Grivas is a very well respected chess trainer currently serving on the FIDE Trainer Commission. This book in my opinion has only one use but it is every bit as powerful for the average to advanced player as Laszlo’s book is to the improving calculator. Namely: directed practice. With the help of Grivas the reader is guided amidst extreme complication. Improvement is inevitable if you can combat the various ideas put forth in this deceptively small volume.  10. Chess Success: Planning After The Opening - Neil McDonald Middlegame texts that are useful are rare so when you find one hold onto it. This is one of my book recommendations and it actually came to me from a student who had a book fetish. This is one of those books that grows with the reader. You see a little more each time you read it. Don’t take my word for it, take a look for yourself. I hope you enjoyed this list. I look forward to reading and replying to your comments. I’m especially interested in books that you’d recommend and your experience reading my recommendations. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hard to surpass | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 ‘What Campo did will be hard to surpass’ BY CHRISTINE MONCADA GRANDMASTER Eugene Torre yesterday said Philippine chess will mourn the passing of Florencio Campomanes, adding his contributions to the game will be hard to forget and surpass. Although shocked by Campomanes’ passing yesterday, Torre said: "Talaga namang dadating na rin ‘yan, nahirapan na rin siya, mahina na rin." He chose instead to focus on what Campomanes did to chess here and the whole world, especially when he brought two big events here–the 1978 World Championship between Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov and the 1992 Chess Olympiad. "Napakalaki ng contribution niya sa chess, hindi lang sa Pilipinas kundi sa buong mundo. His being FIDE president was in itself a remarkable achievement. He had good relations with presidents of various federations. And under his term, he focused on the development of young players. That explains kung bakit napakaraming mga batang magagaling ngayon," said Torre, who became the country’s and Asia’s first GM as a 22-year-old back in 1974 when the Philippine team finished a fighting 11th overall in the World Chess Olympiad in Nice, France. "We worked together during those days. Although the PCF (Philippine Chess Federation) was led by Bombi Aznar then, Campo was our titular head. He helped us strategize and he took care of all the team’s needs," said Torre, now 58. Along with Torre, making up the RP team in the Nice Olympiad were Ramon Lontoc Jr., Renato Naranja, Rosendo Balinas Jr., Rodolfo Tan-Cardoso, and Glenn Bordonada. That team’s 11th place finish stood as the best for the country until another squad that also included Torre finished seventh overall in 1988. "Practically we were a father-and-son tandem. But make no mistake about he, he was the godfather of Philippine chess. Almost all of the country’s best players, especially the veterans, grew up with Campo at the helm," said Torre. "It’s a great privilege na nagkaroon ako ng close association sa kanya. I won’t forget it. He was a great man of the chess world, parang Fischer," Torre concluded. Source: http://www.malaya.com.ph
FLORENCIO Campomanes, the first Filipino—and Asian for that matter—to head the World Chess Federation (Fide), died yesterday after a lingering illness. He was 83. The chess icon, who stunned the world by capturing the Fide presidency as an underdog in 1982 in Lucerne, Switzerland, breathed his last at 1:30 p.m. at Iggy’s Inn in Baguio City. “He moved on peacefully, and with quiet gentleness all around him,” said Des Bautista, who built the Iggy’s Inn with wife Auring. “He was a giant in Philippine sports and his passing created a void that will be hard to fill in.” Bautista and Campomanes—Pocams to his dear friends—had been bosom buddies since ’60s. “I lost a man who was more than a brother to me,” said Bautista. “And, if I may add, I also lost a poker mate, whose passion for and skills in the card game are rivaled only by his love for and deft-laden moves in chess.” Before his ascent to chess officialdom, Campomanes, a national master, had been a professor of Political Science at the University of the Philippines Diliman and had also played for flag and country. He was playing team captain, Philippine delegate and media reporter (he wrote columns for The Manila Times and the defunct Daily Express) in the Cuba World Chess Championship in the 1960s, with Carlos Benitez, Renato Naranja and Rodolfo Tan Cardoso as his teammates. Until his election as Fide president, Campomanes had been a virtual outsider as the world chess body was then dominated virtually by Europeans. Under his watch, Campomanes, a linguist who also spoke Spanish fluently, literally opened the Fide doors to the world—from Asia to Africa, from the Arab world to South America. Using his battle cry “One World Through Chess,” he courted nonchess-playing nations to join Fide, including the Middle East countries and such African countries like Tunisia and Nigeria and even Trinidad and Tobago. In his pre-Fide days, he produced Asia ’s first grand master, the legendary Eugene Torre, in 1973. More here.  Chess daily news from Susan Polgar  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2010-05-03T12:13:00.003-05:00 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Recursos Tácticos: Doble de Caballo 3/3 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ocho ejercicios tácticos presentandos a modo de problemas para que sean estudiados desde la propia página o bien ser descargardos y dedicarles algún tiempo más.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sat, 27 Feb 2010 23:00:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Features in Aquarium 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A new version of Aquarium 2010 (version 4.0.3) will soon be released and it’s free for current users. The new version has several new features, some of which are described below. First a quick overview, followed by more detailed description of each feature:
Besides the new correspondence chess module, most new features can be characterized as usability improvements. Correspondence Chess The new Aquarium correspondence chess module is a major new feature that gives you a unified method of playing your correspondence games on Xfcc compliant servers.
You get a quick overview of all your games in a single list, even if you have games in progress on different servers.
When you make your moves, many of the possible sources of error are eliminated. Games can be saved directly in an Aquarium database where you can check opening statistics, look up the position in endgame tablebases or use Aquarium’s analysis tools. No matter how extensive your notes and analysis are, Aquarium automatically ensures that only the move you make is transferred to your opponent and your notes and analysis will stay private. For an overview of this new module, see Correspondence Chess with Aquarium 2010. Hidden Names in Navigation Pane Another feature that is of interest to correspondence players is the new “Hidden Names” option. It specifies names of players that should be hidden in the Navigation pane (sidebar) list. Click the Aquarium button, select “Options” and then “Display Options” from the menu. Clicking the “Hidden Names” button allows you to enter names that won’t be displayed in the Navigation pane.
In this example, when a game involving “Karpov, Anatoly” is open, only his opponent’s name will be displayed in the Navigation pane. If Karpov had white against Kasparov, then “- Kasparov, G” would be displayed so you can easily see the opponent’s name. If you are a correspondence player, you might want to take advantage of this feature and hide your own name. When you are working with a database of your own games, you can quickly see your opponents’ names, as they won’t get cut off in the Navigation pane, even when you have the white pieces. How Did I Get Here? When examining a heavily annotated game, have you ever got lost in the notation? Unsure about the path you followed to reach the current position? Press the “L” key and the path will be highlighted as shown in the next image.
If you press “L” again, the highlight effect will be removed. If you move to a position outside the current path, press “L” to highlight the new path. This new feature works in the Sandbox, database game view, and IDeA Project View. Infinite Analysis Now you can highlight moves in the notation that you have analyzed with infinite analysis. This feature gives you a quick overview of the moves you have analyzed and helps you spot positions that may need more attention.
Click the dialog box launcher (tool button) in the Infinite Analysis group (highlighted in the image above). “Additional Infinite Analysis Options” will be displayed. Here you can enter the number of seconds required to mark a move as analyzed. In this example a move will be marked after 10 seconds of infinite analysis. Here is an example showing several moves marked as analyzed.
Moves that have been analyzed for more than 10 seconds are highlighted with “Engine analysis” style, which in this case has been defined to display the move in pink color. You can modify the style by pressing Shift+S. For more information about styles and move classes, see Aquarium’s Hidden Treasures, Part One. Even those who use IDeA as their main analysis tool, like to browse analysis trees looking for positions where they suspect the evaluation may not be correct. In that case, they can run infinite analysis to verify the IDeA results. Since the “Engine analysis” style is saved with the game, you can quickly see which positions you have analyzed when you open the game at a later time. This is another feature that will be useful for correspondence players who need to keep track of their analysis in several ongoing games. This is a good opportunity to remind users that Aquarium stores all your infinite analysis, as long as it is sufficiently deep.
If you hover with the mouse pointer over the move and evaluation shown in the status bar, a window will pop up showing the results of your previous analysis of the current position as the screenshot above illustrates. Now that multi-core computers have become common, and some players even have access to two or more computers, you may want to run infinite analysis on more than one game at the same time. You can always see which games are being analyzed by the green rectangle next to the games in the Navigation pane as shown below.
Here we see three games being analyzed at the same time with infinite analysis. The green rectangles help you to quickly identify which games are being analyzed. One more infinite analysis feature worth mentioning is the new Ctrl+E keyboard shortcut. It copies the current evaluation from the analysis window and inserts it as a “Long After” comment in the notation along with the analysis time. Configurable Fields in Database List Aquarium is slowly adding improved database features. In the new version, you can configure which fields are displayed in the database list.
When you want to add or remove columns, right-click over the game list to display the menu shown above and click “Select columns.” Two new fields are available for the database list: Date and ECO code. The IDeA Control Center IDeA sees many improvements in the new Aquarium 2010 version. Unlike the initial Aquarium 2010, which revolutionized the analysis features, the new version focuses on usability improvements and giving the user more information about the status of the analysis. Since there are so many changes, I break them into sections based their location. I start with the new buttons in the Ribbon and changes to how existing buttons work. Starting IDeA When you click “Start IDeA” in the IDeA Control Center and there is more than one active project, a list of the projects is displayed. If these are actually the projects that you want to analyze, just click OK.
Now there is a Cancel button in case these are not the projects you want to analyze. After canceling, you can activate the projects you want to analyze and deactivate others before starting IDeA again. Stopping IDeA When stopping IDeA you get three new options, instructing IDeA to perform certain tasks before shutting down.
If you don’t select any of these options, IDeA will stop immediately, without completing the analysis of current tasks, as it did in the previous version. Wait for current IDeA tasks to finish stops IDeA after completing the tasks that are currently being analyzed. Minimax after finish will minimax IDeA trees for all active projects before stopping. Make accurate position count in subtrees (long) is a new feature that makes an accurate count of positions reachable from every node in the tree. Note that this is a very time consuming operation and you should not use it at all for trees with more than 30,000 positions. The method used for counting is more advanced and accurate, but also different from the method normally used by IDeA itself. One of the differences is that IDeA counts each node in the tree once, but the new option may count the same position many times if it can be reached via different paths. Also, it is not affected by move colors. Therefore, the numbers you see will often be very different from those normally shown by IDeA. IDeA Presentation Options Clicking the tool button in the IDeA group gives you two new options.
Automatically show the selected task in the notation refers to what happens when you click a task in the task queue, which is displayed in the Stage Status window in project view. If you select this option, the position corresponding to the task, and the line leading up to the position, will be automatically displayed in the notation. Display a warning when there are many active projects decides if the dialog box described above is displayed when you start IDeA with more than one active project. Activate/Deactivate Project The “Active” button is now available in the IDeA Control Center. This means that you can select a project in the project list and press “Active” to toggle the active state of the project.
In this example, the project at the top of the list has been selected as shown by the black border around it. It’s currently inactive and indicated by the “Status” column and the gray characters. Clicking the “Active” button will activate the project. View Project Button The new “View Project” button, below the project list, opens the selected project.
In this example, the Carlsen-Kramnik project would be displayed in project view. The “View Project” button is equivalent to double-clicking the project or selecting it and pressing the Enter key. IDeA Session Statistics The “Statistics” button in the IDeA Control Center displays statistics about the current analysis session.
Here you can see at what time the analysis session started and the CPU efficiency. Of course you want the CPU efficiency to be as close to 100% as possible. In this case it is 95%, which means that the engines have been busy 95% of the time. The rest of the time (5%), they have waited for a task to analyze; e.g., while IDeA is minimaxing the analysis tree. CPU efficiency can be low if you are starting a new project from scratch with several engine instances. In general, the efficiency will increase if you analyze more than one project at the same time. Automatic Creation/Correction of Tree Configurations It seems that tree configurations are the main cause of frustration for new IDeA users. This problem is addressed in the new Aquarium version. If there is no tree configuration specified for an IDeA project, it will be created automatically when the IDeA Project View is opened. IDeA also examines existing configurations when IDeA Project View is opened. It checks if the fields “Positions,” “IdeA,” and “Main tree” use the IDeA tree that the user selected for the project. If not, then they are updated to use the project’s IDeA tree. In addition to this, all changes to tree configurations as well as IDeA project settings are now immediately saved to disk. The former is not limited to IDeA or IDeA tree configurations. Engine Button in QAT You can now customize the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) in IDeA view to display an “Engine” button that brings up the “IDeA Engines Setup” dialog box.
You can add the new button by right-clicking somewhere in the QAT and selecting “Customize.” Make sure that “idea” is displayed in the “Mode” drop-down list and then select “Engines” by clicking the check box in the “Visible” column. The “Engines” button (highlighted in the image above) will be added to the QAT when you click OK. The new button is available both in the IDeA Control Center and IDeA Project View. Previously, you had to switch to the IDeA Control Center and click the “Engines” button in the ribbon to modify the IDeA engine list. As before, it can only be modified when IDeA isn’t running. IDeA Project View The Project View Ribbon has several new buttons, including new statistics buttons, which give you a new insight into the analysis tree, beyond what a simple score and position count can do. The “Root Node” button allows you to add a new analysis root with a single click.
When you click the button the current position is added as a root. One of the most common operations in Aquarium 2010 IDeA is to add and remove root positions. As you’ll see later in this column, removing root positions has been made equally easy. Next we come to a feature that truly deserves its own special column: The “Statistics” group in the Project View Ribbon. It opens up a completely new view of the analysis results. This can help you to better understand where to focus your analysis resources, how likely your opponent is to go wrong in different variations, if the IDeA analysis is likely to surprise an opponent who relies only on infinite analysis, etc.
The four statistics buttons are shown in the image above. The leftmost button, Project, gives you numeric information about the project. 2D-Eval displays a chart showing the distribution of scores for the sub-tree starting in the current position. MM-Delta graphs the differences between infinite analysis evaluations and the IDeA scores. Branching charts the number of alternatives examined for moves following the current position. This helps you find positions where additional analysis may be needed.
The first pane, “Overall statistics,” shows the total passes or stages that have been completed and how many tasks of each type (”Prolongation,” “Alternatives,” and “Deep Prolongation”) have been created. Finally the results of the “False Alarm” checks are shown. The second pane is an overview of the latest “Prolongation” stage. It shows the total number of leaf nodes in the tree, how many of those were rejected because of the limit you have set on variation length and the number of analysis tasks that were generated. You can reset these statistics at any time by clicking the “Reset” button. The third pane, “Other,” is new and shows when the tree was last minimaxed, when the latest backup was created and how many positions the tree contains. The 2D-Eval chart shows the frequency distribution of scores in the sub-tree starting from the current position. The chart title in the screenshot below shows that the current score is +0.52 pawns, which means that White has a slight advantage. The chart is based on the 5 best moves in each position.
The X-axis shows evaluations, but the Y-axis the number of positions. Here we can for example see that 41.1% of positions in the sub-tree are equal. There are many things you can read from the 2D-Eval chart. In this case, we see that the distribution is rather flat across the three highest bars where the bulk of the nodes fall. If a game is played from this position, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the evaluation changes and if it does it most likely will move towards equality. In an over the board game, Black should be able to draw the position, but he has to be careful. If you right-click over a chart, you get the option to save it to a graphics file or copy it to the clipboard. There are several options available for the 2D-Eval chart. There is a drop-down list in the upper-right corner of the chart where you can choose to chart the nodes for all moves, or just for a specific move.
By default all moves are charted, but the drop-down list shows all available moves along with their score. When you select a specific move the chart is immediately updated to reflect your selection. There are also options at the bottom of the chart window where you can specify the maximum number of alternatives that are included in the statistics.
In this example, “Best White moves limit” is set to one. This means that in positions where White is to move, only the best move is considered. “Best Black moves limit” is set to five, so Black’s five best moves are added to the chart. After modifying the values, you must click the “Refresh” button to update the chart. Finally, there are a few common presets available for the number of alternatives considered for each side.
If you select “everything” all nodes in the sub-tree will be included. The other options are are displayed as two numbers, separated by a colon. The first number stands for the number of white alternatives and the second one for the number of black alternatives. If you, for instance, select “1:5″ only the best move from White will be included, but Black’s five best moves will be included in the chart. The next chart is the “MM-Delta.” It compares the IDeA scores for the positions in the tree with the infinite analysis evaluations.
The statistics are broken down by the color, so you get several pairs of yellow and brown bars, where the former represents White’s moves and the latter Black’s moves. The Y-axis shows the difference between the infinite analysis evaluation and the IDeA score, measured in percentages, which are commonly used in Aquarium when evaluations need to be converted to winning percentages. On this scale, 5-7% means that when translated to probability of winning, the difference between infinite analysis and IDeA is 5-7%. Positions where there is less than 1% difference between infinite analysis and IDeA are not shown in the chart. If you right-click over one of the bars in the chart and select “Add to Notes”, the positions corresponding to that bar are added to a note list (see the description of note lists above), where you can browse them and examine further. This feature can be quite interesting for positions where there is a big difference between infinite analysis and IDeA. The options for selecting data for the chart are similar to those for the “2D-Eval” chart described above. The third chart is the “Branching” chart. This shows you which positions have many candidate moves analyzed and which have fewer moves analyzed.
You can, for instance, take advantage of this information to decide where you want to focus your analysis. The following options are available for this chart.
If you click a point on the lines in the chart, the corresponding variation is displayed in a box below the chart. You can then click “Go to position” to view the position on the board in Aquarium. The chart can show moves for “Both Sides,” as in this example above or only for the “Current Side.” The chart can be limited to the best candidate moves, by specifying a low “Evaluation delta.” After changing delta, you must click “Refresh” to update the chart. I have only described the technical part of using the new charts above. Their practical application is much more exciting, and an Aquarium user (”buffos”) will soon publish some interesting examples of their application on the Aquarium support forum. You should definitely check the forum, because it has a lot of useful information about Aquarium. Project Status Window The Project Status window has three improvements, which make working with IDeA faster and more convenient.
The first change is that the “Analysis settings” is now a link that brings up the “Analysis Quality Settings” dialog box with a single click. Previously you had to switch to the IDeA Control Center to change the seconds/position, depth, maximum time, etc. The second change makes working with root nodes more convenient. In the example above, you see three “Root nodes” links: “52 root node(s),” “(1/2),” and “disable this root.” When you click the second link, you cycle through the active roots. The first number (”1″ in this example) shows the current root and the second number (”2″ in this example) shows the total number of active root nodes. The third link is only displayed when the current position is a root node. If it is enabled, as it is in this example, the link shows “disable this root” so you can disable it with a single click. If the root is currently disabled, the link changes to “enable this root” and clicking it enables the root node. In the previous version you had to open the Root Node List to disable and enable root nodes. Clicking the leftmost link (here “52 root node(s)”) displays the improved Root Node List dialog box, shown below.
The following improvements have been made since the initial Aquarium 2010 release: 1. The “Eval” column, showing the current score of the root node has been added. The third and final improvement to the Project Status window is the addition of four lists that you can use for storing important positions along with verbal commentary. The names of the lists indicate what kind of positions they are intended for: “Good,” “Interesting,” “Critical,” and “Dubious.” As you can see when you look at the Project Status window image above, each list is displayed as two links, similar to the root nodes, and the links work in a similar manner. The two links are the name of the list (e.g., “Critical”) and a link with two numbers separated by a slash. The first number stands for the current position in the list and the second number is the total number of positions in the list. Clicking the numbers displays the next position in the list. When you reach the end of the list, it rewinds to the start of the list. Using this feature you can quickly scan the positions in each list. Clicking the name of the list displays the “Note List” dialog box. An example is shown in the next image.
As you can see, the “Note List” dialog box is similar to the “Root Node List.” For every position, you can see when it was added to the list, it’s current and initial score (the score when it was added to the list) and the most important piece of information, your notes about the position. You can edit, copy and paste the commentary. Right-clicking on an item in the list opens a menu where you can copy or move the position to other note lists. Double-clicking an item in the list opens the position setup dialog box. There are five buttons at the bottom of the “Note List.” The leftmost button let’s you “Remove” the currently selected position, while “Remove All” deletes all positions from the list. The next button is “Add Board Position”; this is a quick way of adding the position displayed on the main board to the list. If you run into an interesting position that you want to remember, click the “Interesting” link in the Project Status window and then this button. It is disabled in the screenshot, because the current position is already in the list. When you are done, click the OK button to store your changes, or Cancel to ignore them. Once you have opened the “Note List” dialog box, there is a drop-down list below the chess board (not shown in the image above), which lets you switch between the available lists. Whenever you open a list and the current position is in the list, it will be highlighted. This applies both to the note lists and the root node list. An example can be seen in the image above, where the first position in the list is the current position. Stage Status Window The first thing you will notice about the Stage Status window in the new version is that the task queue looks different.
Instead of a fully expanded queue with one square for each task, only the tasks that are being analyzed are displayed individually. The leftmost gray square shows that there are eight finished tasks. There are two green squares, which represent the tasks that are currently being analyzed. You can click an active task to see the engine analysis. In this example, the second active task has been selected and you can follow its analysis in the space below the queue. The yellow square shows that there are 14 tasks in the queue waiting to be analyzed. One of the reasons for this change is to allow the processing of large EPD files when showing each individual task would not be practical. A new menu item has been added to the “Manage” menu in the Stage Status window.
The “Fill Subtree Power” scans every position in the tree and makes an accurate count of positions that can be reached from it. It is the same operation as was described above when the new features of the IDeA “Stop” button were described. Note that this is a very time consuming operation and you should not use it for trees with more than 30,000 positions. IDeA Notation Window There is one change in the IDeA notation window, which clears IDeA related highlighting from the notation and then displays all root positions, both active and inactive, with a blue color.
If you want to highlight the root moves and remove highlighting from positions that were manually added to IDeA, right-click over the notation window and select “Reset IDeA marks” from the menu. Conclusion As you have seen in this column, the new Aquarium 2010 version is a major update. It offers new features, such as the correspondence chess module, and numerous changes that were designed to improve the usability of Aquarium 2010. Best of all, the new version is free for current users! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:32:28 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Chess Masters Database released | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
After some time of development we proudly announce that we just released a new feature: the Masters Database. Now you can browse and search a selected database, composed only of games played by both chess masters of 2400 elo and more at the time of the game. So expect to find only the top games of the elite. You can use this tool easily. You will find a selector in the Chess Opening Explorer and in the Sear Position tools. We hope you enjoy it and find this new feature useful! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2010-04-08T12:07:00Z | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pawn Wars | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In Breaking Through: How the Polgar Sisters Changed the Game of Chess (2005), Susan Polgar mentions a game she played with her father when she was starting to learn chess.After introducing the chess board and the pieces, for some time we only played "pawn wars". That means games where only the pawns participate without the rest of the army. The goal of the game was whoever queens a pawn first wins. Then later we added the kings and playing all the way to checkmate.I had found that young children enjoy what we had been calling the pawn game a few years before this book came out. After reading that passage a few years ago, I've increased my investment in pawn wars as a teaching tool. It is a central element in my private lessons with young students. In classrooms full of seven year old children, I start with pawns. The game can be modified easily. Last spring, a kindergarten student that had been playing chess one month with his grandfather showed some promise, and his father made arrangements for me to offer some instruction. We played pawn wars with the kings. He started with eight pawns to my six--my rook pawns were missing. It took him perhaps two or three games to learn that he could lure my king to one side of the board by creating a passed pawn there, then create one on the other side that was outside my reach. After several victories, we played eight against seven. One need not use all the pawns. The classic Szén Position is a challenge even to strong players that still need work on the endgame. The player to move has a theoretical win, but precision is necessary to keep the win in hand.  According to David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess (1996), the three pawn problem--a king against three connected passed pawns--had been studied for over two hundred years without success until Jószef Szén solved it in 1836. Another variation of pawn wars that I've been using the past few weeks appears to be a theoretical draw. Remove the kings, and the player on move should win.   | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:29:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Game whips mind into top shape | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 On Chess Game whips mind into top shape Saturday, March 20, 2010 2:52 AM In the age of video games, the ancient game of chess curiously maintains a special cachet. In particular, there is an increasing recognition of its effectiveness as an educational tool. Recently, the Rhode Island Senate passed a resolution "urging the state education commissioner to support chess instruction either in classrooms or clubs in Rhode Island's public schools." Actor and filmmaker Edward James Olmos recently urged the Brownsville, Texas, school board to do a documentary film about its successful school chess program. Olmos starred in the film Stand and Deliver, which documents the use of math in motivating underprivileged students to high academic achievement. "Look at what chess has done for these (Brownsville) students," he declared. "It breeds self-respect at the highest level. It infuses them with self-esteem and self-worth." Olmos, who was similarly motivated by baseball as a youth, wishes that he had instead concentrated on chess. Chess has been extolled by many renowned thinkers. Pascal described it as "the gymnasium of the mind"; Goethe, as "the touchstone of the intellect." Source: http://www.dispatch.com Chess daily news from Susan Polgar  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2010-03-20T09:16:00.001-05:00 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Not again!? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo: Europe-Echecs
In the video of the interview, Danailov talks about whether the ‘Sofia rules’ apply in the upcoming Topalov-Anand match, to be held in Sofia next month. They will not be applied – at least not officially. But that’s no problem for Danailov:
It’s a remarkable statement: Anand – forced against his will to comply to rules that are not official; this is the future of chess, no matter what ‘old’ chess players say – their opinion clearly is unimportant and shouldn’t be respected. But the most remarkable is that Danailov says that Topalov will not only refuse to offer any draws but also will ignore his opponent altogether: “He will not speak to him.” In other words, he will drop all courtesy and normal etiquette and create a ‘non-speaking terms’ atmosphere in a match in his home country, against one of the most relaxed and friendly chess players in the professional chess scene. And why? Because of ‘professionalism’, that vacuous word all too often misused by people who refuse to acknowledge that most if not all work requires empathy and social skills – in other words, people who haven’t the slightest idea what ‘professionalism’ really means. (Here’s how one competency library actually defines ‘professionalism’: “Thinking carefully about the likely effects on others of one’s words, actions, appearance, and mode of behavior.”) To exclude all social elements from a profession is in fact the ultimate un-professional thing imaginable. It’s a fallacy Frans de Waal convincingly demolishes in his book, showing how cooperation and social interaction are absolutely crucial to succeed in any job and society, and are in fact measures by which we judge people and choose them as colleagues, friends or mates. Not so for the Bulgarians, who’ve created their own rules and apparently don’t mind to be social isolates in the chess world, as long as the results speak for themselves. What an utterly unprofessional attitude! In a similar vein, we’ve argued before on this site that shaking hands before and after a game shouldn’t actually be incorporated in the rules of chess, but instead should be respected even though they’re not in the rules – because, as De Waal shows, that’s how empathy and social skills work: intuitively, without explicit rules, automatically. And that’s why apes and other animals are capable of displaying them, too, without being able to read lawbooks or guides on ethical behaviour. It’s a thing of nature. It’s in our genes.
In his book, Topalov wrote that it was naive of him to agree to the match against Kramnik being played on Russian (well, kind of) ground, because such a match obviously couldn’t be fair. Well, it’s four years later and look who’s playing on home ground this time. Will Topalov and Danailov return the compliment and agree if Anand claimed a match in Bulgaria couldn’t ever be fair because of some kind of home advantage? Frans de Waal devotes an entire chapter on the ‘walking in other man’s ’shoes’ concept, but looking at the interview of Europe Echecs, I have my doubts if Danailov has read it. Note how he laughs during the entire interview, routinely dismissing dissenting views and announcing how the reigning World Champion will be ‘forced’ to do this and that. Does that sound like someone showing any kind of empathy or ‘ethical principles’ at all? Silvio Danailov has recently announced his candidacy for president of the European Chess Union. Heaven forbid someone who doesn’t understand the first thing about ‘professionalism’, baselessly accuses some world class players of unethical behaviour and laughingly tells others what to do, ever gets to play such an important role in European chess, even if he did show some good initiatives like the exciting M-Tel tournament and his passion for more fighting chess. This kind of destructive madness really can’t be tolerated in our beautiful chess world. Frans de Waal ends his book The Age of Empathy (I am quoting from the Dutch version) with the following words:
We can only hope this message will reach the Bulgarian team before the Topalov-Anand match starts. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:15:15 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Part 3: Finding training patterns in your Repertoire | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 In part 1 I proclaimed my new training regimen which basically consists of creating a personalized set of positions from my own games, repertoire and study material. In Part 2 I showed you how I used chess base to create my own training positions to have a set of tactical and positional puzzles themed from my own games. In this entry I will show you how I develop a repertoire data base and how I use this to create study positions. But first a brief update on the growing A.C.I.S of Caissa movement: Following an action from the playbook of Loomis, I plan on keeping the ACIS of Caaissa updates limited to THIS blog and not on my mirrored site at the greater community at Chess.com. I like the smaller closer circle of friends here as it tends to promote a more supportive environment. The "how to" stuff will get forward to chess.com. Unlike the brutish Knight’s errant DLM movement of the mid ‘00’s, A.C.I.S. of Caissa is proving to be more accessible to the “common folk” as the final circles of the MDLM method was just unreachable if you work, have a family and want to practice good hygiene. If the truth be known, most of the knights errant had modified the MDLM method to smaller circles and approached it in a more realistic manner. Loomis has joined in this universalistic approach and proclaims to be Baaaack. Steve (learn’s chess) Eddins is firing up the blog to declare his mission and thoughts. Chunky Rook has fired off a series of gif patterns worth checking out on his blog Linuxguy reviews a game he played on FICS and shows appreciation to having studied Zurich 1953 And finally, Chess tiger was lulled into this quest with this line: What pulled my attention is that one may choose his or her own study plan. So Building a repertoire database. I use chess base for a lot of reasons. One of the things I’ve done was create a blunder-rep database with games centered around my openings I play. First, I pull in games that I have studied from the classic tournaments that are in any shape or form close to what I play in my chess games. Hastings 1895, London 1924 and Zurich 1953 is not enough resources for what I am looking for. There are several ways to approach this. You can set up a position using chessbase and use the search online tool to pull games from their huge inventory. I find this tedious as I haven’t found a clean way to import the large volume of games as a result of this method. The best I was able to achieve was dumping them all into one huge game file or saving each one individually. I will use this method to find key players ( grandmasters) who play this variation but not as a means to build the volume I seek for the purpose of building a training database. I wanted a quicker method to build the base up. I use google to search for PGN or CBH data bases of specific variations. There are several websites that fill this gap. Chessgames.com will allow a search for the position and provide a collection of games to download as PGN. Chessopolis (http://www.chessopolis.com/openings.htm) is another resource I use frequently and they actually have CBH files that can import directly to Chess base. There are plenty more if you search. The trouble with “canned” data sets from some of these places is the quality of games are littered with amateur games. But my philosophy at this stage in my improvement path is that I can still learn from these amateurs. Panning for gold. Once you have a repertoire database built up, the next step is to use the search capability of chess base to find positions to study. Finding Traps in the opening to avoid or inflict: The first thing I do is to find the opening traps I want to avoid. I will set the search to find the games that end in 15 moves or less where the side I would most likely play loses.  I will create training positions described in my previous post for each of the unique wins. Some are duplicates and worth skipping over. What you get is a clear pattern of what not to play in certain lines. Optionally, you could run the engine on each of these to get some annotations and ideas what to play. I merely reference my books and make a quick note where to improve and what not to play. The opening tactical trap becomes the positional study that I solve for the aggressor. Then I look at the notes in the game centered around the failing position. This is where having an amateur database comes in handy as you will more likely have a lot of examples to chose from. On the flip side, from the same repertoire base I will change the search to games where my side wins and repeat the process. The result will build up tactical positions found in the openings of my games that I can inflict if my opponent doesn’t play exactly in this line. Positional themes start to come about from these and I get a better understanding of the opening. Finding Mating themes: Another search I will conduct in the bluder-rep is to find those games that have ended definitively with a check mate. To weed out the previous search I set the move order to a range greater than 15 to include the long games. I go through the same process of looking at wins for both sides to see the kind of attacks typical from both perspectives. I then create training positions from these making notes of the type of attack as a memory marker for the pattern. For added measure I use the same filter but instead of definitive mates, I search for results being my side to win. This will include winning endgame positions to come about in my games with higher probability. Middle game positions: There’s no way around this but to review games against masters who play the same openings in your repertoire. I am building on this with my tournament games studies and include several positions from each of the highlighted games. So far I have just over 100 positions as I build upon this. I think it’s a good start. I’d like to build this to at least 500 by Spring, but I don’t want to get stuck in the process before using it. 100 problems to start with will be a good litmus for the upcoming Pillsbury Memorial here at the end of the month.  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:50:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| D.I.Y. ( Do It Yourself) CT-ART | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In my last post, a movement was started in terms of Adult Chess Improvement Seekers. The movement has morphed from the ashes of the old Knights Errant to a new form that is calling itself A.C.I.S ( pronounced as Axis) of Caissa. A few bloggers have thrown their hats in to the ring to claim “membership” in this method-agnostic quest to improve ones play that is individually tailored to suit your ability and keep you seeking. The demographic seems to be mostly adult amateur players stuck in a non-master level ELO rating. The only real requirement is that you establish a method you can sign up for and blog about your journey. More details will follow as this movement is still on the ground floor. If you identify with this and feel like becoming a part of a growing community, state your quest on your blog and give us a glimpse of your chosen method by dropping a comment with a link. I will add you to a growing link list. I ask you do the same. ( The link list will be on my blunderprone.blogspot.com home and not necessarilly on my mirrored site on chess.com) Here are a few ACIS of Caissa members to consider to date ( note:If I left you out, it was entirely unintentional) : Wang : States his claim and starts talking Whareit is ROCKING the world with his claim ( and nice Eddie Van Halen clip) ChunkyRook : stakes a very well thoguht out claim on "yet another improvement post" LinuxGuy is foucsing on endgames and developing calculation skills Continuation of my Quest: I mentioned in my last post that I am looking at creating my own pattern training database so I can do a “circles” method training. This will consist of a mix of positions from my own games, reference games in my repertoire database and positions from my games studies. This week I will talk about the mechanics of creating training positions using Chessbase. Next time I will talk about building a reference/repertoire database and how to I plan to use it to create training positions for my “BP-ART”. Choosing games and first entry into the database: An integral part of my plan involves playing games on a regular basis. I can play on ICC, Chess.com or other online servers, but I am mainly going to focus harvesting positions form serious OTB games played under arbitration of a tournament or club event that gets rated. Going over your very own wins and losses is a very important aspect of training. I have a database of my games dating back a few years. I have decided to select only the games where I changed my white repertoire in 2008 on forward as it is most pertinent to my immediate improvement. How am I coming up with positions in my own games? Some are rather obvious. Taking time to go over the game with my opponent after a match provides the first line of input. I am practicing to improve my annotations during this phase as my thinking as well as my opponent’s is very fresh and provides valuable insight in certain positions. I start by entering the games in Chessbase, I will start with self annotations based on the post mortem analysis. ( see picture below). I double click the position to annotate and enter the text. If I want to add text before the move, I “right click” and select Add text before. This may seem basic to most my readers but for others just navigating around CB tools, I hope this helps. After I enter my self annotations and commentary, I then use a chess Engine like Fritz or Rybka to run the full analysis. I make sure I select “save old annotations” so not to over write my original mark up. I also use the “replace” otherwise I end up with all kinds of extra games in the database. Finding Positions for training. After the analysis, typically a critical position comes out. Often the post mortem has a critical position I want to recall. The resulting analysis from the chess engine will also typically pop out a few blunder checks. If the game was tight, I look at the various evaluations and look for when the equal sign starts to shift in the other direction and look at that position for clues. I will also check to see how far down the line we went in an opening variation. I may create a position from this discovery if I feel a need to improve that aspect of the game. The Ideal game will have a training position for the opening, middle game and endgame. In reality, I have games that were clearly decided in the opening stage. Not much else to learn in the crash and burn that followed unless a good defensive maneuver was passed. Making Training positions: First thing I do is create a new database specifically for training positions as I use the games database to harvest positions. This is an important step to really get the CT-ART like action. From the games database, in a selected position from one of the games, I then use the right mouse button selected over the move. I select over the “Special annotation” and it opens another drop down list. From there I select “Training annotation”  A box pops up and you can enter any text you wish. The score is usually automatically set for 10 points. Often I have a position that branches into a better variation. When that happens, the list of moves will include it. The mainline ( the bad move I made) is automatically set at a score of 10. To make the winning variation a the correct choice in training, I select the top move and demerit the score to 0 and the winning variation I increase to 10.  Now, the other thing I will do is delete moves prior and after that critical position. This helps for the focus. You can do this easily with Right Mouse Button , scroll over Delete and select from the list of options. Then I do a “save as” and select the training data base to stor the position as it will keep the whole game intact in my games database so I can go back for future reference. A dialog box will open asking for game information, Typically this has been filled during the games entry phase. What I would like to suggest is in the “annotators” tab, you enter a “head line”. It’s no coincidence that my sample position is against none other than Rolf Wetzell, author of the book “Become Master at any age”. This is my modern version of doing flash cards. Setting the headline in the annotator’s index allows it to appear in the headline. Don’t forget to save. Next time I will continue this series with how to build a repertoire to add opening positions to the training database. I hope you find this helpful as some of my readers were asking about building their own training database. Again, this is only one aspect of my new regimen. I have just begun to enter positions and almost have 50 positions set up from my own games. My goal is to get to about 500 positions in my database with a mix from my own games, my tailored opening repertoire and of course the magical history tour positions that are most pertinent to my games.  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:20:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Adult Chess Improvement Seekers ( ACIS) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 I will be stepping out of the time machine between now and through the holidays. Partly because I am waiting for Christmas before I pick up my next tournament book ( Dear Santa, I want the Grandmaster Chess: The Book of the Louis D. Statham Lone Pine Masters-Plus Tournament 1975 for Christmas). There is a large community of adult chess improvement seekers out there. You know who you are. I believe improvement is still out there for us old dogs as long as we are willing to put in the right effort. Coaching is a big benefit but if you are like me, sometimes, the financial resources aren’t there. Which books to buy, what method to choose and how to train vary with the individual ACIS. In a recent post by Eric, aka Blue Devil Knight. The question of whether the ill famed cult of the knight errants DLM have died off. In brief, and for you new comers, a Knight Errant DLM is basically an improvement seeker who has attempted to follow ( loosely) the Rapid Chess Improvement method of Michael De La Maza by doing what I call the seven circles of hell. There  was a blog community that had formed as a result and for the chess blog-osphere… this was a viral moment. Like a moth to a flame, I too, did the MDLM method and saw moderate results ( gaining roughly 300 USCF… warning results vary widely).Most of us realized the original author was unemployed and could focus the time and effort to reach the 400 points in 400 days idea. The rest of us did modifications according to our real world experience. For instance, I chose a concentric circle method, doing each level of CT-ART 3.0 seven times before advancing to the next level. MDLM, suggests doing all 9 levels sequentially and repeating it 7 times decreasing the allotted time by one half ( roughly). Some felt a smaller set of circles was more beneficial and others used a different set of tactical problems… like How to beat your dad in chess. The plus side of this method is that it is a brute force way to etch a bunch of tactical patterns in your noggin especially if you score poorly in tactics in the first place. The repetitious nature of  the MDLM method is a good way to ultimately a good way to increase your base of pattern recognition into long term memory. In his landmark book, Thought and Choice in Chess. Adriaan de Groot determined the fundamental difference between Master and amateur was the ability to recall these patterns. A master is in order of magnitude greater than that of an amateur thus, underscoring the idea of finding a way to improve your base of patterns to recall. De Groot’s study was lot more complicated than that but I don’t want to digress from the plus side of having some kind of method to increase you ability to recall and play with confidence a certain number of positions.Aside from the outrageous time commitment ( which can be dialed down to practical real-life terms), the down side to the MDLM method is that it’s like pheasant hunting with a canon. Once the circles are completed you may recall only a few of the patterns. This is because in practice, you only use a small subset of those patterns. The rest never or so rarely occur that they don’t make it into long term memory. Sustaining the 1000 tactical patterns in memory is not realistic with this method. You lose it if you don’t use it. What should one do? I believe the answer requires picking the right problem set for the individual. The best results would be to study patterns and positions that occur in your regular games based on your opening repertoire. Notice how I also say patterns and positions and not necessarily tactics alone. I believe you have to include the whole game. Making the right choice in an opening, middle game and endgame requires an understanding of position and patterns. I point back to Adriaan De Groot. He believed players went through four stages to determine the right move: Stage one: “Orientation phase” requires the player to assess the situation and determine generally what to do next. Now, whether you use a method like Silman’s imbalances or Nimzovitche’s system … there is a requirement to recognize patterns here. Stage two: “Exploration Phase” is the calculation phase and Kotov’s Think like a Grandmaster “tree of analysis” is a good example of this. Does pattern recognition help here? Sure it does. In order to evaluate a branch in your head, if you can recognize a winning position that can be reached it saves time OTB. Stage three: “Investigation phase” is where the subject actually chooses a line to play as the “best move” and then Stage four is the “Proof phase” where the player confirms the choice being valid. Here is what I plan on doing over the next couple months and will blog on my progress and efforts. 1) I will select a personal set of problems based on my recent games and put them into chess base using the training position tool and setting scores based on complexity. These will mostly come from my losses and even some wins. 2) I will create opening training positions where I have difficulties 3) I will use chess base to filter miniatures out of the database based on my specific repertoire. I will create additional problems to add from these. 4) I will select games from my previous historical games studies that pertain to my openings I encounter and find specific middle and endgame positions that are most beneficial to my repertoire. 5) As the data base grows, I will apply the circles training method ala MDLM. This is a work in progress subject to modifications. My next post will be on the mechanics of setting up my own problems using chess base as I work on the first item.  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:09:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Moving from Blogger FTP to WordPress, Part 1 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Life was easy when I set up this blog (and others) way back in May 2005 using Blogger's friendly FTP service. Then in January 22 of this year, Blogger announced that they are shutting down FTP access in March -- since pushed back to May 1, 2010 -- and had set up a blog and some migration tools to help users shift to other Blogger-supported methods. It's good to know that switching to a simple blogging method would be easy and painless -- but I don't trust Blogger now and want to maintain some of our traffic. So I have decided to switch over to WordPress (which I've been admiring for a while anyway) and see if I can continue to maintain the same web addresses for our blogs. Some things may change -- such as the RSS feeds (from what I have read) and certainly the blogging interface -- but I hope to pull off the switch with a minimum of downtime and no change to our link structure (fingers crossed). Here are some guides I have been reading on the subject, in case you are in the same boat:
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:14:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plastics firms play chess in recession - Crain's Cleveland Business | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:33:57 GMT+00:00 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Correspondence Chess with Aquarium 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Correspondence chess has changed a lot in recent years; transitioning from snail-mail to email and now to server based play. Aquarium only supports server based play, which without doubt is the most convenient method of playing. When playing correspondence chess, you must, of course, respect the rules regarding the use of chess engines. Some servers allow them (e.g., ICCF in most events), while their use is forbidden on other servers. Some servers allow the use of engines under special circumstances. As an example, SchemingMind only allows their use in “Advanced chess.” For the purposes of this column, I will assume that you have already registered and joined a tournament on one of the supported servers. Aquarium for Correspondence Players Correspondence players normally play several games at the same time and Aquarium supports simultaneous analysis of multiple games and positions using either traditional infinite analysis or the innovative IDeA (Interactive Deep Analysis) method that explores and expands critical lines automatically.
Many correspondence players already make extensive use of IDeA. The improvements in Aquarium 2010 were especially useful for them (multiple projects, positions and engine instances). Although IDeA can be used as a fully automatic tool, it really shines when the player takes advantage of its interactive features. IDeA records all its results in an “analysis tree.” This is a valuable feature for correspondence players, as they can later access their stored analysis from any game where a previously analyzed position arises. If you find yourself playing the same opening again, you can expand your analysis tree, searching for interesting alternatives, novelties, etc. The implementation of infinite analysis in Aquarium also has many convenient features (see Infinite Analysis with Rybka Aquarium) for correspondence players. Several engines can be used to analyze different games at the same time and analysis presets (see Analysis Presets in Rybka Aquarium) let you use more than one engine to analyze the same position and quickly switch between different engines and methods. The image below shows an example of three games being analyzed with infinite analysis. One of the positions is displayed on the board with the analysis window below the board. This game is highlighted in the sidebar with a blue background.
A red rectangle has been drawn around the three games. You can always see which games are being analyzed by the green rectangle next to the game in the sidebar as shown below.
Many of you will notice that this is the same icon as is shown in the status bar for each active engine. As mentioned above, both IDeA and infinite analysis support simultaneous analysis by multiple engines. In the case of IdeA, it would normally be multiple instances of the same engine. Both methods can also take advantage of analysis on networked computers as described in Networked Computers with Aquarium 2010. This means that you can combine the analysis power of several computers.
There are many other Aquarium features that are useful for correspondence players. Browsing the Aquarium articles archives should give you insight into some of them. For a quick overview of various smaller features see Aquarium’s Hidden Treasures, Part One and Aquarium’s Hidden Treasures, Part Two. The only thing that has been missing for playing correspondence chess in Aquarium is a tool for live updates of games (sending and receiving moves from the server). This may seem like a minor issue that can be solved by copy/paste to and from the server. Technically that is correct. However, correspondence players must perform this action thousands of times a year, and they need to take great care not to make a “technical” mistake, as it can easily lead to the loss of a game. It’s frustrating to see hours or days of analysis go down the drain due to such a mistake. The Aquarium correspondence play module is designed to minimize manual intervention and thereby the chance of mistakes. It accepts moves automatically from the server. When a game is saved, all previous analysis is preserved, the game is activated and you can instantly start analyzing the position. Getting Started Click the Aquarium Button in the upper left corner, select “External programs” and then “Correspondence Play” from the right pane to start the module.
The Correspondence Play module will appear on the screen as shown below.
The first step is to tell the program which correspondence chess server(s) you want to use. Click the “Server options” button and the corresponding dialog box will be displayed.
Here you can add, edit, and remove servers. Note that you can connect to more than one server. Near the bottom you can specify how often the program checks for new information on the servers (once every sixty minutes in this case). Click the “Add” button to add a new server.
Here you enter information that is required to connect to the server and retrieve information about your games. Server name is a name you choose to identify the server; e.g., ICCF for the ICCF server. You can use any name you like. Server address is the URL used for Xfcc communication with the server. You will usually find the address to use in the help file or the FAQ of the server. The correct addresses for SchemingMind.com and ICCF are given as examples in the dialog box. For your convenience, here are the addresses for the three servers mentioned at the beginning of the column. You can copy the address of the server you want to connect to and paste it into the server address field:
User name is your username on the server. As mentioned earlier, you need to register on the server through their website. Password is the password you use when logging onto the server. After filling out these fields, click OK and a list of your games will be fetched from the server and displayed on the screen as shown in the screen-shot below.
If you select a game from the list, it is displayed at the top of the screen and the current position is shown on the board.
If a game in the list is shown in bold (such as the first line in the list), it’s your turn to move. When a new move arrives, the corresponding game is shown in red type until you select the game; after that it’s shown in bold. The list above shows two red games. The list itself consists of the following columns: The leftmost column (#) shows the identification (game number) that the server has assigned to this game. Col shows your color in the game. Yellow means that you have white and brown means that you have the black pieces. Opponent is your opponent’s name. Event shows the name of the event or tournament. It is assigned by the server when the event starts. Your time shows how much time you have remaining until the next time control. Opp. time shows how much time your opponent has left until the next time control. Status shows the current status of the game. When a game is in progress it shows the current move. When a game is finished it shows the result. Comment allows you to keep notes about the game. They are your private notes and are not sent to your opponent. This is very useful for correspondence players with many games. They can use the notes to get a quick overview of the games. The notes can be used for your evaluation of the position, what needs to be checked, how you intend to analyze, etc. The Comment column is not shown in the image, but here is an example of how it can be used.
The text wraps automatically, but you can also press Ctrl+Enter to force a new line. Saving Games to a Database You can enter moves and variations directly on the board in the correspondence chess module and then send your move to the server without using Aquarium at all. However, a serious player will always save his games to the database and do his analysis there. Even while playing the first few moves, he needs to research the opening repertoire of his opponent and look up the latest games in the opening variation that is being played. So, after connecting to the server and getting a list of your games, the next step is to save the server games to a local database. First, you need to create the database. Click the “Base options” button. The “Database Options” dialog box will appear.
Here you should click the ellipsis button to the right of the “Save game to database” field. It opens up a standard Windows dialog for choosing a database name and a directory for storing it. After selecting a directory and choosing a name for the database, click the OK button. Your database will be created and you can start saving your games. There are two scenarios to think about when you save new games from the server. If you don’t have any previous analysis of the game or you don’t want to merge the game with existing analysis, just select the game from the list (by clicking it) and then click the “Save” button. The game will be appended to the database as a new game. Note that when you save the game, it will automatically be opened in Aquarium where you have full access to it and all other games in the database. This was simple enough, but if you just started to use the correspondence chess module and already have a lot of analysis for the games, you can choose to merge the server game into an existing game. This is a convenient way of taking advantage of your previous analytical work. In this case, do the following (note that this is only required the first time you save the game):
If you select “Yes,” the server game will be merged with the game you opened in Aquarium. If you select “No,” the server game will be appended to the database as a new game. If you change your mind and don’t want to save the game, click “Cancel.” Remember that this process is only needed the first time that you save this game to the database. Once you have done that, simply press “Save” when you want to update the game in the database after a new move has been made. Note that your analysis of the games in Aquarium will stay private, so there is no need to keep one copy of the game with your analysis and another “clean” copy without annotations. If you need to see the bare game score, you can always do so in the correspondence chess module. For the more technically minded, the link between your correspondence game and the game in the database is maintained in Config/xfccBasesList.xml. If you delete an entry in that file (you can find the game by its id), then that link is broken and you can re-link it. Making a Move You can make your move either directly in the correspondence chess module or start by selecting the move in Aquarium itself. Both methods are described below. Making a move in the correspondence chess module is very simple. Just make your move on the board and click the “Make move” button. You will be presented with the following window.
The move you are going to send is shown in large, red type at the top of the window. There are two text areas below the move. The one at the top shows your opponent’s comments for his previous move (if any). You can write a message to your opponent in the lower text area and it will be delivered with the move. There are four radio buttons below the text areas. In this example, two of them are active and you can use them to resign or offer a draw. “Accept draw” is inactive unless your opponent has offered a draw, in which case you would select it to accept the draw. “Claim draw” is only active when you can claim a draw according to the laws of chess. That’s all there is to it when you make your move using the correspondence chess module. You can also start by selecting your move in Aquarium if you have previously saved the game to the database as described above. Start by opening the game in Aquarium. Go to the current position in the game. Move the mouse pointer to the tree window, right-click the move you want to make (23.Nxb5 in this example) and select “XFCC Play” from the menu as shown in the next image.
The correspondence chess module will be opened and the selected move will be played on the board. Now you can submit it by clicking “Make move” as described above. It would be interesting to receive feedback from users about this method of selecting the move from the tree window. It does have the advantage that it practically forces you to look at its evaluation before you submit it (assuming engine analysis is allowed). In the image above, 23.Nxb5 has the best score (+0.00), but you would probably hesitate and recheck everything if you saw another move with a better score. If you have a better suggestion, I’m sure that the developers would like to hear about it. Conclusion The new Aquarium correspondence chess module gives you a unified method of playing your games on Xfcc compliant servers. You get a quick overview of all your games in a single list, even if you have games in progress on all these servers. The list has a very useful comment field for each game, where you can enter your private notes. When you make your moves, many of the possible sources of error are eliminated. Games can be saved directly in an Aquarium database where you can check opening statistics, look up the position in endgame tablebases or use Aquarium’s analysis tools. The combination of Aquarium’s powerful analysis features and the new correspondence chess module makes Aquarium a one stop solution for correspondence players. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:47:05 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New: Wojo’s Weapons | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The late Aleksander Wojtkiewicz was one of the most feared players in the U.S. tournament circuit. Wojo’s Weapons is the definitive “how-to” manual for learning Wojo’s repertoire with White after 1.Nf3 d5. This book is your tool to building a world-class repertoire and to achieving positional mastery. Get started winning the Wojo way! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:12:33 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Computer Workout 2.0 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Today I'd like to unveil what will be an extremely valuable training tool for those who choose to make use of it: Computer Workout. What? You've seen it before? Tried it before? No way! This is a 90% "completely" new Computer Workout, redesigned ... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:56:28 -0800 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Recursos Tácticos Doble de Caballo 2/3 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Diez ejercicios tácticos presentandos a modo de problemas para que sean estudiados desde la propia página o bien ser descargardos y dedicarles algún tiempo más.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sat, 27 Feb 2010 23:00:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New: Chess Opening Essentials 4 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The final volume of the Chess Opening Essentials series focuses on 1.c4 / 1.Nf3 / Other First Moves. It gives a flavour of how every opening works and explains the similarities with other openings as well as the differences. An indispensable tool for understanding the basics. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:05:13 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chess in School | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| For 2010, Amaroo School (in Canberra, ACT) has added chess to the school curriculum. Each 3,4 and 5 grade classes (250+ kids in total) has 1 hour of chess per week one of its regular subjects. The classes are run in a specialised chess classroom, which is fitted out with sets, posters and will soon have a smart-board system installed. The classes are taught by one of the schools teachers, who has put together a chess course for the year. The school is also running 2 lunchtime chess clubs (one for primary school and the other for high school) and are getting 60+ children to each session. Of course the aim of the program isn't just to get more kids playing chess (although that is always a nice goal to achieve) but to also use chess as a tool to improve the educational outcomes of the school's students. At the school's Parent Information evening, the listed benefits of the program included improved concentration and problem solving skills, as well as better memory and strategic thinking. Hopefully the program will produce masses of happy, smart, chess playing kids (including my daughter) and that its success will encourage other schools in Canberra to implement similar programs.  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Thu, 25 Feb 2010 12:44:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Arte Visual - Imaginación Creativa | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 En un primer acercamiento al tablero hay una percepción física y una atracción por la disposición y los movimientos de las piezas, también por la relación sutil entre éstos y las casillas. Este arte visual impacta en el "ojo de la mente" y allí, la imaginación creativa los toma y transforma. Todo este proceso es arte porque es creación. Y es dinámico porque transforma la posición en una nueva, que a su vez genera un nuevo proceso y una nueva obra de arte visual. La maravilla del ajedrez es que este arte es obra de cualquier simple jugador y tan válido como el de Carlsen. Simplemente porque genera satisfacción al creador. Cada uno en su nivel podrá disfrutarlo. El problema creo que refleja plenamente esto y es una gran combinación de arte visual e imaginación. Su autor, Lev Ilich Loshinsky, fue presentado en nuestro anterior: " El Blanco debe desalojar la casilla d4, pero para ello necesita antes una sutil jugada que permita controlar dos casillas blancas imprescindibles para que el Rey Negro no escape. Recuerden que es sutil y que el procedimiento permitirá crear siempre una doble amenaza sin respuesta. No es fácil, creo, pero es cuestión de ponerle empeño y ganas. Recuerdo que la primer jugada no es jaque. Todas las piezas cumplen un objetivo, por eso, si bien hay dos piezas que podrían cumplir la función, una está cumpliendo una función defensiva. Claro que hay varios mates en 4 y seguramente en más también y que las Blancas ganan. Pero hay que encontrarlo en tres y para eso sólo sirve una única movida. La segunda movida, también es única (no a que es una sola, sino ante las diferentes respuestas del Negro no habrá 2 sino 1). La jugada que da mate también es única.{iframe height="730"}visor3/problema.php?archivo=Problema-Arte Visual.pgn{/iframe}
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:00:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| More useful studies | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Using studies as a training tool is (a) quite effective and (b) not that popular. As with other chess problems (in the classical sense) chess players tend to shy away from 'unreal' positions. But it is only looking at 'normal' positions, and 'normal' moves that can cause the biggest blunders.The diagrammed position is from a game played at Street Chess last week. It was one of the last games to finish for the round, the crowd had gathered round, and White was running short of time. No problems. With the study like 1.Qa4 (resisting the usual urge in Queen endings to check like a maniac) White set up a mate in 1, and iced the game.  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:41:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Book Store Events in RP | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Good news from Filipino chess writer Bobby Ang:The National Book Store is putting together a series of chess tournaments aimed at kiddies (two categories: 15-under and 11-under) to be held at the Robinsons Galleria Activity Center starting in March. National Book Store wants to use chess as a marketing tool for itself (makes sense, chess and books have an intellectual bent) by sponsoring a series of large (200 participants) tournaments every six months, then between those tournaments a smaller tournament every month (about 40 participants). The idea is to attract and encourage our younger players and give them a venue to learn chess and to develop their skills.Read more. When I entitled my post "Darwin Ducks Out", I had no idea that the guy was going to take it so literally. He is reported to have withdrawn from Aeroflot going into the eight round. Compatriot Wesley, on the other hand, performed creditably and finished with 5 points.  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:36:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New in Chess Top 5 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:30:22 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| GM Moskalenko responds to ChessVibes review of Revolutionize Your Chess | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In his review of Revolutionize Your Chess our reviewer Arne Moll wrote that he didn’t like the book. He used strong words, like ‘amazingly silly’, ‘rather confusing’, ‘extremely simplistic’ and ‘hopelessly flawed’. Here’s GM Moskalenko’s reaction:
Update 14:40 CET: meanwhile Arne Moll has responded in the comments – we’ll give it here as well:
Links | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:43:03 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defensa Holandesa - La sortida aguda de alfil | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
por Viktor Moskalenko
''Si tu oponente amenaza con jugar la Defensa Holandesa, no impides que lo haga!'' - 9º Campeón del Mundo Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian (1929-1984). Obviamente a Tigran Petrosian haya gustado el lado blanco de dicha Defensa, pero si Usted no está bien preparado para una larga discusión teórica en contra de variante Leningrado o sistema Stonewall, o si simplemente quiere sorprender a su rival, entonces la jugada original 2.Ag5!? podría ser una opción digna de confianza para su repertorio.
El verano pasado, durante el abierto tradicional en Sitges 2009, he jugado contra el líder del torneo (7 de 7), Gran Maestro y el ex campeón sueco Lars Karlsson: 
Juega el blanco (15.?) Después de una apertura fácil para mí, ha surgido una posición deseable: lo que permitió ir a ganar con un ataque imparable de 'Gran Prix'.{iframe height="580"}visor3/viktor.php?titulo=Moskalenko,V - Karlsson,L 1-0&archivo=/visor3/pgn/viktor.pgn{/iframe} | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:11:42 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Morning Minutes: Feb. 10 - Pembroke Mariner & Reporter | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 10 Feb 2010 09:00:43 GMT+00:00 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The role of computers in preparation | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Screenshot: Debra Littlejohn Shinder Mainstream media have recently started covering chess a bit more, mainly because of Magnus Carlsen’s rise to the top. In the Philippines they have their story (Wesley So), in the Netherlands we have ours (Anish Giri), and of course there are more examples of very young chess players becoming strong grandmasters. The general explanation of this development is the increasingly important role of the computer in the world of chess. But how does this work exactly? How can someone who’s not into chess, but a little into computers, understand what’s going on in our scene? At first it seemed very surprising that Hikaru Nakamura, the reigning US champion and currently the world’s number 28 (but 17th on the live rating list), is working with Kris Littlejohn as his second. Littlejohn is not a GM, not even an IM. But from the start Nakamura has made clear that this doesn’t really matter for him, and that he’s very happy with Littlejohn’s work.  Hikaru Nakamura and Kris Littlejohn at the NH Chess Tournament in August 2009 Debra Littlejohn Shinder, a technology consultant, trainer, and tech writer, wrote an article for TechRepublic in which she explains how chess players actually work with computers, and how her son Kris works for preparing Hikaru well. TechRepublic is an online trade publication and social community for IT professionals, designed to provide timely and relevant advice, best practices, and tools for the day-to-day needs of IT decision-makers. A fragment:
You can read the full article here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:09:08 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Software für Blindschach-Übungen | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Mikhail Tal 1968 beim Blindspiel (Screenshot vom Video - siehe Text) Darbietungen von Blindschach und besonders Blind-Simultan-Schach sind immer eine Attraktion. Ein solches Spektakel fand vor zehn Jahren in Berlin statt, als Robert Hübner im Blindsimultan an acht Brettern gegen die erste Mannschaft des SC Kreuzberg antrat und fünf Siege und drei Remis erzielte. Harald Fietz hat darüber einen sehr schönen Bericht – “Blinder Durchblick” – geschrieben. Spektakulär ist auch das jüngst aufgetauchte Videozeugnis eines Blindsimultans von Mikhail Tal an zehn Brettern. Steve Giddens hat das Geschehen in einem Chessbase-Artikel zusammengefasst und teilweise ins Englische übersetzt. Bei dem Video handelt es sich übrigens um einen Ausschnitt aus dem 1968 gedrehten Dokumentarfilm “Seven Steps beyond the Horizon”. Warum Blindschach-Training? Das Spiel ohne Ansicht des Brettes ist beeindruckend. Aber auch am Brett müssen die Spieler gewissermaßen “blind” spielen. Denn die sichtbaren Bewegungen der Figuren auf dem Brett sind ja nur die Spitze des Eisberges. Größtenteils bleibt das Geschehen einer Schachpartie unsichtbar und spielt sich nur in der Vorstellungswelt der Spieler ab. Im Aufsatz “Die Psychologie des Schachspielers” (1909) schreibt Siegbert Tarrasch: “Eigentlich ist ja auch die gewöhnliche Partie, ist ja auch das ganze Schach Blindspiel. Man geht von einer gegebenen sichtbaren Stellung aus, kommt aber dann beim Berechnen auf eine ganz andere, die man sich völlig deutlich, durchaus plastisch vorstellen muss, um von ihr aus seine Berechnungen fortzusetzen. Man muss also völlig von der auf dem Brette sichtbaren Stellung abstrahieren, ja im Gegenteil, diese Stellung wird nur störend, denn sie erschwert die plastische Veranschaulichung der im Geiste geschauten Zukunftsstellung.” (zitiert nach W. Kamm: Siegbert Tarrasch. Leben und Werk, Unterhaching 2004, S. 562)  Siegbert Tarrasch 1908 Tarraschs Schilderung lässt an Jonathan Tisdall’s “Stepping-Stone-Technik” denken. Aber das ist ein Thema für einen anderen Beitrag. Hier möchte ich Tarraschs Hinweis folgen, dass die sichtbare Stellung durchaus zum Störfaktor werden kann. In seinem Artikel “Reflections on Becoming a Master Player” (2000) erinnert sich Kevin Spraggett an die 80er Jahre. Damals sorgte eine neue Generation sowjetischer Spieler für Aufsehen, weil sie während der Partie weniger auf das Brett als an die Decke, in die Zuschauer oder auf einen Punkt in der Ferne blickten. Die Ergebnisse waren allerdings ziemlich beeindruckend. Für Spraggett kombiniert diese neue Methode die gewöhnlichen Techniken (“usual ‘visual’ chess thinking”) mit Techniken des Blindspiels (”‘blindfold’ chess thinking“). Der Erfolg der neuen Methode beruht laut Spraggett darauf, dass sich die beiden Techniken ergänzen, man also mit ihnen zusammen besser “sieht” als mit einer allein. (”There are many things you don’t ’see’ in chess which you do ’see’ when you close your eyes, and of course, the reverse is equally true. I suggest you try some experiments!“) Laut Spraggett verwendeten diese von sowjetischen Trainern neu entwickelte Methode z. B. Shirov, Ivanchuk, Gelfand und auch Anand. Blindschach dürfte mithin für jeden Schachspieler ein wichtiges und spannendes Thema sein! Das Brett und immer nur das Brett Womit könnte ein Blindschach-Training beginnen? Hinweise dazu lassen sich bei Tarrasch in “Das Blindspiel” (1897) finden : “Ein Punkt ist nicht zu übersehen. Wer blind spielen will, muss das Brett beherrschen; er muss von jedem Felde die Farbe kennen, muss wissen, wohin von jedem Felde aus ein Springer ziehen kann, muss wissen (abgesehen davon, dass er es geistig sehen wird), dass ein Läufer auf b1 nach h7 zieht etc. Das Brett und immer nur das Brett! Die Figuren sind viel weniger wichtig! Am Brett ohne Figuren spielen, ist sehr leicht, kaum schwerer als mit Figuren.” (zitiert nach W. Kamm: s.o., S. 567) Das Brett und immer nur das Brett, schreibt Tarrasch. In der Tat ist es bereits für Anfänger und Kinder wichtig, sich mit dem Schachbrett vertraut zu machen. Dazu gehört die Benennung der Felder, der Linien, Reihen und Diagonalen, die Geometrie des Schachbretts, die Zugmöglichkeiten der Figuren sowie deren Wirkungen und Wechselwirkungen etc. Und vertraut macht man sich durch kleine Übungen, sowohl auf dem Brett als auch blind.  Kevin Spraggett (Foto von Mikel Larreategi) Auch Spraggett betont im bereits genannten Aufsatz “Reflections on Becoming a Master Player” die Bedeutung des Schachbretts: “It has always surprised me how little time books spend explaining the importance of the chessboard in itself. It has an importance more than just being the ‘table’ onwhich the game takes place… Knowing the characteristics of the board is extremely important. Books spend too much time on the pieces, not realizing that much is missed by neglecting a closer study of the relationship of the board with each separate piece.” Wie gesagt, das Studium und die Verinnerlichung von Schachbrett und der Beziehungen der Figuren und Brett ist von Anfang an ein wichtiger Bestandteil der Schachausbildung. Tatsächlich haben aber selbst erfahrene Spieler hier oft Defizite. Dazu Spraggett: “A lot of players have difficulty visualizing a chess board. You can ask them to close their eyes and then quiz them on squares (what colour they are), on diagonals (what squares are attached to them), files, etc. My experience as a trainer is that many players have difficulty doing so. This is compounded by the popularly held belief that it is unimportant…” Trainieren der schachlichen Einbildungskraft (Visualisierung) Aber die Vertrautheit mit dem Schachbrett ist wichtig. Und Spraggett erklärt auch warum das so ist. Beim Schachspielen sehen wir nicht nur mit den Augen, sondern auch mit unserem Geist. Wobei es hier nicht auf die Worte ankommt. Wichtig ist, dass wir in unserer Vorstellung das Brett nicht als Ganzes sehen, sondern zerlegt in Teile. Es ist daher nötig, diese Fragmente sozusagen immer zusammen denken. Und damit dies funktioniert, müssen wir uns mit dem Schachbrett und den Figuren sowie deren Wechselwirkungen so gut vertraut machen, dass das Zusammendenken möglichst automatisch und fehlerlos abläuft. In Spraggetts Worten: “But it is important because of how the brain works! The thinking process in chess involves the use of our eyes as well as our ”mind’s eye”. Our mind’s eye sees the board in a different way, as it can not ‘visualize’ the board as a whole it must break the board down into components, with each component being geometrically related to the others. If we haven’t consciously understood the geometry of the board sufficiently and all of the implications with respect to each and every piece, then our mind’s eye (our way of imagining the board) will not appreciate the whole board, and hence certain tactical oversights may go unnoticed.” Hilfsmittel für Blindschach-Übungen Womit wir endlich bei den angekündigten Hilfsmitteln für das Blindschachtraining wären. Im Folgenden möchte ich kurz eine Website und zwei Programme vorstellen, die Übungen zum Vertraut werden mit dem Brett bieten. (Die Wiedergabe der Bilder und Screenshots erfolgt mit der freundlichen Genehmigung der Autoren.) Kurz ein paar Bemerkungen zum Vokabular: Im Englischen spricht man von “Vision”, “Board Vision” oder “Visualisierung”. Im Deutschen wird Visualisierung eher im engeren Sinn von Verbildlichung gebraucht, einer Umsetzung von Daten oder Sprache in Bilder. Beim Schach genügt vielleicht der alte Ausdruck “Vorstellung”. Allerdings gefällt mir “Einbildung” noch besser. Etwas altmodisch ließe sich von Trainieren der “schachlichen Einbildungskraft” sprechen. Wobei heutzutage für die gleiche Sache allerdings “Fantasie” und Trainieren der “schachlichen Fantasie” gebräuchlicher sind. Wie auch immer. Wichtig ist, dass es sich um eine aktive, schöpferische Tätigkeit handelt, die sich üben lässt! Die “Chess Drum-Chess Academy” von Daaim Shabazz Die Website “The Chess Drum” bietet im Rahmen ihrer “Chess Academy” eine ganze Reihe von Aufgaben. Klicken sie auf diesen Link und scrollen sie weit hinunter. Dann kommen Sie unter der Überschrift “Improve your Chess Skills!” zur Rubrik “Board Vision” (siehe Screenshot unten). In drei Tests finden Sie jeweils in vier verschiedenen Abschnitten insgesamt 155 Übungen.  Übersicht der "Board Vision"-Aufgaben auf "The Chess Drum" (Screenshot) Klicken Sie auf einen der Tests, kommen Sie zu den Abschnitten. Ich habe hier “Test 2″ gewählt (siehe Screenshot unten). Unter “Square Dancing” finden Sie Fragen nach Felderfarben, etwa: Ist das Feld c6 ein weißes oder schwarzes Feld? Auch bei “Board Stretch” gibt es solche Fragen, allerdings auf einem größeren Brett. Eine sehr schöne Idee!  Übersicht der 50 zum "Test 2" gehörigen Aufgaben (Screenshot) Bei “Board Geometry” kommen die Figuren ins Spiel (siehe Screenshot unten). Sie werden z. B. gefragt, von welchen Feldern ein Springer sowohl nach e6 als auch nach h7 ziehen kann.  Zwei Fragen aus dem Bereich "Board Geometry" (Screenshot) Im Abschnitt “Blindfold Chess” geht es dann um Blindspiel-Aufgaben (siehe Screenshot unten). Sie werden etwa gefragt, welchen Zug Sie als Weißer in der Stellung nach 1.e4 e5 2.Sf3 f5 3.exf5 Kf7 4.Sx5+ Kf6 5.d4 Kxf5 6.Dg4+ Kf6 machen würden.  Eine Frage aus dem Bereich "Blindfold Chess" Für die Eingabe der Lösungen genügt bei den Felderfragen ein Klick auf den entsprechenden Button. Bei den weiteren Aufgaben müssen Sie ein Feld, eine Zahl oder einen Zug in ein Feld eintragen. Dabei ist zu beachten, dass Sie die Vorgaben beachten (englisches Buchstabenkürzel für die Figuren, x für Schlagen etc.). Eine Kurzanleitung finden Sie auf der Webseite. Feedback erhalten Sie entweder sofort, oder indem Sie nach Eingabe der Lösungen einen Button klicken. Die Auswertung erscheint dann in einem Pop-up-Fenster. bei mir hat alles gut funktioniert. Fazit: Wer solche Übungen noch nicht ausprobiert hat, findet hier eine bequeme Möglichkeit zum Einstieg. Ein tolles Angebot! Der “Chess Blindfold Trainer” von Alf Magne Kalleland Wie die Übungen bei “The Chess Drum” ist auch der “Chess Blindfold Trainer” von Alf Magne Kalleland in Javascript geschrieben. Sie bearbeiten die Aufgaben ebenfalls im Browser. Hier der Link für die Online-Demo. Sie können sich die Dateien aber auch herunterladen und lokal auf Ihrem Rechner aufrufen. Hier der Link zum Programm auf dhtmlgoodies.com und hier der Link zu Beschreibung und Anleitung. Ich habe das Programm heruntergeladen und auf meinem Rechner die html-Datei des Programms mit dem Browser geöffnet (siehe Screenshot unten). Klicken Sie auf das Bild, kommen Sie zur Online-Demo, die genauso aussieht. Rechts sehen Sie, welche Übungen der Blindfold Trainer anbietet. “Color of Squares” sind Fragen zur Feldfarbe, “Diagonals” und “Knight Moves” zu Figurenbewegung und Brett. “Correct Move” und “Correct move (from sequence)” sind Aufgaben zum Blindschach. “Mixture” bietet eine Mischung aus allen. Wie viele Aufgaben es insgesamt sind, habe ich nicht gezählt. Aber es sind eine ganze Menge. In der Anleitung wird zudem beschrieben wie man selbst weitere Übungen ergänzen kann.  Die Oberfläche des "Blindfold Chess Trainers" (Screenshot - zur Demo auf das Foto klicken) Ein Beispiel für eine “Diagonals”-Aufgabe (siehe Screenshot unten). Liegen die Felder c8 und g4 auf einer Diagonale?  Frage aus dem Bereich "Diagonals" Und noch ein Beispiel aus dem “Correct Moves”-Abschnitt (siehe die beiden unteren Screenshots). Eine Stellung wird angesagt und der nächste Zug ins Feld eingetragen werden. Nach Bestätigung der Eingabe öffnet sich eine Antwortseite, die das Ergebnis und die richtige Lösung mitteilt.  Frage aus dem Bereich "Correct Moves"  Antwort zur Frage aus dem Bereich "Correct Moves" Fazit: Der “Chess Blindfold Trainer” ist ein schönes kleines Programm. Praktisch ist zudem, dass man selbst eigene Aufgaben hinzufügen kann. Ausprobiert habe ich dies aber noch nicht. Die “Chess Training Tools” von Dietrich Kappe Die “Chess Trainings Tools” (aktuelle Version ist 1.4) sind in Java geschrieben. Daher muss die Java-Laufzeitumgebung auf Ihrem Rechner installiert sein. Diese können Sie hier herunterladen. Diese “Chess Trainings Tools” finden Sie zum Download entweder hier auf der Site von sourceforge.net oder hier auf der Site “Chess Training” von Dietrich Kappe. Nach dem Entpacken starten Sie einfach die jar-Datei und schon sehen Sie die Programmoberfläche mit geöffneter Hilfe-Datei vor sich (siehe Screenshot unten).  "Chess Training Tools" mit geöffneter Hildedatei (Screenshot) Alles ist sehr übersichtlich und aufgeräumt. Für leichte Verwirrung sorgen nur die verschiedenen Namen für das Programm: “Chess Training Tools 1.4″ kennen wir ja schon. Unter dieser Bezeichnung haben wir es gefunden und heruntergeladen. In der Titelleiste heißt es jetzt “Chess Trainer 1.4.0″. Das klingt etwas anders, aber noch ähnlich. In der Hilfedatei ist nun aber die Rede von “CVT” für “Chess Visualisation Trainer”. Ich vermute, dies rührt von der gemeinsamen Herkunft mit dem kommerziellen Programm “Chess Eye” her. Eine teilweise freie Ergänzung ist “CVT Online“, wo nach Anmeldung jeder online Aufgaben bearbeiten kann. Allerdings ist die Menge der Aufgaben beschränkt. In welcher Weise, habe ich allerdings nicht ganz verstanden. Auch über die Geschichte von “Chess Eye” und “Chess Training Tools” weiß ich nichts zu berichten. Zurück zum Programm, das so einiges zu bieten hat. In der Menüleiste am oberen Rand können Sie die gewünschten Aufgaben auswählen. “Color”, “Same Color”, “Diagonal 2″, Diagonal 3″, “Knight” und “Knight 2″ beinhalten die uns schon bekannten Übungen zu Brett und Figuren. Daneben gibt es aber noch “Mate”, “Vision”, “Blindfold” und “Vince”. Bei “Mate” bekommen Sie eine Stellung in Schriftform (Stellung der Figuren) und müssen angeben, ob es sich um eine Mattstellung handelt oder nicht. D. h., Sie müssen die Stellung in Ihrer Fantasie aufbauen und prüfen. Und bei “Vision” bekommen Sie in Diagrammform die Stellung von König und Turm vorgegeben und müssen angeben, von welchen Feldern ein Doppelangriff durch die Dame möglich ist (siehe Screenshot unten). Im Beispiel habe ich nur ein Feld markiert (grün). In der Lösung werden mir meine Auslassungen gezeigt (rot).  Übung "Vision" - Der Doppelangriff der Dame auf e5 wurde erkannt (grün), die beiden anderen auf c7 und g3 übersehen (rot). In der Lösung werden diese Fehler angegeben. (Screenshot) So weit, so gut. Der Hit des Programms von Dietrich Kappe sind aber die Übungen “Blindfold” und “Vince”. Bei “Blindfold” kann man selbst eine beliebige Partie im pgn-Format einfügen und wird dann Zug für Zug blind durch die Partie geführt, wobei man nach jedem Zug immer wieder fünf Fragen zur aktuellen Stellung beantworten muss (siehe Screenshot unten).  Übung "Blindfold" - Zur Stellung nach dem 10. Zug sind fünf Fragen zu beantworten (Screenshot) Diese Übung hat einiges Potential. Wie man damit am günstigsten arbeitet, weiß ich noch nicht. Z. B. könnte man die Fragen auch nur alle drei oder fünf Züge beantworten. Oder man könnte nach verschiedenen Kriterien ganz bestimmte Partien auswählen. Die letzte Übung ist “Vince”, bei der man die Figuren in Teilen des Brettes oder auf dem ganzen Brett unsichtbar machen kann. Vor allem aber kann man gegen eine eingebaute (nicht sehr starke) Engine spielen und dabei eine Verzögerung der Darstellung einstellen. Dann wird auf dem Brett die bis zu sieben Halbzüge zurück reichende Stellung angezeigt. Man spielt real also immer “vor” der Brettstellung. Eine interessante Übung. Ich glaube, das kommerzielle Programm “Chess Vision Trainer” (man muss bei den Namen echt aufpassen!) von www.chesstechno.com ist auf dieser Idee aufgebaut. Fazit: Die “Chess Training Tools” sind eine tolle Sache und stehen dazu noch unter der GNU GPL. Ein Dankeschön an den Autor. Nachtrag Nach Fertigstellung des Artikels habe ich noch ein paar Online-Übungen im Web entdeckt, und zwar bei www.chessvideos.tv als Chess Visualization Trainer. Weitere Hinweise, Ergänzungen oder Kritik sind sehr erwünscht. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:21:58 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| La Belleza de este Problema... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Autor: luigiferri La Belleza de este Problema radica en la Profundidad y la Estructura del Pensamiento necesario para resolverlo." (J'onathan Levitt & David Friedgood) Lev Ilich Loshinsky, compositor de ajedrez sovietico (17 enero 1913-19 de febrero de 1976). De una creatividad excepcional y de alta tecnica compuso problemas en los que incorporo complejas y originales ideas en forma muy artistica. Profundidad tematica y la habilidad tecnica es lo que se encuentra en su obra. Cerca de 400 de sus obras fueron distinguidas, de ellas 166 recibieron el primer premio. ¿Como se hace para resolver el problema?
Comprendiendolo. Invirtiendo tiempo en desentranar su mecanismo. No se trata de algo magico ni una inspiracion que viene de no se donde. Hay que pensar y determinar para que esta cada pieza y entender que cada una tiene una funcion.
Es un ejercicio en este caso y una realidad necesaria frente al tablero para cualquier posicion. No es muy dificil ver que Ce6 seria mate sino estuvieran el Ac4, el peon f7 y la propia T. Si uno no mira panoramicamente se da cuenta que la Db8 ... {iframe height="580"}visor3/loshinsky_mateentres.php{/iframe} | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:02:19 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Aquarium’s Hidden Treasures. Part Two | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Aquarium 2010 has been released. In comparison to the initial Aquarium version, which was released last year, it is clear that progress has been very rapid, both in improvements to existing features and the addition of new features and stability. Its database feature started out with a limit of two open bases, but now the limit has been removed and database performance has been improved. Aquarium has also taken the lead on publishing iBooks and HTML content for web pages and blogs. That’s quite a change from the initial version, which didn’t even have a printing feature. Aquarium has been a leading analysis tool from the beginning; nevertheless, the new version shows huge improvements in this area, as you can see by reading last month’s column about IDeA. The new Aquarium also emphasizes analysis on networked computers; a new feature that can give a big boost to IdeA, as well as advanced infinite analysis. This month I’ll continue with Aquarium’s hidden treasures, including some new features in Aquarium 2010 that have not received much attention yet. Drag and Drop Aquarium 2010 databases have extensive support for drag and drop operations. You can drag and drop individual games, a list of games, and even whole databases. Games can be dragged between different types of databases. In many cases it is easiest to use the navigation tree in the sidebar for dragging and dropping. The graphic below shows the navigation tree with two open databases: elite2008 and hugebase. Each of them has one open game. The game Greco J. - Amateur in hugebase is being dragged into elite2008.
Drag and drop a single game As a result of this operation, the game will be copied from hugebase and appended to elite2008. When dragging games, the blue background highlights the source and the destination. The source has white letters on a blue background and the destination has dark-blue letters on a blue background. In the next example, the same two databases are open, but this time we are looking at a subset of hugebase; a list of only three games instead of the full database. This list is being dragged into elite2008.
Drag and drop a list of games The three games in the hugebase list will be copied and appended to elite2008. This same method can be used to update a database with games you download from the Internet. Normally, you would download a database in PGN format, open it in Aquarium and then drag the whole database into the destination database. Drag and drop can also be used to merge games. In the example below, the game Greco J – Amateur is being dragged into the Karpov game.
Merging two games As a result of this operation the Greco game will be merged into the Karpov game. After that the Karpov game will contain all moves, variations, and annotations from both of the original games. It is also possible to merge several games by dragging a list of games into an existing game. In the next example, you see a list consisting of three hugebase games being dragged into the Karpov game.
Merging several games The result is that the Karpov game will contain the moves, variations, and annotations from all four games. If you want to create a new version of an open game, you can do so by dragging the game back into the same database as shown below.
Here, the Karpov game is dragged into the elite2008 database, the same database as the original game belongs to; this creates a new copy of the game in the database. In some cases it is easier to drag and drop from the game list to the navigation tree. The next illustration shows how a game from hugebase is being dragged from the game list into elite2008.
Appending a game from the game list There is no need to mark the game in the list before doing that. Simply drag it over to the navigation tree. The destination will be highlighted as elite2008 is in this case. Marking games is useful if you want to drag several games in one operation After marking the games, you can drag them all into the destination database.
Appending marked games from the game list In this example, the three marked Nigel Short games will be appended to elite2008. Similar to what was described above you can also use this method to merge games, by dragging the marked games into an existing game, which is shown in the navigation tree. Note that although you can drag a chess game into an EPD database, only the initial position will be stored. Also remember that CBH databases are read-only in Aquarium, so you cannot drag games into them. Besides dragging and dropping, you can use other methods for the same purpose. The keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V are also fast, but if you prefer to use the Copy/Paste buttons on the ribbon, you will find them in the leftmost tab (the home tab), as is customary in the new Fluid GUI. Tree Views I have often mentioned tree configurations in these columns. Many of Aquarium’s advantages can be attributed to its extensive use of trees, which are positional databases as opposed to game databases. Aquarium 2010 has several new features that make tree configurations easier to define, maintain, and use. A tree configuration allows you to view data from several trees at the same time. The tree window displays the tree configuration in columns, and each column is connected to a tree. Some of the columns may be connected to the same tree or they can all come from different trees. It all depends on how the tree configuration is defined. While viewing a game, select the Tree tab and click Options. The currently selected tree configuration will be displayed (Annotations, in my example). The “Tree configurations” dialog box shown below defines which tree is behind each column in the tree window.
Tree configuration with the new Quick column The first three columns are familiar from the previous Aquarium version. “Name” is the column heading displayed in the tree window. “Tree” shows the tree that is connected to the column, and “Visible” allows you to switch the display of the column on or off. If it is marked as visible, it will be displayed in the tree window. The new Quick column gives users a faster and easier way to select the trees that are displayed in the configuration, as you will see in the Quick Load section below. A new button has been added to the Configuration group in the Tree tab, allowing users to quickly load any trees they wish into the configuration. The Quick check boxes are used to mark the columns that users are allowed to change with the Quick Load button. Another new feature supports the Quick Load function and also makes it easier to define and maintain a tree view. In the image below, I right-clicked over the Tree cell of the Total% line and selected Link from the menu and then Total from the sub-menu.
Linking columns: Change one to update all What happens here is that I create a link from the Total% column to the Total column. This means that if I change the tree displayed in the Total column, the Total% column will be automatically updated to show the data from the same tree. This is what the tree configuration will look like after I have linked all the statistics columns together.
Linked columns I have linked the following columns to the Total column as shown by the “&t”: Total%, Success, Rating, and Year. This means that whenever I change the tree for Total (currently statisticsd2m), the linked columns will automatically show data from the same tree. I have also made Total a quick load column, as seen by the check mark in the Quick cell. The next section shows how this enables users to quickly switch to a new tree for all the linked columns above. Quick Load Quick Load is a new feature in Aquarium 2010. It allows users to quickly select trees that are displayed in a tree configuration. I’ll continue with the example above, where the Annotations configuration was modified by linking all statistics columns and changing Total into a quick load column. The Quick Load button is located in the Configuration group on the Tree tab as shown below.
Loading a new tree for all statistics columns If you are viewing a game, using the Annotations configuration as modified above, the Quick Load button becomes active. When you click it, a menu showing recently used trees is displayed, with the current tree highlighted with a check mark. Since this is the first time we open the menu after defining a quick load column, only the current tree is displayed in the list. Normally, after switching a few times between trees, you will find the tree you want in this list. If it isn’t, select Browse from the menu and locate the tree you want to load into the configuration. If there are more than one quick load columns in the configuration, you will see one item in the Quick Load menu for each such column as shown below.
Two quick load columns The addition of this new feature to Aquarium gives the user an easy way to change the data that is shown in the tree window without modifying the underlying configuration. Each configuration becomes a framework that users can tailor to their own needs, without a great deal of knowledge about the inner workings of tree configurations. Lock Tree Normally, the same tree configuration is displayed in the tree window of all open games, both database games and the Sandbox. If you switch to a different tree configuration when viewing a game, the new configuration will also show up in all other games. Aquarium 2010 allows you to lock the tree configuration for individual database games, so it doesn’t change while the game is open, regardless of the configurations selected for other games.
Locked tree configuration Right-click the game in the sidebar and select “Lock Tree” from the menu. After that the tree configuration for the current game will not change while the game is open. Tree Variables Besides the mechanism around Quick Load, another nice feature has been added to tree configurations. Now, instead of pointing directly to a specific tree you can specify a variable. Let’s start by seeing how it works. After that it will be easier to understand the advantages. Like most things related to tree configurations, the place to define a new variable is the “Tree configurations” dialog box, which is brought up by clicking the Options button on the Tree tab.
Defining a tree variable First click the Variables button (1). The “Setup Variables” dialog box will be displayed. Type the variable name, preceded by a “*” into the text box labeled (2) in the image. In this example, I call the variable “*MyTree.” When you click the Add button (3), the variable will be created and added to the list above the button. Finally, type the path of the tree into the field labeled (4) in the image and click the OK button. Now the variable can be used in any tree configuration.
Using a variable in a tree configuration The image above shows how you can use the newly defined variable. Right-click over the tree where you want to use the variable. From the menu, select Variable and then pick the variable you want to use. In this case, I chose *MyTree, the variable that was defined above. After that the tree used for the Total column, will be the tree that the *MyTree variable points to. You can use the same variable in as many tree configurations as you like. One of the advantages is that later on you can change the variable to point to a different tree and all the tree configurations using the variable will be automatically updated to display the new tree. If you hadn’t used a variable, you would need to go into each tree configuration and modify it manually. Insert Best Line from Tree You can add moves one by one from a tree to the notation simply by browsing the tree (either by clicking through the moves or by using the arrow keys), but Aquarium also allows you to transfer whole variations from the tree to the notation with the click of a button. Let’s say that we have been analyzing the following position for a while with IDeA.
We can look at the current status of the analysis by browsing the tree within IdeA, or switch to the original game in the database or the Sandbox and browse the tree from there. A faster way to get an overview of the best variations found so far is to select a position in the notation and then press the F4 key on the keyboard. In response, Aquarium adds the best variations from the tree to the notation as shown below.
Best variations automatically inserted The tree window shows that IDeA currently sees two moves with an equal score of +2.38: 1.Qg4 and 1.Qg3. Consequently, the best variations beginning with these two moves have been added to the notation. The notation window was empty, so all the moves you see were added by Aquarium. You can repeat this process for any position in the tree in order to see the best variations starting from the selected position. Of course you can also use it to see the best responses to sub-optimal moves and build a complex set of variations. In most cases this is all you need to know; e.g., for a tree created with IDeA, but if you prefer to use the mouse instead of the keyboard, you can click the “Best Line From Tree 1” button on the Tree tab instead.
Insert best variations from tree Many users probably wondered why there is both a “Best Line From Tree 1” and a “Best Line From Tree 2” button. The reason is that a single tree view can be based on several trees. The tool button (highlighted in the image above) allows you to choose two of them and assign to these buttons. Clicking the tool button opens the “Tree insert options” dialog box.
Here you see two boxes, each with a list of the trees in the tree view that contain evaluations. I have highlighted the “Eval” tree in the “Tree 1” list. This means that when I click “Best Line From Tree 1” the inserted variations will be based on the evaluations in the “Eval” tree. Similarly, I have selected the “CAP” tree in the “Tree 2” list. If I click the “Best Line From Tree 2” button, I will get the best variations based on the evaluations in the “CAP” tree. Conclusion In this article we examined two sets of Aquarium features: Drag and drop game manipulation and using trees. The first of these showed intuitive ways of performing a function that is well-known in graphical user interfaces and is therefore easy to understand by most users. The second one is designed for more advanced users who want to get as much as possible out of Aquarium’s tree features. These two different sets of features well illustrate that the design of Aquarium provides an easy access to common functions that are sufficient for most users, while also providing more advanced features. Some of them are unique to Aquarium and cannot be found in any other chess software, so there is no quick way to get around the learning curve – but the time invested is worth it. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:15:18 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Recursos Tácticos Doble de Caballo 1/3 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Diez ejercicios tácticos presentandos a modo de problemas para que sean estudiados desde la propia página o bien ser descargardos y dedicarles algún tiempo más.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sat, 30 Jan 2010 23:00:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mucho más que un Maestro de Ajedrez | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Autor: luigiferri Como millones de inmigrantes que llegaron a A una tierra en crecimiento y que sería el Granero del Mundo, en busca de Francisco (Franz) Benkö nació en Berlín el 24 de junio de 1910[1]. De padre húngaro y madre austríaca. “Cuando empezó "Un día estaba tan desesperado que no aguanté más, entré al aula del colegio y me bebí un frasco de tinta" dijo al periodista del Diario Esta historia es común a muchos de nuestros antepasados; bisabuelos, abuelos y padres que nos contaron cosas muy parecidas. En aquella Alemania nazi, donde el régimen de Hitler perseguía a los judíos, sin un peso en el bolsillo, se embarcó con su hermana hacia Buenos Aires.[2] Como tantos inmigrantes hizo todo lo posible para rescatar gente que había quedado en Alemania y así consiguió traer a 9 familias en el último barco que zarpó antes del estallido de Por sobre todas las cosas un amante de la vida. No sólo fue buen jugador de ajedrez (aparte de gran coleccionista y compositor de problemas), sino que amaba la música clásica y aún hizo una profunda investigación sobre si Shakespeare era o no el testaferro de Roger Manners.[3] Otra historia pintoresca es la “historia del abanico”, también referida en el reportaje de Morgado: “Cuando mi madre tenía 17 años le regalaron un abanico. A través del tiempo fueron firmándolo diversas personalidades. Mi mamá era una apasionada de la música y consiguió la firma de Johann Strauss, quien personalmente dibujó un pentagrama con las primeras notas del vals Voces de Primavera, como homenaje a mi madre. Otra de las firmas es de Katharina Schratt, que fuera la amante del Emperador Francisco José por muchos años. Yo seguí la tradición, y al reverso de las firmas de músicos, empecé a coleccionar las de grandes ajedrecistas: Alekhine, Capablanca, Kasparov, Karpov, Tal, Petrosian, Judit Polgar, Smyslov, Vera Menchik, Tartakower, y también de músicos como Friedrich Gulda.” Ha sido testigo y partícipe de gran parte de la historia del ajedrez argentino, así que podría haber escrito libros y libros. No importa si era, con 99 años el ajedrecista activo más viejo del planeta y con 98 años y 2044 de ELO, jugaba el fuerte ProAm de Villa Martelli o unos meses antes el tradicional Abierto de Mar del Plata. No se trata de records ni tampoco de hacer un prolijo inventario de su historial ajedrecístico. Como él decía, refiriéndose a su longevidad ajedrecística: “Creo que he batido un record mundial: ¡debo ser el ajedrecista que perdió más partidas!” En 1928 y 1929 entabló dos partidas con Alekhine en sesión de simultáneas. Dijo, rememorando el Torneo de las Naciones de 1939[4]: “Concurrí todos los días. Hablé varias veces con Alekhine, que se mostró muy amable. Nunca encontré en él el más mínimo vestigio antisemita. No creo que los artículos que se le atribuyen sean de él. Alekhine era demasiado inteligente para ser antisemita.”[5] Jugó 17 veces el Campeonato Argentino de ajedrez. En 1949 jugó por primera vez el tradicional Torneo de Mar del Plata y desde entonces fue un asiduo participante, siendo su última participación en 2008 (con 97 años!). En esa oportunidad, consultado respecto del por qué de su participación, declaró: "Lo hago en agradecimiento al ajedrez en mi larga vida, y como propaganda para todo el mundo del excelente beneficio de su práctica como antídoto contra el mal de Alzheimer".[6] Así relataba su encuentro en el Club Argentino de Ajedrez con Bobby Fischer: "(había) muy poca gente. Pero en eso apareció nada menos que Robert 'Bobby' Fischer. Como no había adversarios más calificados a la vista me invitó a jugar blitz. Y en la primera, sorpresivamente, lo vencí. Claro que después se puso serio y me ganó tres seguidas".[7] Lo había visto en el Abierto Internacional de Morón de 1981 y recuerdo que le ganó a un fuerte jugador de primera categoría de mi club.[8] Lo volví a ver en el 2002, en el 8vo CONGRESO NACIONAL DE PROFESORES DE AJEDREZ Y 1ero. INTERNACIONAL, donde conjuntamente con los GM’s Panno y Rossetto y el MI Foguelman, contaron parte de su historia que es gran parte de la del Ajedrez Argentino. Un juvenil Benkö (92 años entonces), refirió muchas de las cosas que acá se cuentan. Vienen a mi memoria dos comentarios que se hicieron: “-Al viejo Benkö hubo que convencerlo que no venga manejando.-“ (impresionante). Un importante profesor, que utiliza cuentos para acompañar problemas o ejercicios tácticos y facilitar el aprendizaje de los niños, comentaba que tenía una buena historia, pero que no le satisfacía el ejemplo ajedrecístico que había utilizado. Otro profesor le dijo: -No te preocupes, cuando venga el viejo Benkö mostraselo y el encontrará en su impresionante colección de problemas el indicado. (lo que da idea de por qué se decía que tenía la más importante recopilación de problemas de ajedrez y su amor por ellos). Allí hizo referencia a otra peculiar historia, cómo conoció a su segunda esposa: “(Torneo de las Naciones 1939) Concurrí todos los días. (…) Simultáneamente se jugaba el Campeonato Mundial Femenino, que fue ganado por Vera Menchik. En una de las rondas me paré junto a mi esposa para ver la partida que jugaba María Angélica Berea, más tarde coronada como la primera Maestra Internacional argentina, y le comenté: ¨Mirá qué linda mujer¨. María Angélica se casó luego con el Sr. Montero, y se fue a vivir al interior. Veinticinco años después me casaba con ella, yo viudo, ella divorciada.”[9] Para que conozcan un poco su juego, acompaño las dos partidas con Alekhine, las que le ganó a Arturo Pomar y a Edward Lasker en 1949, una partida que le ganó a el MI Jorge Szmetan en 1993 en el Abierto Najdorf, un empate en el Continental de 2005[10] contra el conocido jugador colombiano Juan Minaya (varias veces representante olímpico de su país) y su victoria frente al fuerte jugador Avalos Parra en el Pro-Am de Villa Martelli de 2008 (con 98 años!!!!). Muchas veces dijo: "Este juego me salvó la vida.” Seguramente es la pura verdad en su acepción literal y en muchos otros sentidos. Querido viejo Benkö, que me traes recuerdos de mi padre (n.1906), de mi tío (n.1909), del bisabuelo de mis hijos (n.1912) -también Franz, como vos- y de tanta gente que me enriqueció con sus historias y enseñanzas de vida; mereces un lugar en la historia, no sólo del ajedrez. Sólo intento acercarte al conocimiento y corazón de todos los que leen esta humilde nota, que habla de una historia de vida y mucho más. Ahora uno de tus tantos problemas, el que le costase resolver al Gran Misha Tal. Veremos si lo resuelven los lectores. Un simple Mate en 3 jugadas. {iframe height="560"}visor3/benko_mateentres.php {/iframe} Adiós Maestro de  {iframe height="530"}visor3/franciscobenko.php?jugadores=Algunas partidas de F. Benko{/iframe} | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:59:14 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chennai Open begins | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chennai Open Chess begins on Monday PTI, 24 January 2010, 09:19pm IST CHENNAI: Grandmaster Ghaem Ehsan Maghami of Iran, top seed with an ELO of 2589, will start as favourite for the title in the Chennai Open 2010 International Grand Chess Masters Tournament beginning on Monday. The 11-round Swiss format tournament, launched formally, ends on February 3.
Maghami, fresh from his triumph in the recently concluded 8th Parsvnath International Grandmasters Tournament in Delhi, has replaced Russian GM Maxin Turov (2584) as top seed on better ELO rating. But Maghami will face stiff challenge from second seeded Turov, a joint winner at the Parasvnath International event with him, and third seed GM Dmitry Krayakvin also of Russia. The Indian challenge in the event is headed by Grandmasters Arunprasad and Sundararajan Kidambi. GM Arunprasad, who played a stellar role in India's bronze medal winning performance at the World Team Championship recently, missed out the title race in Delhi as he was handicapped by his absence in the first two rounds. He will be raring to have a go at the title this time around. The prestigious event has attracted 390 entries from 14 nations in Asia and Europe, including 19 Grandmasters, 27 International Masters, three Woman Grandmasters and three Woman International Masters. The tournament provides a very good opportunity for Indian players to gain GM and IM norms from this event. Chess news from Susan Polgar  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2010-01-25T01:09:00.001-06:00 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| More about barriers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Our endgame blog started the New Year on the subject of barriers. Just a week later, we can offer you two more examples on this important theme. In Getz-O'Toole, played in the Masters in Hastings, White won in exemplary fashion with the help of a horizontal barrier. A vertical barrier could be seen in Sasikiran-Aronian, where a draw would have been the correct result. But the world class Armenian GM went wrong, allowing Sasikiran to win with flawless technique. In Aronian's place would you have found the correct move in the diagram? Black to play and draw! The solution is here, but first ponder over it with a larger version of the diagram. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pocket Fritz 4: installation, activation, update | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A new version of our pocket-sized grandmaster was released in mid December. It contains the chess engine Hiarcs 13, about which you may have read in our Copa Mercosur report. The program, as it is suggested by the DVD cover, is a complete multitask tool for training and enjoying chess. In a new series we introduce you to this Swiss penknife amongst chess programs, starting with the basics. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chess in the Democratic Republic of Congo | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The President of the Spanish CF Javier Ochoa visited the city of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire) from 2 to 8 December invited by the Spanish Embassy in the frame of the Embassy's cultural activities.  The Embassy initiated its program of cooperation with the Chess Federation of Congo in 2008 by providing financial support via Mel Carbajo and Felix Costales Artieda, Ambassador of Spain in Congo, for the 1st Tournament "Ville de Kinshasa". This year the project made a step forward and in addition to the 2nd tournament in which participated more than 60 players and was won by Gaspard Mashala (who is also president of the Katanga Liga) a chess workshop was organized where, following the request of the CF of Congo, Javier Ochoa explained some details and ideas of the Shveshnikov variation of the Sicilian Defense and gave simultaneous exhibitions, some of which with time control, in order to estimate the level of the local players and to comment of various technical issues. In the simultaneous exhibitions only Eustache Kazadi of Kinshasa managed to beat the master, while Gaspard was the only one to make a draw in the games with time control. A. Kabangu was another challenger in the games with time control.  A few hours after his arrival at Kinshasa the President of the Spanish CF organized a meeting with his colleague Guy Esungi Botetsi and the executives of his Federation in order to review some issues of mutual interest and help them organize a future working plan. The Spanish Embassy also scheduled during those days two important meetings with the Ministers of Sport and Education which were also attended by the President of the Spanish CF and the Spanish Ambassador, Guy Esungi Botetsi, President of the CF of Congo.  The outcome of the meetings was the support and the official commitment that Congo will participate for the first time in the 2010 Olympiad and a promise that the Ministry of Education will support the Project of Chess in Schools as presented by the President, Guy Esungi. During the meeting the Small Fritz, one of the working tools that Spanish CF uses for the Spanish project, was presented to the Minister and various units of the device were donated to the CF of Congo. The Spanish CF also donated a chess board fresco. The local CF was in charge of the organization of the tournament, while Felicien Betu, Karl Yale, Pierrot Kayemba and Odon Zanga acted as Arbiters assisted by Angela María Rivera Yepes of the Spanish Embassy who had been preparing everything for months. Javier Ochoa de Echagüen expressed his gratitude to the Ambassador Felix Costales for this excellent initiative. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fri, 18 Dec 2009 07:07:47 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chess in the Congo! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The President of the Spanish CF Javier Ochoa visited the city of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire) from 2 to 8 December invited by the Spanish Embassy in the frame of the Embassy’s cultural activities. 
Spain’s Chess Federation President Javier Ochoa with Congolese chess officials. The Embassy initiated its program of cooperation with the Chess Federation of Congo in 2008 by providing financial support via Mel Carbajo and Felix Costales Artieda, Ambassador of Spain in Congo, for the 1st Tournament “Ville de Kinshasa”. This year the project made a step forward and in addition to the 2nd tournament in which participated more than 60 players and was won by Gaspard Mashala (who is also president of the Katanga Liga) a chess workshop was organized where, following the request of the CF of Congo, Javier Ochoa explained some details and ideas of the Shveshnikov variation of the Sicilian Defense and gave simultaneous exhibitions, some of which with time control, in order to estimate the level of the local players and to comment of various technical issues. In the simultaneous exhibitions only Eustache Kazadi of Kinshasa managed to beat the master, while Gaspard was the only one to make a draw in the games with time control. A. Kabangu was another challenger in the games with time control. 
Javier Ochoa plays a round of blitz in full view of Congolese kibitzers. A few hours after his arrival at Kinshasa the President of the Spanish CF organized a meeting with his colleague Guy Esungi Botetsi and the executives of his Federation in order to review some issues of mutual interest and help them organize a future working plan. The Spanish Embassy also scheduled during those days two important meetings with the Ministers of Sport and Education which were also attended by the President of the Spanish CF and the Spanish Ambassador, Guy Esungi Botetsi, President of the CF of Congo.
Ochoa meets with with Guy Esungi Botetsi, President of Congo Chess Federation. The outcome of the meetings was the support and the official commitment that Congo will participate for the first time in the 2010 Olympiad and a promise that the Ministry of Education will support the Project of Chess in Schools as presented by the President, Guy Esungi. During the meeting the Small Fritz, one of the working tools that Spanish CF uses for the Spanish project, was presented to the Minister and various units of the device were donated to the CF of Congo. The Spanish CF also donated a chess board fresco. The local CF was in charge of the organization of the tournament, while Felicien Betu, Karl Yale, Pierrot Kayemba and Odon Zanga acted as Arbiters assisted by Angela María Rivera Yepes of the Spanish Embassy who had been preparing everything for months. Javier Ochoa de Echagüen expressed his gratitude to the Ambassador Felix Costales for this excellent initiative. Friday, 18 December 2009 07:07 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fri, 08 Jan 2010 01:14:15 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chess.com iPhone App - Available Now! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chess.com has finally released it’s iPhone app! Featuring player vs. player games, play vs. computer, and chess training tools, this free app will allow more than 1 million Chess.com members access to free online play, and will allow all use... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:16:48 -0800 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ajedrez - Valores | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| PROMOVER EL AJEDREZ CON VALORES HUMANOS, El juego ciencia es un instrumento pedagogico para aprender a pensar con inteligencia, disciplina y sobre todo con Don de gentes …Hacer campeones no es suficiente , es necesario que los niños y jovenes aprendan a comportarse como personas que aporten a la sociedad lo mejor de si, con sus sueños y sus talentos (ESF)l science game is a teaching tool to learn to think with intelligence, discipline and above all with people don ... Making champions is not enough, we need to children and young people learn to behave as a society make the best, with their dreams and talents (ESF) El ajedrez es una piedra de toque para la inteligencia. "Wolfang Goethe"El ajedrez es un juego útil y honesto, indispensable en la educación de la juventud. "Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios" Todo el mundo cree que los juegos de los niños no son más que juegos, pero se equivocan, el juego infantil es el factor determinante en la formación del perfecto ciudadano" PLATON1. INTRODUCCION APERTURA Hoy por hoy estamos viviendo una problemática en los niños y la juventud que afecta notablemente el desarrollo Intelectual y el comportamiento social de los estudiantes , ES PRECISAMENTE LA FALTA DE CONCENTRACION, LAS ACTITUDES IRREVERENTES HACIA LOS PADRES, Y EL USO INAPROPIADO DEL TIEMPO LIBRE . Es muy común ver como la mayoría de los niños no tienen el habito de concentrarse mas de una hora en una lectura o en el desarrollo de un proyecto que exija pensar y desarrollar habilidades cognoscitivas con disciplina constante y los pocos que lo hacen, no lo hacen a diario, sino de vez en cuando, por cumplir tareas y obligados. Pero es de anotar que muchos duran horas y horas en internet vagando de aquí para allá sin rumbo fijo, y asimilando lo bueno, lo malo y lo feo de la información globalizada de difícil control. También duran metidos de cabeza mas de 5 horas en un el televisor viendo los mismos dibujos animados violentos, sin cansarse o programas de adultos sin orientación de los padres. De la misma se entregan con pasión al PlayStation, Xbox con prisa y sin pausa jugando programas de extrema violencia, repetitivos que no enseñan valores, y que de una u otra manera influyen en la conducta del los niños. Otros salen de sus hogares, por ahí sin rumbo a ver que encuentran y muchos pueden encontrar los caminos de la droga, las malas compañías o una mala hora. La televisión, el internet y los juegos de ciber no son malos, son grandes avances de nuestra época, pero su uso inapropiado puede afectar el comportamiento y la salud de los niños y los jóvenes menores de 18 años. En los pueblos o sector rural la cuestion es más crítica, los padres no saben qué hacer con sus hijos un fin de semana y como aprovechar el tiempo libre en actividades que beneficien a los niños Los extremos son malos y un niño es la síntesis de lo que piensa y hace, ve y juega, aprende y siente. Esta generación de niños y jóvenes buscan refugio en la tecnología y pasan horas en los ciber tratando de tener contacto con otro tipo de juegos, que les propone la informática y se tornan evasivos de la realidad y esa conducta esa apenas un síntoma que los convierte en niños y jóvenes desconcentrados, indisciplinados y violentos. Por esas razones se hace necesario tomar medidas por los padres, educadores y gobernantes, sobre todo hoy que los estudiantes entran y salen cada vez más jóvenes de las instituciones educativas, la cual no tienen la madurez suficiente para tomar una decisión apropiada y saber elegir, porque una cosa es que un niño haga lo que le venga en gana sin importar las consecuencias y otra muy distinta es que tenga ganas de hacer lo mejor para su vida, para su desarrollo, para ser mas persona. A la mayoría de padres les gustaría ver que sus hijos menores de edad se destaquen en una disciplina; toquen violín, lean y escriban libros, jueguen ajedrez, practique un deporte, que sean ejemplo para los demás niños y aprovechen el tiempo libre, que esa energía se canalice en actividades sanas de recreación y crecimiento personal. Muchos profesores, con vocación desean que los alumnos desarrollen su capacidad en su materia y se conviertan en brillantes exponente del arte, la ciencia, el deporte y superen las expectativas formativas y educativas mas allá de lo curricular. Muchos gobernantes, alcaldes y líderes desean que la niñez y los jóvenes de la comunidad que dirigen se destaquen, en el deporte, las artes, las ciencias como valores y talentos y alejarlos del ocio malsano y la drogadicción. Por ellos, por el futuro del Mundo es la hora tomar cartas en el asunto, antes que sea demasiado tarde, y promover actividades para que los niños y jóvenes participen con disciplina, concentración y don de gentes. Entre ellas el ajedrez es una alternativa formativa y definitiva Porque cumple con la satisfacción de estas necesidades de desarrollo personal; en primer tiene un conjunto de normas y reglas para jugarlo, en segundo lugar desarrollar habilidades cognoscitivas y en tercer lugar se aplican normas de buenas maneras para convivir en la paz. Por ejemplo este juego milenario es un deporte de caballerosidad y convivencia, tanto es así, que la FIDE aplica un código de ética, la cual exige que antes de comenzar a jugar cada partida, en un torneo, se debe dar la mano al contendor y después de la partida también; expresando el espíritu deportivo de ser magnánimo en la victoria y humilde en la derrotas, el jugador que no lo haga será sancionado drásticamente. El juego ciencia se ha convertido en una propuesta educativa, el ajedrez es más que en una herramienta pedagógico, es un oportunidad para desarrollar talento con valores humanos, enseñar a pensar, desarrollando la inteligencia, aprender a aprender con una metodología especial, y formar mejores ciudadanos con don de gentes. El Ajedrez, además de sus bondades como juego de entretenimiento, que ha superado la prueba del tiempo, merece la jerarquía de institucionalizarse como propuesta educativa y formativa para el crecimiento intelectual, social de los niños y los jóvenes del Mundo. lel chess is a touchstone for the intelligence. " Wolfgang Goethe "The chess game is a useful and honest, essential in the education of youth." Simón José Antonio de la Santisima Trinidad Bolivar y Palacios "Everybody believes that children's games are only games, but they are wrong, the children's game is the determining factor in the formation of the perfect citizen" PLATO 1. INTRODUCTION OPENING Today we are experiencing a problem in children and youth that significantly affects the intellectual development and social behavior of students, is precisely the lack of concentration, ATTITUDES TOWARD PARENTS irreverence, and the improper use of leisure time. It is very common to see as most children do not have the habit of focusing on more than an hour reading or developing a project that requires thinking and cognitive abilities develop with constant discipline and the few who do, do not daily, but occasionally, for tasks and duties. But it should be noted that many take hours and hours on the internet from here to there wandering aimlessly fixed and assimilating the good, the bad and the ugly of global information that is difficult to control. Also last head tucked over 5 hours in a TV watching the same cartoon violence, without getting tired or programs for adults without parental guidance. In the same ship with passion andalusia PlayStation, Xbox with haste and without pause playing programs of extreme violence, repeated that they do not teach values, and that in any way influence the behavior of children. Others leave their homes around aimlessly to find and see that many may find the road of drugs, bad company or a bad time. Television, internet and cyber games are not bad, are major advances of our time, but its improper use can affect the behavior and health of children and young people under 18 years In the rural villages or the most critical issues, parents do not know what to do with their children one weekend and take advantage of free time in activities that benefit children The extremes are bad and a child is a synthesis of what he thinks and does, go and play, learn and feel. This generation of children and young people seeking refuge in technology and spend hours in cyber trying to have contact with other games, which offers computer and become evasive of reality and behavior that just a symptom that makes them children and young decentralized, undisciplined and violent For these reasons it is necessary to take action by parents, educators and governments, especially now that students enter and leave more young people in educational institutions, which are not mature enough to make an appropriate decision and choices, because one thing is that a child do what it pleases regardless of the win and another very different is that you want to do what is best for their lives, their development, to be more person The majority of parents would like to see their minor children stand out in a discipline; play violin, read and write books, play chess, practice a sport, they are examples to other children and use the free time that energy is channeled in healthy recreational activities and personal growth Many teachers, dedicated students who wish to develop their capacity in their area and become brilliant exponent of the art, science, sport and exceed the expectations training and education beyond the curriculum Many governors, mayors and leaders who want children and young people in the community that is run out, sports, arts, science, values and talents away from leisure and unhealthy addiction For them, the future of Sucre is the time taken in the matter before it is too late, and promote activities for children and young people involved with discipline, concentration and giving people. Among them, chess is a formative and definitive alternative Because it meets with the satisfaction of these needs for personal development in a first set of standards and rules for play, second to develop cognitive abilities and third rules are good ways to live together in peace. For example, this game is one thousandth of chivalry and sports together, so much so that the FIDE ethics code applies, which requires that before you play each game in a tournament, you should shake hands and contendor andalusia after the game as well, expressing the spirit of sports to be magnanimous in victory and humble in defeat, the player who does so will be punished severely. The game science has become an educational proposal, chess is more than a pedagogical tool, is an opportunity to develop talent with human values, teach us to think, develop intelligence, learning to learn a particular methodology, and train better citizens of nations with Don Chess, as well as its benefits entertaining game that has stood the test of time, it deserves the status of institutionalized education and training as a proposal for intellectual growth, social development of children and young people in Sucre  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:46:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Roman's Lab series - Instructional Chess DVDs | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Roman Dzinzi's Gran Maestro de ajedrez presenta una gran colección de videos de instrucción de Ajedrez .
Roman's Lab Vol 1 - Learning Openings the Easy Way, Traps & Novelties http://hotfile.com/dl/12568919/92cf16e/CHESSRomans.part01.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568920/04078a9/CHESSRomans.part02.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568921/860109f/CHESSRomans.part03.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568922/301365e/CHESSRomans.part04.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568923/c51624f/CHESSRomans.part05.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568924/f254af5/CHESSRomans.part06.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12594108/95a827c/CHESSRomans.part07.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12594109/678fad4/CHESSRomans.part08.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12594110/bd31bb7/CHESSRomans.part09.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12594111/30b196b/CHESSRomans.part10.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 2 - Sacrifices and Tactics that End Games in the Opening http://hotfile.com/dl/12568925/d08a784/CHESSRomansD2.part01.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568926/eebd89d/CHESSRomansD2.part02.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568927/4638870/CHESSRomansD2.part03.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568928/1be7519/CHESSRomansD2.part04.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568929/299116e/CHESSRomansD2.part05.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568930/4989915/CHESSRomansD2.part06.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568931/912fe99/CHESSRomansD2.part07.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568932/e9e60da/CHESSRomansD2.part08.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568933/f88ac83/CHESSRomansD2.part09.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12593880/7694e78/CHESSRomansD2.part10.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 3 - Transition to the Middle Game http://hotfile.com/dl/12568934/2ac653a/CHESSRomansD3.part01.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568935/5ee7e2e/CHESSRomansD3.part02.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568936/bce900d/CHESSRomansD3.part03.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568937/366cc4a/CHESSRomansD3.part04.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12815916/8c4aebe/CHESSRomansD3.part05.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568939/46a7c5f/CHESSRomansD3.part06.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568940/b555d36/CHESSRomansD3.part07.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568941/9937b8f/CHESSRomansD3.part08.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568942/67751d9/CHESSRomansD3.part09.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568943/1f770c9/CHESSRomansD3.part10.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 4 - Planning & Attacking Based on Superiority of Pieces http://hotfile.com/dl/12568944/ca755bd/CHESSRomansD4.part01.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568945/10145a9/CHESSRomansD4.part02.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568946/b643ed7/CHESSRomansD4.part03.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568947/6f09d58/CHESSRomansD4.part04.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568948/b09a4b7/CHESSRomansD4.part05.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568949/3444b72/CHESSRomansD4.part06.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568950/11cc621/CHESSRomansD4.part07.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568951/8064a7a/CHESSRomansD4.part08.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568952/da6e907/CHESSRomansD4.part09.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568953/2c534dd/CHESSRomansD4.part10.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 5 - Rapid and Complete Opening Repertoire for White http://hotfile.com/dl/12568954/24a852b/CHESSRomansD5.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568955/fc6fa30/CHESSRomansD5.part2.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568956/100e9f0/CHESSRomansD5.part3.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568957/f7da600/CHESSRomansD5.part4.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568958/f5b4d8f/CHESSRomansD5.part5.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568960/9335b07/CHESSRomansD5.part6.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 6 - Rapid and Complete Opening Repertoire for Black http://hotfile.com/dl/12568972/325ecd9/DVD06_-_Rapid_and_Complete_Opening_Repertoire_for_the_Tournament_Player_-_BLACK_-_MPG.part01.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568973/6165ee2/DVD06_-_Rapid_and_Complete_Opening_Repertoire_for_the_Tournament_Player_-_BLACK_-_MPG.part02.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568974/691af81/DVD06_-_Rapid_and_Complete_Opening_Repertoire_for_the_Tournament_Player_-_BLACK_-_MPG.part03.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568975/8063348/DVD06_-_Rapid_and_Complete_Opening_Repertoire_for_the_Tournament_Player_-_BLACK_-_MPG.part04.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568976/c5a540b/DVD06_-_Rapid_and_Complete_Opening_Repertoire_for_the_Tournament_Player_-_BLACK_-_MPG.part05.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568977/4b5e105/DVD06_-_Rapid_and_Complete_Opening_Repertoire_for_the_Tournament_Player_-_BLACK_-_MPG.part06.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568978/d5cff29/DVD06_-_Rapid_and_Complete_Opening_Repertoire_for_the_Tournament_Player_-_BLACK_-_MPG.part07.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568979/645fb5d/DVD06_-_Rapid_and_Complete_Opening_Repertoire_for_the_Tournament_Player_-_BLACK_-_MPG.part08.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568980/5ece58a/DVD06_-_Rapid_and_Complete_Opening_Repertoire_for_the_Tournament_Player_-_BLACK_-_MPG.part09.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568981/e43ac02/DVD06_-_Rapid_and_Complete_Opening_Repertoire_for_the_Tournament_Player_-_BLACK_-_MPG.part10.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568982/c068606/DVD06_-_Rapid_and_Complete_Opening_Repertoire_for_the_Tournament_Player_-_BLACK_-_MPG.part11.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 7 - Think and Play like a Grandmaster http://hotfile.com/dl/11359919/bbfdcff/Romans_Lab_Think_like_a_GM.part01.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/11359918/20a77ac/Romans_Lab_Think_like_a_GM.part02.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/11927152/4aa8829/Romans_Lab_Think_like_a_GM.part03.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/11362313/0a7eed0/Romans_Lab_Think_like_a_GM.part04.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/11364112/7bf1f39/Romans_Lab_Think_like_a_GM.part05.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/11364364/3a5b409/Romans_Lab_Think_like_a_GM.part06.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/11365699/8d3ed1a/Romans_Lab_Think_like_a_GM.part07.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/11365951/b167bdb/Romans_Lab_Think_like_a_GM.part08.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/11367895/8889ebd/Romans_Lab_Think_like_a_GM.part09.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/11368364/31d5ce2/Romans_Lab_Think_like_a_GM.part10.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 8 - Comprehensive Chess Endings 1 http://hotfile.com/dl/12568983/25a9baf/DVD08_-_Comprehensive_Chess_Endings_Part_1_-_AVI.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568984/76ce236/DVD08_-_Comprehensive_Chess_Endings_Part_1_-_AVI.part2.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568985/48fab59/DVD08_-_Comprehensive_Chess_Endings_Part_1_-_AVI.part3.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568986/8ae2e64/DVD08_-_Comprehensive_Chess_Endings_Part_1_-_AVI.part4.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568987/13a28c9/DVD08_-_Comprehensive_Chess_Endings_Part_1_-_AVI.part5.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12568988/d9b94d9/DVD08_-_Comprehensive_Chess_Endings_Part_1_-_AVI.part6.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 9 - Comprehensive Chess Endings 2 http://hotfile.com/dl/12612223/1375d30/DVD09_-_Comprehensive_Chess_Endings_-_Part_2_-_MPG.part01.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12612224/ee3ef3d/DVD09_-_Comprehensive_Chess_Endings_-_Part_2_-_MPG.part02.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12612225/d4fc017/DVD09_-_Comprehensive_Chess_Endings_-_Part_2_-_MPG.part03.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12612226/6261ad2/DVD09_-_Comprehensive_Chess_Endings_-_Part_2_-_MPG.part04.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12612227/1722ef7/DVD09_-_Comprehensive_Chess_Endings_-_Part_2_-_MPG.part05.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12612228/d809923/DVD09_-_Comprehensive_Chess_Endings_-_Part_2_-_MPG.part06.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12612229/f049b52/DVD09_-_Comprehensive_Chess_Endings_-_Part_2_-_MPG.part07.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12612230/03f96ac/DVD09_-_Comprehensive_Chess_Endings_-_Part_2_-_MPG.part08.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 10 - Greatest Games of Chess ever Played - Part 1 http://hotfile.com/dl/12655016/08c7c3f/DVD10_-_Greatest_Games_of_Chess_Ever_Played_-_Part01_-_WMV.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12655017/996f014/DVD10_-_Greatest_Games_of_Chess_Ever_Played_-_Part01_-_WMV.part2.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12655018/20efc70/DVD10_-_Greatest_Games_of_Chess_Ever_Played_-_Part01_-_WMV.part3.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/12655019/777b19c/DVD10_-_Greatest_Games_of_Chess_Ever_Played_-_Part01_-_WMV.part4.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 11 - Greatest Games of Chess ever Played - Part 2 http://hotfile.com/dl/17249659/f7d41ae/roman11.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249660/3b5c53d/roman11.part2.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 12 - New Improvements in Opening Theory http://hotfile.com/dl/17249661/d38be41/roman12.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249662/56352a1/roman12.part2.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249663/5c41fa0/roman12.part3.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 13 - Maximize Your Success against 1.b4, c4, d4 http://hotfile.com/dl/17249664/8df4204/roman13.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249665/ae7f264/roman13.part2.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249666/56099ea/roman13.part3.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249667/4167206/roman13.part4.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 14 - Improve your Combinational & Tactical Skills - Part 1 http://hotfile.com/dl/17249668/b0a4a7e/roman14.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249669/9f2370d/roman14.part2.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249670/95a088f/roman14.part3.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249671/1ed6960/roman14.part4.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 15 - Improve your Combinational & Tactical Skills - Part 2 http://hotfile.com/dl/17249614/66f0c8b/15_-_Improve_your_Combinational_Preparation_and_Tactical_Skills_%282%29.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249615/6010856/15_-_Improve_your_Combinational_Preparation_and_Tactical_Skills_%282%29.part2.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249616/dc98b15/15_-_Improve_your_Combinational_Preparation_and_Tactical_Skills_%282%29.part3.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249617/8602ba3/15_-_Improve_your_Combinational_Preparation_and_Tactical_Skills_%282%29.part4.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 16 - Learn to play the English The Easy Way http://hotfile.com/dl/17249618/6edbdb9/16_-_Learn_to_Play_the_English_Opening_the_Easy_Way.part01.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249619/b55e577/16_-_Learn_to_Play_the_English_Opening_the_Easy_Way.part02.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249620/92052ad/16_-_Learn_to_Play_the_English_Opening_the_Easy_Way.part03.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249621/de997fc/16_-_Learn_to_Play_the_English_Opening_the_Easy_Way.part04.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249622/de096ba/16_-_Learn_to_Play_the_English_Opening_the_Easy_Way.part05.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249623/9de7d22/16_-_Learn_to_Play_the_English_Opening_the_Easy_Way.part06.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249624/b653e5e/16_-_Learn_to_Play_the_English_Opening_the_Easy_Way.part07.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249625/3ebcfce/16_-_Learn_to_Play_the_English_Opening_the_Easy_Way.part08.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249626/282543b/16_-_Learn_to_Play_the_English_Opening_the_Easy_Way.part09.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 17 - Unbeatable Secret Weapons for Black http://hotfile.com/dl/17249627/2e1835d/17_-_Unbeatable_Secret_Weapons_for_Black.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249628/251e242/17_-_Unbeatable_Secret_Weapons_for_Black.part2.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249629/1eac92b/17_-_Unbeatable_Secret_Weapons_for_Black.part3.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249630/3e2c442/17_-_Unbeatable_Secret_Weapons_for_Black.part4.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249631/2c7d94a/17_-_Unbeatable_Secret_Weapons_for_Black.part5.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 18 - Blitz as a tool to better chess & Secrets in Beating your Chess Computer http://hotfile.com/dl/17249632/6362009/18_-_Blitz_as_a_Tool_to_Better_Chess__Secrets_in_Beating_Your_Chess_Computer_Programs.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249633/cfd1145/18_-_Blitz_as_a_Tool_to_Better_Chess__Secrets_in_Beating_Your_Chess_Computer_Programs.part2.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249634/6d2ff06/18_-_Blitz_as_a_Tool_to_Better_Chess__Secrets_in_Beating_Your_Chess_Computer_Programs.part3.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 19 - Understanding & Dominating your chess game with Pawn Structures http://hotfile.com/dl/17249635/1961104/19_-_Understanding_and_Dominating_Your_Chess_Game_with_Pawn_Structures.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249636/ffe5d21/19_-_Understanding_and_Dominating_Your_Chess_Game_with_Pawn_Structures.part2.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 20 - Step-by-Step Manoeuvring in Closed Positions http://hotfile.com/dl/17249637/1799e0b/20_-_Step_by_Step_Essential_Maneuvering_in_Closed_Positions.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249638/fb1b9a2/20_-_Step_by_Step_Essential_Maneuvering_in_Closed_Positions.part2.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 21 - The King’s Indian Defence http://hotfile.com/dl/16125670/5200c22/21_-_The_Easy_Way_to_Play_the_Kings_Indian_Defense.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/16128898/f1a6fc7/21_-_The_Easy_Way_to_Play_the_Kings_Indian_Defense.part2.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/16132425/aa053e9/21_-_The_Easy_Way_to_Play_the_Kings_Indian_Defense.part3.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 22 - The Scotch and Giuoco Piano http://hotfile.com/dl/17249639/238716e/22_-_The_Easy_Way_to_Play_the_Scotch_and_Giuoco_Piano_Openings.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249640/2857356/22_-_The_Easy_Way_to_Play_the_Scotch_and_Giuoco_Piano_Openings.part2.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 23 - Grand Prix and Reti http://hotfile.com/dl/17249641/05b92f8/23_-_The_Easy_Way_to_Play_the_Grand_Prix_and_Reti_Opening.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249642/75c379b/23_-_The_Easy_Way_to_Play_the_Grand_Prix_and_Reti_Opening.part2.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249643/5399db0/23_-_The_Easy_Way_to_Play_the_Grand_Prix_and_Reti_Opening.part3.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249644/d15ad42/23_-_The_Easy_Way_to_Play_the_Grand_Prix_and_Reti_Opening.part4.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 24 - Live from Las Vegas National Open http://hotfile.com/dl/17249645/37e667a/24_-_Live_From_Las_Vegas_National_Open.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249646/8c2a983/24_-_Live_From_Las_Vegas_National_Open.part2.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249647/4c727dc/24_-_Live_From_Las_Vegas_National_Open.part3.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249648/9fe21dd/24_-_Live_From_Las_Vegas_National_Open.part4.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249649/5bd4152/24_-_Live_From_Las_Vegas_National_Open.part5.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249650/bf2547f/24_-_Live_From_Las_Vegas_National_Open.part6.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/17249651/0f4c501/24_-_Live_From_Las_Vegas_National_Open.part7.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 25 - Easy Way to Beat The Pirc Modern Defense http://hotfile.com/dl/17249652/393ec0d/25_-_Easy_way_to_beat_the_Pirc-Modern_defence.part1.rar.html ttp://hotfile.com/dl/17249653/cf3d942/25_-_Easy_way_to_beat_the_Pirc-Modern_defence.part2.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 26 - Nimzovitch’s My System Part 1 http://hotfile.com/dl/16158419/a7f2a6e/26_-_Nimzowitschs_My_System_Part_1.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/16160186/e9e628f/26_-_Nimzowitschs_My_System_Part_1.part2.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 27 - Nimzovitch's My System Part 2 http://hotfile.com/dl/16183344/638cded/27_-_Nimzowitschs_My_System_Part_2.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/16184148/f184635/27_-_Nimzowitschs_My_System_Part_2.part2.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 28 - Easy Way to Learn The King's Indian Attack http://hotfile.com/dl/16987818/d444d16/roman28.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/16993625/23235f9/roman28.part2.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 29 - Mastering the Endgame Series - Part 1 Nuevos http://hotfile.com/dl/18398356/273852d/roman29.part1.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 30 - Mastering the Endgame Series - Part 2 Nuevos
http://hotfile.com/dl/18398362/034942a/roman30.part1.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 31 - Mastering the Opening Series - Repertoire for Black 1 Roman's Lab Vol 32 - Mastering the Opening Series - Repertoire for Black 2 Roman's Lab Vol 33 - Mastering the Opening Series - Crushing Lines for White Roman's Lab Vol 34 - Repertoire for Black vs. Queen's Gambit Nuevos Roman's Lab Vol 35 - Mastering the Opening Series - 1. d4 Repertoire for White http://hotfile.com/dl/16188849/040598e/35_-_Mastering_The_Opening_Series_Romans_Original_D4_Repertoire_for_White.part1.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/16188850/b0cd41a/35_-_Mastering_The_Opening_Series_Romans_Original_D4_Repertoire_for_White.part2.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/16191275/8dd2e47/35_-_Mastering_The_Opening_Series_Romans_Original_D4_Repertoire_for_White.part3.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/16194098/0438f1c/35_-_Mastering_The_Opening_Series_Romans_Original_D4_Repertoire_for_White.part4.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/16196699/78a384a/35_-_Mastering_The_Opening_Series_Romans_Original_D4_Repertoire_for_White.part5.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 36 - The Art of Defence Roman's Lab Vol 37 - Encyclopedia of Chess Openings Vol 1 Nuevos Roman's Lab Vol 38 - Encyclopedia of Chess Openings Vol 2 Nuevos http://hotfile.com/dl/18913018/dcf9be4/roman38.part01.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 39 - Encyclopedia of Chess Openings Vol 3 (2h 49m) Roman's Lab Vol 40 - Encyclopedia of Chess Openings Vol 4 Nuevos Roman's Lab Vol 41 - New Lines & Novelties in the Scotch and f4 Sicilian Roman's Lab Vol 42 - New Lines against the Pirc, Scandinavian & Dragon http://hotfile.com/dl/17436882/ea12f47/roman42.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 43 - New Lines & Novelties against the Caro Kann, Alekhine & French Roman's Lab Vol 45 - New Lines for Black in the Accelerated Dragon and King's Indian Nuevos Roman's Lab Vol 44 - New Lines for White against the Sicilian, French, Hippo, Latvian Nuevos Roman's Lab Vol 46 - Most Incredible Tactics and Combinations Ever in the Endgame Nuevos Roman's Lab Vol 47 - The Most Brilliant Squeezes Ever in the Endgame Nuevos Roman's Lab Vol 48 - System for White Against the Scillian Fianchetto and Non Roman's Lab Vol 49 - Magnificent Instructional Masterpieces in The King's Indian Defense Roman's Lab Vol 50 - Unsound Openings and How to Exploit Them Roman's Lab Vol 51 - Building Powerful Attacks by Learning Piece Coordination nuevos http://hotfile.com/dl/18983877/3acf8b8/roman51.part01.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/18983878/b3b4a42/roman51.part02.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/18983879/6e398c7/roman51.part03.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/18983880/f5e577b/roman51.part04.rar.html http://hotfile.com/dl/18983881/6c1dd5c/roman51.part05.rar.html Roman's Lab Vol 52 - Finding Tactical Solutions in Overwhelming Positions Roman's Lab Vol 53 - Improve Your Ability to Calculate Variations Roman's Lab Vol 54 - Capitalizing on Your Opponent's Weaknesses Roman's Lab Vol 55 - A Tribute to Bobby Fischer Nuevos | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:23:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New edition of a legendary tactics trainer | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This new and improved version of the legendary tactics course CT-ART 3.0, the best chess training program according to many chess experts, has a new interface and adds 25% (1,000) new training exercises. By studying, practicing and solving the carefully selected exercises you will improve your play. CT ART 4.0 is an excellent training tool for intermediate players and focuses entirely on your improvement. – Study the training material and test your knowledge CT-ART is the program about which author Michael de la Maza made his world famous claim that it gained him 400 Elo points in half a year! De la Maza’s claim was based on the old version. This one is even better! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:36:53 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Computer skeptic no more | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
During the last few days, with the eyes of the entire world on the Copenhagen Climate Summit while climate ‘skeptics’ demand equal time in the debate and attempt to confuse public opinion with misinformation and politically motivated arguments, I was often reminded of how I myself used to look at chess computers in the 90s. As aggravated as I am now about the lowly tactics of today’s climate skeptics, I’m afraid back in the days I was a kind of computer-skeptic, too, in the sense that I found it very, very hard to believe chess engines could ever replace or imitate the best of human chess thinking. I simply couldn’t imagine a lifeless machine suggesting a subtle long-term positional exchange sacrifice.
What’s interesting is not that humans have gradually lost the battle against computers, but that nowadays there are almost no sceptics left when it comes to the supremacy of chess engines as a source of knowledge. Even the most traditionally-minded chess players, who at some point in their career solemnly promised they would never, ever, use a computer in their analysis, have now accepted this paradigm shift. Every respectable chess author, whether writing for New in Chess or the local club magazine, now checks his analyses with Rybka or Fritz – and anyone who doesn’t will be ridiculed and scorned by both reviewers and readers. Gone are the days when people looked down on Kasparov’s win in the 10th game of his 1995 World Championship match against Anand, merely because he perpared the famous rook sacrifice on a1 with the help of Fritz 4. In fact, nowadays the added value of human chess analysis mainly consists of making use of computer analysis and then commenting upon it, making sensible selections and separating pure ‘brute force’ tactics from more positional lines in a humanly meaningful way. This is a totally different way of working for anyone involved in chess analysis and it has had a profound impact on chess culture. First of all, as in many fields of expertise, the development has triggered a kind of ‘democratizing’ of chess analysis. As many have noted, nowadays any chess amateur with a chess engine and a strong CPU can refute the analysis of world class grandmasters. In fact, at some chess tournaments the only people in the playing hall who are not aware of the correct evaluation of a complicated position are the players themselves – for lack of earphones through which the commentators are briefing Rybka’s latest variations! According to some, this in turn has led to a decrease in respect for chess authorities. Perhaps this is true, although I personally think this has more to do with the large anonymous nature of internet itself than with the quality of one’s chess analysis. You don’t see someone from the audience of the Corus tournament come up to Carlsen and accuse him of being a ‘wimp’ for refusing to accept Morozevich’s incorrect piece sac, do you?
With hindsight, I must admit it was pretty foolish to be so skeptical. The evidence was always there. Chess, essentially, is not just a game of humans but a set of mathematical rules that obey basic laws of physics. Actually, I think it won’t be too long before even the best chess players in the world don’t truly understand computer analysis anymore. We can already see signs of that in some games and variations: the ‘human explanation’ will then be just a speculative guess; chess intuition will be in the dark, looking for clues that perhaps simply aren’t there. It will just be nonsense to our human frame of reference, a bit like quantum physics. We may not like it, but that’s just the way reality works. Reality simply cannot be combined with wishful-thinking. Perhaps climate ’skeptics’ should embrace this philosophy, too: the idea that we’re polluting the planet and can’t just do whatever we want anymore may not be a comforting thought, and it may not lead to a pleasant course of action, but we’ll just have to learn to deal with it. Who knows, we may even start to like it. Yesterday, I read an excellent definition of a skeptic: “a person who strongly prefers to accept as fact only that for which there is verifiable and reasoned evidence, and who is prepared to put aside that fact should the evidence suggest this be done.” Of course, it’s this last condition that’s so hard to grasp for climate – and anti-evolution – skeptics, which is why some people prefer to call them ‘denialists’ (or ‘lobbyists’) instead. Being a skeptic is only useful if the evidence is on your side. If it isn’t – if chess computers win all the games, help us improve analysis and can even teach us interesting things about the game we didn’t know – it’s time to change your mind and stop preaching to the choir. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sun, 13 Dec 2009 17:06:52 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Frauenbundesliga aus Baden-Baden live | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Samstag, 14 Uhr Sonntag,9.00 Ergebnisse in Baden-Baden Webseite OSG Baden-Baden Einzelergebnisse 3. und 4. Runde Partien | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sat, 05 Dec 2009 12:16:49 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Live-Berichterstattung von der Deutschen Blitzeinzel | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:20:32 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Czech Coal Chess Match - Snowdrops and Old-hands, Marianske Lazne/Czech Republic | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Die Schach-Legenden Viktor Kortschnoi , Jan Timman, Robert Hübner und Vlastimil Hort werden mit jungen Großmeisterinnen Humpy Koneru (Zeichnung) , Anna Muzychuk, Katerina Lahno eine Jana-Jackova ein doppelrundiges Turnier spielen., das in Marienbad im Cristal Palace Hotel von 28. November bis 5. Dezember stattfinden wird. Die Bedenkzeit beträgt 90 Minuten für 40 Züge zuzüglich jeweils 30 Minuten plus 30 Sek. pro Zug. Das Turnier wird durch eine Bürgervereinigung Prag Chess Gesellschaft gesponsert. Turnierseite Alle Runden beginnen um 16 Uhr Partien Copyright: EuropeEchecs
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:37:51 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Interactive Deep Analysis (IDeA) With Rybka Aquarium 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:14:51 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rebel Chess body announces biggest ever prize money tourney | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Rebel Chess body announces biggest ever prize money tourney PTI 30 November 2009, 04:15pm IST NEW DELHI: Chess Association of India, a rebel body comprising disgruntled members of the official All India Chess Federation (AICF), on Monday sounded the war bugle by announcing the country's biggest ever prize money tournament next month. The 'Delhi All India Open Chess Tournament' - a Rs 15 lakh event - will be held at the Sadhu Vaswani International School for Girls from December 23 to 29. The winner of the event would take home a hefty Rs 3 lakh prize money, CAI president Naveen Kumar Wal said. "More than 500 participants, including some Grand Masters, International Masters and other rated players from India and abroad are expected to take part in the tournament. The entry fee for participation is Rs 1,000 with free accommodation to all players," Wal said. CAI has also decided to hold seven tournaments - each with prize money of Rs five lakh - at Haryana, Rajasthan, Mumbai, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Chandigarh in the near future. In December next year, the association will organise a championship with cash prize of Rs 25 lakh in Lucknow, CAI Treasurer SK Tewari said. The body came into existence on October 11 after a meeting of former AICF members here and decided to organise National championships and coaching camps for young players. "For the past four-five years, chess players, organisers and State Associations are being deprived of their rights and treated as bonded labourers. To save all those from such humiliation and with an objective of developing the game, it has been unanimously decided to form a separate national body in the name of CAI," Wal said. At the time of its formation, 18 state associations sent their consent to be a part of CAI and more are likely to join in near future, Wal said. "We are ready to face any kind of challenge from AICF. There is a possibility that they might create hurdles for us, but we are ready for everything," Wal added. Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com Chess news from Susan Polgar  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2009-11-30T08:29:00.002-06:00 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Products Available: CT-ART 4.0, Elementary Checkmates I & II | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The long awaited CT ART 4.0, which is a indispensable training tool for intermediate players. The new version sports a convenient user interface and adds 1,000 training exercises (2,200 basic exercises and 1,800 auxiliary exercises altogether)
There are also upgrade versions (from CT-ART 3.0) available:
Elementary Checkmates I & II which are mainly aimed for beginners who do not want to miss 1 move mate, but also would be useful as exercises for more experienced players:
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:14:14 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New CalChess Website: www.norcalchess.org | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 ANNOUNCEMENT from CalChess President Tom Langland (originally dated 11/01/09)As many of you have observed the CalChess website (www.calchess.org) has suffered a major malware attack. From what I can gather, the website was possibly penetrated several weeks ago, and has since been hit critically. This is not the first time the site has been attacked and penet  rated, but one of several. The current location appears to provide insufficient protection against outside attacks. I also continue to receive 40-50 spam messages a day.My attempts to remedy the situation have met with extreme resistance, and the current environment is untenable. This was a position I thought was regrettably forthcoming. To that end, I have been working on a long-term project to improve the site, and due to the above situation, I am releasing it ahead of my intended schedule. So... I am announcing the new official Calchess website located at: http://www.norcalchess.org The new site is still a work in progress, and I am looking forward to feedback. I do not have any plans to maintain the "old" site. /Tom Langland/ (photo at right) Postscript by fpawn: In fact, the www.calchess.org domain name already expired and the former website is now history. What a shame! The old webmaster put much effort into the site, but unfortunately the many tools were never utilized to their potential. I tried hard for several years to write articles in the hopes that other local chess players would contribute as well. Becoming frustrated, I turned my efforts to this blog and www.calchess.org died. There are many reasons why nobody wanted to post, ranging from pure laziness to the quirky personality of the webmaster. Fortunately, Tom Langland stepped up and volunteered many hours of his own time to develop www.norcalchess.org almost entirely from scratch. I sincerely hope it meets a better fate, and I pledge to contribute again. Nonetheless, I intend to continue posting the majority of my writings on this blog.  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:52:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Aquarium’s Hidden Treasures | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
If you want to see further examples of graphical annotations in Aquarium, I recommend that you have a look at the excellent chess videos made by jrobichess.
Animations for the Web You may have noticed the “Create Animation” button in the image above. Well, Aquarium can create animations based on captured board images. You can publish these animations on your blog, just like normal images.
To see examples of some very interesting animations created with the help of Aquarium, have a look at The Chunky Rook.
Bookmarks Bookmarks are one of those little known, but very useful features of Aquarium. They allow you to bookmark one or more positions within a game and quickly jump between the marked positions. Aquarium actually gives you a choice of two types of bookmarks and they are switched on/off with the ‘M’ and ‘P’ keyboard shortcuts (or the right-click menu):
In this example we have assigned two classes to the current move: “Temporary bookmark” and “Novelty.” The “Current style” pane shows what the currently highlighted class looks like and the “Final style” shows what the move will actually look like in the notation with all the assigned classes.
As you can see, you can even copy all positions in the game as a set of EPD records. What you should notice here are the keyboard shortcuts listed after the options. Using a keyboard is often faster than using the mouse, so it is worth memorizing the shortcuts for these commands. Note that some of these shortcuts may differ depending on your keyboard layout, but you can always see the correct shortcuts by opening this menu.
When I press Ctrl+C, Aquarium asks if I want to copy the whole game or just the selected moves. Dadi Jonsson. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:49:50 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Interactive Deep Analysis (IDeA) With Rybka Aquarium 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A major new version of Rybka Aquarium will soon be released. It’s called Rybka Aquarium 2010 and it will be available before the holidays. This new version includes a free update to Rybka 4 when it is released. One of the biggest changes in Rybka Aquarium 2010 is the greatly improved Interactive Deep Analysis (IDeA). Many players were happy with the possibilities offered by IDeA in Rybka 3 Aquarium, but I’m afraid that it will look like a dinosaur compared to the new version. It provides better automatic analysis and much more effective ways to control the analysis process and the shape of the analysis tree. I’m sure that many serious players will find that the new and improved IDeA is an essential tool to stay competitive. Analyzing with many engines. The original IDeA could only use one engine for the analysis, but the new version can split the analysis between many engines. You can, for instance, use four instances of single core Rybka for the analysis on a quad computer, essentially reducing the multiprocessor overhead to zero. It’s like getting one extra core for free compared to running Rybka in 4-CPU mode. Analyzing on a network of computers. This feature is a dream come true for power users, analysts, and serious players who want to take their analysis to a new level. If you own two computers, you can of course run Aquarium on one of them and use it for the analysis. In the new version you can also add engines running on your other computer to the pool of IDeA analysis engines. Using this method I have tested up to thirty-five engines analyzing simultaneously. The engines were running on various computers, some on my local network while others were located in different countries and connected to my Aquarium over the Internet. IDeA takes care of splitting the analysis between the available engines. Multiple IDeA projects analyzed in parallel. You can define many analysis projects, each with its own analysis and tree settings. IDeA can analyze any number of those projects in parallel. The status of each project is saved between sessions, so you can manage many different IDeA projects much easier than before. Multiple analysis “roots” for a single project. The starting position for IDeA analysis is called a “root.” If you are analyzing a position in IDeA when another interesting position shows up in the tree, you can make it a new root, without even stopping the analysis. You can remove the original root or let IDeA analyze from both roots. You can use this feature to focus IDeA on selected positions without restarting it. IDeA can keep a list of all roots that have been used in a project. Shaping the analysis tree. The former single “variativity” parameter was not very effective and didn’t affect IDeA sufficiently. Now there are a number of new settings that have a significant influence on the shape of the IDeA analysis tree.
All of these settings can be changed on the fly during the IDeA session, further emphasizing that IDeA is designed to be used as an interactive tool. Move repetition detection. IDeA tasks no longer consist of a single position, but a full line that leads from the root node to the position to be analyzed. This enables Rybka to report 0.00 scores for twofold repetitions, and is generally more correct. This also leads to the fifty-move rule being observed. Automatic backup of analysis trees. Besides more robust tree handling in IDeA, the analysis trees are now automatically backed up. Not only does it prevent data loss, but it may also prove useful in some other cases too. Browsing the analysis queue. You can see a list of all tasks for the current stage; which tasks were automatically scheduled by IDeA and which ones you added manually. The corresponding positions can be displayed on the board and you can see the engine’s output for the selected task, prioritize the tasks, and delete unnecessary ones. If there are tasks waiting in the queue when you stop the analysis, they will be stored and processed the next time you start the analysis, even if you restart Aquarium. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:16:27 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Carlsen - Ponomariov LIVE! - Tal Memorial 2009 live commentary with GM Christian Bauer, NM Pete Kara | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| At the same time you will be able to follow ALL GAMES of the round with human and computer analysis and commentary of GM Bauer, GM Safarli, NM Karagianis, and Jason Juett can be seen at the new live games tool of Chessdom. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:53:01 +0100 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Carlsen - Morozevich LIVE! - Tal Memorial 2009 live commentary with GM Christian Bauer | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Welcome to Tal Memorial 2009 live commentary on Chessdom.com! GM Christian Bauer will be covering for you the Carlsen - Morozevich. At the same time you will be able to follow ALL GAMES of the round with human and computer analysis at the new live games tool of Chessdom. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:33:57 +0100 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chessmaster For PS2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Check out the Review by Gamespot. I'm an avid videogame nut but I've been stuck in older generation machines (PS2,Gamecube). I was wandering around my local Gamestop and happened across a fairly advanced (over Grandmaster strength) version of Chessmaster for the PS2. I'm about to leap out of my chair as I write this note. I'm just so excited. I don't know quite how I missed the 2003 release of this chess engine onto the PS2 platform. I remember the older Chessmaster for the Playstation that possessed the old flaws of previous chessmaster releases. This version fixed alot of those errors. check out this screenshot featuring my favorite board template (because I'm used to the 2d chess sets on most chess playing websites:  This is going to be a good training tool in my opinion. I recommend it to all my readers ... it's a good alternative to the mind-numbing mediocrity of today's videogames (which are more like interactive movies than actual challenges, it's fun don't get me wrong). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A brand-new system to become a better player | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In his latest book Viktor Moskalenko, former Ukrainian Champion and author of The fabulous Budapest Gambit and The Flexible French, presents a brand-new system to become a better player. Most chess players fail to make real progress once they have reached a certain level. Moskalenko argues that this is because the general rules of the game have not been discovered yet!! Besides adding the element of dynamic play, so characteristic of modern chess, to the famous theories by Steinitz and Nimzowitsch he introduces five “Touchstones”, providing players with tools to assess any position. This new concept will show club players how to get a good grip on personal skills like intuition, psychology and concentration. And with “the Moskalenko Test” you can measure your progress. For anyone who wants to get better at chess this book will be a big step forward. Revolutionize Your Chess is a breakthrough in chess teaching! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:35:03 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chessbomb | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Every day or two I do a quick patrol of the sites on my blog roll (look to your left). While visiting the Chessdom site, I noticed they had added a new live coverage tool, which was developed by, and named after, Chessbomb. I've had a play with it and it looks really good. The site combines broadcast, computer analysis (from Rybka) and user comments into one interface. For the moment they are only covering the European Teams Championship, and the time difference works against us here in Australia, but it is still worth visiting during the day, as the overnight broadcasts are archived. For example, two games worth looking at from Round 5 are the Sutovsky v Svidler game, and the Bacrot v Aronian matchup. Due to the magic of colour coded moves (and Rybka) you can see where the players went wrong at crucial junctures during the game.  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:54:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Championnat d’Europe d'échecs par équipes : la Pologne stoppe la France | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Le Direct Live à 15h + Les parties à Visualiser et/ou à Télécharger
Le 17e Championnat d’Europe d'échecs par équipes se tient à Novi Sad en Serbie du 21 au 31 Octobre 2009. Parmi les stars de l'échiquier, nous retrouvons entre autres Topalov, Aronian, Radjabov, Morozevich, Jakovenko, Svidler, Gashimov, Grischuk et Shirov. La composition des deux équipes françaises : Joël Lautier, le sélectionneur de l'équipe française, a choisi de jouer la carte jeune en alignant Romain Edouard (2620), Matthieu Cornette (2577) et Sébastien Feller (2570) encadrés d'Etienne Bacrot (2709) et Laurent Fressinet (2658). Côté féminin, Marie Sebag (2519), Sophie Milliet (2407), Maria Leconte (2325), Silvia Collas (2319) et Pauline Guichard (2304) défendent nos couleurs. A découvrir: ChessBomb, une plate-forme pour l'analyse des parties en Live de notre partenaire Chessdom. Les résultats de la ronde 7 en Live:
2007-2009 © Chess & Strategy - tous droits réservés  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:02:00 +0000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Championnat d’Europe d'échecs par équipes : les Pays-Bas face à la France à 15h | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Le Direct Live à 15h + Les parties à Visualiser et/ou à Télécharger
Le 17e Championnat d’Europe d'échecs par équipes se tient à Novi Sad en Serbie du 21 au 31 Octobre 2009. Parmi les stars de l'échiquier, nous retrouvons entre autres Topalov, Aronian, Radjabov, Morozevich, Jakovenko, Svidler, Gashimov, Grischuk et Shirov. La composition des deux équipes françaises : Joël Lautier, le sélectionneur de l'équipe française, a choisi de jouer la carte jeune en alignant Romain Edouard (2620), Matthieu Cornette (2577) et Sébastien Feller (2570) encadrés d'Etienne Bacrot (2709) et Laurent Fressinet (2658). Côté féminin, Marie Sebag (2519), Sophie Milliet (2407), Maria Leconte (2325), Silvia Collas (2319) et Pauline Guichard (2304) défendent nos couleurs. Le Cadeau du jour: ChessBomb, une plate-forme pour l'analyse des parties en Live de notre partenaire Chessdom. Les appariements et résultats de la ronde 6 en Live:
2007-2009 © Chess & Strategy - tous droits réservés  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Continuando con errores prematuros, ahora nos ocupamos de otro frecuente error: Cbd7 dejando encerrada a 
Very few top tournaments have been played for 23 years in a row, like the City of Leon (Spain), where chess has strong social roots that not even the financial crisis has broken. Four stars: Levon Aronian (Armenia), Boris Gelfand (Israel), Leinier Dominguez (Cuba) and Paco Vallejo (Spain), will give a vibrant show, again at the Auditorium in Leon, Spain with live TV and internet coverage (June, 4-7).
Hay un error recurrente en el Gambito de Dama Aceptado: justamente el creer que se puede mantener el peón. Un error que se repite desde 
Gioacchino Greco (1623)
Más común aún es el mismo tipo de error que se produce también en 
Perhaps it was because I’m currently reading The Age of Empathy – Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society, Frans de Waal’s latest book on how and why humans (and other primates) are capable of showing empathy and solving moral problems – that I found myself shocked by the recent Europe Echecs interview with Topalov’s manager Silvio Danailov. Topalov’s match against Anand hasn’t even started yet, but the first provocations are already in the air again.
Frans de Waal is one of the world’s leading primatologists and has written an impressive body of work about the similarities between apes and humans. In his latest work, he hands us a toolkit on how to improve our society by looking at (human) nature. Empathy and morality are not only human affairs, but also play an very important role in other species, such as chimpansees and dolphins. De Waal argues that the election of president Obama is a clear sign that the ‘nightmare’ days of Reagan and Thatcher are over and that perhaps it is time to transform society into a more empathic place. Well, I think it’s time to end the ‘nightmare’ of Toiletgate and start a new era where chess professionals actually show some empathy and respect for each other instead of constantly trying to provoke the opponent. 
The sad thing is that we’ve seen this all before, four years ago in Elista. There, the Bulgarian team made themselves ridiculous in the eyes of world by accusing Vladimir Kramnik – without a shred of hard evidence – of cheating. They even published a childish book on it – still lacking any solid evidence – to prove their point, which I 
A new version of Aquarium 2010 (version 4.0.3) will be released soon. It’s a free update for current Aquarium 2010 users. One of the new features is a correspondence chess module that keeps track of correspondence games played on Xfcc compliant chess servers. The 
New: 
Just in from our printers: 
On January 28th we published a review of Viktor Moskalenko’s latest book Revolutionize Your Chess, and it wasn’t a positive one. Now we have received a reaction by Mr Moskalenko, which we’re happy to publish as an open letter here at ChessVibes.
Being able to use a computer has become extremely important for today’s professional chess players. This technological development was described in an article at TechRepublic, focusing on the story of Kris Littlejohn, who is not a grandmaster but a successful second of top grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura nonetheless.
Un adiós al Gran Francisco Benko (24-06-1910/12-01-2010)
We have just received from Moscow: 
With the first decade drawing to a close, many sites look back on the past ten years and publish their lists of ‘greatest’ movies and books, most influential people, most important historical events and most significant technological developments. In chess, it’s not difficult to establish the most important change, which is of course the rise of the now-indispensible engine as a tool for chess analysis. What’s more interesting is the change in attitude that it has inspired.
I also couldn’t believe a computer could ever understand what, say, Hedgehog positions were all about and secretly, I believed the strongest human grandmasters would always be able to outplay computers when all tactics had been drained out of the position. I sincerely thought nothing of importance could ever be learned from looking at computer chess except maybe a feel for hidden tactics. Of course, I was hopelessly wrong. The only positive thing I can say about it is that I was not alone. Even after the match Kramnik-Deep Fritz in 2006, which ended in a crushing defeat for the 14th World Champion, many people opined that Kramnik had lost due to ‘lack of concentration’ and other psychological reasons. Tellingly, though, no human vs. computer matches at the highest level have been played since.
However, I think it was Kasparov himself who has said that this ‘democratization’ of chess is actually a good thing: the more people are involved in high-quality analysis, the more knowledge will be gained and the closer we will get to the Ultimate Truth. So much for all the bitter regrets and nostalgia for the lost age of chess innocence! It seems hard to disagree with Kasparov, but I would make one provision: chess enthusiasts should definitely realize that playing chess behind a board, against a real opponent, is completely different from looking at your monitor with an engine running in the background. This sounds trivial, but I’ve often been annoyed by kibitzers complaining about the lack of quality in time-scrambles, as if these players are absolutely required to see as much as their engine in the same amount of time and are totally worthless when they don’t!
.png)
One of the biggest changes in Rybka Aquarium 2010 is the greatly improved Interactive Deep Analysis (IDeA). Many players were happy with the possibilities offered by IDeA in Rybka 3 Aquarium, but I’m afraid that it will look like a dinosaur compared to the new version. It provides better automatic analysis and much more effective ways to control the analysis process and the shape of the analysis tree. I’m sure that many serious players will find that the new and improved IDeA is an essential tool to stay competitive.
New Products are available for sale at our online shop:
We have just received from our printers: 