Yesterday, I shared my feelings on the recent cheating scandal involving WGM Miheala Sandu and the Women’s European Chess Championship. At one point in the post, I wanted to focus on the significant effect that a chess player’s mental status has on the outcome of a game. After WGM Sandu was subjected to the baseless assaults on her character, the effectiveness of her gameplay took a devastating turn for the worse. This is much the same for chess players of all skill levels and experience. Chess knowledge, experience, and preparation cannot make up for the psychological difficulties of poor concentration, stress, anxiety, and other negative effects on the human mind.
A perfect example of this in the amateur world would be the effect that work stress has had on my recent over-the-board success. On Chess.com there are several different time controls that a player can select. Among those are Bullet, Blitz, and Standard for live chess, and Standard and Chess960 for daily (or turn-based) chess. Although it is frowned upon by many chess teachers, I tend to play a lot of 5-minute blitz chess, mostly because my busy schedule rarely affords me the opportunity to sit down and play an extended series of 15-minute standard games. On May 16, 2014, I deleted my old Chess.com account and signed up for a new one using the username AmishHacker because it is something I have used extensively on other sites for decades. In any case, it was on that day that I achieved both my highest and lowest ratings in blitz chess: 1200 and 692 respectively. For what its worth, all players start out at 1200 and most of us fall down to a norm relatively quickly.
Since that time, my blitz rating has hovered between 750 and 900, but it reached a peak rating of 951 on October 26, 2014 before taking another freefall. For each of these ELO rises and falls, I am able to look back at specific life events that affected the way that I was playing.
An Unstoppable Freefall
In May of this year, my day job took a turn for the worse, which created an immense amount of stress and anxiety for me and for my family. The effects of this event are evident in the devastating ELO drop that occurred shortly thereafter. I played some of the worst chess games of my life in the span from May 20 to June 1. Simple tactical problems became monumental obstacles and no matter how much I studied games or practiced on a board at home or with Fritz, I kept coming up short. As a prime example, check out this little gem:
Sure, many people do not pay attention to their games at times and can make mistakes like this, but it had become so incredibly commonplace in that span of time that it certainly detracted from my desire to play chess, much less blog about it. Then, things started to change…
An Impossible Resurrection
June 1 was the day that things really started turning around for me both in my professional life and on the chess board. Much of the chaos that had plagued my family’s life ended on that day and almost immediately, many of my chess games began to return to normal. Except that this time, things were going to be different. As of today, my blitz rating sits at 962, which is the highest it has been since May 26 of last year! Of course there are some games scattered across my record that are hopelessly lost positions won on time, but most of the games recently are legitimate wins that have given me a renewed sense of hope for the future. In addition, I am now only 7 games away from batting .500, which means I will have an equal number of wins and losses for the first time in my chess career.
With a starting ELO of 692 in May of 2014, an ELO in June of this year equates to a 39.8% increase over the past year! It may not seem like much to some people, but small advances like this are why I love playing chess! The work is hard, but it is thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding!
If you play regularly on Chess.com, perhaps you will take some time to hunt me down and challenge me to a game! Win or lose, every venture out onto the board is a chance to learn, explore, discover, and grow!
Chess is a game of skill played out among some of the world’s greatest strategic minds. Legend has it that chess is the result of attempts by ancient military commanders and kings to demonstrate their battle strategy before engaging in conflict. In the case of the great players like Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, and Magnus Carlsen, victory often came to the player whose strategic understanding and execution of the game was faster and more devious than their opponents. For those of us who spend our lives at the bottom of the ratings barrel, victory often comes to the player who makes the next to last mistake.
This game was played last month and is an excellent example of tactical play and some intriguing choices in tight situations.
Getting to participate in the World Chess Championship is no small achievement. Each player competes in a series of smaller tournaments in a variety of international settings that are sanctioned by FIDE. Each of these tournaments has an individual winner, but the points also go into a larger crosstable pool where an overall Grand Prix champion is selected. In the 2012-2013 Grand Prix series, GM Veselin Topalov from Bulgaria and GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan finished first and thus were qualified to participate in the 2014 Candidates Tournament, which is a grand stage of competition on the way to the World Chess Championship. In the end, it was Viswanathan Anand who edged out Sergey Karjakin by 1 point to earn the bid to return to the table and challenge Magnus Carlsen for the championship title. The final crosstable from the 2014 Candidates Tournament looked like this:
This year, in the final round of the FIDE Grand Prix in Khanty-Mansiysk, American GMs Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura emerged victorious and now share the title of co-champions of the 2014-2015 FIDE Grand Prix. What is most interesting about this win is the fact that the United States went from having no representatives in the top 5 of the previous Grand Prix to having two of the strongest players in the world win the tournament and increase the possibility of a return of the FIDE World Championship and the return of the title to the United States in 2016 with Caruana and Nakamura both representing the stars and stripes.
In the final round of the Grand Prix, Nakamura drew his game against GM Dmitry Jakovenko after approximately three hours into the round. The game was annotated by Peter Doggers on Chess.com:
In similar fashion, Caruana drew his game shortly thereafter against Anish Giri, also from Chess.com:
At this point, the United States has gone from having no representatives in the top 5 players of the last Grand Prix to having two that have claimed the top tournament spots. Caruana and Nakamuar will now go on to compete the FIDE Candidates Tournament to see who will challenge Magnus Carlsen for the World Championship. It will be interesting to see how that plays out and hopefully one of them can take the top spot and bring a renewed sense of youth and energy to the world’s most elite chess competition.
I am excited that Campfire Chess will be celebrating its one-year anniversary in less than a week, but that does nothing to stem the tides of my late fortunes on the chessboard. Put aside the fact that despite the prevalence of chess news and information that has been published in the last few months, I have not been regularly available to consistently post updates and game annotations. In the midst of all of this, my already abysmal blitz ELO on Chess.com has taken an enormous pounding this last few weeks: dropping from 920 to 750 in just a few days. My mind has been so distracted with other things that even those 722 and 800 ELO players seem to be an immense challenge lately. For example, this horrifying gem:
Basic principles, which I have studied and digested for so long, continue to elude me. At this point, I have resigned myself to having a mere slump and have re-engaged in meaningful study of grandmaster games and I have started reading Artur Yusupov’s incredible Boost Your Chess, vol 2., which was originally written for his personal chess students. The scene has been difficult for me for some time, so the struggle is nothing new. The lack of advancement, however, is… That is why I hope that over the next few weeks that I am able to conquer this slump and find my way back into some moderate chess success, resume writing regularly, and finally make my way downtown to the San Antonio Chess Club. For a nice laugh to end the night, here is another atrocity from my growing collection:
Well friends, vacation time is over and it is back to work for me! It has been a while since I posted game commentary and much of that had to do with prepping for my vacation time as well as covering some extensive and stressful last-minute family items. Now, all that is gone and the grind has returned, although now I feel my batteries are recharged and I am ready to go!
The following game was annotated on the Carnival Magic cruise liner while at sea in the Bahamas! I have the sunburn to prove it! It was played on Chess.com in late March and I chose to annotate it because it has some cool tactical plays, it demonstrates how the balance of power on the board can change in a moment’s notice, and it ends with a exceptional Queen sacrifice. Play through the full game at the bottom of this post after the move-by-move commentary.
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Bd7 4. Nc3 Be7 5. d4 Nf6 6. O-O O-O 7. dxe5 Bxb5 In an unusual counter move, Black ignores the dangerous advancing pawn and challenges White’s relatively solid Queenside by taking the Bishop on b5.
8.Nxb5 d5 9. exf6 Bxf6 10. Bf4 Qd7 11. Nxc7 Black is powerless to stop the Knight from destroying the a8 Rook. Black’s best move here is to further develop his pieces to minimize the damage.
11…Nc6 12. Nxa8 Rxa8 13. Qd2 Rd8 14.Rad1 Bxb2 15. exd5 Ne7 16. Ne5 Qb5 17. d6 Now, White has a deadly passed pawn in enemy territory and his Queen-Rook battery remains intact.
17…Nd5 18. Bg5 Rxd6 19. Rfe1 f6 20. Bxf6 gxf6 21. Qh6 Bxe5 22. Rxe5 A devastating blunder! I felt my heart sink when this move was made. Trading the Rook for the Bishop in this case made almost no sense whatsoever.
22…Qb2 23. Re8+ Kf7 24. Qf8+ Kg6 25. Qxd6 Nc3 26. Qg3+ Kf5 27. Qf3+ Kg6 28. Rg8+ Kf7 29. g3 Nxd1 30. Qxd1 Kxg8 31. Qd8+ Kg7 32. Qe7+ Kg6 33. Qe4+ Kf7 34. Qxh7+ Ke6 35. Qg8+ Kf5 36. Qd5+ Kg6 37. Qg8+ Kf5 38. Qh7+ Ke6 39. f4 Qc1+ 40. Kg2 Qd2+ 41. Kh3 Qe2 42. Qg8+ Kd6 43. Qf8+ Kd5 44. Qf7+ Kd4 45. Qxf6+ Kc4 46. Qf7+ Kc3 47. Qc7+ Kd2 48. Qa5+ Kc1 49. Qa3+ Kd2 50. c3 Qh5+ 51. Kg2 Ke2 52. Qe7+ Kd2 53. Qd6+ Ke2 54. Qe6+ Kd2 55. g4 Qb5 56. Qd6+ Ke2 57. Qe5+ White thought long and hard about this move. Until this point, Black had been unwilling to accept any significant trades or sacrifices. If he foolishly chose to save his King by Kd2, then his Queen is lost and the game is over. On the other hand, capturing the e5 Queen is just as deadly since the recapture by the f-pawn guarantees a new White Queen and game victory.
57…Qxe5 58. fxe5 Kd3 59. e6 Ke4 60. e7 1-0 The King’s futile race to stop the pawn is over. Black resigned and the Queen sacrifice brought White a clear and decisive victory.
In the recent World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand, it became apparent early on that Anand was not willing to allow Carlsen the chance to dominate the contest like he had done in 2013. Instead, Anand employed a complicated opening system against the World Champion called the Berlin Defense (ECO C65-C67). This defense is a variation of the immensely popular Ruy Lopez (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5…) opening made popular by Spanish priest Ruy López de Segura. My serious study of chess has been ongoing for less than a year and it is apparent that there is more chess knowledge and application to be learned than there are hours in a person’s lifetime. Until the 2014 World Championship I had never heard of the Berlin and was intrigued by the way that chess commentators and even amateur players talked about the opening. Was it really as complex and devastating as people were making it out to be? I decided to take a look at the the feared Berlin Wall to get a better understanding of the opening and what makes it such a fearsome response to 3.Bb5.
The Beginnings: A Ruy Lopez Primer
The Ruy Lopez (ECO C60-C99) is the first opening that I learned when I began paying attention to opening theory and chose to focus on improving my chess. I did not realize until later in my chess studies that this opening was preferred by Bobby Fischer in his tournament games. The basic opening moves of the Ruy Lopez are: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5….
Fig 1: A typical Ruy Lopez game after 3.Bb5.
As you can see, White has immediate tactical control of the board and the Bishop’s position forces Black to respond to the 3.Bb5 threat or risk losing tempo to his opponent. This is where the concept of the defense comes into play. Until this point, each of these moves in the Ruy Lopez are standard and any deviation from the moves in this order moves it out of the Ruy Lopez ECO category and into another opening line. According to the Chessbase Fritz Powerbook, in most typical grandmaster games, the Berlin defense results in a 30% win rate for White, 22% for black, and a 48% draw rating. If this is the case, why would a player with the Black pieces even consider playing 3…Nf6? The answer seems to be as complicated as the Berlin Defense itself, but it seems clear that Black’s intention with 3…Nf6 is just to tell his opponent that victory will not be easy, nor will it be assured.
Berlin Defense in WC 2014
Vishy Anand used the Berlin Defense extensively throughout the World Championship match in response to Magnus Carlsen’s Ruy Lopez. For the purposes of this exercise, I have chosen to look at Game #11 of the match where I first noticed the intensity in which commentators were referring to the Berlin Defense.
Fig 2: The Berlin Defense to the Ruy Lopez.
As you can see from the diagram above, the Berlin Defense puts immediate pressure on Carlsen’s e4 pawn and challenges him for control of the d5 square. Magnus Carlsen played 4.O-O in response to 3…Nf6, which activated his Rook and put the White King to safety. At first, I recognized that this is not the move that I would have chosen and I am confident that is why I will never get to play Magnus for the title. :) On the surface, it can seem like 4.O-O is not a developing move, but it places White in an exceptional position to defend against Black’s coming assault.
Next, Anand played the Open Variation of the Berlin Defense with 4…Nxe4. In the Berlin Defense, there are three primary options that a player can respond with after 4.O-O:
The Open Variation (4…Nxe4).
The Classical Variation (4…Bc5).
The Rio De Janeiro Variation (4…Be7).
Another option is 4…d6 although the percentage of wins for Black drops considerably in the Powerbook to only 18% out of 78 games recorded. Each of these lines has advantages and disadvantages. Much of the theoretical research on the Berlin defense has focused on finding advantage after the e4 pawn is captured in the Open Variation. In my opinion, the capture of the e4 pawn looks much like a typical aggressive move from an online blitz game; not a world-class tournament. In any case, this was the move that Anand chose and Carlsen responded with the typical 5.d4, which attacks Anand’s e5 pawn and balances the attack on the e5 square with his Knight. Anand gained a slight material advantage by capturing the pawn, but finding the benefit of that material seems to be the challenge that many openings experts continue to debate.
The next move, 5…Nd6 is where things become overtly aggressive. The e5 pawn is left hanging in the center of the board as bait for Carlsen while the Knight on d6 attacks the waiting Bishop. In this case, the Bishop must make some kind of move, whether he chooses to launch an assault on Anand’s Queenside or to retreat back to safety. The most popular move in this position is for White to eliminate one of the Knights by playing 6.Bxc6. The Bishop is lost, but Carlsen gets one of the Knights in return. This also forces Anand to break his Queenside defense to capture the Bishop before it does any more damage.
Fig 3: The Berlin Defense Open Variation after 6.Bxc6.
Anand immediately recaptures with 6…dxc6, but the capture also enables Carlsen to regain the one pawn material advantage from the earlier 4…Nxe4. By playing 7.dxe5, Carlsen creates a dangerous passed pawn and aims straight for Anand’s territory. Anand has several options to choose from, but 7…Nf5 makes the most sense as it takes control of squares in Carlsen’s territory and opens up his Queen for attack. However, this move is one of three accepted variations in which two result in a Queen sacrifice. Either 7…Nf4 or 7…Ne4 result in a sacrifice with 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8. Carlsen responded to the move with 8.Qxd8 and Anand recaptured with his King 8…Kxd8. At this point in the game, Carlsen’s pieces are much more active than Anand’s and his King remains safely castled while Vishy has lost the ability to castle due to the forced 8…Kxd8. I have read in many chess books and heard from instructors that one of the priorities of an opening is to force the opponent to move his or her King before they are able to castle. This ensures that the King remains in the center of the board and is far more vulnerable.
9.h3 comes next although the Powerbook prefers 9.Nc3 as it gives White a slightly smaller chance of forcing a win. At this point in the Berlin Defense, it is worth noting that the Powerbook indicates that only 15% of grandmasters playing with the Black pieces have successfully forced a win from this position. However, in contrast, only 21% of grandmasters have managed a win with the White pieces. Therefore, the position is none too pleasant for either side given that the remaining 66% of games in this position have ended in a draw.
Fig 4: The most perilous position of the Berlin Defense?
The main line in this situation is 9…Ke8, but Anand deviates and plays 9…Bd7, which restores some sense of balance to the game. Carlsen and Nakamura seem to be among the top grandmasters that prefer 10.Nc3 in this position while most others play 10.Rd1 to pin the Bishop to Black’s King. Carlsen plays 10.Nc3 to which Anand follows up by developing his h-file pawn with 10…h6. This prevents Carlsen from attacking Black’s vulnerable King with 11.Bg5+ and also gives Black a little breathing room to advance his f and g pawns if necessary.
11.b3 Kc8 gets Black’s King out of danger. 12.Bb2 builds a tremendous fortress on White’s Queenside and gives additional protection to the powerful e5 pawn by moving the Knight on c3. Although White has strong counter-play against almost anything that Black can come up with, the Powerbook shows the game as already drawn with Anand’s reply of 12…c5??. As the most amateur of amateur chess players, it is difficult for me to see the real intention behind this move. There appears to be no strategic value to White’s advance of the c3 Knight to any of the squares now controlled by the c5 pawn although maybe there is some secret grandmaster handshake that must be known before this particular move can be fully understood. With the follow-on 13.Rd1, Carlsen targets the lonely Bishop guarding the Black King. 13…b6 develops another pawn on the Queenside, but it is too little too late. Carlsen played 14.Re1 and the game effectively left the book. The remaining moves were 14…Be6 15. Nd5 g5 16. c4 Kb7 17. Kh2 a5 18. a4 Ne7 19. g4 Ng6 20. Kg3 Be7 21. Nd2 Rhd8 22. Ne4 Bf8 23. Nef6 b5 24. Bc3 bxa4 25. bxa4 Kc6 26. Kf3 Rdb8 27. Ke4 Rb4 28. Bxb4 cxb4 29. Nh5 Kb7 30. f4 gxf4 31. Nhxf4 Nxf4 32. Nxf4 Bxc4 33. Rd7 Ra6 34. Nd5 Rc6 35. Rxf7 Bc5 36. Rxc7+ Rxc7 37. Nxc7 Kc6 38. Nb5 Bxb5 39. axb5+ Kxb5 40. e6 b3 41. Kd3 Be7 42. h4 a4 43. g5 hxg5 44. hxg5 a3 45. Kc3 1-0
Peering Over the Wall
The conclusion of game 11 solidified Carlsen’s win and he retained his title as World Chess Champion. Even now, chess periodicals and magazines are being published that analyze the psychology, strategy, tactics, and political overtones of the match. My February edition of Chess Life arrived yesterday and the Carlsen-Anand match is the issue’s highlighted event. I am normally fascinated with the sociological and psychological aspects of the game, but this was the first match that ever turned my attention to the nuances of a particular opening. As I mentioned earlier, I enjoy playing the Ruy Lopez and after careful analysis of the Berlin Defense I can honestly say that it is a complicated position to play. There is little to no room for error in order for one side to find a way over the Berlin Wall. As I continue struggle through online blitz games and gaze endlessly at configurations from magazines and periodicals, I take solace in knowing that Vishy and Magnus are out there winning the big ones for me.
I once read in a chess book that beginning players and anyone wanting to improve their level of chess play should never resign, but should play until checkmated or all material has been exhausted. Needless to say that I still resign in many of my games, but I am more hesitant to resign these days than in the past. These days, I look at a position I believe is lost, give it a quick analysis, and then decide whether there are things I can try based on the material and position I am given. Even if the position is obviously lost, there are often things to learn and challenges to behold past those positions. This game was hopelessly lost early on, but a series of blunders created by bait-traps I set throughout the game had an exhilaratingly positive outcome. It just goes to show that even when a position seems lost that unless a King is in checkmate (#), the game is not over until we, the players, decide it is. Enjoy!
The following game was played earlier this month on Chess.com and I believe that it demonstrates the level at which my play has improved over the past six months. There were several tactical blunders in this game, but the amount of blunders and errors in games like this have decreased significantly. It is with great pleasure that I present game #2 of Move by Move:
Every so often, a chess player experiences a game that challenges them to move beyond basic strategy and tactics to explore the core of what embodies the fighting spirit of chess. For the first edition of Move by Move, we will examine a game that I played in December of 2014 against a player with an ELO of 1057 on Chess.com.
Today has been one of the worst days in recent memory, but it seems that there is always a silver lining to a darkened cloud. The game above was played today on Chess.com and although it is not much to look at, it represents an important milestone in my chess training because it is the first game to ever place me above 900 ELO in blitz! As I blogged about recently and followed-up with in the current edition of OMC Weekend Review, 900 has always eluded me, but today is a day for celebrating the fruits of hard-earned labor.
