I was away for a few days at a science meeting in Seattle, but now I’m back. I had a chess-ful weekend. First, Eric Montany invited me and the Usual Suspects to a birthday party at his house. There were, like, real people at this party, not just chess players, and so Eric was too busy being a good host to play chess with us. Still, it was a fun evening in a beautiful spot.
Even better, on Sunday Mike Splane organized one of his regular chess parties, except it wasn’t at his house. Because of the hot weather, Gary Kelly offered to host us at his air-conditioned house. This was more of a chess spa than a chess party. First of all he has a beautiful house with tons of space, and to top it off he prepared food for us — hamburgers for the meat eaters, spanakopita and gorgonzola cheese pastry for those, like me, who don’t eat red meat. I was blown away. I barely even knew Gary Kelly (he must know some of the other regulars, but not me), yet he has given us an afternoon worthy of Club Med. Thanks, Gary! I know who you are now!
The theme for today’s party was: how do you develop an opening repertoire? I didn’t expect much out of this discussion, because it’s so individual. My opinions are known, some people disagree with them strongly, and there’s no final answer. Nevertheless, I was curious what other people would say, so I mostly listened. Just as you might think, everybody had their own sage advice:
Gjon Feinstein and Austen Green: Watch videos!
Eric: Read books! (He had a number of specific recommendations. They sounded great, but I am incapable of reading a chess book cover to cover without falling asleep. Especially an opening book.)
Austen: Subscribe to Megabase, and go over the annotated games!
Juande Perea and Austen: Fritz Trainer! (This last one was new to me. Does anyone have any opinions on it, positive or negative?)
Gary: Know yourself, know your opponent, play types of positions that he doesn’t like. (This is useful if you are in a club and you know everybody’s favorite openings and styles. Less useful for open tournament play.)
At some point we finished talking and started playing speed chess. I played a very interesting blitz game against Austen, which relates to openings (I guess) because the game was decided basically in the first twelve moves.
Dana Mackenzie – Austen Green
Dutch Defense
1. d4 f5 2. Qd3 …
Would I play this in a tournament? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. But for me, a useful prequel to playing a move in a tournament has always been testing it out in blitz. I remembered seeing this 25 or 30 years ago in Modern Chess Openings and thinking it looked wild and crazy.
2. … d6
After the game, Gjon and Richard Koepcke almost in unison said that Black is supposed to play 2. … d5. How do they know all this stuff? Isn’t 2. Qd3 the most obscure move I could possibly have chosen? That’s one approach to the opening: Know everything.
3. g4 fg 4. h3 Nf6 5. hg Bxg4
All right, now we’re at the end of my theoretical knowledge. I’m just winging it from here.
6. Bg5 …
Striking at a key defensive piece for Black. I was relatively confident about this move, as it plays a role in the Staunton Gambit as well, which I’ve played many times.
6. … Nbd7?!
The most natural move on the board; in fact, I think it’s the only way for Black to remain up in material. 6. … g6? would run into 7. Bxf6 and 8. Qe4+. 6. … e6 would, I think, run into 7. f3 and 8. e4. Rybka recommends 6. … Nc6 or 6. … c6, moves that essentially give back the pawn with no fuss. Rybka is probably right, because Black gets a nice solid position with no weaknesses.
The text move is intended to discourage Bxf6 because Black can recapture with the knight. But it has a subtle flaw; do you see what it is?
Position after 6. … Nbd7. White to move.
FEN: r2qkb1r/pppnp1pp/3p1n2/6B1/3P2b1/3Q4/PPP1PP2/RN2KBNR w KQkq – 0 7
The problem with this move is that Black’s king no longer has a flight square, so I played 7. Rxh7!
At first it looks as if White is simply winning. But Austen kept his cool — something that is, by the way, one of Austen’s strong points — and he quickly found Black’s only chance to stay in the game.
7. … Ne5!
Now it was my turn to be shocked. My first reaction was that this was a desperado trick that must be unsound. But when you look closer, it makes perfect sense. Black frees up the flight square, covers the checking square, and incidentally has both my queen and rook under attack. White can’t help losing material. 8. Rxh8? Nxd3+ would be very bad, so I’m forced to give up the exchange.
The question after the game was whether Austen’s move is just a refutation of 7. Rxh7. But the computer gives White something like a +0.1 or +0.2-pawn advantage. When a computer says you have full compensation for an exchange, that’s saying something. Against a human opponent, you might be +0.5 or +1.0.
8. de Nxh7 9. Qg6+ Kd7 10. Be3 …
Hallelujah! The computer says I played the best move! I had no idea. I just thought the bishop was less in the way here. True, it’s in the way of the e2 pawn, but I felt that it was unlikely I would need to move that pawn.
10. … Be6
As Austen pointed out, the position was pretty easy for Black to play. All of his moves are forced. It’s harder for White because there are so many plausible moves, and in fact this was where I messed up.
Position after 10. … Be6. White to move.
FEN: r2q1b1r/pppkp1pn/3pb1Q1/4P3/8/4B3/PPP1PP2/RN2KBN1 w Q – 0 11
If I had been playing Matrix chess, this would have been a good place for a timeout, but of course you can’t do that against humans.
My first thought here was that Black is planning to play 11. … Qe8 and either trade queens or force me to retreat. So I felt that it essential for me to keep the pressure on him. My second thought was that I might even be able to set up the queen sacrifice, Qxe6+. But that is just a fantasy. Black’s king has too many flight squares for me to checkmate him.
One of the hardest things to grasp in chess (for me, at least) is when it’s time to change the pace of the game. This is especially difficult when I have already sacrificed some material. I feel as if I have to push, push, push. Make threats, don’t give my opponent time to organize his superior manpower.
Therefore the move I played here was 11. Bh3??, a move the computer says is a huge mistake. You can see that I have only one thing on my mind: checkmate Black’s king. This move forces Black to do something that he wants to do anyway: trade pieces! He trades a very awkwardly placed defender for a potentially powerful attacker. He can now think about playing … Qe8 and … e6 and developing normally.
I failed to ask myself what is the true nature of White’s compensation for the exchange. It isn’t that I have a mating attack. In fact, I completely overrated my attacking chances. I have too many undeveloped pieces to attack successfully. I need to invite the rest of my pieces to the party.
The real reason White is okay in this position is that Black’s pieces are in utter confusion. Black has four pieces on the kingside that are tripping all over each other, and he can scarcely move any of them. If White simply plays developing moves, his advantage will grow and grow and grow. The very last thing White wants to do is to exchange pieces, because that solves all of Black’s problems.
So the correct thing to do here is change the pace. Slow the game down. Build the pressure until something breaks. Time is on White’s side.
The computer’s recommendation, therefore, is 11. Nc3! This is instructive for another reason. The play is switching over to the queenside, therefore White needs to get his queenside pieces out first. Surely Austen would have played 11. … Qe8, and then of course I want to avoid the queen trade with 12. Qe4. In all likelihood Austen would play 12. … c6 as in the game, and then I simply castle (13. O-O-O). Let’s look at the position and compare it to what happened in the game.
Position after 13. O-O-O (analysis). Black to move.
FEN: r3qb1r/pp1kp1pn/2ppb3/4P3/4Q3/2N1B3/PPP1PP2/2KR1BN1 b – – 0 13
Last night I played the computer’s “best play” analysis out to about move thirty, but that is really beside the point. This is not a position you can evaluate with “if-this-then-that” type of thinking, because there are just too many possibilities for White and for Black. You just have to look at the position. Black has not come any closer to solving the problem of how to develop his kingside. Retreating the e6 bishop will cause him grief after Bh3+. Fianchettoing with … g6 and … Bg7 will cause him grief after I take on d6. Closing up the center with 13. … d5 doesn’t work because after 14. Qa4, the d5 and a7 pawns are both hanging. The protection for Black’s king is eroding away.
For all these reasons, Rybka recommends the patient move 13. … Kc7 for Black. But if this is Black’s best move, White should be happy, because it’s one more move that fails to address the real issues in Black’s position. Meanwhile, White will just continue to play natural moves: Nf3, Bg2, Nd4, building pressure on targets like e6 and d6 and c6.
I’m probably making it sound as if White has a won game, and that’s not true. Black has a solid position without a lot of weaknesses, and that’s one reason why White has to adopt a “take-it-slow” approach. Basically, I’m waiting for Black to make a concession or a commitment; until then, I just play flexibly. The roles have reversed: my moves are easy, and his moves are hard.
(By the way, this easy-moves vs. hard-moves issue is one that I should pay more attention to. As we noticed before earlier in the game, when the defender has to “walk a tightrope,” play a lot of forced moves just to avoid losing, a lot of times that is easier for him than to play a position where he constantly has to choose between unpalatable options.)
Now let’s compare this with what happened in the game. After 11. Bh3? Austen played 11. … Bxh3 (again, forced moves are sometimes good moves) 12. Nxh3 Qe8 13. e6+ Kd8. White’s last move was also somewhat questionable, but I wanted to prevent him from playing … e6 and developing normally. The trouble is that 13. e6+ closes off lines of attack and releases the pressure on d6. It’s the opposite of flexible.
The game continued 14. Qe4 c6 15. Qb4 Kc7. Notice how I’m only making queen moves, not getting the rest of my pieces into the game. There’s also a constant worry that Black might open up the h-file with a move like … Nf6, attacking my loose knight on h3. So I played 16. Nf4 and he played the brave — and correct! — 16. … g5! And here, for the second time in the game, I played a move that visibly caught him by surprise: 17. Nd5+.
Position after 17. Nd5+. Black to move.
FEN: r3qb1r/ppk1p2n/2ppP3/3N2p1/1Q6/4B3/PPP1PP2/RN2K3 b Q – 0 17
The trick here is that if 17. … cd? then after 18. Qc3+ I win back the exchange. But Cool Hand Austen calmly said, “Okay, I won’t take the knight then.” He simply played 17. … Kb8! And we can now see that my 17th move was all flash and no substance. The knight is still under attack, and if I move it away he is going to play … Nf6 and that open h-file will become more and more of a problem.
Because it was just a speed game, I decided to leave the knight on d5 and hope for a miracle. This is called “hope chess.” And as is usually the case, it didn’t work. After 18. N1c3 Bg7 19. O-O-O cd 20. Nxd5 my attack fizzled out in just a few more moves.
So what do we learn from this game? I learned quite a lot:
- Be aware of the pace of the game. Try to judge whether the position calls for rapid forcing moves, or slow and flexible moves. Even if you have sacrificed material, you don’t necessarily have to play for an immediate knockout.
- What are some signs that you should take it slow? (a) Your opponent’s position does not have any easy targets. (b) You have not developed all your pieces yet. (c) You have weaknesses in your own position that will come back to bite you if you only focus on attack.
- Be aware of which player has the more difficult choices to make. It’s tempting to think that you have your opponent on the ropes when you are forcing him to play “only moves.” But in reality, you may just be making it easy for him. Consider making moves instead that force him to make hard decisions.
- Watch out for moves that have more flash than substance. Both 7. Rxh7 and 17. Nd5+ were flashy moves, but after Austen recovered from the surprise he found perfectly good answers.
