{"id":5968,"date":"2019-11-05T22:22:30","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T06:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=5968"},"modified":"2019-11-05T22:24:03","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T06:24:03","slug":"weaknesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=5968","title":{"rendered":"Weaknesses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lately I have been going through a book called \u201cIt\u2019s Your Move!\u201d by Chris Ward with some of my chess club students. I like the concept of this book very much. It consists of 150 positions from grandmaster games, in which students are supposed to come up with the best plan<\/em>. I like the way this differs from most training books, where there is usually one tactic that clearly wins or is clearly better than anything else. Ninety percent of a chess game is not that way; there are many ways to play and there is room for a lot of individual taste about how to proceed. I want to wean my students away from calculating variations and teach them how to think conceptually about those ambiguous positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ward also has a really interesting, reader-friendly way of\nsetting up these exercises. In each position he presents five possible\nsolutions by five recurring characters: Ambitious Andy, Ballistic Bob, Cautious\nCarol, Devious Dave, and Steady Eddy. I think that the kids enjoy these\nfictional characters, although perhaps they like Ballistic Bob a little bit too\nmuch. In each case we talk through the five solutions and try to arrive at a\nconsensus decision. I definitely try to weigh in during the analysis, but the\nfinal vote is up to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today we had a position where I feel as if I led them pretty\nbadly astray. This is Test One, question eight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Position after 19. Rc3. Black to move.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

FEN: 2r1r1k1\/pb4bp\/2p1ppp1\/3q4\/3P4\/2R2NB1\/PPQ2PPP\/R5K1 b – – 0 19<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBlack has the advantage of the two bishops, but how should\nhe put this to use?\u201d Ward writes. Three of the plans he suggests are clearly\nnot optimal, so the choice comes down to Ballistic Bob and Steady Eddy. \u201cBlasting\nthe position open with the immediate 19. \u2026 e5 is the order of the day for Bob,\nwho wants to see his bishops getting in on the act sooner rather than later,\u201d Ward\nsays. On the other hand, \u201cEddy sees his c-pawn as his main weakness and so\nsuggests a plan involving trading it off. He likes 19. \u2026 Bf8 (intending \u2026\nc6-c5) and is certainly prepared to capture on a2 if White attempts to halt his\nmaster plan with 20. Rc1.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we looked at 19. \u2026 e5 I thought it had a lot going for\nit. After 20. de fe the threat of 21. \u2026 e4 is very much in the air and I didn\u2019t\nsee a good rebuttal. I thought that 20. de was perhaps a little bit too\ncooperative, helping Black open up the a1-h8 diagonal for his bishop, so White\nshould perhaps keep it closed with 20. Rc5. But then 20. \u2026 Qf7 21. Re1 ed!\n(suggested by Ryder) looked quite good for Black. Atlee and Ryder agreed with\nBallistic Bob. Emmy was inclined at first to go with Steady Eddy, but\neventually she came around to our choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer was pretty interesting. Of course, 19. \u2026 Bf8 was\nright. A good preparatory move for a sensible plan. Indeed, \u2026 c5 is the break\nthat Black should aim for, because it not only eliminates a weakness (as\npointed out by Ward) but also opens up the a8-h1 diagonal for the white squared\nbishop. This would have been a great point to make for my students: when you\nhave the advantage of the two bishops, the unopposed<\/em>\nbishop is especially the one you should activate; it is the \u201dmonster.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ward\u2019s comment on Ballistic Bob\u2019s move, 19. \u2026 e5?, was\npositively scathing. \u201cNote that Bob\u2019s 19. \u2026 e5 is positionally feeble. At best\nit swaps off White\u2019s isolated d-pawn and leaves Black with three isolated\npawns!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first I thought that Ward was too harsh. I actually want<\/em> my students to consider aggressive moves like 19. \u2026 e5. I think that they will win lots of games with moves like this. (Remember, they are playing at around an 800-1000 rating level.) However, on calm reflection after I came home, I realized that Ward  was right and 19. \u2026 e5 is even worse than he says. After 19. \u2026 e5? 20. de fe 21. Rd3! is already almost crushing, because on \u2026 Qe6 or \u2026 Qf7 White has the followup 22. Ng5! This chases Black\u2019s queen off its good diagonal (both of them, in fact) and makes 23. Qb3+ a very serious threat. Not only that, even the variation we liked for Black, 19. \u2026 e5 20. Rc5 Qf7, makes no sense because 21. de just wins a pawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s interesting that Ward did not mention any of these tactical issues, though, and just zeroes in on the weaknesses that 19. \u2026 e5? creates. As a grandmaster, he just looks at those weaknesses and says, \u201cThis move cannot be right\u201d \u2013 without wasting any clock time. The weaknesses don’t stop with the three isolated pawns. There’s also the a2-g8 diagonal that is opened up, placing black\u2019s king in danger; the g5 square which becomes available for White\u2019s knight; and the e4 square which becomes a nice outpost for that knight, should it become necessary for White to blockade the e-pawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a darn good lesson for me. It was instructive that\nI couldn\u2019t accept that 19. \u2026 e5? was a mistake until I actually saw a concrete\nvariation where White blows it up. I am still not thinking like a grandmaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For my students, I think I will do a quick recap next week and teach them about the importance of thinking about weaknesses<\/em>. Obviously I have not emphasized this enough in my lessons, because I don\u2019t emphasize it enough in my own games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In case you’re wondering, IM John Emms played 19. \u2026 Bf8! 20. a3 c5 21. dc Rxc5 22. Rxc5 Qxc5 23. Qxc5 Bxc5, and just as Ward promised, Black’s bishops have found beautiful diagonals. Emms eventually won a very routine, grind-it-out endgame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conclusion, I still think that Ward\u2019s book is a good one\nto teach from, but I think it requires a teacher who is on the ball. Ward\u2019s\nexplanations of the best plan are usually quite good (he shows the rest of the\ngame following that move) but his explanations of the inferior plans, and why\nthey are inferior, tend to be too cryptic. That\u2019s what you need a good teacher\nfor. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lately I have been going through a book called \u201cIt\u2019s Your Move!\u201d by Chris Ward with some of my chess club students. I like the concept of this book very much. It consists of 150 positions from grandmaster games, in which students are supposed to come up with the best plan. I like the way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,14,16],"tags":[4404,4401,4402,1505,2021,4405,173,41,1010,4403],"class_list":["post-5968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chess-clubs","category-literature","category-positions","tag-ambiguity","tag-chris-ward","tag-its-your-move","tag-john-emms","tag-planning","tag-scathing","tag-tactics","tag-teaching","tag-two-bishops","tag-unopposed-bishop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5968"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5973,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5968\/revisions\/5973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}