Silman calls the Lucena Position “The Holy Grail of Rook Endings”. In this position Regardless of who’s turn it is to move, White wins. 1.Rf2+ Forcing Black’s King to leave the scene of the battle. 1…Kg7 [1…Kg6 2.Rf4 Kg5 3.Rd4 Kf6 4.Ke8 Re1+ 5.Kf8 Rf1 6.d8Q+ Ke5+ 7.Ke7 ] 2.Rf4 Building a bridge. 2…Kg6 3.Ke7…
Black to move (Stefanova – Shirov 2005) r3rq1k/8/p2p3p/P1pPnp1P/1p3Q2/5PNR/1PP2K2/R7 b – – 0 29 Download game Evaluation The first thing I did was to evaluate this position, and I gave it the following evaluation: Material =, King Safety +/=, Activity =/+, Pawn Structure =. So the game in my opinon is even. (When I gave it…
Study Schedule Day Topic 1 (30m) Topic 2 (1hr) Monday Solve Tactics Study Endings Tuesday Play Annotate game * Wednesday Solve Endings Study Strategy ** Thursday Solve Tactics Solve Strategy *** Friday Solve Tactics Study Openings Saturday Solve Tactics Solve Strategy Sunday Play Annotate game * Legend: * If you run out of time during…
About the Virtual Chess Coach Program This program is geared for my improvement (a 35 year old 1278 USCF rated player), but I hope that others in a similar situation will be able to derive benefit from it as well. I will be modeling this program on the teaching’s of Dan Heisman. Dan Heisman is…
Why is it that beginners fail to choose simple plans that are right before their eyes? One answer may be that beginners do not evaluate the position before choosing a candidate move. Beginners briefly scan the board, choose a move they like and quickly analyze and play this move. The problem with this thought process…
A frequent issue confronted by amateurs is wishful thinking when calculating combinations. This propensity to fabricate beneficial scenarios in our analysis is very typical throughout an amateur’s game, but it is most dangerous when calculating combinations. You see a pretty combination worthy of Tal, and you analyze it over and over, after you have finished…
Improving your Thought Process This is the first in a series of posts about faulty thought process tendencies by beginners. Unfortunately, I am the source of inspiration, but hopefully by writing about these errors my thought process will improve. The most important thing that a beginning to intermediate player can do to improve their chess…
Tactics Program This tactics training program should not take more than 30 minutes per session, and it is flexible enough where you can adjust the amount of puzzles and / or the amount of time spent per puzzle as well as the session time so that you can customize it to your needs and study…
If you live in the South Florida area, the Miami International Chess Academy is offering group lessons with IM Blas Lugo at reasonable rates . Check out their website for more info.
The following game illustrates (starting in move 49.) how to exploit an extra pawn in a King and pawn endgame with many pawns left on the board. This example comes from James Howell’s excellent book ‘Essential Chess Endings’. Things to remember: 1. Activate the king. 2. Create a passed pawn to tie down your opponent’s…