Chess Notebook Week of 11.30.09

Monday 11.30.09 Played G/20 20 game against opponent rated 1865. Played the Sicilian Grand Prix and lost in a rook endgame where I was a pawn down. Tuesday 12.01.09 Reviewed game. Made an interesting observation that I would not have picked up on if I had not reviewed game. I lost 2 pawns during the game,...

Chess Notebook Week of 11.23.09

Started new program mid week, so entries will be from Wednesday through Sunday. Wednesday 11.26.09 Played G/15 5 game against an opponent rated 1687 on ICC (I am provisionally rated 1781 after this game). I plan on playing all of my standard games on ICC so that I can maintain continuity in tracking my ELO...

Chess Resolutions

Farbror the Guru has challenged the chess improvement community to come up with a list of chess goals for the coming year, so here are mine: Long Term Goals Increase USCF rating to 1400 (currently at 1283) Increase Chess Tempo standard tactics rating to 1850 (currently at 1700) Increase ICC standard rating...

Chess Tweets

I haven’t had much time to devote to blogging, so I am trying a new method. I am posting my chess training notebook using Twitter. If the post requires more than the 140 character limit, then I will expand on the topic via the blog.

King and Pawn Endings

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...

King and Pawn Endgame with Pawns on Both Wings

The following endgame example illustrates how to turn a one pawn advantage into a win: The conversion of an extra pawn falls into three phases: 1) the King is activated. 1.Kf1 1…Ke7 2.Ke2 Kd6 3.Kd3 Kd5 2)Mobilization of the majority. 4.b4 Mobilize by moving the “candidate”, which is the...