Chess for Beginners

Tag: assessment

  • Playing Against an Outpost

    Playing Against an Outpost

     

    In the diagram White has an outpost on e5, but Ne5 can always be met by …Nxe5 and after recapturing with the pawn, White’s outpost is gone. White needs to bring another piece to bear on e5, so White to move would play 1.Bg5 and follow it up with Bh4 and Bg3. If on the other hand Black is on the move, he would seek to prevent this with 1…h6, or a more active solution 2…Qe8( so as to meet Bg5 with 2…Qh5! threatening Rxf3) or 1…Qb6. Either move gives Black a fine position.

     

    If you are unable to cover your opponent’s outpost, then extremely active harassing tactics are needed.

     

    The diagram is from Unzicker – Fischer, Varna 1962.  If you are unable to cover your opponent’s outpost, then extremely active harassing tactics are needed. In this position the White knight is at least four moves away from reaching d5, this gives Black some breathing room to prevent it, since after the White knight reaches d5 White is lost.

    1… Ra4 Immobilizing the knight. 2. c3 Qa6 3. h3?  Rc8 4. Rfe1 h6 5. Kh2 Bg5 6. g3 Qa7 7. Kg2 Ra2 8. Kf1 Rxc3! White resigns, as after 9.Rxa2 (9.bxc3 Qf2#) Rf3+ 10.Ke2 Rf2+ 11.Kd1 Qxa2 his position is wrecked.

    The lessons to be learned here is that structure alone is not quite everything. The pieces must be able to coordinate with the pawn structure.

    From Stean’s Simple Chess

  • Steinitz's Elements

    Permanent advantages

    1. Material advantage
    2. Bad king position
    3. Passed pawns in the middlegame
    4. Weak pawns for the opponent
    5. Strong and weak squares
    6. Pawn islands
    7. Strong pawn center
    8. Control of a diagonal
    9. Control of a file
    10. Bishop pair
    11. Control of a rank

    Temporary advantages
    12. Bad piece position
    13. Inharmoniously placed pieces
    14. Advantage in development
    15. Concentration of pieces in the center (centralization)
    16. Space advantage

  • Common Chess Errors

    The purpose of the following list of chess errors, is to assist us to diagnose our weaknesses when we annotate our games.

    Opening Weaknesses
    Falling victim to an opening trap
    Ignoring the development of your pieces
    Waiting too long to castle
    Opening inaccuracy
    Moving the same piece more than once in the opening

    Calculation Weaknesses
    Missing the strongest continuation
    calculation errors
    stopping analysis of a candidate too early
    Losing the thread of your analysis (getting lost in your analytical tree of variations)
    Retained image error (calculation)
    Not analyzing a candidate because it seems to lose material
    Stopping the analysis of a line 1-2 ply before the winning move
    Not evaluating the position at the end of your analysis

    Thought Process Weaknesses
    Failing to see your opponents threats
    Losing a won game
    Losing concentration / Focus / Thread of the game
    Not asking the right questions

    Time Management Weaknesses
    getting into time trouble
    playing too fast
    playing too slow
    Spending too much time on a non-critical move

    Endgame Weaknesses
    Entering into a lost endgame
    Missing a common endgame pattern
    Not knowing how to play a fundamental endgame position

    Positional Weaknesses
    Ignoring your opponents threats
    Ignoring King safety
    Starting a premature attack
    Pawn hunting in the opening
    Losing control of an important file or diagonal
    Allowing your opponent too much space
    Weakening your pawn structure
    Misplaying a pawn breakthrough
    Entering an exchange which leads to a worse position
    Missing a positional move / idea

    Psychological Weaknesses
    Worrying about ratings / results
    Fearing your opponents rating
    Playing without a plan

    Learning
    Not reviewing your games
    Learning concepts too advanced for your level
    Focusing too much on knowledge and not on skill (studying too much  versus playing too little)

  • Calculating your Chess Rating and Knowledge

    Here’s a fun exercise to determine your estimated chess rating taking into account your existing chess skill and knowledge. While this is just for fun, it can prove helpful in determining how you should focus your chess training. If your knowledge rating is much higher than your skills rating, then you you need to focus your training towards skill building where if your skill rating is much higher than your knowledge rating, then you need to focus more on book learning. You should strive to have your knowledge and skill ratings at no more than 100 points apart.

    Here’s how this works.

    Formula: (Skill + Knowledge) / 2 = ELO

    You need to plug in two of the numbers, and the two best to plug in are ELO and Skill. Ideally, you would use your USCF rating, but if you don’t have one, you can use your ICC of FICS rating, just remember to subtract 150 from your ICC or FICS rating so that it approximates an official USCF rating.

    For your skills rating, I would use Igor Khmelnitsky’s Chess Exam and Training Guide to test your skills and get a rating approximation.

    Example:

    Skill rating: 1138 (based on Khelmenitsky’s book)
    USCF ELO: 1340
    Knowledge rating = K

    (S+K) / 2 = ELO

    (1138 + K) / 2 = 1340

    1138 / 2 + k/2 – 1340 = 0

    569 + K/2 – 1340 = 0

    k/2-781 = 0

    K=781 * 2

    K= 1562

    So my chess knowledge rating equals 1562, while my chess skill rating is approximately 1138 giving me an ELO of 1340. This means I have to focus on getting my skill rating to par with my knowledge rating in order to play at an estimated 1562 ELO rating.

    The goal should be get my skill rating within the same ballpark as my knowledge rating (+/- 100 elo points) before focusing on adding more chess knowledge.

    You should repeat this process every three months, but you will need to take the skill’s test again as well as play in a tournament in order to update your USCF rating and get an accurate reading.

    I would love to hear feedback on this, especially if you actually try it out.

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