The Back Rank

Finished level 30

2010-01-09T14:06:00.002-05:00

I actually finished level 30 about a week ago. But getting back on track at work from the holidays has taken most of my time. First the results (then the commentary)


 >-------------------<
|  Level 10     100%  |
 >-------------------<
|  Level 20      97%  |
 >-------------------<
|  Level 30      91%  |
 >-------------------<

The last time I did CT-Art, it took me until my 4th repetition of level 30 to get from this high of a percentage. So that indicates that I have made some tactical progress. On the other hand, my 5th (and final) rep of level 30 I did at 97%. So I have slipped from that level. And of course, this time through was much slower than what I was doing before.

Some of the level 30 problems are really quite difficult and require seeing a lot of variations. The fact that I was able to do them so quickly in the past raises an old question: Does repetition just teach us the solutions to particular problems? This is an important question, because our real goal is to do better in new positions. At the moment, my answer the question is a resounding "I don't know."

But, I'm inclined to just keep working instead of trying to optimize the process. My results on the most recent run through level 30 are significantly better than they were the first 3 times I did these problems. Since that was 2 years ago, the effect of memorizing the solutions is probably not that great (and I did not feel while solving the problems that I just knew the solution, I could really calculate the problems better).

level 20 complete

2009-12-01T10:32:00.003-05:00

I completed level 20 last night, finishing with a 97% score. Not bad, but the goal is 100% and there were a few problems I missed that I really should get. A bit over 2 weeks for the first 2 levels is a slow pace. I should be putting more time into this.

After my last update chesstiger reminded us that solving tactics problems is a little artificial because you know there is a tactic to find and in your games you won't have this cue. True, and of course, solving tactics problems isn't intended as a simulated game experience. Solving tactics problems is about learning patterns and practicing calculation. You can debate and philosophize all you like on whether or not this helps in a game situation, I'll be solving more tactics and hoping it does.

chugging along

2009-11-23T11:39:00.004-05:00

I forgot how long some of these levels were. After blowing through level 10 in 45 minutes, I'm just now halfway through level 20. So far I'm at 96%.

Can't really conclude anything from that. But on my last time through this set of problems, I did them at 98%. So I may have dropped off just a little bit, but my guess is that this is specific to this problem set and not a drop in tactical ability in general.

Some of the problems are quite tricky. If you really consider all the defensive resources, you may convince yourself the tactic doesn't quite work. Thinking back, I'm sure I did some of these problems 'correctly' while considering less about them than I am now when I'm not doing them correctly, simply because I knew the solutions by the 4th or 5th repetition. And there's probably very little value in learning the solutions of these problems if the process doesn't help me learn to play better tactics.

But I'll be sticking with it.

I'm baaaack

2009-11-15T17:38:00.003-05:00

I've decided to use this blog again!

A lot has changed since I last blogged here, but I've come to a point where using this blog makes sense again. For one thing, my rating has gone from 1729 to 1921. This is obviously a big change, so why haven't I been posting on my chess improvement blog what I've been doing to accomplish this ?!? Two primary reasons for that, 1) I wasn't following a regimen that lent itself to periodic updates or keeping a regular log and 2) between moving and changing jobs twice, time for blogging was limited and 2a) I blogged at chess.com.

So why not just continue blogging at chess.com?!? I'm listed as a Top Blogger there and my blog actually gets a fair number of reads. But that blog has never contained the kinds of things this one did and will. This blog is a personal place where I dump my current progress and thoughts. The chess.com blog was too polished, containing only instructive analysis of my games. I'd like to keep the two ideas separate. And there's something nice about a low readership when you're not aiming for quality, and I won't be aiming for quality here -- just spewing.

So what have I been doing the last year and a half while my rating has gone up 200 points?!? Playing a lot of OTB chess. I play at least one tournament every month, and often more. In some months reaching 10 OTB USCF rated games. I have no doubt this has helped a lot. I've used the Tactics Trainer at chess.com, occasionally popped on to Chess Tactics Server (chess.emrald.net), read books, analyzed my games, analyzed games with higher rated players, etc.

And what will I be doing now?!? I have just re-installed CT-Art on my new laptop. At first this did not work, because I'm running Vista. I googled it and a solution came up. This worked for me. So the plan is to get back to a regime of tactics training using CT-Art. The last time I did this, I got through repetitions up to level 40 with very high success rates. I hope to be nailing some of the higher levels this time as well. I crunched through level 10 today in a total of 45 minutes, 100% success rate.

I'll use this blog to flog myself in my CT-Art training, all results will be posted here.

King and Pawn ending

2008-03-04T18:47:00.004-05:00

This is an actual position from a recent game I played:

Black to move

Each side's king is dealing with connected passed pawns and at first I expected there would be nothing to do but babysit the pawns and we would draw. Unfortunately, this was a blitz game so there wasn't time to figure it out. Without the time to calculate, I just played Kc4 in the hopes that my pawns being further advanced was enough to win. My opponent obliged with the losing Kd1, which was probably a premoved king shuffle trying to draw, but this is now easily losing -- a6 would have led to both sides queening and a draw.

But black does have a winning idea in this position. Your name might be Likesforests if you get it right away.

1. ... Ka6 2. Kd1 d2! 3. Ke2 Kb5 4. Kd1 Kxb4! In this position black is close enough to queening even if white runs with the a-pawn due to a mating threat. 5. a6 Kc3 and now 6. a7 is mate in two with 6. ... Kd3 and 7. ... e2# while 6. Ke2 Kc2 threatens to promote with check so the black queen has time to stop white's pawn.

Brave Bishop

2008-02-09T10:07:00.000-05:00

I recently finished one of the cleanest games of chess I've ever orchestrated, including what I think is a pretty cool bishop maneuver. I will be getting on to flogging myself over losses soon enough, but first, something to smile about.

The game started out as an awkward Sicilian,
1. e4 c5 2. Bc4!?
This is supposed to be one of white's worst choices here. In fact, it's not even covered in my book on the Sicilian that covers 5 other "rare second moves". Instead of playing a solid refutation (2. ... e6) I just continued with normal accelerated dragon moves.
2. ... Nf6 3. c3
I don't know if this is some kind of delayed Alapin or what but I decide I should be trying to play d5 so
4. ... e6 5. f4?! d5.

White is playing a mix of early Bc4, Alapin, and Grand Prix which seems uncoordinated to me. c3 is supposed to support a d4 push, which doesn't go well with f4 because it leaves a big hole on e4. I have the feeling black has already equalized.
6. exd5 exd5 7. Qe2+
White gets a check in:

Black to move

White's pawn structure isn't good for development

6. ... Be7 7. Bb5 Nf6
Black just develops his pieces. It's easier to know where to put the knight than the c8 bishop.

8. Nf3 0-0 9. Bxc6 bxc6 10. 0-0

This is a critical position

Black to move

White might get away with playing d3, Be3, and Nbd2 and his position might not suck. This would be bad, we would like black's position to suffer more than if we simply allow these moves. A natural move here is just Bg4 because it feels nice to develop a piece with a pin, but this doesn't really do anything and perhaps the bishop might be better going to a6.

Instead, black finds a move that accomplishes two things.
10. ... c4!
The exclam might be excessive, but lets see what we've got. First, we're holding back white's easy development since it's not as simple to move the d-pawn any more. Second, we're clearing the c5 square for our dark squared bishop that was in danger of not getting active. We do cut off the a6-f1 diagonal from our light squared bishop, but that bishop can have scope on the other side of the board (f5, g4).

11. d4
This sticks black with a decision. There is only one chance to capture this pawn. There is some temptation to leave the pawns on f4 and d4 when white has a bad bishop. But the closed position doesn't bode well for black's bishop pair. Black would prefer to open up the vulnerable a7-g1 diagonal.

11. ... cxd3ep 12. Qxd3
If you can see all the tactics from this position, give yourself a gold star

Black to move

Black needs to strike while the iron is hot. White is threatening to just play Be3 and Nbd2. It's still not the prettiest position for white, but it seems to hold together.

12. ... Qb6+
Better than Bc5+ which can be met by Be3 or Kh1. Now Be3 hangs the b-pawn and there may be even worse consequences if 13. Be3 Ba6! Thankfully black doesn't have to calculate that line unless black actually makes the mistake Be3 and then it's just a matter of choosing the winning line he's more sure of. Kh1 loses material to Ba6.

13. Qe3 Bc5 14. Nd4 Re8
White's moves are pretty much forced. After loading up on the weak diagonal, black goes to work on the open file and the exposed queen. Black doesn't want to lose a pawn on d4 so:

15. Qd2 Ne4 A great post of the knight with tempo. 16. Qd1

Black to move

Black's pieces have gone forward while white's have not. Black can be proud of his better placed pieces, but this is not the moment to let up. Black might be tempted to play Ba6 to develop with tempo, but there is a better option for this brave bishop in this position. The c8 bishop enters the game in the most forceful way

16. ... Bg4!!
This move is brought to you by the letter "f" and the number "2". This hint is probably enough to figure out why 17. Qxg4? is an immediate loser. So once again white is making an unhappy move with his queen instead of developing his pieces. White still doesn't want to hang a pawn on d4 and so chooses:

17. Qd3 And now black demonstrates why the previous move gets two exclams
17. ... Be2! This move forks the queen and rook, so black will certainly pick up material if white declines the bishop a second time, so how does black pull it out when the bishop is accepted?

18. Qxe2 Nxc3

White to move

This move simultaneously captures a pawn, attacks the queen, and removes a defender of the d4 knight. If white tries to save the queen, black will recoup the sacrificed piece by taking the knight on d4 with check and still retain the extra pawn he's just captured on c3. Black does need to be certain that white can't get too much material for the queen. For example, 19. Nxc3 Rxe2 20. Nxe2 puts the material at a rook and two pieces for a queen and pawn, but the position is not yet quiescent and black regains one of the pieces with 20. ... Bxd4. In the game, white tried:
19. Qxe8 Rxe8 20. Nxc3

Trying to protect the d4 knight with 20. bxc3 loses more material to 20. ... Bxd4+ 21. cxd4 Qxd4+ 22. Kh1 Qxa1 picking up the rook.

20. ... Bxd4+ and white has a Queen and pawn for Rook and knight, a winning material advantage.

The rest of the game is more technical in converting the advantage.
21. Kh1 Bxc3 22. bxc3 Re2 White has no real development and black is invading on the 7th

White to move

23. Ba3 Qa6
This is an interesting move. White has to be prepared to meet Re1. In the game I decided I was willing to give back material in order to reach a winning King and Pawn endgame.

24. Rae1 Rxe1 25. Rxe1 Qxa3 26 Re8+ Qf8 White resigns.
Maybe a bit early, but black retains the extra pawn going into the King and Pawn ending. This ending is not difficult to play.

Bishop and Rook Pawn

2008-02-03T11:05:00.000-05:00

Lately I have been playing a lot of games at chess.com and not blogging about it. I have a couple of neat things from those games to put down in the blog before I do some deeper annotations.

First, a quick reminder of bishop and rook pawn endgame:

A draw

White has no way to pry the black king away from h8 and so the game is drawn.

So in a recent game when I won a bishop for some pawns and reached this position:

I was concerned that even if I can use my extra piece to win black's pawns I'm only headed for a draw. Of course, the rooks make a big difference. The e and g pawns fell without significant resistance (38. h4 Rc2+ 39. Kd1 Rff2 40. Rf7+ Ke5 41. Rfe7+ Kd4 42. Rxe5+ Kc5 43. Be8 Rb2 44. Kc1 Rbc2+ 45. Kb1 Rb2+ 46. Ka1 Rbd2 47. Ra5+ Kb6 48. Rb5+ Kc7 49. Rc4+ Kd8 50. Bxg6 Rd1+ 51. Bb1) and we reached this position:

Black is still heading towards the draw shown in the first diagram. While the rooks are still on, white needs to accomplish one of two goals. Either win black's h-pawn and push his own while the king can be cut off from the h-file by a rook or banish black's king to the far end of the queenside. In the game, white managed to accomplish the second of these goals, 51. ... Ke7 52. Rb7+ Ke6 53. Rh7 Rf7 54. Rc2 Re1 55. Kb2 Ref1 56. Re2+ Kd5 57. Ba2+ Kc7 58. Rc7+ Kb6 59. Rc8 R1f4 60. Re3 Rb4+ 61. Rb3 Rxb3+ 62. Bxb3 Kb7 63. Rc3 Rf2+

Here white has an important decision. Is it okay to play Rc2 and allow the rooks to be traded? It turns out that the plan of driving the black king to the queenside has worked in this position. If the rooks are traded on c2, the white king is closer to the h8 square that the black king thanks to the white bishop covering some key squares. The game continued 64. Rc2 Rxc2+ 65. Kxc2 Kc7 66. Kd3 Kd7 67. Ke4 Ke7 68. Kf5 And now thanks to the bishop black can't follow along with Kf7 and black resigned a few moves later. When calculating the ending after 65. Kxc2, be sure to consider black's attempt to cut off the bishop with 65. ... Kc6 and 66. ... d5.

My blunders

2007-12-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

Here are some recent blunders to keep anybody from thinking I'm good at chess.

This is a position from the Sicilian Accelerated Dragon.

I think black was doing quite well until playing f6? Black was threatening a fork with d4, prevented only by the fact the pawn is pinned to the rook. I considered Rb8 breaking the pin and threatening the b2 pawn, but didn't see how to proceed after Na4, which brings a second attacker to the c5 pawn. I don't like responding with d4 because this opens the diagonal his light squared bishop is on and puts a pawn on the diagonal of my dark squared bishop. Maybe that's over thinking it since the Knight on a4 is not well placed in this line.

f6 is a thematic move in this line as it tries to break down the diagonal of the g7 bishop. I thought if I got a little more play on that diagonal before Rb8, then Rb8 would be an even more powerful move. Unfortunately f6 is a blunder. Bxd5! and white picks up plenty of material.

Here is an example where I am overzealous about attacking and forget my defensive responsibilities.

I was so focused on the lonely d5 pawn and the slightly exposed king that I figured it was good to pressure black with Bc3. Oops, the knight on d3 is hanging.

Tactical melee

2007-11-14T00:35:00.000-05:00

A recently finished game on chess.com was a real tactical melee for much of the game. Here is a position with the final tactical mistake:

White to move

Black has just moved Ncd4. On the face of it, the knights look like they are charging into white's position and positionally, black seems to be doing well. In reality this move just blew black's position and he is simply lost at this point. The whole game, including the winning continutation from this point can be seen at chess.com.

Annotated loss

2007-11-08T23:34:00.000-05:00

I have my first annotated loss from correspondence play. In the game I played well positionally and had a significant positional advantage. I didn't see the right way to properly expand my positional advantage. I have it in the annotations, and I think it's very instructive for me.

The game ended after a major tactical oversight on my part in response to a clever play by my opponent. I've posted the game at chess.com.

My first correspondence games

2007-11-04T15:03:00.000-05:00

I have started playing some correspondence chess on chess.com. Before I was able to get some good opponents I had to raise my rating. Those games were fun, but not terribly instructive. I also now have some more serious games to annotate, some of which are in line with my assessment that I am trying to force the tactics too much.

Here is a sample position from a fun game:

Black to move

White has just played 10. Na4? Of course, the obvious fork Qh4+ comes to mind (if Ke2 Bxg1 before taking the knight still wins a piece). In a blitz game, I'd probably snap the piece off without a second thought, but in a correspondence game, why not take time to analyze 10. ... Qh4+ 11. Ke2 Qf2+! 12. Kd3 Black has passed on the opportunity to take the piece in favor of pushing the king to open space. So black needs to find the right continuation here before playing move 11. Checks are always tempting, but correct here is 12. ... Rc8 putting the king in a box where the threat is Ne5#. White does not have an adequate way to deal with the threat, for example 13. f4 Bxf4 14. Nf3 Qe3# (14. Qe2 Ne5+ 15. Qxe5 Qxc2+ 16. Kd4 Qc4#). My opponent tried 13. c4 Rxc4, which is also ineffective.

CT-Art 767 narrative

2007-10-31T21:50:00.000-04:00

Some problems in level 40 of CT-Art are too complex for me to learn through repetition. For these problems, I will do what I learned from Temposchlucker and and BlueDevilKnight (are there others that did this that I am forgetting?), I will write narratives for these problems.

CT-Art 767:

White to move

The weakest points in black's position are g7 and h7. It would take many moves to get to h7 and if black plays h6, there's probably no route in. So g7 is where to focus the attack.

The immediate attempt to crash through, 1. Nxg7 Bxg7 2. Bh6 f6 allows black to defend g7 laterally with the queen. We would like to do 2 things better. The first is do not allow the lateral defense with the queen. Secondly, don't give up the knight for the bishop since the knight is a good attacker of g7.

There is a safe check that will allow Rxf6, so we examine 1. Nh6+. The king must move to f8 or h8. On 1. ... Kf8 we have 2. Bc5+ Re7 and now the pinned rook will lose for black after 3. Rxf6 gxh6 (gxf6 Qg8#). The critical line is 1. ... Kh8 2. Rxf6 gxf6 3. Qh4. The queen attacks the newly weakened f6 square.

Black to move

3. ... Qe7 Black must defend f6 (3. ... Re6 4. Rxd8 Qxd8 5. Nxf7+ loses quickly). White attacks this defender and the weak g7 square 4. Nf5 Qe6 5. Qh6.

Black to move

Black cannot defend the g7 square. 5. ... Rg8 6. Rxd8

Taking a break

2007-10-29T19:40:00.000-04:00

For a few reasons, I'm going to alter my training regimen. I'm going to stop doing the 3 week repeats on the CT-Art problems.

I finished level 40 on Thursday at 93%. Even with time left to start on level 50 for the first time since I started 3 week repeats, I decided not to. For one, it has been helpful to write narratives on the level 40 problems. There are some on that level that I don't think I could get just with repetition. So that seemed more useful than trucking forward on level 50.

I believe I need to play more games, and in the way that blitz doesn't count. I generally don't play long time control games because I simply don't have time during the week if I'm solving CT-Art problems. Since I recently signed up at chess.com, I've fired up some turn-based games there (I don't understand the terminology here, aren't all chess games turn based?? I would call it correspondence).

I've noticed in recent games that I have a tendency to overestimate my tactical chances. The simplest hypothesis is that constantly solving problems where I have a tactical win has made me over agressive. Hopefully if I put CT-Art aside for a spell and play some real games, I'll get a nice balancing dose of reality.

Of course, the blog will change with me. I may post a few more narratives from CT-Art, but annotated games will likely take a more central focus.

CT-Art 765 Narrative

2007-10-24T22:45:00.000-04:00

I'm once again delving into the narrative writing, and I've once again found an error in CT-Art in the problem set.

CT-Art 765:

White to move

White is attacking the king, but should be wary that his own king position is not perfect, the rook on f3 is pinned and the knight on c3 is attacked. At the moment, g7 and h7 are weak near black's king. The queen attacks at h7 adding a second attacker with g6 or Rh3 is not currently possible because these pieces are pinned. The bishop attacks g7, an attacker can be added with f6 and Qh6.

The immediate f6 suffers from the fact that opening the g-file gives some play to black. 1. f6 gxf6 2. gxf6 Rg8+ 3. Kh1 Qxf3+ 4. Rxf3 Bxf3#.

In order to play g6, white can sacrifice a bishop with 1. Bxg7 Kxg7 2. Qh6 Kh8 3. g6 fxg6 4. fxg6 White is threatening mate and CT-Art gives a poor defense for black, 4. ... Qc5+ 5. R1f2 Qg5+ forcing a trade of the queens, but giving up a defender of the f8 rook, 6. Qxg5 Bxg5 7. Rxf8. Instead, black can give up material temporarily with

White to move

4. ... Rf7 5.gxf7 Rf8 where black is getting his material back due to the pinned rook on f3. The idea is that if black wants to survive, he needs to keep his counterplay active, not trade queens.

If white wants real chances he needs to keep the lines to his king closed. A much simpler practical choice is 1. Qh5 with 2. g6 coming. 1. Qh5 bxc3 2. g6 and now even ... h6 fails to Qxh6, so black doesn't have time to take the knight on c3. 1. Qh5 f6 2. g6 h6 and now white sacs his bishop on h6, 3. Be3 with Bxh6 coming. In this way, white attacks the king position without opening dangerous lines to his own king.

Black to move

White attacks the black king, threatening Bxh6 without opening lines of attack for black.

CT-Art 735

2007-10-22T19:49:00.000-04:00

I was going to write a narrative on CT-Art 735 and decided to double check it on Fritz. It turns out the CT-Art solution has mistakes in multiple places.
CT-Art 735:

White to Move

The pawn on f7 is weak (only defended by king) and is the only defender of e6. In this kind of position, 1. Nxf7 Kxf7 2. Qxe6 immediately comes to mind as so many squares around the king can be controlled. 2. ... Kf8 is mated immediately by Bh6 so 2. ... Kg7 is forced. We can stay with forcing moves by 3. Bh6 Kh8 and now simply pry open the h-file with 4. Bxg6 where black loses quickly if 4. ... hxg6 5. Bf8+ Nh7 6. Rxh7+ Kxh7 7. Qf7+ Kh8 8. Qg7# (5. ... Nh5+ 6. Rxh5+ gxh5 7. Qh6+ Kg8 8. Qg7#). Other 4th moves for black give back excess material, e.g. 4. ... Rg8 5. Bf7.

The above is not the CT-Art solution. CT-Art starts off with 1. Nxf7 Kxf7 but then CT-Art gives 2. Rxh7. This is a good invading move, rooks are typically very well placed on the 7th rank:

Black to Move

The rook is immune from the knight, Nxh7 Qxe6 Kg7 Qxg6+ and mate follows with Bh6 or Qxh7. So black continues with 2. ... Kf8. Here CT-Art gives no credit for the very strong 3. Bxg6 instead favoring 3. Rh6 Bf8 (other moves may be better) 4. Rxg6 and then a serious error from the defense 4. ... Bg7? (Kh8 is more complex and doesn't lose nearly so quickly) which allows 5. Bh6 Nf4 6. Rxg7+ Qxg7 7. Bxf4 where white has three pawns for the exchange.

The CT-Art solution, while winning, is very complex compared to the first solution I gave. Even then, the solution given is helped along by inferior moves from the defense. A proper defense would have made this solution extremely difficult in practice.

Writing some narratives

2007-10-21T13:10:00.000-04:00

So far I'm doing well on level 40, but there are some problems where I'm just drawn to the wrong solution every time. So I'm taking a page out of the BDK and Temposchlucker play books and I'm going to write some narratives about these positions.

CT-Art 734:

White to Move

In this position there are two possible squares for white to invade with a knight, f6 and f5. The defenders of these squares are removed by 1. Rxh5 gxh5 and then either
a) Nd5 followed by Nf5 or
b) Nf5 followed by Nd5 and Nf6.

I'm always attracted to option (a), which is not correct. It appears correct because 2. Nd5 exd5 3. Nf5 attacks the queen and the queen cannot defend the mate on g7. However, this idea overlooks 3. ... Be3+ followed by Qxg5 (or Qe6 if Nxe3).

Option (b) is a winner because the bishop check on e3 doesn't interfere with the knight on f6 or the attack on h7. The queen is also unable to defend h7. So, 2. Nf5 exf5 3. Nd5 Be3+ 4. Kb1! Qxg5 5. Nf6+ Qxf6 6. Qxf6

One of the bottom lines is that h7 is weaker than g7 due to black's ability to get the queen to g5. This makes f6 the right square for a knight rather than f5.

I've got a few more of these to write...

Tough losses

2007-10-20T19:33:00.000-04:00

I had some tough losses at the coffeehouse this week.

In the first game I played against the Benko gambit. I don't typically have a lot of success against this opening, but I think I came out of the opening just fine. I've posted the full game in the analysis forum at chess.com, here, feel free to comment on the game here or there. I've also posted the game at chesslog just in case.

Progress on rep 5

2007-10-17T19:16:00.000-04:00

I finished level 20 at 97%. This is down from 98% in rep 4. I think the decrease is due to complacency as I wanted to get through the level as quickly as possible and often did problems when I was tired and not fully focused. Though interestingly, I did focus on problems I had gotten wrong in the past and got many problems right that I got wrong previously.

With the disappointing setback on level 20, I decided to focus properly on level 30. The result: 97%, up from 92% on the previous rep. This is a big move up on a level that used to give me such problems.

I also project that on my current schedule, I'll get to the level 50 problems this time through.

I almost forgot to mention that I've stopped reporting my elo from CT-Art because it doesn't seem like a relevant measure anymore. Incidentally, the max rating achievable on level 20 is 2125 and on level 30 2275.

Housekeeping; Meta Post

2007-10-16T11:10:00.000-04:00

When this blog started I had no imagination for what it would become and as a result, it was not very organized. Until just recently it has lacked even the simple blog element of tags (or categories). I have now gone back and tagged every blog post. Now if you want to just see posts that include tactics problems, simply click on the "Tactics" category on the sidebar.

I think this is a major upgrade to the useability of the blog. For example, I've made a number of posts where I criticize or point out flaws in CT-Art. These are now all easily found by clicking on the "CT-Art errors" category. So if you want a rather disorganized snapshot of a user's experience with CT-Art, there you go. If you'd rather see what I've done with CTS, there's a link for that too. If you're interested in seeing what kind of chess is being played by a USCF Class B player, check out the tactics/diagrams posts or the Full games posts (note: full games posts contain links to games posted at chesslog).

The increase in useability is good for me personally (yes, I do read my own blog -- I was thinking what?!), but a secondary reason for it is the recent revelation that there are in fact people who visit this blog. Which is the subject of the next part of the post.

The remainder of this post is mildly embarrassing as I didn't realize until somewhat recently how many people come to visit this blog. Don't get me wrong, the numbers aren't huge, but I always figured it was only a couple people who ever saw it. A few months ago Blue Devil Knight made a post about blog cred and a couple weeks later I had installed Google Analytics to see if anyone comes here. The results have been enlightening.

First, not many people visit this blog as a result of search engines. About 10% of all visits were as a result of a search engine. The largest sources of traffic are links from other blogs. This blog is linked on the sidebars of a couple very popular blogs and this results in a large fraction of visits. An even larger driver of traffic is being linked to in a post rather than on the sidebar. There was a big spike in referrals from Likesforests blog when he linked to one of my king and pawn endgame posts. The bottom line is that people visit by following links from other blogs.

The second interesting thing that I notice is that most visitors are first time visitors and only 1 in 5 come back for a second visit. There also seems to be a core of visitors that come frequently enough to see nearly every post (but I probably know these people from the comments already). The large majority of people who are new to the site is one of the reasons for the increased useability. If the site is potentially interesting to them, I might as well make it as easy as possible to navigate to the interesting content.

Next is something I saw someone else write about on their blog -- the geography of visitors. Chess blogs attract visitors from all over the world. Over 59% of my visits are from the US and 30% from Europe (90% of those from Western and Northern Europe), but there are also visits from the rest of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australia. I am the only visitor from my current city of residence. But I was very happy to see a few visits from Mexico City during the World Championship there. A side effect, based on a conjecture, is that I now believe there are search engine spiders operating out of Los Altos, California and Rock Island, Illinois.

Being from academia, the following excerpt from the list of network locations intrigues me: Duke University, universitaet trier trier, technical university of crete, university of chicago, williams college campus, bucknell university, dartmouth college, indiana univerity-purdue university at indianapolis, massachusettes institute of technology, rutgers university, southern illinois university, university of kansas, university of lausanne, and western iowa tech cc.

Adventures in Coffeehouse Chess

2007-10-13T20:03:00.000-04:00

I have a decent memory from my trip to the coffeehouse. I think the tactics I found today are a decent representation of the kinds of things I can find much better now than I could 6 months ago.

Black to Move

Due to a mating net on the back rank with Bf3, black picks up two pieces for his rook with 1. ... Rxf4 where 2. Bxf4 Bxf4 3. gxf4 is met by Bf3 and mate next. The game continued 2. Rxd6 Rh1+ 3. Ke2 Bf3+ and white resigned in view of Rxd1+.

Black to Move

(hopefully it's clear that the labels (a-h,1-8) on this diagram are backwards. oops!)

Material is unbalanced with black having two minor pieces for a rook. Black's long range plan should be to increase the activity of his two minor pieces. It turns out the unfortunate placement of white's pieces makes these positional ideas moot. 1. ... Qf6! and there's nowhere to run with the rook on a1 hanging in the backround. Protection doesn't help either, for example 2. Qf2 Re2 3. Qxe2 Qxd4+ also picking up the rook on a1. The game continued 2. Qf4 Re4 Fritz says Ne6 is better, but Re4 is so beautiful, it's why we play chess.

White to Move

Once again, just a lucky unfortunate placement of the pieces. The knight on b6 has had it's squares taken away by the queen and bishop trying to line up on h3. The placement of the queen is also important for finishing off the combo. The game continued 1. c5 Na4 2. c6 Bxc6 3. Nxc6 Nxc3 4. Nxe7+ Black resigned.

White to Move

In this position I engaged in dangerous pawn hunting on the queenside. My opponent has made inroads in my king position, but missed a chance to finish me off, instead going for a tactic that was refutable. There are dual threats of Nxa1 and Bd4+. White comes roaring back with 1. Qb8+ Bf8 2. Bh6 Qc5+ 3. Kg2 Qc6 4. Kh3 Qd7 5. Bxf8 f4+ 6. g4 Rxf8 7. Nxf6+ and black resigned since Kg7 Qxf8+ Kxf8 Nxd7+ leaves white a full rook ahead.

Level 40, rep 4 done at 90%

2007-10-07T20:20:00.000-04:00

I finished the 4th rep of level 40 today at 90%. I'm at the end of 3 weeks, so I'm going back to level 10. Since I was out of town for about 4.5 days during these 3 weeks, I don't feel bad about the time taken. However, I need to speed up a bit if I'm going to move beyond level 40 in the 3 weeks.

/------------------------------\
| Level   1     2     3     4  |
|------------------------------| 
|  10    97%   99%   99%  100% |
|  20    92%   94%   95%   98% |
|  30    86%   86%   86%   92% |
|  40    77%   77%   84%   90% |
\------------------------------/

Scoring over 90% on the first 4 levels feels like an accomplishment. But I also feel so far away from being able to see the variations fly through my mind for many of the problems. This is what IM Ziatdinov says it should be like after really learning a position.

Does this software exist?

Given that everyone who attacks a set of chess problems seems to find some errors in the set, I wonder about a software that allows the user to edit the problems. Even better would be a program that would accept an entire problem set and score you according to the definitions in the set. That way, someone could work on producing a very good problem set where the user interface and progress tracking are already taken care of. If the length of the problems is unrestricted, you could even make solitaire chess games for it.

Does this exist and I just haven't found it yet?

Coffeehouse nuggets

2007-09-29T21:32:00.000-04:00

I have a few nuggets that I remember from today's trip to the coffeehouse.

The first position arises from a French defense. I don't usually play 1. e4, but decided what the heck, I'll play it today. I thought we were in an interminable positional struggle where my opponent had a bad bishop and couldn't really break my position. I have good knights, but I don't really see what targets they can hit.

White to move

The knight on f4 holds my kingside and influences the center. I'm planning to play on the c-file and try to get my other knight to d6 or c5, though I'm not even sure what my targets are from there. All that becomes moot when my opponent drops Rhd8 in my lap.

In the next example, I think I was very close to getting run over in an opposite side castling game. I caught a break when my opponent overlooked my only tactical chance.

Black to move

(I just realized, the king should be on c8, not b8 -- will fix the diagram later)

This one obviously takes some deeper calculation, but I've been thinking about the first move of this combination for most of the game so a lot of the lines seemed to come naturally. For a Temposchlucker plan beta hint -- the first invasion square is f2, the second invasion square is h3.

The game continued 1. ... Ng4+ 2. Kg1 Bxf2+ 3. Kh1 h4 4. Be3 hxg3 5. b5 Qh5 6. Bxf2 Nxf2+ 6. Rxf2 Rxf2 7. Nxd6+ Kd7 8. Nxb7 Rxg2 9. bxc6+ Ke7 10. Qa3+Ke8 11. Kxg2 Qxh3+ 12. Kf3 Qf5+ White resigns.

I believe there are improvements for both sides in that line, but I don't think there is a refutation of black's play. It's a real exercise to calculate all the possibilities and I certainly didn't do that over the board.

Ct-Art update, 94% on level 30. 178 problems done out of 221. Looks like I'm going to have a huge improvement on 86% three times in a row.

Update: Finished level 30, rep 4 today. 92%! Ok, I slipped up a bit at the end, but it's still a big deal to do this much better. I'll go back and review the last 20-30 problems of the level before I move on to level 40.

Overseen

2007-09-25T21:18:00.000-04:00

Here is a position overseen at the coffeehouse. The tactics in it were overlooked by the players. Ok, the position here is subject to my memory, but the basic tactic is there.

Black to move

Here black didn't quite find the winning idea Be6 Ng5 Re1+ Kh2 Bd6 pinning the rook. (sideline: Be6 Rc4 Re1+ Kh2 Bg1+ Kg3 Bxf7)

Thanks to everyone who has encouraged me in my tactics training. I'm about halfway through level 30 at 95%. Knock on wood, but I think I'll beat my old 86% score for this level.

Level 20, rep 4

2007-09-18T23:23:00.000-04:00

I finished level 20 rep 4. Significantly faster than last time through and at a higher percentage -- 98% (up from 92%, 94%, 95%). On to the real test of level 30, the real thorn in my side. I'm out of town Thursday to Monday which will slow me down a little. That's life, no wonder I can't do it the same as DLM.

Some concrete things I wrote down this time through:
-- Exercises 145 and 352 are the same
-- Exercises 217 and 228 are the same

Improvement!

2007-09-15T12:29:00.000-04:00

I've just completed my 3rd repetition of level 40 of CT-Art and finally I have seen a significant improvement in my solving percentage.

Level    Rep 1   Rep 2   Rep 3
-------------------------------
10       97%     99%     99%
20       92%     94%     95%
30       86%     86%     86%
40       77%     77%     84%

That is a major improvement on level 40 problems. This isn't from memorizing the problems, I am really calculating better on this level. Incidentally, I also noticed a couple more problems with secondary solutions. Maybe next time through I'll start recording all these.

It is now 20 days since I last restarted on level 10. So according to my 3 week schedule, I'll start back at level 10 rather than move up to level 50. I think my last "3 weeks" to do levels 10 through 40 was actually 22 days. So I am only slightly faster -- though over the last 3 weeks I've spent time playing more games and analyzing them, so I'm not too concerned. I think I'll be much faster over the next 3 weeks.

Update: I just did level 10 for a fourth rep. Finally a perfect score, no mistakes! It took me just under 40 minutes to do the 110 problems of level 10.

Chess Life History

2007-09-10T23:14:00.000-04:00

A hat tip to Castling Queenside for posting about a program that will strip out nifty data from your MSA record at USCF. It's a nice trip down memory lane, and I like the graph feature. I recall seeing a similar utility for making ratings graphs a while back, I think it might have been a Flash plugin.

A swindle and another BOOC ending

2007-09-08T19:28:00.000-04:00

I had some interesting positions from the coffeehouse this week.

Here is one from a game I was losing. It was a complicated middle game where we both had chances. My opponent sacked the exchange and got a couple pawns for it. We pick up a position where I'm barely hanging on, trying to harrass my opponents two minor pieces to keep him from making progress. Then I spot a swindle:

Black to move

After Rg7+, black blunders with Kh4?. Checkmate follows in two moves.

I also wound up in another bishops of opposite color endgame. I believe this is not just a simple draw because of the presence of the rooks. Here is one interesting point.

Black to move

There must be something I am mis-remembering about this position since Ra8 just hangs the rook to Bxa8 -- For now I imagine the rook might have been on b6.

The white king is approaching black's passed pawns. Black wants to keep the king away and at the same time try to penetrate and attack white's kingside pawns. Unfortunately, the rook is tied down to the defense of the b-pawn. Since b4 allows Kc4, black has to find Ra8! where the response Rxb5 is met by Ra3+ Ke2 (Ke4 Re3#) Ra2+ Kf1 Rf2+ followed by taking the bishop or a discovered check to win the rook.

We pick up the game a little later. Black was able to bring the rook around and win the a2 pawn. Now black threatens the b3 pawn. White has found a way to defend it twice.

Black to move

Here I chose a simplifying sacrifice. Bxg3+ Rxg3 Rxg3 Kxg3 b3 and white doesn't have the resources to stop so many pawns. Notice that even the h and f pawns protect each other with a classic trick of two pawns separated by one file against a king. If Kh4 f4 then white can't play Kxh5 because the f-pawn will promote. So the bishop is tied to the b-pawn promotion square and the king is tied to the h-pawn which it cannot attack. The black king is free to do whatever black likes, take the e-pawn, help support the c and b pawns or the e and f pawns.

level 30, rep 3 -- I still stink

2007-09-07T18:29:00.000-04:00

I've finished level 30 for the 3rd time. And for the 3rd time I've scored an 86%.

Of course, this is very disappointing for me. I'm not going to change my current plan just yet. I have a little over a week before I start over again at level 10. I'd like to give that idea more time.

My loss to the Budapest

2007-09-04T22:12:00.000-04:00

One of my games at the coffeehouse last weekend was against the Budapest. This is a gambit for black that starts 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 Ng4. I don't like letting black have all the initiative, so I play a line that gives the pawn back. I have a feeling I'll be seeing the Budapest on a regular basis from this opponent, so if anyone has comments on any line of the Budapest, I'd be happy to hear it.

I posted the whole game at chesslog. I'll say a little more about two positions here.

After the opening moves, 4. Bf4 Nc6 5. Nf3 Bb4+ 6. Nbd2 Qe7 7. a3 Ngxe5 8. Nxe5 Nxe5 9. e3 Bxd2+ 10. Qxd2 O-O 11. Be2 d6 12. O-O b6

White to move

Black has just played b6, no doubt to put his bishop on the long diagonal. I tried for a while to calculate something that would take advantage of the open diagonal before the bishop develops. The immediate Qd5 is met by c6. Bxe5 Qxe5 Bf3 doesn't get anywhere after Rb8.

Instead I settled on trying for a kind of minority attack. If I can break down the queenside pawns, black will be saddled with a weak, attackable structure. The game continued 13. b4 Bb7 14. Rab1 Rad8 15. Qc3 Qf6 16. Bxe5 dxe5 17. c5 h5 18. b5

White to move

I'm keeping with my plan of breaking down the queenside pawns. Unfortunately, I've underestimated the attacking that's coming on my king. I also misplay the defense pretty badly. 18. ... bxc5 19. Qxc5 Qg6 Black lets his third pawn hang without protection, it's as if my plans are working. Until, 20. f3 Rd2 21. Qc4?? This should have been immediately punished by Bd5. Black still won with 21. ... e4 22. f4 Bd5 23. Qc5 Rxe2 24. g3 Be6 25. f5 Qg5 0-1

It's important to take care of your house before you steal from your neighbors garden.

Two endgames

2007-09-02T12:43:00.000-04:00

I have a couple of endgame positions from recent games at the local coffeehouse. There is no doubt the importance of the endgame. It's also true that the endgame is so rich, you'll never run out of interesting things to study there. Exhibit A is likesforests who has had numerous very good blog posts on the endgame.

Position 1, a win with bishops of opposite colors!

White to move

This game could easily have been drawn until Black made two mistakes to lose it. The first, is losing a pawn of f6 so that white's f-pawn is now a passed pawn. The second is becoming too aggressive with the king. If the king were back to stop the f-pawn, the game would still be drawn. Now white wins with Be5 and f5. Black must play Bc3 to stop the pawn allowing white to take on e4 and support the f-pawn with the king, eventually winning black's bishop and g-pawn.

The second position is a king and pawn endgame that features a combination of interesting techniques.

White to move

White has to be able to envision that this position is winning (or at least drawn) before entering into it. Black has a passed pawn on the a-file so white's king is tied down to stopping that threat. In the meantime, how does white stop black from marching into e4 and taking the e3 pawn?

The answer is a kind of breakthrough. If the black king ever comes to e4, white wins by playing b5! where black cannot stop a pawn from queening, e.g. cxb5 c6 or Kd5 b6. So now we realize that e4 is forever off limits to the black king due to this breakthrough. This means that in the diagrammed position white can play Kb2! and go take the a4 pawn without fear of losing since black can make no progress.

The question then is whether or not this will win or draw for white after Kb2! Kd5 Ka3 Kc4 Kxa4 Kd5:

White to move

Now white's plan is to go after the a-pawn. Let's look at the direct route: Ka5 Kc4 and now if Ka6 Kxb4 is not good for white. Note that if the pawn is on a6 instead of a7, Kxa6 Kxb4 Kb6 wins for white. This means that black can never advance the a-pawn to a6. As a result, black will forever be doing a king shuffle on c4, d5, and e6. And, in order to stop white's plan, the king must move to c4 when white plays Ka5. Since he can only get there from d5, the black king can be triangulated. Kb3! Ke6 Ka3! Kd5 Ka4 Kc4 Ka5 Kd5 Ka6 Kc4 Kxa7 Kxb4 Kb6 wins the b-pawn and leads to promotion.

Final caveat. When white has his king on a4, the pawn break doesn't work because after b5, cxb5+ is check. So if black plays Ke4 while the white king is on a4, white plays Ka5. Then Kxe3 is met by the breakthrough and Kd5 is met by Ka6.

level 20, rep 3

2007-08-31T20:27:00.000-04:00

I finished my 3rd rep of level 20 of CT-Art. I did this level at 95% -- hardly different than rep 2. Disappointing. I'll get 'em next time! By the way, level 20 has a handful of problems that appear twice in the level, quite odd for a level that has far more problems than any other level.

In positive news. I have located the chess club here in my new town. There is a decent size group of players who meet at a coffee house on Saturday afternoons. There are some good players there too. I got some good games last week -- and a couple good whoopings. It's great to have a place to play live chess, invigorating for the chess soul.

Unrelated to my personal chess improvement is the start of the US Chess League. The team from my old home town, Carolina Cobras, are off to a rough start. They have started blogging and as soon as they settle on the name of their site, I'll have a link to it in the sidebar.

CT-Art rep table:

/==================================\
| Level  | Rep 1  |  Rep 2 | Rep 3 |
>==================================<
|   10   |  97%   |  99%   | 99%   |
|   20   |  92%   |  94%   | 95%   |
|   30   |  86%   |  86%   | ??    |
|   40   |  77%   |  77%   | ??    |
\==================================/

See the last few posts for groaning about my lack of improvement and what I'm doing differently to counter act that problem.

CT-Art 267

2007-08-28T20:02:00.000-04:00

It seems every time I go through the problems of CT-Art I come across new issues with the problem set. Problem 267 is a good problem, but happens to have a second solution to the one given.

Black to Move

The CT-Art solution is e2 gxf3 h1=Q+ Kxh1 exd1=Q+. Unfortunately I calculated the line h1=Q+ Kxh1 e2 where the knight can't stop the promotion. Here crafy plays Nf2 and black gets a queen vs. knight where it's easy to mop up the pawns and win. In fact, in the CT-Art line, white can throw in Nf2 and have essentially the same ending.

Maybe I'll play the "correct" line next time through.

New schedule, starting rep 3

2007-08-27T19:56:00.000-04:00

I am not happy with my progress in tactical training. I spent about four and a half months doing difficult tactical problems (levels 40 - 90+ on CT-Art). I did the problems with effort and understood the solution. When I went back and re-solved levels 10 through 40, there was no significant improvement in my solving rate.

A lot of people have thought about and written about different approaches to the repetition of tactical excercizes. One thing I'm probably doing wrong is too much time between reps. Lots of other people have made study programs to better allow for repetition to help in learning. I'm hoping that will aid my success.

It took me about 3 weeks to do the second rep of levels 10 through 40. So I have created a new schedule for myself. I'll start at level 10 every 3 weeks. Hopefully I get more problems done every time I go through.

So I've re-re-done the first 250 problems. Once again I missed one problem on level 10 -- a different one this time, I don't know if that's bad or good. Through the first 140 problems of level 20, I'm at 97%, slightly better than the 95% last time through. The real test will be in levels 30 and 40.

Level 40, redone

2007-08-25T13:22:00.000-04:00

I've finished my second rep of level 40. As with previous levels, there is no significant change in performance. The bottom line is that I'm no better at tactics today than I was a year ago.

My plan is to go back to level 10 of CT-Art and try to really learn the ideas of the problems. I find that when I miss problems it's not because I can't calculate or visualize, it's because I don't see the idea, or can't come up with the right idea.

One of the benefits of the chess blogging community is that I've had a chance to read a lot of other people's blogs. I'm not the first one to struggle with this. Other people have written about how they deal with improving at tactics, so I've got some ideas of how to work on this.

CT-Art level 40 stats:
Rep 1: 77%
Rep 2: 78%

Level 40

2007-08-14T20:46:00.000-04:00

I'm working through level 40 on CT-Art.

There are a lot of subtle problems on this level and some of them have alternate solutions. For example, problem 707. The diagram comes a few moves in:

White to move

The solution given is Rb8. The simple threat is c7, the rook on b8 allows Nxc7 to be met by Bxc7 simultaneously defending the b8 rook. Black can also try Nxd8 c7 Ne6 Rxe8 Nxc7 and white can easily pick up the a pawn to be ahead an exchange and a pawn.

A fine way to win, but white can also play c7 immediately from the diagram. CT-Art gives c7 a "?" due to the response Nxc7! (The "!" is their's as well). These are odd markings because Rxc7+ Ke6 (to trap the bishop) Bxg5 hxg5 Ra7 leaves white up three clear pawns in the endgame. Despite what people say about rook endings being drawn, I had no problem converting this against the built in crafy engine.

How did I get here?

2007-08-13T16:37:00.001-04:00

This is fairly off topic for me as this blog is usually just about my chess study or chess games. But Blue Devil had a recent post that made me think a little bit this afternoon. I was about to leave him a second long comment when I figured this would come out smoother as a post on my own blog. His post was about what one can do to increase traffic to one's blog. Though he says himself that he's not that concerned with getting traffic to his blog and doesn't think other good bloggers are either. In any case, it started to make me wonder how I came to visit blogs and start a blog of my own.

By this point I am so used to reading chess blogs, I don't recall how I found them in the first place. I'm sure that I googled something like "chess improvement" or "chess study plan" or something like that. One of the first blogs that I ever read was Sancho Pawnza and sidebar links opened up a wealth of new territory.

Certainly people who read blogs will find new ones by following sidebar links and going to the blogs of commenters, but what about people who have yet to come in contact with chess blogs? How do they get here?

So just now I googled "chess improvement" and here are the blogs that come up:
7. Takchess
9. DK-transform
11. Temposchlucker
13. Fussy Lizard
14. The patzer's tale
16. Cratercat
17. Rook Van Winkle
etc. (Chess Confessions comes up 88, and I didn't have the patience to find The Back Rank)

Googling "chess study plan" turns up fewer blogs. So I am starting to feel at a loss for how I got on the chess blogging path. I also wonder how other people are doing it these days. What makes the chess blogosphere stand out of the background to your average web surfing chess geek? Maybe blogging in general is more popular than I realize and people are actually finding chess amongst the blogs rather than the other way around.

In any case, I've been enjoying chess blogs for over a year and I hope it continues.

Level 30, no improvement

2007-08-11T11:50:00.000-04:00

I'm plowing through my second rep of level 30 and if my form holds I will not improve at all on my first rep percentage. Given that my 'improvement' on levels 10 and 20 was pretty small, I'm inclined to think I'm not quite going about this the right way.

My current idea is that my first time through these problems was too long ago. It was 9-10 months ago that I was doing level 30 problems. In the DLM plan, the first rep takes 2 months and the second rep 1 month, etc. So the problems get repeated twice in the first 3 months. I don't know if this is an ideal timescale, but it has worked for other people. In any case, the long break that I had since last doing these problems was too long.

So I have two changes to make. One, I need to complete a program of learning these problems in one shot, starting and stopping and starting again didn't work. Two, if I don't get to the end of the problem set at the end of 2 months, I go back to the beginning no matter how far I've gotten.

CT-Art results for level 30:
Rep 1: 86%
Rep 2: 86% (162 done from 221)

Update: I've finished level 30 at 84%. Looks like I have a lot of work to do if I want to improve my percentages.

Level 20 done (rep 2)

2007-08-07T19:02:00.000-04:00

I finished the problems of level 20 this morning. The percentage correct was only a little better than the first rep -- I don't know what this means. I did do this level in significantly fewer days, but this is mostly a function of having the time to do the problems and not working on anything else chess related.

CT-Art stats:

/============================\
|  Level |  Rep 1  |  Rep 2  |
|----------------------------|
|   10   |   97%   |   99%   |
|----------------------------|
|   20   |   92%   |   94%   |
\============================/
CT-Art elo: 2122

Thanks to Blue Devil for pointing me to who has done a massive CT-Art set all in one day (in the comments of previous post). Even through the end of level 60 in a single day is quite impressive. Adding the last 3 levels would probably extend the time by 2-3 hours.

In the past I used to wonder if I can make it to expert or master level. These are somewhat abstract questions when we don't exactly what it means to play at that level. But something like doing a set of tactical problems is more concrete and hopefully attainable goal.

Back in the saddle

2007-08-05T10:33:00.000-04:00

I've recently moved and start my new job tomorrow. In the meantime I've gotten back in the CT-Art habit. I'm starting back at the beginning and doing a second repitition of the problems. In the last two days I've re-done the first 250 problems:

CT-Art stats:

/-------.----------.----------\
| Level |  Rep #1  |  Rep #2  |
|-------|----------|----------|
|  10   |    97%   |    99%   |
|-------|----------|----------|
|  20   |    92%   |    95%   |
\-------^----------^----------/
CT-Art elo: 2050

On level 10 I made a mistake on only 1 problem -- perfection will have to wait 'til the next rep. I'm through 140 of the 286 problems of level 20 with minor improvement in the percentage.

Knowing how hard these problems get in later levels, I'm still in awe that De La Maza did the whole problem set in a single day. In his article he says to gather 1000 problems -- does anyone know if he used the first 1000 problems of CT-Art or all 1209? Maybe someone who has read the book knows.

Edit: A quick trip to the book store reveals that De La Maza did all 1209 problems from CT-Art. It is an amazing feat to do them all in a single day and twice in three days. I'd be interested to know if there are other people who have done that.

Crash!

2007-07-25T11:54:00.000-04:00

I feel like I've seen this post from other bloggers. My hard drive crashed. At the moment it doesn't look like I'll recover any data from it. Everything really important was stored elsewhere, but this does not include CT-Art stats.

As of the crash, I had about 16 problems to go before completing the 1209 problems. What a heart breaker. My percentage on the level 90 and above problems was 69% and my CT-Art elo was 2610. At this point I consider myself having gone through the problem set once. My computer is up and running with a new hard drive. I'll probably re-install CT-Art and do the problems over -- hopefully better.

CT-Art coming apart at the seams

2007-07-19T17:35:00.000-04:00

Ok, I'll say it. The makers of CT-Art did not put in the necessary effort to make problems at the highest difficulty they intended. They have flat out failed to make the problems on the last level correct. I'm not just blowing gas here either, I'll give you two very concrete examples -- and I promise the last levels are riddled with this kind of thing.

First, a simple example. A position from problem 1178.

White to move

White has crashed through on the kingside and just needs to polish off the mate. The first thing that came to mind was f7. This threatens mate on g8 and forces Bg7 (other bishop moves allow Qxh6). Then white will play Ne4 planning Nf6 or Ng5 threatening Qh7 or getting the queen to the h-file (e.g. Nf6 Bxf6 Qxh6 or Ng5 hxg5 Qh5).

With those ideas, we think, what if white plays Ne4 first. Black does not seem to have any real productive moves. Certainly not any more productive than he would play after Ne4 in the previous line. If you're really keen you'll realize that the move order with Ne4 first leaves the f7 square open for the knight, e.g. Ne4 c5 Ng5 threatening Nf7 (if hxg5 Qh5 leads to mate quickly).

The CT-Art solution was f7, with no credit for Ne4. The best line for black after f7 is Bg7 Ne4 c5 (CT-Art gave Rd5 falling for mate in 2) Nf6 (or Ng5) Be4 Nxe4 (Notice f7 is unavailable for the knight!) e5. White is ahead 2 pawns and has a much safer king, but the move order with Ne4 first was clearly better.

Ok, that was the simple example. At least the solution given by CT-Art was actually winning. Problem 1177 was riddled with even worse errors. This takes some time to explain the multitude of errors, feel free to skip to the end of the rant.

Black to move

The first move, Bxh3, is difficult to calculate all the consequences of, but it's easy to see the white king position will be exposed and there will be chances for black. White's response gxh3 is forced. Now CT-Art completely misses the win. Qxh3 threatening Nf3 mate. Be2 is forced. Black then has Nd5 and after white moves the queen away, Qa3 Ng4 Bxg4 Qxg4+ Kh1 is forced.Black continues, Nxe3 fxe3 (forced) Qh3+ Kg1 Qg3+ Kh1 Rd5 Threatening mate.

White has to block the rook from going to h5 using either the knight or rook on f5. This gives a piece back to black after Rf5 Rxf5 Nxf5 Qh3+ Kg1 Qxf5. This leaves black ahead to pawns and the white king remains exposed.

This line starting with Qxh3 is not the solution given. Instead, the program gives what is actually a move that does not lead to an advantage. After Bxh3 gxh3 from the starting position, CT-Art gives Rxd4 Bxd4 Nf3+ Kg2 Nf5.

Position A, White to move

And now a poor move is played by white to allow black to win. CT-Art doesn't even consider Rfd1 which allows white all the wiggle room he needs to stay alive. The program gives Be3 as the main line. This allows N5h4 Kh1 Qf5 and the threat of Qxh3 is too strong.

The program also gives two other lines from 'Position A'. First, Bf6 gxf6 Rh1

And now the baffling Re8. There is no commentary or further moves after Re8 except that they give it an '!'.

The second line from 'Position A' is Rg1 N5xd4 Bd3 (another questionable move from white) Nxg1 (Qe5 was much better) Qxd4 Nxh3 Rh1 Qd5+ Qxd5 Nf4+ Kf3 Nxd5. After all that, black has a two pawn advantage.

Random positions

2007-07-12T15:47:00.000-04:00

Not a whole lot to say lately. Just plugging along. Here are some positions from recent games:

White to play

This is from a blitz game. Here white is losing the b-pawn, so I decided to go for a swindle. Here were the next moves: g4 Nxb3 g5 and black falls for it, hxg5??

White to play

Now white has a winning tactic. Rf3 threatening mate on h3 and the knight on b3. Phew, I got away with one there!

Here is an example of an un-developed queenside. White has made a bunch of queen moves and has now tried to lock the center with d5:

Black to play

But it turns out the rook on e1 is overworked. Black can break through with Nxe4. White didn't put up the toughest resistance. The game continued Rxe4 Qxc1 Kh2 Qxd2 Nbxd2 etc.

Lastly, an example of breaking open the center. Opening the center is generally better for the better developed side. That's a good rule of thumb for getting ideas, but you also have to calculate quite a bit because a lot of lines will be open.

White to play

White is a little more developed due to the rook on d1. More importantly, white's pieces are actually aimed at targets. The e3 bishop attacks the b6 knight and the d2 queen is lined up on d7 bishop while both of these pieces are defended by the queen. Also important is that the d1 rook is lined up on the queen.

So white opens it up with d5 exd5 Bxb6, the game continued with Qxb6. A better try, but still good for white would have been axb6 exd5 Be8 Qxc4. The game move loses quickly exd5 and now both bishops are under attack.

Lastly, an update on CT-Art progress. The last level is problems with difficulty 90 and above:
Level 90 and above: 74%, 22 problems done, 45 to go.
Ct-Art elo: 2587
1164 problems done, 45 left. Then, who knows, back to the beginning??

Level 80 Done

2007-07-04T12:24:00.000-04:00

Happy Independence Day to my fellow USAers.

I've finished Level 80 of CT-Art. No other great insight at the moment, just the facts:

CT-Art stats:

Level 10  20  30  40  50  60  70  80
------------------------------------
#     110 286 221 204 134 84  59  44
%     97% 92% 86% 77% 76% 67% 70% 64%
CT-Art elo: 2522

So I've completed a total of 1142 CT-Art problems. There are 67 problems at Level 90 and above.

Miscellaneous

2007-06-30T17:48:00.000-04:00

So this is the weekend I'm missing the World Open. It's a great tournament and if you ever get a chance to play, I encourage you to play. The experience there is not like any other tournament I've played in. On the other hand, it's outrageously expensive and the competition is very tough. But if you're well under-rated, breaking even is not an unreasonable expectation.

Here are a couple of tactics from recent games I've played. First a warm-up:

White to Play

My opponent just played Qd7, sacking the knight on f3. If Kxf3, black wins with Qh3+ Ke4 c5, boxing in the king. But white has a winning tactic instead of Kxf3.

Black to play

Here I missed a pretty mating idea. I sacked a knight a couple moves earlier to get into the king position. I certainly have enough pieces converging, with queen, rook, and bishop all pointed squarely at weak points. I played the winning b3 where Kd2 can be met by Rxc2+ and Qxb2 where black now has 4 pawns for the piece, white's king is still exposed, and the b-pawn is close to promotion.

I think if black realizes that white's only hope is to play Kd2 and escape to the kingside, the mating net is not so tough to find. Black has Bc3! and is now threatening mate. If bxc3 bxc3, mate is still threatened. White can only delay by Qb4 Qa1+ Qb1 Qa3+ Qb2 Qxb2

CT-Art update:
Level 80: 64 % (32 done, 12 to go)
Ct-Art elo: 2510

Endgame positions

2007-06-23T12:54:00.000-04:00

Crappy players like myself make lots of endgame mistakes. This gives a good endgame player a chance to pull out a draw or a win from games that are lost or drawn. Here are two examples from a recent game I played.

White to play

I'm not totally certain on this position, but I know I played it wrong. I played Ra8+ Kg7 a7. And now white has totally cornered himself.

A better chance would have been Kf1 and walking over to the rook, eventually up to the pawn if necessary. Note that the king does not have to protect the f2 pawn, e.g. Kf1 Kf8 Ke1 Ke8 Kd1 Rxf2? Rb7! and black cannot stop a7 followed by Rb8+ and promoting the pawn. Black can take on f2 once his king gets to c8, but then white has Rg7 and taking on g4. Then the 2 pawn advantage should be enough to make a queen.

After the game moves, black has a draw, but he must keep his king on h7 or g7. Instead, black bailed me out by playing Kf7. Now white has a winning tactic. This is a good one to know.

White to move

Level 70 done

2007-06-17T12:16:00.000-04:00

I've finished level 70 of CT-Art. I don't have a whole lot else for this entry. I've decided not to attend the World Open as life got in the way; so I don't have a tournament goal looming. There is a local tournament in about a month I will try to make it to.

Without further ado, here are the stats through level 70 of Ct-Art.
Level 10: 97% (110 problems)
Level 20: 92% (286 problems)
Level 30: 86% (221 problems)
Level 40: 77% (204 problems)
Level 50: 76% (134 problems)
Level 60: 67% (84 problems)
Level 70: 70% (59 problems)
Ct-Art elo: 2464
Total done: 1098, 111 problems left

To be clear, this is all done in practice mode in sequential numerical order. In practice mode, if you make a wrong move you get hints about important squares, pieces, and lines. Since you also get partial credit for getting the problem right after hints, this is definitely a percentage boost. I think the story would be quite different in test mode.

Blitz Tactic

2007-06-13T11:22:00.000-04:00

There are cool tactics in blitz games and they can be found OTB while playing 'Real Chess'. Anyone who tells you blitz is not chess, just isn't doing it right. Blue Devil Knight is about to enter a real foray into the world of blitz chess and I'd like to leave this nugget as inspiration.

Black to move

White has played Rde1 in response to Rxh3 leaving his queen en prise while threatening to get into the back rank. It took me a moment, but even in blitz there is plenty of time to calculate the resulting position and see that the ending is winning for black after Rxc3 Re8+ Bxe8 Rxe8+ Qc8 Rxc8+ Kxc8 bxc3.

If blitz isn't chess, why does the guy making the better chess moves win? Play blitz with pride! Play blitz for fun! And don't ever let anyone tell you that it's not chess.

Tournament Report

2007-06-10T09:20:00.000-04:00

Black to move

You can find a fast way to finish off this game at chesslog.de. All three tournament games are posted there (http://www.chesslog.de/users/loomis) with some annotations.

Overall I was disappointed with the tournament experience. The way the sections broke I was the top seed in my section. I would have really loved to play some higher rated players, it's a much better way to put yourself to the test and find weaknesses in your game. I am happy that I was able to take care of business and win all my games. There are places where I didn't play perfectly, so hopefully I can learn from those.

Rating change: 1707 --> 1729

Tournament time!

2007-06-05T22:18:00.000-04:00

After a very long time of not playing tournaments, I'm back! There is a tournament this Saturday and I'm very excited to be playing. We'll see if the tactical study overload can pay off in rating points. I should probably squeeze in some real games before I throw myself back in the fire. The time control is G/75 and the tournament is 3 rounds.

In other news, I have a glaring CT-Art mistake to share. In a handful of cases moves that are easily winning are 'wrong' because a somewhat better move exists (e.g. the difference between +2 and +3.5), but in this case, the program completely misses a mate in 2!

White to move

This is the starting position of problem 1082. The first move of the solution is Rd8+ and one variation given by Ct-Art is Kxd8 Qd2+ Bd4 Bxd4 Rc2 Bf6+ Ke8 leading to the position shown below.

White to move

And now the program gives Qxc2. Overlooking Rb8+ Rc8 Rxc8#. C'est la vie.

Current CT-Art stats:
Level 70: 72% (43 done, 16 to go)
CT-Art elo: 2452
Total done: 1082. Remaining: 127.

Traveling tactics, Level 60 done

2007-05-31T20:02:00.000-04:00

I forgot how much down time there is at a conference when you don't have every day life to worry about. Since I brought my laptop, I've managed to fit in some tactics time and polished off level 60 of CT-Art. As usual, the problems got quite a bit tougher as the level went on and my percentage dropped accordingly.

In addition to getting more difficult, they also became more flawed. There were a number of problems where the move I made that was "wrong" led to a win without much difficulty against the built in Crafty engine. Oh well, at least I'm being challenged.

Total CT-Art stats up to this point:
Level 10: 97% (110 problems)
Level 20: 92% (286 problems)
Level 30: 86% (221 problems)
Level 40: 77% (204 problems)
Level 50: 76% (134 problems)
Level 60: 67% (84 problems)
CT-Art elo: 2391
Total problems done: 1039
Problems left: 170

Summer schedule

2007-05-23T23:46:00.000-04:00

I don't want to lock myself down to any particular goals, because, as we can see from earlier posts I tend to get side tracked. I have a professional conference all next week and another one at the end of June. I'll also be starting my next job in August and I have to move between now and then. So on a few occassions this summer chess practice will take a major backseat to real life.

That having been said, I'm moving through the CT-Art problems smoothly and I see myself finishing them at some point. The only question then is whether or not I do them again. Obviously I haven't done them perfectly, so they bear repeating. However, I don't really want to take another 9 months where CT-Art is the biggest part of my chess time. So we'll see.

In the meantime, I'm on level 60. Stats:
Level 60: 84% (21 done, 63 to go)
CT-Art elo: 2397

Seeds of tactical destruction

2007-05-18T09:51:00.000-04:00

Today I played a blitz game where I thought I mis-handled the opening and then all of a sudden, the seeds of tactical destruction were staring me in the face. The opening was a closed sicilian, which I know next to nothing about. I allowed my opponent to take much more space and lock the center -- I was not doing well. Thankfully, he was behind in development. and weakened just the right squares at just the right time:

Black to Move

White has just played 11. b3? Black has a nice tactical shot here taking advantage of the exposed rook and a reloading knight on c6. The game continued 11. ... Nxd4 12. Nxd4 Bxe5. Black has given a piece for two pawns, but now attacks the pinned knight twice while it is only defended once. If 13. Bb2, black "reloads" on c6 with Nc6. There are some other lines to check with this tactic, 12. Qxd4 Qxd4 13. Nxd4 Bxe5 looks just as good. We also have to know what will happen if white tries Nxe6 either directly after Bxe5 in either line or after Bb2 Nc6 in either line. So there are several branches to the calculation tree, but they all rely on the domination of the a1-h8 diagional, in particular the d4 square.

Perhaps all this tactics training pays off after all.

Ct-Art Level 50 done

2007-05-16T00:18:00.000-04:00

I finished Level 50 of Ct-Art tonight. It's late, so I'm not going to write much, but I have also been doing tactics at some of the online tactics practice websites.

On Chess Tactics Server I have started back doing some pretty regular tactics. CTS is useful for sight training. You see the motif and you play it. Or you don't see it and you sit there feeling foolish :-). Sometimes it takes me a while to solve the problem, but typically once you see the motif, the calculation is easy. So you really are training your sight -- see all the checks, captures, forks, pins, skewers, etc. and see them fast.

Another chess tactics practice site is ChessTempo. Here the time contraints are not as strict as CTS and many of the problems require you to calculate quite a bit. So here you have to do more than see a single motif in the problem. These kinds of problems can be very frustrating, and I'm not certain that all of them are valuable learning tools, but I'm still giving it a chance for now.

Ct-Art at level 50 requires quite a bit of calculation. The variations are quite deep and while I admit I don't always see the full variation when I play the first move, I'm putting a ton of effort into calculating as deep as I can to get these right.

Here are the Ct-Art stats for all levels up to level 50:
Level 10: 97% (110 problems)
Level 20: 92% (286 problems)
Level 30: 86% (221 problems)
Level 40: 77% (204 problems)
Level 50: 76% (134 problems)
CT-Art elo: 2352

Total done: 955.
To go: 264.

Tactics, tactics, everywhere

2007-05-08T21:06:00.000-04:00

Even blitz games can be full of great tactical nuggets. It's easy to miss them as the clock winds down, so occassionally I'll go back and mine a game or two that seemed like there were some fireworks that should have gone off.

Here is a position from a game this week where I'm attacking on the kingside but didn't find the final tactical coup:

White to move

Here white is forced to play Bg3 otherwise the following sequence from the game is forced, g3 Qh5 h4 Qg4 Kh1 Qh3 Rg1 leading to this juicy position:

Black to move

Here is where I failed to finish it off. I played Be2 trying to get into the back rank, but there is a more clever spot for the bishop. Bc4!! This gains time on the queen allowing for Rxd1 punishing the overworked rook on g1.

All work and no play

2007-05-05T09:46:00.000-04:00

I spent all of my chess time this week doing tactics problems and when I tried to play an actual chess game yesterday I felt like I didn't know what I was doing. I just kind of pushed my pieces around and then when the tactics came it was like I'd been kicked in the head, I couldn't see anything! Here is an example, my opponent has just played Bxh3 seeing that gxh3 allows Qxf3.

White has a winning move here and it even crossed my mind, Rc5. This will drive the queen away from attacking the f3 knight allowing white to take the bishop. I can't remember exactly why I didn't play Rc5, but I played e4 instead. Same idea, but it allows Qh5. My generous opponent gave me a second chance by playing Rxe4. Once again Rc5 is a winning move.Bonehead that I am, I played Bxe4 Qxe4 and now, Rc5. Rc5 is pointless there and allows Bxg2 Kxg2 Qg4 and black takes on f3 next move. Black then has 3 pawns for the exchange. I managed to keep my rooks pretty active, win the pawn on c7, get both rooks to the seventh and push my passed d-pawn and obtain a winning advantage which I then proceeded to draw.

I played a couple other games yesterday that were similarly below the quality of play I should have. Hopefully it's just a matter of not having played actual games recently and I can snap out of it by making play part of my routine in addition to work.

Back in tactics land, here are my CT-Art stats for the current level:
Level 50: 79% (85 problems done, 49 to go)
CT-Art Elo: 2343
Total problems done: 906, 303 to go.

Big weekend

2007-04-30T23:18:00.000-04:00

I had some time over the weekend and managed to make a lot of headway on the CT-Art problems. At this rate, I'll be done by... ok, ok, last time I got into the prediction game I was waaaay off. So no more predictions. I'm just going to do problems when I feel like it. I've now done a total of 879 exercises, so I've got 330 left of the 1209 problems in CT-Art.

I like getting back into chess, but what I really need is a tournament to look forward to. Alas, that probably won't happen for over a month. At least I have plenty of time for tactical training!!

Here is a sample from Level 50:

And here's the line that I saw that wasn't quite the right solution:

Nef3+ and now:

if gxf3 Qxf3 when mate cannot be stopped.

if Kh1 Bh3 gxh3 Ne1 threatening the queen and Qf3+. What I missed is f4 Nxc2 Bxe8 -- whoops the rook is hanging at the end of the line. Fritz says black has an advantage here, but there's a lot of work to get the win.

Stat update:
Level 50: 82% (58 done, 76 to go)
CT-Art elo: 2322

Getting back into it

2007-04-27T21:08:00.000-04:00

I'm picking up the pace getting back into chess study. I've started in on Level 50 of CT-Art and so far it's going well. As usual, the levels are easier at the beginning, so my percentage is pretty good so far and I expect it to drop later in the level despite my best efforts.

The problems of level 50 often require very deep calculations. Sometimes there are very long problems that leave you only gaining a pawn -- these are very frustrating. Without further ado, here are the current stats:
Level 10: 97% (110 problems)
Level 20: 92% (286 problems)
Level 30: 86% (221 problems)
Level 40: 77% (204 problems)
Level 50: 84% (31 done, 103 to go)

I also saw a new website for chess tactics, http://www.chesstempo.com. It uses a rating system similar to CTS, but they don't have the same timing restrictions -- I know a lot of people will like that. So far it's brand new, and honestly they are still some issues. Until there are more users, the rating system doesn't really work properly because the problems don't have accurate ratings. I like the interface though, so we'll see if it picks up popularity.

Not dead

2007-04-24T21:21:00.000-04:00

Hey, I'm not dead, just up to other stuff for a while.

Back in November I started writing a chess engine. I worked on that through January and it plays an ok game. It plays on FICS (http://www.freechess.org) with the username 'Marginal' and turns out to be a nice opponent for regular people, not walking over everyone like most computers.

I have also finished my Ph.D. dissertation this Spring. Graduation is in May. As you can guess, this meant I didn't do anything in the way of chess study for a few months to make sure I finished on time. After that was done I started to get back into CT-Art.

I'm not sure what my plan of study will be, maybe I'll post on that soon. In the meantime, I've finished Level 40 of CT-Art. Here are my current stats:
Level 10: 97% (110 problems)
Level 20: 92% (286 problems)
Level 30: 86% (221 problems)
Level 40: 77% (204 problems)

Clearly a big drop in success rate. I've considered going back to redo the levels from the beginning, but for now I'm going to start on Level 50 and see how it goes.

2 games from the weekend

2006-11-19T22:02:00.000-05:00

This weekend I played a 3 round match between a few local clubs. I've posted my games with full annotations from the 2nd and 3rd round at www.chesslog.de/users/loomis, the exact links are: www.chesslog.de/users/loomis/?game=637 and www.chesslog.de/users/loomis/?game=627. Hopefully there are things to be learned from those games.

The second round game features poor play by me culminating in my opponent making a tactical mistake that hangs a piece. I almost win the piece but foul up the idea and then he hangs a rook in time pressure. This game is another example that you don't have to have a positional advantage to have a winning tactic. At least not at the 1700-1900 level.

In the third round game I unsoundly sacked a piece but my opponent didn't properly refute the idea. At the end of the game I took a perpetual when I had a winning tactic on the board. It's kind of a long tactic, but the beginning of the idea was pretty simple and I didn't even consider it. Oh well.

I've come across more errors in CT-Art, but I'll save the diagrams for a later post. I'm now pretty sure that I won't finish the 1209 problems by the end of the year. I just don't have time to keep up that pace -- at least not while doing other things like playing in tournaments and annotating my games. Here are my current CT-Art stats:

level 10: 97% (110 problems)
level 20: 92% (286 problems)
level 30: 86% (221 problems)
level 40: 85% (83 done, 121 to go)
elo: 2243

That's 700 total problems done. Leaving 509 to do. In the last week I did 71 problems. If that is a maintainable pace, it will take me just over 7 weeks to fully finish. There are 6 weeks left in the year (minus vacation time). So I expect to finish within the first two weeks of the new year.

CT-Art, level 30 finished

2006-11-11T13:54:00.000-05:00

It's been a little longer than usual since I posted, I've had a shortage of time lately. In the meantime I have finished level 30 of CT-Art and begun level 40. I was disappointed in the number of mistakes near the end of level 30. I understand that when you put together over 1200 tactics problems there are bound to be a few oversights, what is really annoying is when I spend 15 minutes on a problem when I've found what is supposed to be the right answer and the refutation to it in the first 3-5 minutes.

Anyway, I'm going to post the problem numbers and diagrams here in the hopes that I won't waste time on these problems again in the future.

CT-Art problem 573

White to play. I played Bxf6 Nxf6 Nxe6, Nxe6 was rejected by CT-Art even though it is crushingly winning. The Ct-Art solution, Bxe6+, is also winning.

This position is from CT-Art problem 575.

The position is after Rg3xg5 Kxg5 Qg4+, the CT-Art solution continues with Kh7 and Bxf5+, there is no mention of the move Qg5 in the diagram position. This moves save the position for black. I saw all this from the beginning and wasted a lot of time trying to find an actual win, which there isn't.

This position comes from the first problem of level 40, number 618.

The CT-Art solution is Rxe8, planning to meet Qxe8 with Qxd2 and gxh6 with Nf6+. But there's no way to meet Rxg2+. So instead of Rxe8 I played Nf6+ because then gxf6 Rxe8 Rxg2 can be met by Kxg2.

Here are the current CT-Art stats:

level 10: 97% (110 problems)
level 20: 92% (286 problems)
level 30: 86% (221 problems)
level 40: 85% (12 done, 192 left)
elo: 2168

In total I've done 629 problems, so 580 to go. I think it will be close as to whether I'll finish by the end of the year, but I'm keeping that as my goal.

CT-Art, focus on the king

2006-10-31T23:33:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty sure I'm learning from the CT-Art exercises, but they seem very artificial to me. I don't recall exactly, but it seems every problem is based on the king in some way, either checkmating or using checks to win material. In contrast, CTS problems are often just winning some material based on a tactic like a pin or fork without anything to do with the king.

The repeated theme of working against the king narrows the search enough that sometimes the problems are too easy. In some cases, the opponent has a mate threat so you know the answer has to be a check and there's only one check! Even if the check means sacrificing the queen, you can be sure it's right and then calculating the line is not so difficult.

Another problem I'm having is that it never marks problem 461 has having been solved. Despite the fact that I solved it the first time it came up and I've tried going back and solving it again. Anyone else ever have this difficulty?

CT-Art stats:

level 10: 97% (110 problems)
level 20: 92% (286 problems)
level 30: 88% (144 done, 77 to go)
elo: 2167

Tactics while tired

2006-10-26T23:25:00.000-04:00

Today I had an interesting experience doing CTS tactics. I was doing problems there even though I was a bit tired. At the time I thought "Is this really affecting me?" and I honestly wasn't sure. After resting a bit, taking a nap, and refocusing, I did some more problems later in the day. Thanks to the reappearance of the ratings graph for the 200 most recent problems solved, I can show you the result:

The bumpy region from 0 to about 135 that hovers between roughly 1642 and 1646 was my tired solving session. My post rest, refreshed, ready to go session starts between 130 and 140 and the rating takes off, getting to 1660 in about 65 problems.

I felt a clear difference when I started my second session. It felt like my eyes were far more active, moving more quickly and finding/seeing the pieces better. I don't know what this tells me about chess improvement, other than I probably wasn't learning anything while tired. Additionally, this indicates that tired is not a good condition to be playing in.

I'm heading out of town for the weekend, so there will be no Friday update, here are the current CT-Art stats:

level 10: 97% (110 problems)
level 20: 92% (286 problems)
level 30: 87% (110 done, 111 to go)
elo: 2149

100 Done (level 30, CT-Art)

2006-10-24T20:51:00.000-04:00

I just finished 100 problems in level 30. So I'm taking a break to read from my chess books. Here are the CT-Art stats so far:

level 10: 97% (110 problems)
level 20: 92% (286 problems)
level 30: 86% (100 done, 121 remain)
elo: 2138

As I predicted, the level 30 percentage has come down a bit. Some level 30 problems are simple, but most require a lot of calculation. There are some really clever tactics on this level. At least, it seems that way having never seen them. Hopefully once I learn them cold they will become simple as well.

I'm happy enough with my rate of solving so far. I'm hoping to finish the 1209 problems by the end of the year. I've done 496 problems so that leaves me 713 to do. I have a bout 9.5 weeks 'til the end of the year, but I'll be traveling this weekend as well as Thanksgiving (late November) and Christmas (end of December), so I probably need to stick with about 100 problems per week. In fact, it's probably best to do a little more than that while I'm still on the lower levels.

I've noticed quite a growing number of people, including even Temposchlucker now, who have decided to do CTS problems slowly. I think it's important to do tactics at all speeds. Lots of problems in rapid succession, tough problems requiring 1-5 minutes or sometimes more, and deep analysis of a single position (Stoyko exercise) or game annotation. For now I'll just say that I think CTS problems are best suited for the rapid succession category because of the way they are rated. I may say more about this later if I can muster enough energy to make my thoughts coherent.

My last tournament is now rated, just a minor rating change for me: 1702 -> 1707

Friday Update

2006-10-21T00:31:00.000-04:00

As usual, the weekly Friday update. Since I played in the 2-day tourney last weekend, I spent quite a bit of time analyzing and annotating my games. I did get back to the tactics training by the end of the week. At CTS my rating is now at 1641 after 16515 tries. That's about where it was last week. I don't mind the CTS rating holding steady while I delve into other chess activities. I do expect that I need to work on more ingrained pattern recognition in this department though.

In CT-Art I finished level 20 and have just begun level 30. Level 30 threw me for a loop at first, but once I started to focus better I began getting the problems with a healthy struggle. CT-Art stats:

level 10: 97% (110 problems)
level 20: 92% (286 problems)
level 30: 93% (13 problems done, 208 to go)
elo: 2076

I expect the numbers to decrease later in level 30 as the problems tend to get harder as the levels go on.

I have also done the first 10 problems from The Reassess Your Chess Workbook. Silman gives a lot of text for the solution of each diagram along with a list of the important Imbalances and Ideas. While his biggest point is to make sure we understand the important characteristics, the solutions must necessarily involve playing the tactics correctly, so it's fairly well rounded.

I've read the introduction to Stean's Simple Chess and I'm almost finished the section on Outposts. I'm not sure what impact this book will have on my game, so I'll reserve any judgements until much later. I do have high hopes for it.

CT-Art level 20 finished

2006-10-18T20:29:00.000-04:00

Tonight I polished off the last of the level 20 problems on CTS. These things got tough at the end! Well, perhaps they just employed ideas I'd not seen before. I'll have a keener eye for these tactics in the future.

The stats:

level 10: 97% (110 problems)
level 20: 92% (286 problems)
elo: 2056

I had hoped to finish level 20 by the end of last week, but fell just a little short. Then I spent a lot of time going analyzing and annotating my games from the weekend tournament. I'm not worried too much about my schedule, but I hope to complete all 1209 problems by the end of the year.

Tournament Report: Moderate Success

2006-10-18T00:51:00.000-04:00

In 4 games I had 1 win, 1 draw, and 2 losses. Everyone I played was 100 - 150 points higher rated than me, so this is not a terrible result. For my own ego, I'll show a position from the only game I won:

White to play

Opponent, 1805Loomis

White is to play and win. The answer can be found along with the full game at: www.chesslog.de/users/loomis/?game=538

The other games from the tournament are also posted at chesslog.de. They are games 537 through 540.

Overall I feel good about the tournament. Playing higher rated players and analyzing the games has shown me what some of my flaws are. Now I'll have to focus on correcting them. And of course, back to the tactics exercises!

Friday Update

2006-10-13T23:22:00.000-04:00

My rating at CTS took another down-turn this week. I am now rated 1640 after 16008 tries. The fact that my CTS rating has dropped each of the last two weeks coincides with starting the Ct-Art exercises. Of course, this may or may not be related. My first thought is that this indicates that CTS is a skill of its own that must be kept sharp. I would still like to see the CTS rating going up, as that indicates that I am solving more difficult problems, but it may go up more slowly if I am also focused on other chess things. That will have to be fine.

CT-Art statistics:

level 10: 97% (110 problems)
level 20: 92% (267 done, 19 to go)
elo: 2061

I didn't finish level 20 by the end of this week as I thought I would. Many of the problems later in the level took quite a bit longer for me to solve. This is good news, I am happy to see that this problem set will be quite challenging for me. I did get close to finishing and should wrap up level 20 shortly.

The varied difficulty in level 20 makes me question the general intelligence of the folks at Convekta. I always thought it was silly that the levels were numbered 10, 20, 30, etc. What was wrong with 1, 2, 3? Now that I see there are 286 problems of varied difficulty in level 20, I think, couldn't they have broken this into levels 20, 21, 22, etc.? Well, I don't think it affects my chess improvement so I'm not worried, but it is a head scratcher.

I've started concurrently on Stean's Simple Chess and Silman's Reassess Your Chess Workbook. Basically fitting them in where I have time between tactics study. I'll try to write something more organized about this next week.

Tournament: 2-day tournament starts tomorrow!

Catching up with comments

2006-10-11T15:03:00.000-04:00

First, I wanted to thank Likesforests and Samurai Pawn for wishing me good luck in my tournament. I appreciate the blogger community for their support -- it's nice to know the long road of chess improvement is travelled in good company. I also appreciate the blogger community for all the ideas shared amongst the various blogs.

A second thanks to Samurai for suggesting Nunn's puzzle book as a final exam after CT-Art. I'll definitely look into that one. It would be nice to get the computer to do it just so that keeping score is easier.

mini update:
CT-Art statistics

level 10: 97% (110 problems)
level 20: 92% (227 done, 59 to go)
elo: 2049

I hope to have the last 59 problems of level 20 done by my end of the week update.

Tournament Report: Doing better

2006-10-09T18:22:00.000-04:00

I scored 1.5/3 at this weekend's tournament. But it was quite a confidence boosting 1.5.

In my first game I played a master rated 2290. He dubiously sacked a pawn in the opening and hung a pawn trying to get active play against my king in the middle game. Then he missed a tactic while trying to win back one of the pawns and I was able to win a queen for rook and bishop. So I was up a queen and pawn for rook and bishop. I was slowly making progress towards the win, but when my time got down to about a minute I started to play inaccurately and eventually hung enough material to just be losing. Here is the position where I get a real winning advantage:

White to Play

Master

Loomis

Black has just played Rf8-f6. This move tactically defends the e-pawn. Can you find the continuation after Qxe4? I have posted the whole game at chesslog.de (http://www.chesslog.de/users/loomis/?game=522) so you can see the solution there. That site is still a little buggy, but I believe the author is working on it -- It's a personal volunteer project, so we should just say "thanks" for what we can get.

In my second game I played a class B player rated about 1680. I felt like he didn't really understand the opening he played and allowed me to dominate the center without really trying to undermine it. He then helped me get a rapid kingside expansion and his position was soon overrun. I was surprised to win a game without feeling any real counter threats from someone of this rating, but I think it came more from his misunderstanding of the position than anything special I did. Eventually I'll put the whole game on chesslog.de, but for now, here are some key positions:

Black to Play

B-Player

Loomis

I have just played 14. c4 and my opponent replied 14. ... Bxf3. This move is also Fritz's first choice at a depth of 14, but I believe my opponent and Fritz are both misevaluating the position (Fritz evaluates it as = with a tiny edge to white, .25). There is the obvious tactic that the bishop is now guarding the c-pawn so I have recapture on f3 with the g-pawn. This results in doubled f-pawns and the open g-file leading to my king. Usually these positional factors would count against me, but here they shouldn't count at all because my control of the center means these weaknesses will never be attacked.

The game continued: 15. gxf3 b6 16. f4 Nc6 17. e5. All of these moves follow Fritz's top choice, but they are straightforward so this is not too surprising. Here is the current position:

White clearly has a superior occupation of the center. The black knight and bishop still have their eyes on key squares and if he can shake up the pawns could break through, but I think white has a serious advantage here. On this move, though, I think black makes a real error: 17. ... g5. This attempt to undermine the white center backfires quickly in the game: 18. fxg5 Bxe5 19. f4 Bg7 20. f5 Be5 21. Bd3. This is one of those moves that I'm lucky to have available. The bishop simultaneously i) clears the queens path to defense of the h2 pawn, ii) unpins the d5 pawn creating a threat on the c6 knight, and iii) attacks the weak h7 square. Even at this time I am envisioning Bxh7 sacrifices.

The position after the multipurpose Be2-d3. The continuation was 21. ... Nd4 22. f6 e6 23. Qg2! and now it's all over because the queen is going to the h-file. 23. ... exd5 24. Bxh7+ It turns out Qh3 was simpler, but I had this sacrifice on my brain for a while and calculated it all out. If Kxh7 then Qh3+ Kg8 Qh6 puts the king in a box (Ne6 is the only defense to immediate mate) and the g6 push is on the way. Black trusted me and without too much thought played 24. ... Kf8 and after 25. g6 he resigned. Final position:

I don't want this description of this game to sound like too much braging, but this is as well as I've played in a long time, or possibly ever.

Rating change from tournament: 1683 -> 1702 (back over 1700!)

addition: I forgot to mention my third game which was a draw against an 1870. The only thing of note about this game is that at this point in the day I wasn't focused properly on the game. This is something I need to overcome. I played poorly out of the opening and was lucky to get a better position a few moves later. Not feeling able to focus on playing up to my ability I offered a draw which was acceptable.

Friday update

2006-10-06T23:45:00.000-04:00

Time for the weekly update. First, the CT-Art stats:

level 10: 97% (110 problems)
level 20: 92% (183 problems)
elo: 2029

The level 20 percentage is already coming down. Most of level 20 is still relatively easy (a fair bit of mate in 2), but many are complicated enough to make me calculate. Given that the higher levels should be even tougher, it looks like this will be good for making me work hard. With another 103 problems left on level 20, I should finish in the middle of next week.

This week was a down week at Chess Tactics Server (CTS). I finished with a rating of 1650 (high 1672) after 15388 tries. At the end of last week and the beginning of this week when I made my high of 1672 I was focused on seeing all my pieces and their lines. This works very well for me, but unlike other things I have worked on, I can't seem to get it into a subconcious (auto) process.

Another thing I worked on this week at CTS is finding undefended or underdefended pieces. As the saying goes "Loose pieces drop off," so I figure if you can find the loose pieces, then it's just a matter of figuring out how to get them. A lot of times this is the order in which I recognize a pattern, first I see a weakness then I see how my pieces get to it. Unfortunately, to do this efficiently, I have to already know where my pieces are and where they can go. So I need to get both these things in my auto-process, but right now I seem to only do one at a time. I'm certainly not doing both efficiently.

Upcoming tournaments: One day, 3 rounds at G/75 tomorrow. Two day, 5 rounds, next week.

Ct-Art Exercise 252

2006-10-06T00:19:00.000-04:00

I am through exercise 252 in CT-Art, stopping there because I spent far too long on that problem. The solution I calculated actually did win a piece or the exchange, but the correct solution won a queen for a rook. It's a little disappointing that the program doesn't count winning a piece as correct, but the requirement to be perfect will be good for getting better.

Here's the problem in question:

Black to move

My solution was. 1. ... Qe4+, CT-Art gave 2. f3 as a refutation. My planned response to this move was 2. ... Nxd2 3. fxe4 Rc4 where I am attacking the rook and the bishop.

The better solution is 1. Rg3+ fxg3 2. Qe4+ and now black can take the queen free and clear.

CT-Art statistics:

level 10: 97% (110 problems)
level 20: 94% (142 problems)
elo: 2031

It will probably take me through the end of next week to finish level 20. Tomorrow's regular weekly update will include some comments on this weeks work at CTS.

CT-Art level 20

2006-10-02T22:54:00.000-04:00

Just a quick update tonight. I did the first 50 problems in level 20. I was a little distracted and didn't get to do them all in one sitting, but I think it took a little under an hour, or about a minute per problem. Most problems were still pretty straightforward, but some really made me think. After 50 problems I'm at 95% success for level 20, slightly less than my level 10 score. There are 286 problems in level 20, so I'll probably be doing these for the rest of the week.

CT-Art Results:

level 10: 97% (110 problems)
level 20: 95% (50 problems)
elo: 1956

The next beginning

2006-10-02T00:03:00.000-04:00

I am now in possession of Michael Stean's Simple Chess and the famous tactical training software CT-Art. I have finished section 1 of Winning Pawn Structures and began to read Stean's book today. It's a short book, but I think there is a lot to be learned from it. I also began the long journey with CT-Art.

CT-Art isn't exactly user friendly. I didn't know what to do first upon firing up the program. Should I be solving problems in practice mode or test mode? I solved all of the level 10 problems today in practice mode. I just did them in numerical order, though it seems that this order groups by theme, meaning that there would be a few problems in a row with the same kind of mate, or the same kind of knight fork, or some other motif. I was close, but not quite perfect for level 10. My final percentage was 97% for the 110 problems in level 10.

The level 10 problems were a lot like the Chess Tactics Server (CTS) problems I've been doing lately and typically didn't take more than 10 seconds to see the solution. Needless to say, this isn't helping my calculation skills yet, but my understanding is that the problems get tougher in the next few levels. I'm sure my calculation and tactical acumen will be pushed to (or beyond) the limit soon enough.

Since the large majority of my time has been at CTS, I'm excited to have some other activities to put significant energy towards. Balance is one of the keys to improvement. Simple Chess will add much needed positional ideas and CT-Art will help with calculation skill (at least once I get to a level requiring more calculation).

Friday Update

2006-09-29T23:01:00.000-04:00

I'm making it in time for Friday this week!

I'm still waiting on CT-Art and the books I ordered, so most of my chess time this week was spent on Chess Tactics Server (CTS) and I am definitely getting better there. My rating is up to 1668 after 14096 tries (high of 1670). This is about a 50 point improvement since I started the Friday updates 8 weeks and 7000 tries ago and more than 110 points higher than when I first started at CTS.

Recently I have mostly been using CTS to work on seeing the whole board quickly and accurately. I want to be able to see each piece and where it can potentially go with a quick scan of the board. I noticed after trying this for a while that I was missing a lot of pawn moves. So I started to make sure that in my sweep of the board I paid attention to threatening pawn moves, especially pawns close to promotion.

I also spent some time with Baburin's book and I'm nearly done with chapter 7. That's the last chapter of section 1, so I'll move on to the other books when they arrive and I'm finished with chapter 7.

In other news, a tournament came on my radar for this weekend. It's just a 3 round one day event. I'm not sure what the time control is, I think it's something like G/60. This will be a good warm-up for the two day event I'll play in two weeks from now. It's also a good way to get in some longer serious games. Hopefully I'll have something interesting to say about these games next week.

Missed Tactic

2006-09-26T22:41:00.000-04:00

Tonight I played a game at a moderate time control and missed a tactic that I feel I should not miss. So, for public flogging, I present here my missed tactical opportunity:

White to Play

My opponent has just played his queen to a7 from b6. I can sense that this move isn't really accomplishing anything and the fact that he has no defenders on the kingside is a second clue that I might have a possibility. I had been considering Bh6 as a possibility ever since my queen came to g3 to create more weakness around the king. I have even already though of taking the bishop d4 with my rook so that I control all the dark squares.

The solution is coming soon, so if you want to solve this one yourself, don't read any further.

I could see easily the line Rxd4 Qxd4 Be5 threatening the queen and checkmate. But I thought Rxd4 Rxd4 Be5 only threatens to win back the exchang that I just sacked, so I gave up. The winning line is Rxd4 Rxd4 Bh6! and now there is no way to defend g7. For example, g6 Qe5 f6 Qxe6+ Kh8 Qxf6+ Kg8 Qg7#.

I wound up winning this game after later inaccurate tactical moves led to an opposite colored bishop ending where my opponent allowed me a passed pawn that he had to give his bishop for. He also hung a couple of his pawns in the process and I easily had enough extra material to finish off the win. At one point the game was dead drawn in the opposite colored bishop ending, but this is a perfect example of the difference between theory and practice. The guy was about my same rating on FICS and I would have imagined he should be able to draw that game easily. C'est la vie.

Weekend update

2006-09-23T19:24:00.000-04:00

I'm a little late for Friday, so this week it's just the weekend update.

This week I mostly did problems at CTS and only a little bit from Baburin's book. One thing I worked on at CTS this week is making sure I look at every piece on the board. Sometimes I tend to get lazy in terms of viewing the whole board. A lot of the problems I fail on or take too long on, it's because there is a key piece I simply haven't even looked at. For example, a bishop moving on a long diagonal, or a rook that comes from the other side of the board. So I'm trying to make sure I am using the entire board.

After 13,383 tries, my CTS rating is 1651 with a high of 1653.

I also decided that I haven't been playing enough longer time control games, so I played a few this week. It's hard to tell if I'm playing better as a result of CTS training, but it seems like I am more aware tactically. I was a bit disappointed with my play in a few spots, but hopefully reviewing these mistakes will help me play better in the future.

I've ordered CT-Art and will start work on that problem set as soon as possible. CTS has been great for pattern recognition, but I feel like I need something to help me practice calculating. I've also ordered 3 books. Stean's Simple Chess, Andy Soltis' Pawn Structure Chess, and Jeremy Silman's Reassess Your Chess Workbook. I think these should keep me busy for a little while.

Countdown to tournament time: 3 weeks!

Friday Update

2006-09-15T16:45:00.000-04:00

This week the regular Friday update is back on Friday. I'll spare the table this time because it just doesn't seem required. I only did a few challenges from Chess Mentor and only one of them was new, I continued reading Chapter 6 from Winning Pawn Structures and I'm almost through that chapter. Most of my time was on CTS.

I was interested to see what would happen after taking a full week off. Sure enough, my rating dropped fairly steadily from 1641 to about 1620. However, it only took another day or two for it to climb back into the 1640's and then to a new high of 1653. Overall I'm pleased with my progress on CTS, I'm definitely getting better at it (rating going up, % success is roughly 81% of late).

My rating there is currently 1646 after 11,826 tries. I've gained about 100 rating points in the last 10000 tries or 1 point per 100 tries. According to the problem distribution chart, increasing from 1540 to 1640 means the window of problems has increased by about 3000. That is, I am currently solving 3000 problems that I wasn't solving 10000 problems ago. I don't know if these ideas are meaningful to anybody who wonders about repetition and improvement, but it can't hurt to record them.

Personally, I don't think repetition is as important to improvement as active learning. By this I mean identifying and correcting ones weaknesses actively. Simply doing problems is not enough, one must use what they learn from their failures to motivate their work. I've given examples of this in the past (double attacks by the queen, especially checks; long diagonals) and I'll give a more recent one now. I noticed I had been having trouble with "Clearance" problems. That is, one move clears the path of a piece and the next move takes advantage of the increased scope. I had been working very hard on seeing everywhere pieces could go, but I realized I was only seeing where they could go right now instead of seeing everywhere they could go. This also has a cousin, but I'm not sure the name of it, I would call it relocation, it might be called triangulation -- what I mean is where a piece moves from one square to another on one move, then changes direction taking advantage of its new scope on the new square to go somewhere else on the next.

Once the weakness is identified, the process is to focus on never missing this idea in a position. E.g. if you don't want to miss double attacks by the queen, make sure you look at every possible queen move, especially checks and pay close attention to moves that attack undefended pieces. Continue to do this until you see these queen moves first before conciously doing the exercise. For working on clearance tactics, I extend the movement of all pieces beyond their obstacles to see if there are useful squares that could be reached after a clearance. Eventually I begin to see these ideas -- and how to achieve the clearance! -- before doing the entire concious exercise.

This is related to Blue Devil Knight's post on eye movement. First, we must recognize which eye movements are not already part of our natural habits, e.g. queen checks, long diagonals, clearance, etc., then we must train our eyes until this eye movement becomes a natural reaction which Blue Devil compares to reading or recognizing a face -- you don't think about every letter or the details of someone's face, you recognize and understand. (Interestingly, when you read, you don't even think about the exact positions of all the letters in the word, see this explanation.)

Lastly, I have a tournament in about a month, so I'm looking forward to that. Hopefully all this study will begin to pay off in the rating department!

Checkmate! (?)

2006-09-10T10:21:00.000-04:00

I figured I should throw in some actual chess content instead of just making this a personal history blog. Here are 3 of the checkmate problems I worked while on vacation. One is just for fun, and for anyone who plays the Kings Gambit is probably just a warmup:

White mates in 5

I'm guessing King's Gambit players may have even seen the above position before. If not, it's probably not a bad idea to see it now.

Unfortunately, there were some errors in the book I was using. I remember reading someone's blog that argued in favor of checkmate problems because the finality of checkmate reduces errors. This may be true, but I'll show you some errors anyhow. The first is a minor error as there is a checkmate in the problem.

This problem is listed as Black mates in 5. I spent quite some time on this one, because I kept finding mate in 4! (1. ... Rf8+ 2. Nf7 Rxf7+ 3. Kg1 (Kg2 Rf2 Kg1 Ne2) Ne2+ 4. Kg2 Rf2++). Finally I decided I wasn't missing anything and checked the solution at the back of the book. The solution went as follows: 1. ... Rf8+ 2. Kg1 Rg2 and then Ne2++ after some spite checks. There was also no mention of the move Kg2. This makes me wonder who is proofreading this stuff.

This one is also listed as Black mates in 5 and this time the error is more egregious. There is no mate! It took me quite a while to convince myself of this. I tried to figure out what to do after Qxh3+ Kxh3 Ne3+ (or other knight moves) Kg3. Here it seemed white has escaped just fine. I worked pretty hard on this position until I finally gave up and looked at the solution. There is no mention of Kg3 in the solution! The book only gives Kh4, which does get mated. It turns out Kg3 is fine for white, there is no mate.

There were a couple other minor errors in the book where mate was faster than advertised, but overall, it was a useful book to take along to occasionally exercise my chess muscles while on vacation.

Back from vacation

2006-09-10T09:53:00.000-04:00

I'm back from vacation and will be back to my regular chess study schedule shortly. While I was away, I did 20 mate in 4 and 30 mate in 5 problems. Of course, I didn't have as much time as usual since I was busy enjoying my vacation.

Now that I'm back, I'll return to CTS, finish up the first section of Baburin's Winning Pawn Structures, and then move on to two new things, CT-Art and Stean's Simple Chess.

Friday progress

2006-09-02T01:05:00.000-04:00

Well, I almost missed it and even though it's technically Saturday, I'll allow this as the Friday progress report. Front and center, here's the table of results:

Week Ending	CTS rating(max)-tries-%age	Chess Mentor	Book
Aug. 4th	1600(1624)-7000-76.3%	59	Baburin, Chap 1
Aug. 11th	1614(1624)-7807-76.8%	67	Baburin, Chap 2
Aug. 18th	1615(1634)-8770-76.3%	72	Baburin, Chap 3
Aug. 25th	1623(1637)-9900-77.6%	79	Baburin, Chap 4+5
Sep 1st	1641(1651)-10798-78.0%	80	Baburin, Chap 6-

Obviously that is a huge jump in my CTS rating. Several of the things I had been working on at CTS began to click. One thing I had been focused on was seeing the whole board. I have read in the past a study where they track the eyes of grandmasters and amateurs and found that amateurs focus their eyes on a portion of the board while grandmasters view all parts of the board nearly equally. I'm trying to view all of the board in just a few seconds, and it's getting easier. This has helped with some of my other weaknesses such as spotting long diagonal pins and finding open files for rooks.

Not much work done on Chess Mentor this week. Though it's deceptive because even though I did only one new challenge, I did several old challenges as repeats. I didn't finish the chapter from Baburin either (that's why the "-" in the table). It is one of the longer chapters, but that's a poor excuse. The other thing I did do was to actually play some chess games! I typically play a few blitz games (3 or 5 minutes) during the week, but I know that I have to play some slower games to practice what I am learning. So I played some slower games. I wasn't totally happy with how I played, but some things were good, I should probably post annotations here as a form of public flogging.

This week I'll be heading to the beach on vacation. I'm taking a book of checkmate exercizes (embarassingly named chessercizes) with me and will be doing mate in 4 problems while I lay out in the sand, or perhaps as I sip a daiquiri by the pool. Anyhow, my next post will be next Friday, which is only slightly less frequent than my usual rate.

Remarkable endgame from CTS

2006-08-28T20:05:00.000-04:00

Today I failed a problem on CTS and as a result spent some time analyzing an endgame. At first I was convinced that my move, while not as crushing as the actual solution, was easily winning. While trying to win the position against a computer program I nearly convinced myself it was a draw until I found a rather neat resource. Since I don't want to forget the position, I'm posting it here where there will be a record of it.

Here is the starting postition, white to play:

Now that your 3 seconds are over, the real solution is 1. Bd6! There are two important motifs here, the pinned rook on e7 and the mating attack if Rxd6.

The move I played was 1. Nh7+. This leads to 1. ... Ke8 (Kg8 Rxe7) 2. Rxe7+ Kxe7 3. Bf6+ Kd7 4. Bxd8 Kxd8 (D)

In my few seconds of thinking time during a CTS problem I was sure that this was winning. However, when I tried to play it out against the computer, I didn't manage more than a draw.

I kept hunting for the right way to play this and eventually found a cute resource for white. One of the main problems for white is that black can try to trade off the kingside pawns and leave white with no mating material. Black tries to bring the king to e6 and play f6 and g5. For example, if White starts out trying to reactivate his knight with 5. Nf6 Black will play 5. ... a5 and now the king is too far away so the knight must chase down the pawn and play might go like this: 6. Nd5 a4 7. Kf3 a3 8. Nc3 Kd7 and black will play f6 next. (Note that it doesn't help white to play 7. f5 trying to get his king over quicker.)

Another way for white to fail to win this position is to leave the knight on h7 to prevent the f6 push: 5. Kf3 a5 6. Ke3 a4 7. Kd4 Ke7 8. Kc4 Ke6 and now the black king penetrates to f5 and takes the f4 pawn.

So far we have learned that (a) if we use the knight to stop the a-pawn, the king will be too slow to prevent the black king from supporting the f6 push and (b) if we use the king to stop the a-pawn, the knight can not be contented to stop the f6 push sitting on h7 because the king will come to f5 and take the f4 pawn. But it turns out the knight can defend the kingside all by itself! So here is the solution:

5. Kf3 a5 6. Ke3 a4 7. Kd4 Ke7 8. Nf6! Ke6 9. Ng4!! a3 10. Kc3 Kf5 11. Nh6+ Kxf4 12. Nxf7 (D)

The white knight now remarkably holds the g-pawn. If the black king tries to drive the white knight away, the knight will simply move to h6 causing a long trip for the black king to get back to the g-pawn. In the meanwhile, the white king is free to mop up the a-pawns before coming back to help on the kingside.

I doubt this endgame study will ever help me win a game, but at least it was entertaining!

Friday progress report

2006-08-25T20:19:00.000-04:00

Friday is here again and that means an update on what I've been doing. I continued the same 3 methods I've been doing, Chess Tactics Server, Chess Mentor, and Baburin's Winning Pawn Structures. Without further ado, here's the table:

Week Ending	CTS rating(max)-tries-%age	Chess Mentor	Book
Aug. 4th	1600(1624)-7000-76.3%	59	Baburin, Chap 1
Aug. 11th	1614(1624)-7807-76.8%	67	Baburin, Chap 2
Aug. 18th	1615(1634)-8770-76.3%	72	Baburin, Chap 3
Aug. 25th	1623(1637)-9900-77.6%	79	Baburin, Chap 4+5

I managed to do 2 chapters in Baburin's book partly because they were shorter and partly because it was the first weekend I had in a month to work on chess. Two more chapters from that book will conclude the first section and then I will put it aside for a while.

At first I planned to to replace the book work from Baburin with Silman's Reassess Your Chess Workbook. However, after reading about Stean's Simple Chess on Blue Devil's blog, I decided to read a few more reviews and everyone raves about this book including more than one person in my rating class who attributes a lot of his recent success to reading and re-reading Stean's book. So, I've planned to read this book before Silman's.

I also have just one more week before I go, as Tempo would say, on holiday. Hopefully I will finish the first section of Baburin's book in that week. While I am away, I will take a book of checkmate problems with me to "stay in shape." It's a decent enough book for that purpose. It has mate in 2 through mate in 6 problems. I am currently on mate in 4. Once I get back from vacation I'll continue with CTS and start on CT-Art and Simple Chess. So now the plan is laid out for the near future and hopefully regular posting here will keep me on track.

Chess Tactics Server Thoughts

2006-08-22T21:15:00.000-04:00

I mentioned that I'd write about this a little while ago and I don't want to let myself down. I've been enjoying the Chess Tactics Server (CTS) and my feeling via casual games I've played recently is that it is helping me see more tactics. The long term effects on my USCF rating are to be determined. When I started out at CTS a couple months ago my CTS rating was not much over 1500. I am now rated a bit over 1600 and so I believe that one can improve CTS performance through CTS study.

What is good at CTS

CTS is for learning quick pattern recognition. The time limits at CTS enforce recognizing the tactical patterns quickly in order to improve one's rating. It is not possible to calculate every possible move and response (computer search algorithm style) in order to determine the correct play under the time limit. Thus it is necessary to recognize the tactical patterns, see the moves and understand their consequences subconciously, and perhaps calculate only narrow forced trees.

When we get a problem wrong at CTS we must consider the source of error, otherwise we are doomed to this failure forever. Shortly after I began at CTS, I was missing or taking a long time on problems that were well within the scope of my chess understanding. In large part they were double attacks with the queen, most often checks. Why was I getting these problems wrong? I simply did not see the queen move when first presented the problem. Upon recognizing this, I made an effort to see all queen checks. Slowly I began to see all the queen checks without effort! This is pattern recognition.

As a second example, I also began to overlook defensive resources (the piece I want to move is pinned or my king is already in check!) for the opponent. Sometimes I would see a fork or skewer or something that appeared to win material and be stunned that my answer was wrong. I had overlooked a defensive resources thwarting my tactical idea. The correct tactic was first removing the defense or something else altogether! Thus I made a conscious effort to look for defensive resources for the opponent. Slowly I began to see defensive resources without much effort at all, and be more confident that there is no resource if I don't see one.

The fast time controls are important at CTS. They enforce the understanding of the solution without effort. Most of the problems that are just beyond my range in 3-10 seconds are still solvable with the right effort. It is important that I continue to put in this effort until they can be solved without it, only then should I move on. Thus, the time control ensures my rating will remain low enough that I will work on these problems until they are solved with less effort.

What CTS is not good for

CTS is not for calculation training. Calculation, as in a real game of chess, requires time. It requires considering many possibilities, some of which will include patterns like the ones learned at CTS. Thus, what is learned at CTS can aid in calucation, but it does not teach one to calculate.

CTS is not a game simulation. Every problem in CTS has a clear tactical resolution. I estimate that perhaps 10% of the time there is a clear tactical resolution during our move in a real chess game. The majority of the time, we are preparing our army to be ready for the tactical resolution. There will almost certainly come a time in our game where there exists a tactical blow, and certainly what we have learned at CTS will help us, but for the majority of the game, this is not as immediate as it is on the problems at CTS.

As always, we must have a balanced approach to learning chess. CTS alone cannot be enough. Studying deep tactical problems that require calcuation is necessary and studying positional ideas is necessary.

Rating and Percent Success

Some people are concerned with rating and percent success. My opinion is that in large part these things do not matter. Your CTS rating is not there for your ego. It exists so that the problem set you try to solve is taylored to your needs. It is not necessary to try to get a high rating, nor is it helpful to your chess playing ability. Your CTS rating will increase when your pattern recognition improves, presumably, so will your overall chess ability.

Of course we should strive to get a problem correct when it is put in front of us. Putting in this effort helps us learn the patterns. But we should not fear getting problems wrong. Often this most stern reprimand is the best way to open our eyes to our faults. Once our eyes are open, then we can work on the repairs.

Progress report

2006-08-18T21:32:00.000-04:00

I've decided that Fridays mean progress updates. In addition to just spitting out the numbers this week, I'd also like to organize my future plans a little. To that end I've first organized my current work in a table format:

Week ending	CTS rating(max)-tries-%age	Chess Mentor	Book
Aug 4	1600(1624)-7000-76.3%	59	Baburin, Chap 1
Aug 11	1614(1624)-7807-76.8%	67	Baburin, Chap 2
Aug 18	1615(1634)-8770-77.3%	72	Baburin, Chap 3

This table conveys what I've accomplished so far. My CTS rating, the number of challenges done in Chess Mentor and the book I'm currently working on, Baburin's "Winning Pawn Structures." The number of Chess Mentor challenges is deceptive because this week more than half of the challenges attempted were repeat challenges, so the number of new challenges didn't increase much.

While I think each of these things is benefitting me, I also think it will soon be time to shake things up a bit.

Sometimes in Chess Mentor I get a problem that I remember from a previous time. While I believe repitition is necessary for learning, I often score well because I remember the moves rather than having learned how to find them. I think I would benefit by putting CM aside and coming back to it later when my memories have faded.

Baburin's book is very well written and I think I learn a lot from his presentation. However, the book is somewhat narrow in focus. Every game presented involves the isolated d-pawn. Once I finish Part One on the advantages of the isolated d-pawn, I will put that book aside and come back to the second part later.

I am going to stick with Chess Tactics Server long term, so I just need to have something to replace CM and Baburin. Since I am always hearing so much about CT-Art, I've decided to try that. I don't know if I will do the 7 circles or not, I think it's best to see how quickly I work through the levels and make a decision then. To replace Baburin I am leaning toward Silman's Reassess your chess workbook. His book helped me improve quite a bit a few years back and working exercises in that style might be just what I need.

I plan to continue my current three methods through the end of August. I have a week vacation in the beginning of September and following that, I will make the switch to CT-Art and RYC-Workbook.

2 positions from a recent game

2006-08-15T21:40:00.000-04:00

In the last tournament I played, I lost a game that had some middlegame possibilities. I'm going to post 2 positions here from that game that I think are worth a look. Black to move:

My e-pawn is attacked three times and only defended twice. It cannot be defended again (Bd6 Qxd5+ or Nd7 Qxd5+), so I need to come up with another way to not lose the pawn outright. The game continued:

16. ... c4
17. dxc4 Na5
18. Qa4 Bxa3
19. Qxa3 Nxc4
20. Qb3 e4

There was better play for black (discussed below), but the e-pawn has been secured! White could have played somewhat better in that line, but it is the next move where he gives me an opportunity:

21. Nd2

At this point I returned the favor, making a bad move of my own. One of my first ideas is to play Ne5 and then Nd3, hoping to establish a powerful outpost. Unfortunately, Ne5 loses material to Nxe4. To alleviate the pin on the b2-g8 diagonal I played Kh8. I foresaw Nxc4 dxc4 and thought I was ok there. Unfortunately, I overlooked that Qc2 attacks the e4 pawn a third time and soon it will be lost.

On to the improvements! (Analysis from here out is Fritz assisted.) In the first position, black has a nice tactical possibility. It requires some deep calculation, but I'll admit that during the game, I didn't even really consider the idea:

16. ... Nh5!

Obviously Nxe5 is out due to Bxh4. Black needs a lot of faith to start calculating:

17. Bxe7 Qxe7

Where he's just placed his queen on the file with the doubled rooks!

18. Nxe5 Nf4

19. Re3 Nxe5

20. Rxe5 Qh4

Now black is mounting a strong kingside attack. The last piece can join in quickly with Rd6 and Rg6.

In the second position (after 21. Nd2), black also has a tactical continuation. I didn't want to trade the knights because I thought my Knight was better than his, but I overlooked this possibility:

21. ... Nd2

22. Rxd2 Qf4 (fork!)

23. Bxf6 Qxd2

24. Rd1 Qe2

I fear that even if I had seen this line, the resulting position would not have been clear to me. Fritz evaluates it as clearly winning for black (-1.50), but it looks like murky ground to me, especially in an over-the-board game.

Hopefully I can use this game to help me learn to look for tactical possibilities. The manoever of the knight to f4 in the first position and the queen fork in the second were totally overlooked!

Training progress

2006-08-11T07:59:00.000-04:00

I'm headed out of town this weekend which means a mini-break from chess. Before I go, I just want to jot down my current training progress.

CTS:

Rating: 1614 (current), 1624 (peak)
Tries: 7807
Success: 76.8%

Chess Mentor:

Challenges with scores: 67
Average of initial scores: 61
Average of latest scores: 83

Winning Pawn Structures

Chapters complete: "White advances d4-d5," "Attack on f7 (f2)"
Upcoming: "Rook lift," "Bishop sacrifice," "h-pawn battering ram," etc.

No real thoughts in this post, I just want to make sure I'm keeping a written record of what I've been up to.

Chess Tactics Server oddity

2006-08-09T10:33:00.000-04:00

I recently came across something a little odd at CTS. There are two problems there that are nearly identical, number 59505 and 06868 have the same starting position:

In one problem white plays Qc8 and in the other white plays Qc2, in each case defending the knight on f5. The solution to both problems is the same! You can take a minute to look at it, but here comes the answer: Qxg3+ Nxg3 Rg5#.

The problem with Qc2 is rated 1605 while the problem with Qc8 is rated 1679. Why is there a 70 point rating difference between essentially the same problem? One explanation is that on Qc8, the solver may immediately be attracted to Rxc8 and take time to realize that is incorrect before finding the correct solution; while on Qc2 the solver will have nothing to look for but checks on the king.

The less satisfying answer is that the rating system is flawed. While I do believe there are some problems at CTS where the rating system is not accurate, I hope it's not flawed here. The potential flaw is that the rating of a problem depends sensitively on which tacticians have attempted it and when. I have my fingers crossed and hope this isn't the case.

Tournament report: Broke Even

2006-08-08T13:52:00.000-04:00

This week I had 2 wins and 2 losses. Certainly an improvement over my dismal performance the week before. On the other hand, except for one of my losses to a master, everyone was lower rated than me, so the performance was not all that spectacular as the rating change shows: 1685 -> 1683.

It turns out it doesn't take very long to mentally list all the legal moves of your opponents pieces and sure enough I didn't make any simple one move oversights. I figure I'll continue that practice in tournament games until something makes me change my mind.

Not sure when the next tournament will be. Maybe mid to late September or maybe mid October. That leaves lots of time for study/practice.

Tournament tomorrow and current progress

2006-08-04T17:26:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow I will play in a one day tournament. Maybe playing two weekends in a row will be good for me. I sure need something to wash away the feeling from last weekend. Though I probably won't play another tournament until October, possibly at the end of September. I'll test out the idea of trying to at least list every legal move. The first two rounds are G/40 and the last two rounds are G/60, so I'm not sure how that will go with the short time controls. I may abondon it if I find myself in a large time deficit.

I thought I should also make a record of what I'm up to, so there is some progress to track. As I mentioned earlier, I do problems at CTS and use ChessMentor for more in depth (longer time, tactical + strategic ideas) problems. So I'll give my current stats for those.

CTS:

Initial rating: ~1530 (Can't recall exactly, but I remember early on being psyched to get to 1550).
Current rating: ~1600 (I am now over 1600 all the time with a high of 1624)
Problems done: 7000
Success rate: 76.3%

Chess Mentor:

Challenges with scores: 59
Average of initial scores: 61
Average of latest scores: 79

Chess Mentor is a little odd because problems (challenges) that have only been done once have the same initial and latest scores. So the number of the latest scores doesn't fully measure the improvement due to repitition.

Additionally, I have started working through "Winning Pawn Structures" by Baburin. The book is mostly on the isolated d-pawn. The first section is on advantages of the isolated d-pawn. I have completed the first chapter, "White advances d4-d5." Following chapters are "Attack on f7", "the Rook lift," "Bishop sacrifices on h6," "h-pawn battering ram," "Queenside activity," and "Play on the e-file." I'll update my progress on these chapters as I go, and then the section on disadvantages of the isolated d-pawn.

The ratings are in from last weekends tournament: 1708 -> 1685. Maybe I can recoup some of those points tomorrow.

Tournament Report: I stink

2006-07-31T23:13:00.000-04:00

Well, I played really poorly at the tournament this past weekend. In summary I was +0 -3 =1. Ouch. That's the bad news. The good news is that everyone I lost to was more than 150 points higher rated than me, so hopefully I learned something.

Without further ado, here's what I learned. I am currently not thinking even 1 move ahead. Heck, I guess I'm not even thinking 1/2 move ahead. Too many times in this tournament my opponent played a move I had not even considered. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I can't calculate, or visualize, or know that I have to consider what my opponent will play. It's just that when thinking of what my opponent will play, certain moves -- good moves! -- don't cross my mind.

I don't know what this means exactly for how I'm supposed to improve. How do you force yourself to see something you just can't see. Unfortunately, I think this requires some time with a conscious thought process. I am not a fan of checklists of things to do when it's your move. I think all those things should be internalized. Moreover, good players don't operate this way. However, I'm willing to give it a shot on the chance that it will become internal.

The plan is this: After immediate threats (captures, checks, forks, etc.) are recognized, I will consciously list every legal move of my opponent. This should alleviate the basic problem of never even seeing the next move of my opponent. Hopefully these moves will remain in my brain while I calculate my next move. Eventually I will have to be able to see all these moves without consciously constructing the list, just as I do not consciously construct the potential captures and checks, I just know what they are automatically.

This certainly can't lead to making worse moves (can it?). But it will surely cost me on the clock. At the moment I'm not getting into time trouble, so I'm going to give it a go!

There is another tournament this coming weekend. This time just a one day tournament at a faster time control. I'm going to try this new approach to see how much I will hate it, and if one day, I may grow to love it.

I'd like to share my games on here, but I don't know the best way to do that. I could just plop down pgn and let you put it in your favorite viewer, but I've seen some cool embedded viewers and I think it would rock to get that working here.

Upcoming tournament

2006-07-26T11:49:00.000-04:00

Currently the plan is to play in a tournament this weekend (2 days, 5 rounds). The tournament is about 1 hour from my home, so I'll be commuting and taking a bye in round 3 Saturday night (don't want to drive home so late). The big question for me is whether to play up a section. I have played in the U2000 section before; I don't feel totally outclassed there and it's a better learning experience than the U1800 section. On the other hand, there is nothing like the thrill of trying to compete to win your section, which is more likely in my "natural" U1800 section.

My recent study has mostly been a lot of problems at CTS. I am definitely improving my instant recognition of patterns by solving problems there and I'm interested to see if this pays off in a long tournament game. The key with CTS is to understand what it is good for and what it isn't. CTS doesn't simulate game conditions, but it can help you to build a wealth of tactical vision on which to base calculations during a real game. I continue to play plenty of blitz games and while I've uncorked a few nice combinations recently, the USCF rating will always be a more accurate judge.

I also wrapped up reading John Nunn's "Secrets of Practical Chess" recently. It was a fairly straighforward read with lots of good advice. I'm not sure it will have any effect on my chess ability, but perhaps some of his ideas will have sunk into my subconscious.

My study also includes working through Chess Mentor. This is an intersting piece of software that takes you move by move through the winning side of a partial game. At each step you have to try to find the right move and any wrong move you make comes with an explanation. There are times when these explanations aren't adequate to explain why the move is wrong, but nobody's perfect. A lot of the ideas presented are strategic or positional in nature and not just tactical. There is typically tactical motifs throughout the line, but it is a definite contrast to the kinds of positions on CTS, it simulates a real game more closely.

I own a few other books (winning pawn structures, Zurich 1953, instructive modern chess masterpieces, positional play), but I haven't really delved into them enough to call it studying. A couple years ago I tried with Positional Play (by Dvoretsky), but this book may have been too advanced for me. I've been through some of the games in Instrucive Modern Chess Masterpieces (Igor Stohl), but it never seems instructive to me in a practical sense. Zurich 1953 was recommended to me as one of the best compilations of master games to go over. I should probably dedicate a whole entry or more on why I struggle with going over master games.

Starting point

2006-07-20T00:51:00.000-04:00

The starting point of this blog is class B, USCF. If that doesn't have any meaning for you, there are masters, experts, class A, B, C, etc. These are all national titles in the US. I don't recall if life master is still a title in use, I don't suspect I'll ever reach that level anyhow. The national master title is still less than the international titles of FIDE master, International master and Grandmaster. All of this is to say, I'm a little better than average, with a lot of room to improve.

For better or for worse, I've never had a structured learning environment for chess, or any consistent plan of self study. Along with that, I've had significant lengths of chess inactivity, though for the last 9 years nothing long enough to cause a major setback. I would like to use this blog to help me organize my own study methods. I did take a few lessons with a local master about a year ago, and it's possible I'll resume that.

It's hard for me to grasp how it was that I came to be a class B player. It almost seems like magic. I've never learned an opening, though I do know the principles of the opening and I know a lot of opening moves and the people they're named after. I've solved a lot of mate in 1, 2, and 3 problems. I've read books that demonstrate all the tactical motifs (pin, skewer, double attack, discovered check, etc.) I've looked at a lot of endgame problems, though I'm not sure any learning was involved. And I've played roughly 25000 games of blitz and lightning chess.

Other than the mass of games, nearly all of the above was done before I was a class D player. I clearly remember my days as a D player and having real struggles against other D players. Between then and my current rating, I've only gotten anything out of 1 book, Jeremy Silman's How to Reassess Your Chess. I think that's a fine endorsement of that book, but you will not learn much about tactics from that book. Since it is common knowledge that tactics is everything (more on this fallacy another time) at my level, I need to have a tactical regimen to improve my results.

I have read several of the blogs of the "Knights Errant," who are each following study plans inspired by Michael de la Maza. Though I don't intend to undertake such a plan, I do agree with the philosophy of repeating the same tactical exercises. Temposchlucker has a very nice blog, one of who's motifs is the pattern recognition ability of master level players. I believe the repitition of the exercises is where we can develop this from.

Currently I am working on problems at the Chess Tactics Server. They have a really good system of rating your tactical solving ability and challenging you with tactics problems at your ability. There you'll repeat the themes at your level until they are ingrained, and upon success, you will be moved to more difficult motifs.

I fear this is a lot for one blog entry, but hopefully a little context will make future entries easier for me to write.

Been lurking...

2006-07-17T11:26:00.000-04:00

I've been lurking around several of the chess improvement blogs and enjoying them a lot. I am fascinated by what works and what doesn't work when trying to improve chess results. I'm also really impressed by all the hard work I see, it's an inspiration.

I'm not sure I'll have a whole lot to add, or post that often, but perhaps a place to organize my thoughts will be useful.