Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Tournament Players PROTIP #9

I may have posted this one before, but it bears repeating:

NEVER RESIGN.

Never. No matter what. More importantly still, resolve to never resign. Recently I won a game against a master after having chucked two pawns in the opening, leaving my king stuck in the center with my queen-side mostly undeveloped. However, I kept plodding along, and eventually even won the game. Yes, it was a junky quick-chess game, but I have won similar games at Game in 120 against A-players and below.

There are several reasons to not consider resigning. The first is that you can't win by resigning. It's a stupid, obvious, even trite saying, but it's true. Make your opponent prove they can win. Often they will relax after achieving a winning, or even won game, and will start playing non-optimal moves. And in slower games, especially, they will become annoyed, which usually isn't conducive to optimal chess. You are within your rights to do so, and may as well exercise them.

The second reason is that if you don't resign, you won't make a mistake by resigning an equal or favorable position. A few months ago I drew against another master. At some point, though, he played an unexpected move, and I thought I was losing my queen. I very briefly considered resigning, and then remembered my own advice. Looking at it again, I realized I wasn't losing my queen at all. The game continued and after a tough struggle, I scored the half-point. Perhaps I had been helped by the knowledge that a few months before that game, a 1900 had resigned against me because he thought his queen was trapped, even though it wasn't. Oops. Perhaps he wouldn't have seen the saving sequence anyway, but he "took me at my word" when he shouldn't have.

And finally, if you decide before a game to not resign, it saves energy. Resigning is a decision, just like any other move, and it requires energy. If you begin to consider resigning, it becomes a drain on finite reserves of energy available for the game/tournament. Thus deciding to not resign beforehand can save you energy in the heat of battle, especially time pressure. Even contemplating resigning in time pressure is a shameful waste. This is especially true as you get older and have less energy to spare.

All that said, I do resign sometimes. But it has to be really bad, and my opponent has to clearly be strong enough and have enough time of their own that I can't imagine them stalemating me by accident. But generally, I play every game out to mate. And as I've said before, you should expect your opponents to do the same, so don't get aggravated when they do so. It's their right to play on, as it is yours.

Finally, here's an example from the club last Saturday of fighting on beyond all hope, and then getting rewarded for it.

Black to move

White had been completely busted for some time, but played on, hoping for a miracle. White stated that he hoped for Black to march his king up the board and somehow walk into a knight fork, so the spite checks began. Instead, Black,with more than ten minutes left on the clock, played ...Ke6, and White instantly played Re7#. White's dance of joy was most undignified, but quite understandable.

Monday, May 8, 2017

King & Pawn Endgames: Answer Time

The other day I presented this position and asked a couple of questions.

St. Amant - Staunton, Paris 1843 (m11)
After 43 Kc3-c2
What is the proper assessment of the position? How many acceptable plans does Black have?
The answers are that Black has a won position, and he has exactly ONE winning move. In fact, all moves other than 43...Kxd4 lose. Staunton chose to play 43...Ke4 and duly lost. I can only assume he originally intended to follow-up with 44... Kf3 and then promote his e-pawn. However, that plan does not work because of St. Amant's move, 44 Kd1, and now the White king will blockade the Black e-pawn, whilst Black has to run down White's d- and g- pawns, allowing White to easily win Black's queenside pawns. I don't know anything about the particulars of this game other than that Staunton was leading the match by the score of 8+, 1-, 1= prior to this game. Perhaps Mr. Staunton merely had a lapse.

But the winning line isn't 100% straightforward, either. Black still has to worry himself about that pesky g-pawn. How can he catch it and not let White clean up all of Black's pawns? The answer is that he can't. But that he doesn't have to, because White can be deflected from his own queenside pawns by the Black e-pawn, and that plus the unfortunate (for White) geometry between c4, e2 and g8, gives Black a winning position.

After 43...Kxd4 White's best is 44 Kd1 (If 44 g4, then Ke4, and Black will be able to round up the g-pawn and return in time to guard the e-pawn, and if Black tries breaking through on the queenside, Black's e-pawn queens far too quickly for White to get his pawns up the board):

 After 44 Kd1

44      ...     Kd3
45     g4      e2+
46    Ke1    Kc2!

 After 46 ... Kc2!

47    g5          
(47 Kxe2 transposes to the main line)
47      ...     Kxb2
48      g6     c3     
49      g7     c2     
         50      g8(Q)      c1(Q)+
51     Kxe2  Qc4+

After 51 Qc4+

And there's an unfortunate triangle for White. Another interesting fact is that all but one of Black's moves from 43 to 50 are only moves - anything other than the move given above loses. The one exception is that Black can play 44...c3 and still draw. These endings are precise!

...

On a programming note, I hope to return to semi-regular blogging, at the very least. Soon we will have final news on the on-going Club Championship, and there may even be a game or two worth noting.

Making a living from chess?

Forbes has a new article about the prospects of making a living from chess. Tl;dr* version is that things are better than they used to be, but it's still tough. The article is interesting enough, but also familiar enough to chess veterans.

However, the article also has an interesting comment from Susan Polgar, which I give in full:
I completely disagree with the notion that making a good living in chess is hard. It is not.

Making a living from tournament winnings is hard. But making a living in chess in general is not. I have seen many amateurs, with ratings well below 2000, earn much more money than some top 10-20 players in the world.

The problem is professional players know chess. But they lack knowledge in business, management, marketing, and most importantly, people’s skill as well as communication skill. Some are just lazy to learn new skills to enhance their earning ability in chess.

There are plenty of people making a very good living in chess in California (both northern and southern Cal), New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Texas, Arizona, Oregon, Washington State, Maryland, Missouri, and many more states.
Of course, I'd like more data from the Forbes article, and I'd also like more information on who is making a living from chess from GM Polgar, although I can understand if she wouldn't want to name names.

Still, I thought I would put this up for anyone that missed it. There's also a video at the site, with several of the people who were interviewed for the article commenting. So if you haven't seen enough Ben Finegold lately, here's your chance!

* tl;dr is internet parlance from those crazy kids for "too long; didn't read".

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

King & Pawn Endgames

Below is a position from the eleventh game of the 1843 match between Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant and Howard Staunton.

St. Amant - Staunton, Paris 1843 (m11)
After 43 Kc3-c2

What is the proper assessment of the position? How many acceptable plans does Black have?

I'm not going to give the answers just yet. This is largely because I don't quite feel like typing it all up, but if I don't post something, I'm not going to get back to writing! But this is also a chance for the reader to work out the problem for himself - practice makes perfect, after all. So, have at it, reader, and enjoy!