Test Time

From the Giri-So blitz tiebreaker at the Bilbao VIII Chess Masters Final. Assess the position.

Giri vs So

White to move after 38...Nxe1

Assessment will be added in a few days.

Not a proper problem

The situation below is simple enough: White to play and win. White has nine possible moves, several of which win. The rest do not.Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find the winning plan.

White to play: Find the winning plan

8/pp1k2b1/8/3PPK2/6P1/PP6/8/8 w - - 0 1

This isn't a proper problem, but it is a good exercise. I reached this position playing out a position from my game against Jim from last Saturday. My opponent, as usual these days, was Stockfish.

Now for a subtle, confounding hint: It appears that if Black's bishop were on h8 instead of g7, then the game is probably a draw. I'm still trying to work that out, as well as the whys and wherefores. I plan to post the answer next week sometime. Hopefully I'll understand the position a bit better then, else wise it'll be more of a variation dump. Also, I hope I'll be done with this game by then!

The Joy of Cooking!

I've been looking at the problems from GM Andy Soltis's Chess to Enjoy column recently. (More on that in another post.) This morning I kinda sorta cooked one of the solutions. The problem was taken from the game Alexander Sellman - Preston Ware, Fifth American Chess Congress, 1880, and appeared in the April 2015 Chess Life. Here's the position:

Sellman - Ware, 1880

30 ... ?

Black to play and win

(Solution below the fold for those that want to work it out themselves.)

A Nasty Problem: Solution Time!

Last week I published the following nasty problem:

V. Halberstadt, 1938

White to play and win

4N3/3nP3/1k6/8/1K6/8/8/8 w - - 0 1

I had found the problem looking through Karsten Muller & Frank Lamprecht's Fundamental Chess Endings, where they used this a five star (extremely difficult) exercise.

(Solution below the fold.)

The Stoyko Training Method

Several months back we had the pleasure of a visit from USCF Life Master Stephen Stoyko. I missed most of the visit, unfortunately, but I did hear very positive reviews of a lecture he had given. Stoyko has the original USCF Life Master title, meaning he played over 300 games while maintaining a Master rating (ELO 2200+), and has been a Senior Master (ELO 2400+) on the national level.

I mention all of this because Stoyko has his own training method, which has fortunately been written up and posted online: The Stephen Stoyko Training Method. [That link appears to be defunct: Here's a link to another site that explains it.] The link is to Dan Heisman's personal site, and you will need to scroll down to section 3.1. There are several training methods listed on that page, starting with methods for beginners, which might be of interest to some readers.

In addition to that I should mention that Stoyko was also a longtime member of the Kenilworth Chess Club in New Jersey, which had a most excellent chess blog of its own called The Kenilworthian. I believe if you look through that site carefully enough you will find several lectures by Stoyko himself.

Anyone interested in training methods can certainly find much of use within the links provided. Happy hunting!

ADDED: Stoyko also has a point count method that he's used. That was mentioned at the club as well, I've been told. Here's a link to that methodology.

A nasty problem

I was browsing through my copy of Karsten Muller & Frank Lamprecht's Fundamental Chess Endings a couple of days ago and opened it up to the following exercise, which they give ***** ("extremely difficult"):

V. Halberstadt, 1938

White to play and win

4N3/3nP3/1k6/8/1K6/8/8/8 w - - 0 1

The solution in the back identifies this as a study by V. Halberstadt, and that it shared the first & second prize in 1938 in Gros. No idea what Gros was or is, possibly a magazine? Anyhow, I found it to be an entertaining puzzle, and while I eventually worked out what the first move had to be, I couldn't work my way to the solution.

I'll post the solution in a week or so*. In the meantime, happy hunting!

* A reasonably good program should find the answer quickly, for those that can't wait.