Check out those 'dos!

"Nirvana in Madrid"

Topalov and Kramnik, back in 1992. pic.twitter.com/o04lwsRq8I

— David Llada ♔ (@davidllada) May 27, 2016

Ha ha!

#74: "It's ridiculously unsound. No wonder it's named after a region with no decent players." -Nakamura on the Scandinavian Def. #TeamScandi

— NakaFacts (@NakaFacts) May 30, 2016

Chess Tip of the Day: 2016 May 23rd Edition

"The knight is best on h8 - well-known rule!" https://t.co/KjgmecJYxg #c24live pic.twitter.com/7myLteD6VU

— chess24.com (@chess24com) May 23, 2016

The Big Leap

ChessBase has an interesting/inspirational article by Albert Silver, Chess Progress: making the big leap. He shares his tale of the time he made a 350 ELO leap in ability, and discusses what he believes are methods to pursue such leaps. I hope some of you find it as interesting as I did.

Food for thought.

If Greater Orlando had the same proportion of grandmasters to population that Iceland does, we'd have almost 100 grandmasters living in the area. I believe we have all of one.

Hmmm....

Maybe we should start out own 'Agony" column. I'm sure we've got (or could easily get) the material.

Perhaps that should even be a separate blog, in order to lift some of the restrictions.

Agony

ChessBase has hired English GM Jon Speelman to write a weekly Agony column. Readers are invited to submit their own personal horror stories for Speelman to analyze. Some may remember that Kingpin Magazine has had an Agony column, and that once, long ago, Michael Wilder wrote such a column for a now extinct magazine. (An example can be found here.) I have this belief that Joel Benjamin also wrote such a column at one point in time, but that's probably my mind playing tricks on me.

Apparently, people like to suffer, and then like to add public humiliation on top of the suffering. I can't really offer any censure of such behavior, given that I publish my own games....

A brief review of the new Soltis book

No, not here, but at a site called Chess Mastery. They've posted a short review of Andrew Soltis's new book, What It Takes to Become a Grandmaster. Read about it there, and if you like the sound of it, buy it and let us know what you think.

Capablanca's 1932 Chess Lecture

On May 25, 1932, Jose Raul Capablanca gave a lecture at the Club de Comunicaciones de Prado in Cuba. Edward Winter provides a translation of the lecture's transcript here. The reason this comes up now is because purportedly the original typed manuscript (with hand-written notes by The Man himself) is for sale on Ebay, so if you've got $5,000 burning a hole in your pocket....

I'm not that interested in the sale, but I did read Mr. Winter's translation of the lecture. It's a decent enough lecture, I suppose, but some lines near the end caught my attention:

I should like to conclude by recommending you to use your imagination as much as possible; a player has to lose many games if he is to progress. Many players sometimes become annoyed because they lose, but one learns more by losing than by winning. When winning a player thinks he is doing very well and he does not realize the mistakes he is making; but when he loses he appreciates that somewhere he was mistaken and he attempts not to make the same errors in the future.

Standard enough advice that we've all heard 1,000 times, it seems. One learns more from losing than from winning, and Capablanca provides a good rationale for why this is true. "When winning a player thinks he is doing very well and he does not realize the mistakes he is making; but when he loses he appreciates that somewhere he was mistaken and he attempts not to make the same errors in the future."

But is that still true? Speaking strictly of chess and the moves played, it might not be so any more. With the advent of powerful computer programs, a player can easily see which mistakes he made even in successful games. A player can take some time looking over any of his wins with Stockfish or Komodo (or the program of his choice), and he will likely find plenty of errors - hopefully the small kind, but probably some fairly significant evaluation swings too. (I speak from experience. I'm often surprised at my poor play in my winning games - it's between humbling and humiliating!)

So now it's possible, speaking purely from a chess perspective, to learn as much from one's victories as from one's losses. One merely has to take the time to examine the games.

However, there are still the non-chess factors to be considered, and there the old saw is probably still true - but only for players willing to examine their efforts with some semblance of objectivity!

Howard Staunton on Twitter

Ouch.

The young player is so apt to suffer a victory, within his reach, elude him. https://t.co/xVV1gfGxyY pic.twitter.com/VHFCf4opp9

— Howard Staunton (@HowardStaunton) May 17, 2016

Karsten Müller is at it again.

Karsten Müller presents a new endgame position for our edification.

Lissang, C.2295–Al Hadarani, H.2280

White to move. Can you find a line that draws?

Solution at ChessBase: Taking the shorter route.

Third Place Brilliancy Prize from the Space Coast Open

I did quite well at the SCO this year. (See MAXIMUM EFFORT!) Not only did I finish clear second in my section, with 4.5/5, I also won Third Place in the Brilliancy Prize contest.

Below I've posted the game. I'll post the full notes in a replayable window (how I wish I had the current version of ChessBase for that purpose!), but I'm also going to pull a few positions out for particular comment.

Thanks to Peter Dyson for organizing the tournament, and to IM Javad Maharramzade for picking my game out of the masses for a prize. I'm unlikely to win another one of these!

23rd Space Coast Open Brilliancy Prizes

The winners of the three brilliancy prizes have been posted to the Florida Chess Association's (all new) website. The games can be found here. I'll be publishing the notes to my game shortly, after I decided whether or not to post all of them. (Readers may have noticed that I tend towards overkill in the analysis department.)

Respect: When to Resign?

On my Twitter feed today someone linked to a piece by a young Kayden Troff from 2010 on the ChessKids.Com site. In the piece he explains when, in his opinion at that time, a player should play on as opposed to resign in a bad position. Mostly it comes down to, "If you think you can learn something from the other player's technique, or if you think you've still got some chances, play on. Else, resign."

Certainly that's not bad advice. He mentions cases in which players get annoyed or upset when someone failed to resign at the "proper" time.

Local One Day Events

Both the Central Florida Chess Club and Orlando Chess & Games have a new location for their one day events: The University of Central Florida Campus! They'll be using different buildings, it appears, but the same campus nonetheless. Unfortunately their upcoming tournaments (on May 14th for the CFCC and June 4th for OC&G) aren't good dates for me (those weekends feature the b'days of close family members), but if any of the rest of you are looking for some action, give them a try.

What's the best material to study to improve? UPDATED

I saw an interesting discussion on Twitter today regarding what level of study material is best for player improvement. It started with this tweet from Richard James of the Chess Improver blog:

https://t.co/5bEIQTi4YA My latest Chess Improver blog post: 9 lessons from a 9 move game between two kids.

— Richard James (@chesstutor) May 8, 2016

The post is worth reading as a jumping off point for the discussion. What followed on Twitter was a discussion of the topic between Richard James, Jonathan Bryant, and Matt Fletcher.

(Click image to expand view.)

Actually there's even more to the discussion, but the current version of Twitter makes it difficult to get all of a discussion captured in a few screen captures, unfortunately.

More to the point, does anyone else have an opinion on this? I have some of my own, but I'm still mulling them over.

UPDATE: Connor Eickelman writes:

The players above never mention what about their play they are trying to improve. What exactly is the goal of their training? Are they seeking a perfect panacea, able to cure every type of chess flaw? If so, I doubt they will get too much from low-rated games, unless said games are to prove a specific point (how to play against the IQP, for example).

If their goal is general improvement, they would be better off choosing a master from the past, preferably the opposite of your playing style, and go through a book of his best games, annotated by a good writer (500 Best Games of Chess is a good example, but that specific book is not limited to one player.) Then, go through the games, covering the next move with a note-card, and try to guess the next move. Act as though you are playing the game. If you want to be serious about it, get your clock out and set it for a long time control.

If they are trying to improve one specific component of their play, they should study that specific point in their play. If they are weak in theoretical endings, I fail to see how a book about class players slugging it out will help them in that regard. Even fifty games decided by a hanging piece or a two mover will not teach you the Lucena or Philidor! Just my $0.02.

Jonathan Bryant's rating would be a little under 2000, Matt Fletcher's rating would be in the 2000s, and Richard James rating would be in the 1900s. James also does a lot of tutoring and has written some books. I would hazard that none of them are particularly concerned, for a variety of reasons, about how to improve their own games. 

The question is, "How can weaker players improve efficiently?" Giving a 400 ELO player a book on Rubinstein probably won't help them much. Giving them one of Igor Stohl's books on modern chess masterpieces certainly wouldn't. However, going over games of players slightly stronger may help a lot. This is the topic at hand.

Speaking of funny stuff on Twitter

Greg Shahade has taken over the USCF's Twitter feed during the Nationals Tournament (for schoolchildren). He tweets the following:

I just saw someone resign for his opponent. He reached across the board, knocked over his King, and said "you resign".His opponent disagreed

— US Chess (@USChess) May 8, 2016

A funny problem for Mother's Day

From my Twitter feed:

Oh my. What a beautiful finish in Adhiban's game if Mikhalevski plays Rxe3! Can you spot it? #c24live pic.twitter.com/2tHfdYmotl

— Tarjei J. Svensen (@TarjeiJS) May 8, 2016

I'll answer in the problem in the comments, if anyone asks. You'll have to figure out why I think this is funny for yourself.

Stylin' and profilin' back in the day....

A stylish young gent, at a simul against Mikel Petersen in the Altamonte Mall, circa 1975.

And when not busy at the chess board, I could be found in various pool halls.

Note the rockin' balance board under the pool table. I loved those things!

Club Championship Game

Here's the first in what I hope will be several games from the recently concluded Clermont Chess Club Closed Championships. Here's my final round game against Connor Eickelman, which I lost. In fact, I lost all three of my games in the tournament (and received a full point bye in one round), so I hardly covered myself in glory. Still, a couple of my games have interesting features, at least for the winners, and this is one of them.

It features joint analysis, designated as such in the notes. I hope someone enjoys this, because I certainly didn't!

A raw treat: archival footage of the 1948 Match-Tournament for the World Championship

The commentary is in Dutch, but it's still neat.