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.