Art of Defense in Chess

Is it never too late to resign? No,this is by no means a call for the breaking of sporting ethics,when one chess player in an absolutely hopeless position continues a pointless resistance,showing a clear lack of respect both for himself and his opponent.A player should also be able to lose with pride and at the right time,but... It is to Napoleon that the words "No battle was ever won by capitulation" are attributed, but even if the great commander did not utter them,even so such a thought is justified. And therefore before you stop the clocks and hold out your hand to your opponent, look round the board once more again, and ponder over the position. Because dozens and even hundreds of times-who can make an accurate count?! even well known masters and grandmasters have resigned at a point when it was time to conclude peace,or even to chalk up a point in their column in the tournament table. We realize to belive but facts are indisputable Positions with detailed analysis wil

The win for White lies through the exchange of queens, and if need be,even with the sacrfice of one of his queenside pawns.And when in Chigorin-Schlechter,Ostende,1905,(above position),Black gave a so-called spite check 44...Qc7+,White did not see anything tricky in it.He offered the exchange-45.Qb6+?? but after 45...Ka8!he was forced to agree to a draw in view of either stalemate(46.Qxc7) or perpetual attack(46.Ka6 Qc8+ 47.Ka5 Qc7).The simple 45.b6 Qe7 46.Qc4 would have immediately won,since the check on c7 with the desired exchange can merely be delayed by Black,but not averted. Here we come to another trustworthy and eternal weapon of the defending side.An extensive and truly inexhaustible theme for traps is provided by the somewhat paradoxical chess rule of stalemate.In life and in other logica games it has no analogy.But in chess...The absence of any move for the weaker side gives him life-and many pitfalls and mined squares have been constructed by defending side in search of

Masters often claim that one should consider every reasonable candidate moves, analyze each of them once and only once and make a final decision about which move to play only after you are absolutely certain of its consequences. But in their own games masters often ignore all of this advice.They recognize a move that is so evidently good that to them it really is "obvious." In the position below, Black has just played Bc7. White immediately recognizes the simplest move: His rook is attacked and he can capture Black's rook with 1.Rxf8+. He also sees that 1.. Kxf8 would enable him to attack the h-pawn with 2.Qh5. And on 1..Bxf8 there may be something like 2.Qg4+. Every strong player would see this fairly quickly,regardless of whether they are "combinational" or "positional" or strategic" or whatever stereotype terms are used. They  all have the vision. 1.Ra7 White also noticed how this move would create at least three new tactical possibilities

Masters The upper two percent of tournament players employ so shortcuts that they can play good moves at a glance,as they do in simultaneous exhibitions. They rely much more than other players on an intuitive sense of what the right move looks like and they are able to recognize the important elements in a position- when doubling a pawn matters and when it does not, for example. Moreover, masters are able to detect when they need to calculate and  when they need to calculate and when they can and should avoid it. They trust their level of expectation to tell them when they should look for a superior, second candidate or even a third. And they know how to balance subjective factors, such as the degree of risk in deciding what move to make. This is the introductory article of the masters section. Now you come to know why are these certain group of people are called "masters". Hope you liked the article. Keep reading and please share. Thank you!

Experienced Tournament Players- These players have mastered many of the basic techniques of move selection. They can spot a candidate that violates general principles. There are acquiring some intuition. They have also developed shortcuts in the second stage of the process. They know that in some positions they can safely halt their calculation after looking only two moves into the future, whereas in other positions they may have to look much further to be reasonably sure of a candidate's soundness. And in the third stage, their ability to evaluate goes far beyond that of lower-rated players. They will rarely conclude that a position is plus-over-minus when it is really equal. In the position below, White has just played 1. Ne5 and seems to be threatening 2. Nxc6. Black played 1...Nfd7!? Black knows it was not a threat eliminating the e5 knight is more important than granting White the two-bishop advantage and rupturing Black's queenside pawns. He stood well after 2. Qd

In the following position, Black says to himself,"If I play Bxb3, he has to retake or he'll be a knight down. He will recapture towards the center,axb3. Then I reply Nb4 and I have a strong attack with Qa5 coming up." Black's tactical vision cant be faulted. After 1... Bxb3 2.axb3 Nb4 he would have a serious initiative, e.g. 3. Kb1 Qa5 followed by Rxc3 and Qa2+. The problem is not visualization but sloppy optimism. Black has not reached the level of sophistication to say "If I play Bxb3, I stand well if he recaputres with the a-pawn. But maybe that's not the best reply.What happens on cxb3?Hmm, if I paly Bc4 then he just moves his king to b1 and he is quite safe so maybe Bxb3 is not my best move." I think in this article I have got the thinkings of the intermediate chess players. After working hard on it, I have got the limitations of the intermediate chess players. My next article will be on how does an Experienced Tournament Player think and how can

In the position below, White played 1.d4. A post-beginner sitting in Black's hair would likely overlook his opponent's possibilities, such as the threat of the pawn fork(2.d5). The novice might see the fork buy not the second threat(1..Bd7 2.d5 Na5 3.b4!). Instead, he spends a lot of time focused on his own candidates, such as 1...Nxe4. And he rarely considers the consequences of his moves. Improving Amateurs- Players in the next level avoid the mistakes of their past. They rarely put pieces en prise and they recognize most enemy threats. They can recognize a candidate as being "obvious." They look for a second candidate, even if the first one seems to be good. But the most important attribute of the improving amateur is that he has advanced to the second and third stages of move selection. He does not just pick candidates but also tries to analyze and evaluate the consequences of a candidate: " If I go there, what happens if he goes there?" He can calcul

As a player improves, his move selection skills develop in a haphazard manner. Let's consider how players of different strengths decide which move to play. In the position given below, the players who just know the basics of the game can choose moves like Ba6 because he likes "long" moves. Another will prefer Nc4 or Ng4 because he thinks knight hopes harder for an opponent to deal with. A third will like pawn moves and try to build elaborate ziggurats by pushing the queenside pawns to c4,b5 and a4. We smile at their choices. But the post-beginners have already made a giant stride-perhaps the biggest they will make in their career even if they become grandmasters: They have developed some criteria for eliminating possibilities- the 39 legal moves for White here- to the small of moves they they trust. Post-beginners trust their criteria too much. Anyone who has seen a tournament room filled with very young juniors will be impressed by their quickness in finding a move the

The situation is the same in livlier positions. At this moment White has 43 legal possibilities. After he played 20.Na5, Black had 33 possbile replies and chose a natural move Rfc8. Yet because of shortcuts, it is rare that human gives serious thought to more than three or four candidates at any turn. Masters usually consider fewer, not more candidates, than amateurs. The stronger the player, the better he is at avoiding calculation- and the more efficiently he thinks. Today's article was on how a strong chess players thinks and how he is different from the amateurs in calculating candidate moves. Hope you liked my article. I will be continuing my series on this topic. The more we go far the more advanced we study. So get ready for the next articles. Keep reading! Thank you Play Online Chess [Event "?"] [Site "Wijk aan Zee"] [Date "2005.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Leko"] [Black "Svidler"] [Result "*&

Today we are going to know what is  Elimination of candidate moves Selecting the most accurate chess move is a very difficult task. While we begin to take chess seriously,by reading books or playing in tournaments, we have forgotten how difficult the process is. We have forgotten because we take for granted various steps to save time. Without those shortcuts, selecting one move out of dozens of possibilities would seem impossible. White has 40 legal moves at his disposal and that's typical for the start of the middlegame. White had an average of 38 possibilities when making his 20th move. Black had an average of 34 possibilities when he replied. But only a chess engine examines 34.38 or 40 moves in a given position. The beginner learns to immediately dismiss some moves. . It takes more experience to realize that other moves  should be rejected  because they make little or no sense. Eventually a player goes beyond these and learns to recognize moves that are not only not-bad

Ok this is the third game on the following topic '180 degree turn' Now this will be the most special game in this series as this game is played between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov in the 1984/85 World Championship. Play Online Chess [Event "1984/85 World Chess Championship"] [Site "?"] [Date "1984.??.??"] [Round "2"] [White "Garry Kasparov"] [Black "Anatoly Karpov"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [WhiteELO "?"] [BlackELO "?"] [SetUp "1"] [FEN "r4rk1/p1nb1ppp/1pp3q1/2npP1B1/5PP1/2N4P/PP1Q2B1/2R2RK1 b KQkq - 0 1"] %Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor 1... f6 2. exf6 gxf6 3. Bh4 f5 4. b4 fxg4 5. hxg4 Nd3 6. Rf3 Nxc1 7. f5 Qg7 8. Qxc1 Rae8 9. Qd2 1/2-1/2 At the cost of the exchange White has created a double edged position in which, after narrowly avoiding defeat , he managed to draw. The counterblow with the h-pawn also occurs , and in the Ruy Lo

This is the second game in this topic, This game is played by Ex-World Champion Max Euwe who made excellent use of latent counterattacking factors in the game. The white queen/knight battery which is threatening to fire after Bxh7+ the pin on the knight at e5, plus the opponent's weaknesses on the a2-g8 diagonal- all this suggests that White has more than sufficient compensation for the pawn and that his activity is very dangerous. But Assessment of the position was changed by the brilliant 21...g5!! Play Online Chess [Event "?"] [Site "Nottingham"] [Date "1936.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Vidmar"] [Black "Euwe"] [Result "*"] [WhiteELO "?"] [BlackELO "?"] [SetUp "1"] [FEN "2br1rk1/1pq3pp/pbp2p2/4n3/R3BB2/3N2P1/1PQ1PP1P/5RK1 b KQkq - 0 1"] %Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor 1... g5 2. Bxh7+ Qxh7 3. Bxe5 Ba7 4. Bc3 b5 5. Raa1 c5 6. Qc1 c4

Often the defending side succeeds with at tactical pawn counterblow on the very part of the board where the attack is being conducted. This is explained by the fact that, as a rule, the pursuer does not even imagine that he may be transformed into the pursued: after all, the 'pursuit' apperars to be being conducted according to all the rules. Meanwhile, if only on the basis of the following examples, one can- and probably should - cast doubts on the old rule, which states that the attacker has more right to a mistake than the defender. This is correct only in conditions of a positional advantage, when there is a methodical siege, not involving rapidly-developing, concrete variations. But a swift combinational attack(such as can occur in the overwhelming majority of modern openings like the Sicilian Defence) demands equal accuracy of both players. Otherwise a counterblow in the attacked sector may be comparable in strength with the detonation of a bomb. It can be landed either

This is the second game in this series: We learnt that it is not just the counterattacking side who may go wrong. In the following game between Taimanov and Larsen we will study that without great risk of being wrong we can name the factors by which Larsen was guided. Firstly, after 1.. g5 he slightly assumed that such a turn of events would be extremely unexpected for white. Secondly, from the calm waters of positional pressure in the centre, White has to plunge into deep complications where the probability of mistake increases many times. Play Online Chess [Event "?"] [Site "Vinkovci"] [Date "1970.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Taimanov"] [Black "Larsen"] [Result "0-1"] [WhiteELO "?"] [BlackELO "?"] [SetUp "1"] [FEN "r1b2rk1/pp2bppp/2n5/q2p4/5B2/PQN1PN2/1P3PPP/2R1K2R b KQkq - 0 1"] %Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor 1... g5 2. Bg3 g4 3. Nd4 Nxd4 4. e

This saying, which does not apply only to chess, is considered universal.  Now if there is a choice between playing for equality and playing for a counterattack, the latter will normally bring greater dividends. Provided,of course, that the player launching the counterattack is not afraid of complications and is ready to take risks. It is not possible to list all the motifs for such a decision: it may be to attack the opponent's king, to disrupt the co-ordination of the enemy pieces which are ready to attack. The following game is between Mikhail-Tal and Vassily Smyslov in 1959 Candidates Tournament Play Online Chess [Event "Candidates Tournament"] [Site "Yugoslavia"] [Date "1959.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Mikhail Tal"] [Black "Vassily Smyslov"] [Result "1-0"] [WhiteELO "?"] [BlackELO "?"] [SetUp "1"] [FEN "r1bq1rk1/pp1nbppp/2pN1n2/6B1/3Q4/5N2/PPP2PPP/2KR

Today I took interview of a well known Chess Coach from Karnataka,Mr. Harish Kumar. He has got 12 years experience as a chess coach who has a lot of patience to teach his students. Now lets see the interview Q1. Sir when were you first introduced to the game? A1. I was first introduced to the game of chess at the age of 9 while my uncle was playing chess with his friends. Q2. When you first saw them playing the game of chess for the first time what was your reaction? A2. I was keenly interested to learn the game,though I was introduced to the traditional chess and did not know the technical name of the pieces. Q3. How did you learn modern chess? A3. I learnt modern chess through my teacher Mr.Krishna Moorthy,the founder of Anand Chess Club in my school. Q4. How did you continue your chess career? A4. I started my professional career by playing some local chess events and school tournaments and later played in District and State level too. Q5. What are your achiev

Hello Dear readers, This is my first article in my own blog and I hope this will help your chess, So I am going to discuss about the art of defense in chess. Now in chess it can happen that on encountering a prepared variation you have lost the opening       battle or you cant equalised with Black . Yes,you can be outplayed by your experienced opponent in positional manoeuvring or have not guessed your opponent's plan,or have simply been careless - and now your position is serious. Do not despair : you have one last chance. And not such a slight one as might be imagined.This chance is defence.Passive,active,combinational ... It is an essential and highly important component in the game of any player, and it is no accident that even some highly talented players,who have idolized only attack have failed to achieve that which they could well have expected.Therefore Now you know what actually defence is and to perform is the art of defense.