The games and positions below have been
compiled through a weekly discussion group in Exeter Chess Club as being useful examples, mostly
trawled from books and magazines. They have been aimed at club
players in the BCF 100-150 grade range (ELO up to 1800); the simplest
should be accessible to all, the deepest I am only beginning to
understand myself (= ELO about 1800! [USCF 1900]).
All of the examples
contained here should contain at least one diagram,
and at least one comment. Let me know if you catch me out. The games
are available in a database - see the main Coaching Page.
"Far from all the obvious moves that go without saying are correct"-- BRONSTEIN
P.S. If you find odd dates (e.g. 2004) or grades (club players with grades over 2500) this is because Fritz has decided that there are no grades and no dates below 1700 or so. Harass the company... (Can you convert BCF to ELO?)
"Chess is 99% tactics"-- RICHARD TEICHMANN
"At the heart of every combination there shines an idea, and though combinations are without number, the number of ideas is limited"-- ZNOSKO-BOROVSKY
Best single reference: Lombardy Snatched Opportunities at the Chessboard
GM traps a PGN file I found at Pittsburg
Best single reference: Znosko-Borovsky, How to Play the Opening in Chess
"Do not regard your opponent as a sheep, but rather as a wolf"-- Russian Proverb
"Like us as Black", beg the chess pieces," and you will anyway like us as White"-- BOLESLAVSKY
"...P-Q4 is the antidote to the poison in gambits"Best references: Walker, Chess Openings for Juniors;
"No price is too great for the scalp of the enemy King."-- KOBLENTZ
Model attacking games
Best single reference: Walker, Attacking the King
"In chess, only the attacker wins"-- KOTOV
"Thou shalt not shilly-shally!"-- NIMZOVITCH
"A keen and dogmatic sense of prudence is the mortal enemy of great deeds"-- MICHEL de MONTAIGNE
"Winning isn't everything... but losing is nothing" [Edmar MEDNIS, on the importance of fighting for a draw]-- DVORETSKY"The basic principle of defence consists in making the opponent's task as difficult as possible, creating ever new obstacles in his path.
" [...] If you can succeed in abruptly changing the situation on the board (even by choosing a continuation which is objectively not the strongest, associated with a degree of risk), your opponent, having already envisaged a particular pattern of play, will frequently not manage to reorganise his thoughts and will begin to make mistakes
."
Best single reference: Soltis, The Art of Defence in Chess
"Where are their new objectives? If each player is capable of quick development, castling, and of not blundering any pieces away, what is there to separate the two sides?"-- MICHAEL STEAN, Simple Chess
Best single reference: Chernev, Logical Chess
Positional themes
Best references: Chernev The 100 Most Instructive Games of Chess
ever Played (basic);
Euwe & Kramer, The Middle Game I/II (advanced)
Excellent notes to these two Steinitz games by ROMANOVSKY can be found at http://dab.psi.net/ChapterOne/uscf/browse/midplan.html, but their diagrams are awful. You really need two windows...
" It is not a move, even the best move, that you must seek, but a realisable plan."-- EUGENE A. ZNOSKO-BOROVSKY.
Best single reference: Kotov, Think Like a Grandmaster
"To play with correctness and skill the ends of games, is an important but a rare accomplishment, except among the magnates of the game"-- STAUNTON The Chessplayer's Handbook (Plus ca change...!)
Best references: Mednis & Crouch, Rate your Endgame (practice);
Speelman et al. Batsford Chess Endings (theory)
"Chess is above all a fight."-- EMANUEL LASKER.
Best single reference: Webb, Chess for Tigers
"The blunders are all there on the chessboard, waiting to be made."-- TARTAKOVER
Best single reference: Avni, Danger in Chess
"Chess is the art of analysis."-- BOTVINNIK
Best single reference: Nunn & Griffiths, Secrets of Grandmaster Chess
" It was night. I went home and put my old house clothes on and set the chessmen out and mixed a drink and played over another Capablanca. It went fifty-nine moves. Beautiful, cold, remorseless chess, almost creepy in its silent implacability..."-- RAYMOND CHANDLER, The High Window
"Alekhine is a player I've never really understood; yet, strangely, if you've seen one Alekhine game you've seen them all. He always wanted a superior centre; he manoeuvred his pieces towards the King's-side, and around the twenty-fifth move began to mate his opponent.-- Fischer."(...) ...it worked for him, but it could scarcely work for anyone else. He played gigantic conceptions, full of outrageous and unprecedented ideas. It's hard to find a mistakes in his game, but in a sense his whole method of play was a mistake.
"
"How does Tal win? It is very simple: he places his pieces in the centre and he sacrifices them somewhere"-- BRONSTEIN
Best single reference: Euwe & Kramer, The Middle Game I
Back to Chess Coaching Page.
Dr. Dave