Opening Preparation

It has been said that most tournament players play the openings like Grandmasters, the middle game like experts, and the endings like children. This holds true, to a large extent, at any level below Master. Memory, study, a familiarity with opening principles means that most games are decided in the middle game or later with only a small percentage of games actually being decided in the opening.
Alex Dunne, How to Become a Candidate Master (1986), 1

The opening is not the strongest part of my game. Although I am sufficiently familiar with general principles to play a wide range of opening systems with some comfort, when I sit across the board from a player that has invested considerable time in opening preparation, I have a sense of inadequacy. The level at which I am beginning to play, and that I hope to begin playing--regularly scoring wins against class A players, and beginning to score against experts--requires specific opening preparation.

Last summer, while preparing for the City Championship match, I developed some specific lines against the Dutch Defense. The level of my preparation was such that I scored my first ever draw against Hiarcs 12 playing at full strength (but forced to meet 1.d4 with 1...f5). In a game/15 I drew the beast; that was one of nearly a dozen such training games. This opening work was largely responsible for my performance in the City Championship itself, assisting my success in earning a single draw against a FIDE Master, and very nearly two draws.

That was specific preparation for play against one opponent, but I need to have a battery of prepared lines available for other opponents. I'm not thinking necessarily of lines tailored to the playing styles of particular adversaries, although useful, but specific lines for openings that I'm likely to find myself playing. I need some lines, for example, against the King's Indian Defense. It will come up since 1.d4 is my principal standard, and it would be nice to occasionally uncork a well-prepared novelty or the latest theory against a worthy opponent.

In my game against John Julian Saturday night, I wanted to play the English, partly because I'd beat him in a casual game a few months ago that we played on Facebook.

James Stripes - John Julian [A25]
Facebook, Chess.com Application, 2009

1.c4 e5 2.g3 g6 3.Bg2 Bg7 4.Nc3 Nc6 5.Rb1 d6 6.b4 f5 7.d3 Nf6 8.e3 0–0 9.Nge2 Ne7 10.0–0 c6 11.b5 Be6 12.bxc6 bxc6 13.Qa4 Qd7 14.Ba3 Rf7 15.Qa6 Ne8 16.Qb7 Nc7 17.Qb4 Rd8 18.Qa5 Nc8 19.Rb7 f4 20.exf4 exf4 21.Ne4 f3 22.Bxf3 Rxf3 23.Rxc7 Qe8 24.Nf4 d5 25.Nxe6 Qxe6 26.Ng5 1–0

Although John claimed he was not taking that game as seriously as I did, it appeared from his first move on Saturday that he intended to avoid a repeat of this reversed Sicilian. We quickly transposed into a line of the King's Indian that I had glanced at superficially in mid-April when I read a single chapter--the last--in Joe Gallagher, Starting Out: The King's Indian (2002).


Stripes,J (1819) - Julian,J (1998) [E70]
City Championship Contenders, Spokane Valley, 2009

1.c4 g6 2.Nc3 Bg7 3.d4 Nf6 4.e4 d6 5.Bd3

Some strong grandmasters play this system quite regularly and its main supporter over the years has been the former American Champion Yasser Seiriwan.
Gallagher, 164

If Yasser plays the system, it is good enough for me!

5... 0–0 6.Nge2 e5 7.Bg5?

My recollection of the line has failed. 7.d5 is the correct move.

7... h6 8.Bd2?!

This move appears to be the novelty. 8.Bh4 is more in the spirit of the previous move and seems to have been played in a few games, but not by any strong players because they do not play 7.Bg5.

8... Nc6 9.d5 Ne7 10.0–0



Despite the lack of adequate preparation, I've reached a reasonable position. Black has some difficulties to solve, and I have my plan for meeting the KID's dangerous f7-f5 thrust. On the other hand, I've used nearly half an hour to my opponent's four minutes.

10... Nh7

prepares f7-f5, and it's time to decide where my queen should go

11.Qc2 f5 12.f4



I failed to remember accurately Gallagher's statement that White plans "to meet any subsequent ...f7-f5 by Black with exf5 and f2-f4" (164). I did not forget these two moves, but the sequence in which Gallagher listed them. Does it make a difference? Should White first play exf5, then advance the f-pawn? As it turns out, Hiarcs 12 assesses my 12.f4 as correct. I have a slight advantage, equivalent to nearly a pawn according to my engine.

12... fxe4 13.Bxe4 Bf5 14.Rae1

14.fxe5 was probably better

14...c6 15.fxe5 dxe5 16.Ng3 Qd7 17.Be3 Bxe4



18.Ncxe4?

I removed the bishop from the board, hovered my hand over one knight, then over the other. After a pause, I picked up the wrong knight and moved it where the bishop had been. Just before this move, I had received a text from my wife telling me she had found the spare rings for our Magic Bullet! I responded to my wife before returning my attention to the board.

The horror! The horror!
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

I realize that cell phones are not permitted in most tournaments, and that sending and receiving texts arouses suspicions of cheating. But small local affairs where everyone knows each other fairly well differs from large events full of strangers. Many of my opponents have been in my home. John has been here several times to play make-up games for club events, and for us to work together on match preparation. He was essentially my trainer for last year's City Championship, and we spent the better part of one day pouring through Informants, the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings, and running engine analysis of key lines we thought worthy of consideration.

In these local affairs, we tolerate marginal breaches of these emergent rules against cell phone use, although I am getting close to forfeiting one player whose ringer never seems to be turned off, and his phone inevitably rings during play. I always set my phone to vibrate, except when I set it to silent, as I did for the Washington Open.

After the game, John told me to pass on his thanks to my wife for the distraction that provoked my selection of the wrong knight.

18.Ngxe4
18.Qxe4 is also better

18...cxd5 19.cxd5 Qxd5



I'm down a pawn, yet Hiarcs 12 still sees me as having an advantage of 1/2 pawn. I thought that I had some play for the material, but at this point I'm looking to struggle for a draw.

20.Nc3

Hiarcs likes 20.Rxf8 Rxf8 21.Qc5, which I recall examining briefly during the six minutes I thought about this move.

20...Qc6 21.Qb3+ Kh8 22.Nge4 b6 23.Rf7 Rxf7 24.Qxf7 Nf5 25.Bf2 Qe8



Should I trade queens? I choose to do so, and bit by bit, my position worsens.

26.Qxe8+ Rxe8 27.g4 Nd4 28.Nd6?

This aggressive move makes things worse. 28.Kg2 is better.

28... Nf3+ 29.Kh1 Rf8 30.Re2 Kg8 31.Nd5 Nf6 32.Ne7+ Kh7 33.h3 Rd8



34.Ne4?

34.Nc4 keeps the knight on the board and makes my opponent show more technique to secure the win.

34...Nxe4 35.Rxe4 Rd2-+



I could resign, but given that John will win the event and thus need to start serious preparation for the City Championship, making him work for every little bit is an effort to assist his preparation. I know he will win, but as his friend, I fight on as the stubborn old man that I am. Let him cuss.

36.Kg2 Ng5 37.Ra4 Nxh3 38.Kxh3 Rxf2 39.Nd5 Rf7 40.Kg3 Bf8 41.Nc3 Bc5 42.Ne4 Bd4 43.b3 a5 44.Rc4 Kg7 45.Rc6 Re7 46.Kf3 Rf7+ 47.Kg3 Rf1 48.Rc7+ Rf7 49.Rc6



49... Rf4

This move has been waiting for him to find it, and he does after several other tries.

50.Rc7+ Kf8 51.Nd2 Bf2+ 52.Kg2 Be1 53.Nf3 Rxg4+ 54.Kf1 Rf4 55.Ke2 Bb4 56.Rb7 Bc5 57.Ne1 e4 58.a4 Rf7 59.Rb8+ Kg7 60.Nc2 Re7 61.Ne3 Bxe3 0–1

Earlier in the day, I had White against Adam Attwood. He plays the Pirc, and I'm not presently happy with my repertoire against that system. On my walk that morning, I decided I would play 1.f4 to make things interesting. Adam replied 1...g5 to my surprise. As the game developed, I sacrificed a knight to bring his king into the center. Adam defends well, and survived the onslaught. To my relief, he offered a draw in a position that he could have won. On Sunday morning, Adam drew John, finishing the event without a loss and capturing second. Ryan failed to show up and everyone got one freebie as a consequence. I won my games against Ron Weyland and Sattar Sattarov and finished third.

In this event, I advanced towards one intermediate goal: staying in class A. Indeed, I went up from 1819 to 1824. John went back over 2000, but Adam was the big winner rating-wise, finding a new peak rating at 1759. His second place earns him free entry into the Spokane Falls Open. I need to prepare my line against the Pirc in case we play then.

Find the Best Move

Assess White's chances.

White to move


For those that wish to cheat, the position stems from Leko - Kramnik, Wijk aan Zee, 2008 and was published as Informant 102/219.


Other News

I'm playing in the Spokane City Championship Contenders Tournament today and tomorrow. The winner gets to play a match against FM David Sprenkle, the current City Champion. Last year, I won the contenders tournament and scored 1/2-2 1/2 against Sprenkle.

This year I am the third seed of six. Today, I have White against Adam Attwood, then Black against Ryan Ackerman, then White against top seed John Julian.

Whither the Truth

The content of a game should be a search for truth, and victory a demonstration of its rightness.
Vasily Smyslov

Back in 1997 in a simul put on by the then strongest local player, a high school student named Nate Fewel, I forced the exchange of rooks to go into a king and pawn endgame. I won this ending against Nate that day, and against Fritz 9 this morning.

Black to move


Against Nate, the game continued 34...Rd2+ 35.Rxd2 cxd2 36.Ke2 Kf8 37.Kxd2 Ke7 38.Kc3 Kd6 39.b4 g5 40.fxg5 hxg5

White to move


Here, Nate played 41.bxa5, and his king became immobile defending against the onslaught of my pawns rolling down the center; my king was free to mop up the queenside.

Fritz 9 played differently: After 34...Rd2+ 35.Rxd2 cxd2 36.Ke2 Kf8, Fritz played 37.b4. After 37...Ke7, we reached this position.

White to move


Fritz played 38.bxa5 and had the same problems as Nate.

After beating Fritz, I tried the position anew, this time against Hiarcs 12, which played 38.b5!.

The engine continued to evaluate the position as winning for Black, but I could not find the way to promote a pawn soon enough to prevent White's equalizing promotion of the b-pawn. I tried using the suggest a move feature with the same results. Black seems to have a clear advantage, but good moves by both sides appear to lead to a drawn queen and pawns versus queen and pawns endgame.

In 1997, postgame analysis with Chessmaster 3000 confirmed that 34...Rd2+ is a winning move. Play against Fritz 9 seems to confirm this judgement; but, a stronger engine introduced doubts. What is the truth?

Variations

First of all, you have to have a good memory because there are a lot of variations you have to remember. Second, you have to have a lot of imagination; you have to be able to see a lot of variations in advance, maybe ten moves, twenty moves in advance sometimes.
Bobby Fischer, CBC Retrobites (1963)

This position did not occur over the board in Moiseenko - Ivanov, Moscow 2008. It did, however, appear in the variations in the annotations in Chess Informant 102 after 12...f6 (12...Qf8 was played in the game).

White to move


What is the critical line that justifies Ivanov's rejection of 12...f6?

Rating Estimation

It seems that a lot of chess players new to or unacquainted with tournament chess want to know their rating. Others that have played online, but not OTB (over the board) frequently ask how one rating compares to another. There are several ways to estimate one's rating, but all should be treated with skepticism.

The series of ten problems at Chess Maniac might be better than most. I tried it a few days ago and scored 1830, which is reasonably close to my recently gained USCF rating of 1819. Less reliable are the Chessmaster personalities. Vlad, for example, allegedly plays at 1846, but the software does not adjust for processor speed. Few human A class players commit the egregious positional errors in the opening that are Vlad's trademark, nor are they as adept at tactical calculation. When I entered B class, I played a sequence of training games against Vlad, finding him surprisingly easy to outplay positionally.


Rating History

In the early 1990s, I was coming back into chess after more than a decade away. I had played in some team matches in high school, at least one club event at the Spokane Chess Club, and had joined the US Chess Federation and played postal chess. All these activities ended by the time I had been in college one year. Among my circle of acquaintances, the second best player could beat me occasionally. I did not renew my USCF membership and I stopped playing postal.

I bought my first personal computer in 1989, learned that Chessmaster 2100 was available, and that it allegedly played at a master level. Even though I was too busy with graduate school for play--aside from a fanatical obsession with golf during the summer,--I started learning a bit about computer chess. Finding the right level for playing against the box pulled me into efforts to estimate my own level of skill.

Through CM 2100, 3000, 4500, and 5000, I used several features of the program to approximate my skill level, which also increased slightly as I played against successive versions. I also spent some time in the library reading Chess Life, especially Bruce Pandolfini's "Solitaire Chess." In "Solitaire Chess," students guess the moves of a master level game and earn scores for right answers and some alternatives. The total score at the end of each game corresponds to an approximate rating.

When I returned to the Spokane Chess Club in fall 1995, I told the club's contact person that I thought I might be an A Class player. But, at my first club meeting, I played a series of pick-up games against an E class player with an approximately even score. In March 1996, I entered my first USCF rated tournament, scored 2.0 of 5.0, and earned a provisional rating of 1232.


Competitive Edge

My first published non-provisional rating nine months later was 1425. My estimate based on various exercises turned out to be high by 400 points. But, my initial published rating very nearly could have been much higher. In the 1996 Washington Class Championships, I had Black and move on board one in round four in the position below. A win in this game would have guaranteed me a tie for first, and likely would have given me an initial non-provisional rating over 1500.



I spent quite a bit of time assessing the consequences of 19...b4 with the idea of driving the white queen completely out of play on a1. I played a better move, 19...Ng5, but not the best move. However, as my opponent improved his position move after move, and his queen became active, I lost my way.

The win slipped away, and I found myself in a drawn king and pawn endgame.

Black to move


Inexplicably, I played 45...Kf4?? After this loss, I also lost round five and ended the event sharing places 8-15.

I returned from the event and told a close friend that I no longer had the competitive edge that had been my norm in high school cross country. My loss demonstrated that chess skill development included emotional preparation and mental focus if I was to have the success I sought. My friend played chess casually, but well understood competition. He has been a state champion in cross country, and had run for two college teams, including a leading Pac-10 school. Last fall, the high school team he coaches became the first team west of the Mississippi to win the national championship.

My rating bounced around in the 1400s for the next five and one-half years, finally jumping above 1500 in February 2002. It dipped back into the 1400s for most of 2004, and in 2005 started a steady climb up to 1601. Once I reached B class, I did not drop below, and after my performance last weekend, reached A class. To get to A class, I've needed to learn tactics and endgames, and expanded my opening repertoire. But, more important, I've needed to reduce the obvious blunders made in haste, and I've needed to become far more consistent against lower rated players. I've also increased my drawing ratio.

In the USCF rating system, a rating of 1800 creates a floor of 1600. If I never win again, I will never drop below B class. But, I still have ambitions. My current established rating remains a crude underestimate of my capabilities.