Outpost: Threat and Execution

In the 1990s, I read Peter Romanovsky's subchapter, "The Eternal Knight", in Chess Middlegame Planning (1990) and found it a useful beginning towards the understanding of outposts. Michael Stean's discussion in Simple Chess (1978) takes my understanding a step further. At the end of his first illustrative game, Stean notes:

Particularly noteworthy was the terrible restraining influence exerted on Black by the continual threat of Nd5. Having completed his development very harmoniously. Black found it difficult to undertake any active plan without allowing the inevitable Nd5. Indeed, he only had to decentralise one piece (20...Na5) and the White knight jumped down his throat.
Stean, Simple Chess, 18.

This game, Tal -- Bronstein, USSR Championship 1959, was my lesson of the week for my advanced students. We started with this postion.

White to move

With a definition of outposts written on the white board, I asked students to identify the outposts in this position.

An outpost is a square that might be occupied by one's own piece, ideally supported by one's pawn, and that cannot be attacked by an enemy pawn. With some guidance, the students were able to see that d5 was an outpost for White's pieces, and that d3 was a potential outpost for Black.

We then went through the bulk of the game and Stean's comments.

The diagram above is prior to 14.Nf1. The knight finally occupies the critical outpost of d5 on move 22.

White to move

Stean comments:

The moment we've all been waiting for, not to mention the white queen, rook, and bishop who have been patiently queuing up behind the e-pawn for some time. White's decision to play his trump card now is prompted by the fact that Black's knight has been drawn out of play to a5. This may not seem to be very significant, but with the rapid opening up of the position which must surely follow, the abscence of even a single piece from the central field of battle will cause great difficulties for Black. Stean, Simple Chess, 16.

The game as whole is interesting and serves as a good example of employing the threat of an outpost as a strategic and tactical weapon. Restraining the opponent's choices via the threat to occupy an outpost is a notion less evident in Romanovsky's treatment of this topic.


Beginning Students

My beginning students this week solved the problems in Beginning Tactics 9 (see "Lesson of the Week" [13 December 2012]). When they stumbled on the seventh problem, I showed them the game Mayet -- Anderssen 1851 (see "Sacrificial Attack").

Digging Through My Library

It has been a few years since I have counted my chess books, so I do not know how many sit on the shelves in my office. These days I acquire more electronic versions than printed, but even so, I have bought several new paperbacks in the past few months. In my office, one four shelf bookcase that is two feet wide contains only chess texts. Another wider bookcase has two shelves that are each more than 80% chess. Then, there are chess books tucked here and there in several other places in my office, such as my Chess Informants that sit atop some bookcases that contain mostly works in history.

I thought it might be interesting and potentially useful to take a look at a few of these more than 200 books that have been doing little more than gathering dust.

Starting on the left of the top shelf of the wholly chess bookcase, there is a book that came to me when I had ordered something else and the order was botched. Dragoslav Andric, Sahovski Zabavnik (Beograd: Sahovski Informator, 1985) is in Serbian (I think). This text appears to have many interesting curiosities that are inaccessible to me because I cannot read the language. However, the universality of chess notation, abundant diagrams, and the help of Google Translate opens up some possibilities. The book is a compendium of short articles. In the first, a miniature is presented with a diagram showing the final position.

Edwards - Amateur [C35]
ENG corr England, 1963

1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 Be7 4.Bc4 Bh4+ 5.g3 fxg3 6.Bxf7+ Kxf7 7.Ne5+ Ke6 8.Qg4+ Kxe5 9.0–0 gxh2+ 10.Kh1 Bf6 11.d4+ Kxd4 12.Be3+ Kxe3 13.e5 Bxe5 14.Re1+ Kf2 15.Qg2+ Kxe1 16.Nc3# 1–0

Remarkably, the game continues 16...O-O-O! 17...Kxb2 18.Rb1+ Kxc3 19.Qe4! with the idea of 20.Qd3#

There are many more fantasy chess illustrations in this book and much text requiring translation. It appears to be an interesting book with at least as much wit in evidence as in the next book on the same shelf.

Andrew Soltis, Karl Marx Plays Chess (New York: David McKay, 1991) is a first edition paperback. It is a compendium of the author's favorite "Chess to Enjoy" columns that he wrote for Chess Life beginning in 1979. The column was popular among many readers, and the topics are quite varied: "whatever chess subject tickled [his] fancy," Soltis tells us in the Introduction. The section "Hooked on 'Book'" (230-257) gathers together several columns on the opening. In one, Soltis reveals how to discover a theoretical novelty: "The secret is to look for bad moves.... I mean those that are so obviously bad that no one ever takes the time to prove their awfulness" (231).

The next two texts are Edward Winter, Kings, Commoners and Knaves (Milford, CT: Russell Enterprises, 1999), and A Chess Omnibus (Milford, CT: Russell Enterprises, 2003). I recall browsing A Chess Omnibus in the bookstore after the cover caught my eye. It shows a fine House of Staunton chess set and a felt-lined wooden box. Around that time, I had recently purchased the much less expensive Reykjavik II set from the House of Saunton. It is an elegant wooden set that I am happy to own, and that I carry to tournaments. However, it has never seen a blitz game. For one reason or another, I was ignorant of the work of Edward Winter at the time that I found this book. Browsing through the text in the bookstore, it quickly became obvious that this text would not sit on the shelf unused. Nor does it today. Hardly a month goes by when I am not pulling one or both of these texts off the shelf to browse, or to read something that Winter's fine chess site informs me has been printed there. Winter's other books are on my list of wants.

Winter's books are compendiums of his Chess Notes, which have been published through several outlets. For the past few years, the Notes first appear on his website. Many of Winter's Chess Notes have instructive value for the chess student looking to improve his or her game, but the emphasis in his work seems to be getting details of chess history accurately presented and well-sourced from primary materials. Readers of my other blog, Patriots and Peoples, should be well-aware of my views concerning sourcing in history.

After these four books at the left end of the top shelf, the instructional materials begin. First, there is Graham Burgess, John Nunn, and John Emms, The World's Greatest Chess Games (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1998). My copy has yellowing pages and the spine seems fragile. It is the first American edition, and published the same year as the British original.

Next are two books by Irving Chernev: The 1000 Best Short Games of Chess (1955) and The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played (1965). I wrote about the former back in March in "My First Chess Book." Next along the shelf to the right are a series of tournament books, followed by books concerning specific players. First in the row of tournament books is David Bronstein, Zurich International Chess Tournament 1953, translated by Jim Marfia (1979). Other tournaments and several World Championship matches are represented, including Mikhail Tal's classic Tal Botvinnik 1960.

Perhaps it is time to put the computer away, get out a chess set, and do some serious reading.