A Pattern

The relationship between two puzzles on chess.com surprised me Wednesday morning and I made it that afternoon's lesson for my beginning students. Sometimes I use this feature of the website and iOS app regularly. During the first fifteen years that I was a member of chess.com, I only did puzzles occasionally, completing fewer than 5000. That changed in December 2022 and I've completed nearly 17,000 in the past three years.

Wednesday, I completed 41, failing 13. One that came up early in the session took me five seconds. This mating sequence crops up most days, as it did again this morning. It also appeared in the last puzzle Wednesday morning, but with a twist that took me nearly a minute to recognize that it was essentially the same.

Because the website only shows me the past 30, I was not able to put the early position in front of my students. Instead, I found a game played by Adolf Anderssen in 1861 that finished with the same idea.

White to move

The first student to offer a solution suggested 21.Bxg7, but after 21...Nxf2+ 22.Rxf2 Kxg7, it was clear that White was worse. We did not look at 22.Kg1 Nh3+ 23.Kh1, but Black has two good choices that neutralize the attack.

The students then saw the correct 21.Rxg7+, but I had to show them the key idea after 21...Kh8 22.Rg8+! and mate follows when the other rook comes to the g-file.

This morning's version took me six seconds.

Black to move

20...Rxg2+ 21.Kh1 Rg1+ 22.Kxg1 Rg8+ 23.Bg5

Sometimes, in the puzzles that chess.com feeds me, there are several pieces that can step into the line of fire and increase the move count.

23...Rxg5#

Seeing the same pattern in this next exercise took longer and brought a pleasant surprise. My young students did not see it until I showed it to them.

Black to move

30...Rxg2+ was obvious, but I did not play it until I saw the follow up after 50 seconds. 31.Kh1 Rg1+ 32.Kxg1 (32.Kh2 also leads to mate on the move) 32...Qxg3#.

Chess patterns are familiar ideas in slightly different positions. Good puzzle books and sometimes chess websites help aspiring players learn and train recognition of these ideas. The first two volumes of The Manual of Chess Combinations by Sergey Ivashchenko are particularly good in this respect.

300 Most Important Chess Positions

A Book Review

If you follow Chess Skills, then you know that I've been working through Thomas Engqvist, 300 Most Important Chess Positions (2018) at a pace far more accelerated than recommended by the author. When I announced this 60 day effort in December, I noted, “failure may be expected”. I worked through the last four positions this morning, the 74th day.

I heartily recommend this book. Studying five positions per week, as the author suggests, improves retention, and likely long-term benefits from study. Having raced through the book, I will be reviewing and deepening my study of many positions in the book over the coming months.

Engqvist’s 300 positions are selected from classical games, recent master practice, and compositions. Engqvist also includes some of his own most instructive losses. He is guided by a library of chess books, many years of playing, and experience coaching. The core idea of deep study of a limited number of positions developed from the way he was coached by Robert Danielsson while a young player. He studied positions from Ludek Pachman’s books on the middlegame and endgame.

Alekhine builds his gun

In the introduction, Engqvist makes a case for careful, disciplined study and focus on a limited number of positions per week. This contrasts markedly with Jeremy Silman's recollection that as a young chess player, he went through "200 to 500 games a day, every day" ("Studying Master Games and Berkmaster's First Over-the-Board Tournament Battle"). Silman claims that he absorbed tactical patterns and positional concepts in this manner. Engqvist advocates reflection and review with intent to "understand, grasp and assimilate the most important idea(s)" (9). He asserts that studying too many positions at once lead you to forget what you have learned. At the core of this learning process, he writes, is "to gain a deeper appreciation of the inner qualities of the pieces, their movements and their actual value in any specific position" (emphasis in original, 9).

By way of illustration, he offers this composition by Paul Rudolf von Bilguer from 1843.

White to move

This position appears in the introduction and as number 281 in the text. Both Ludek Pachman and André Chéron advocate 1.Qe6 and consider the position a draw, but tablebases show that it is a win. There is much to attempt to absorb in the tablebase moves that Engqvist annotates (274-276), but he notes that sometimes the queen works best when it does no more than a rook can do (9). 1.Qc7! is the only winning move. The queen's demotion explains the first move, but subsequent moves draw on the full mobility of the queen, leading Engqvist to marvel at "how the attacker uses the queen over practically the whole board" (276).

The positions that he chooses are interesting, challenging, instructive, and practical. Most of them were tested with chess players who subscribed to an email course where they were presented five positions per week. Rarely is a single move or short sequence the solution that one must find while examining the position. Only a few offer long computer solutions as in the Bilguer study. A considerable number of positions feature equal or near equal positions from games where strong moves and persistent maneuvers eventually provoked error.

Many of the positions are suitable for training with a study partner. Engqvist recommends playing both sides with another person, or against the computer. Teaching the position to someone else improves retention he notes, and in my experience also depth of understanding. My young students often vex me with moves that were not anticipated in master commentary or computer analysis. The positions in this book are excellent resources for coaches. The day that I acquired this book in February 2019, I took it to a lesson with my top student. We looked at six endgames and then the first position in the book (see "A New Book and a Morphy Game"). The next few weeks, this student and I will be playing some of the rook and queen endings.

Emphasis is on positional concepts, rather than tactical operations. The author notes that this emphasis distinguishes his book from Lev Alburt, Chess Training Pocket Book: 300 Most Important Positions and Ideas (1997), which emphasizes tactics. Alburt also limits the number of endgames. He states that becoming a "strong player" requires knowledge of 12 key pawn endings, not hundreds (9). These 12 are in his Pocket Book. Alburt's book is the second one that I list in "Ten Books to Achieve 1800+".

Some positions in 300 Most Important Chess Positions are surprising, such as White’s second move in the English Opening, Sicilian Reversed.

White to move

But this position is placed alongside others (both English Opening and Sicilian Defense) with references to several games played by top players. There is plenty of study material in these games. I might also note that Engqvist’s opening choices reflected in the positions chosen offer more variety than those in another collection of 300 positions that I’ve spent time working through: Rashid Ziyatdinov, GM-RAM: Essential Grandmaster Knowledge (2000). Ziyatdinov’s positions stem from games where 1.e4 is the overwhelming choice.

An instructive sequence of positions that I found highly motivating began with Bologan,V.--Frolov,A., Moscow 1991, a Sicilian Defense, then in a variation continued with Anand,V.--Illescas Cordoba,M., Linares 1992 and reference to Karpov,A.--Kasparov,G., Moscow 1985.  It continued with Bologan--Frolov for two more positions, then Marin,M.--Korneev,O., Capo d'Orso 2008 takes us through moves 2-4 through three positions in the English Opening, Sicilian Reversed.

The first position in the book is slightly less surprising, but with two book moves played by Adolf Anderssen and Paul Morphy, as well as many other players before and since, Engqvist’s preference for Morphy’s choice provokes reflection.

White to move

9.Nc3 and 9.d5 both get played by masters today. Adolf Anderssen favored 9.d5 and won many games from this position. Paul Morphy showed, Engqvist suggests, that 9.Nc3 is a better developing move.

As I consider Morphy’s 9.Nc3 in the Evans Gambit or Mihai Marin’s view that after 1.c4 e5, 2.g3 is the most precise, I am reminded of my tendency to blitz out opening moves by rote and only begin thinking after an inaccuracy. Engqvist’s positions from very early in the game should help me to develop better habits. Thinking should begin before the first move, even if positions at move 10 are well-studied.

There are positions in this book that I have used with students for many years and there are positions that are wholly new to me. There are many positions with several pages of analysis and variations. There are positions that should be drawn, but one player was able to present sufficient difficulties to provoke error.

Ziyatdinov advocates memorizing the 56 games from which he draws the middlegame positions; Engqvist is more selective in games that he suggests the student commit to memory. Schulten -- Morphy, New York 1857, a King's Gambit that Morphy won in 21 moves, appears in both and I'm close to having it in my long-term memory. I have not yet started the effort to memorize Karpov,A.--Unzicker,W., Nice 1974, which is another suggestion of Engqvist's.

One position that I studied in early January led me to improve my move order in a position that I frequently reach while playing against the Caro-Kann.

Several endgame positions that I played against Stockfish before or after reading Engqvist's notes drove me to dig into some of the volumes in Yuri Averbakh's eight-volume series.

Engqvist's analysis is fresh, lucid, and thought-provoking. Many of his memorable phrases guide me when they should--appropriate moments during play. For example, "Nimzowitsch tried to make his opponent tired and careless by doing nothing" (230). In Duras -- Nimzowitsch, San Sebastian 1912, more than twenty moves of rooks and kings were played in a completely equal endgame. Only when Duras erred did Nimzowitsch move a pawn.

I reflected on this lesson while playing online a completely drawn ending of bishop and knight versus bishop, and then nine moves prior to a draw by the 50-move rule, my opponent allowed a small combination that allowed me to win his bishop. That game, then, became my first opportunity to checkmate with bishop and knight that did not result from a deliberate underpromotion. Because of Engqvist's choice of positions, I had recently practiced that checkmate, too (see "Recognizing Known Positions").

300 Most Important Chess Positions was on my shelf nearly six years, serving as occasional study material and reference for finding positions suitable for some of my students. Now that I've been through every position, I will use it more actively.

I have a to do list that developed as I was going through the book. The list includes studying Jose Capablanca's analysis of a couple of his games in My Chess Career (1920), the only Capablanca authored book that I did not wholly read in 2021. Engqvist brought to my attention a game that Richard Reti analyzes in Master of the Chessboard (1930), which I intend to study. Some of Engqvist's analysis draws from Victor Bologan, Victor Bologan: Selected Games 1985-2004 (2007), and I added it to my library. The long rook endgames and queen endings are games worth reviewing periodically until I absorb their lessons.

Another task presented to me after racing through this book is that Engqvist has also published 300 Most Important Tactical Chess Positions (2020), 300 Most Important Chess Exercises (2022), and Chess Lessons from a Champion Coach (2023). Any or all of these books would be worth my time. Perhaps I'll continue to ignore Engqvist's advice on pacing, and race through his tactics book in the near future.

Revising Plans

In late December, I set myself a course of study of 300 Most Important Chess Positions (2018) by Thomas Engqvist. Although the author suggests learning five positions per week, my plan was to work through five per day. I maintained this schedule until last Thursday.

Friday, my wife and I left for a weekend at a lake cabin and some play in the snow with our puppy. I took the book along, but did not spend as much time working on it as planned.

Upon my return, there were further distractions that kept me from resuming my rapid pace through the book. One of the endgames gave me some trouble as I tried to beat Stockfish from a winning position. Parts of three days this week were invested in this one endgame.

Black to move

Black's best move here, according to Engqvist, is Re1+, but the computer also played Rh1 in some games against me. It took several tries and some time studying Engqvist's analysis before I succeeded is winning with White. I ended up using another study by Genrikh Kasparian as the starting position. This one does not appear in Harold van der Heijden's Endgame Study Database, but Engqvist’s position could occur in the study I used.

The past two days, I have resumed my project of working through five positions per day. If there are no further disruptions to my plan, I should finish in early March. I do have a two-day break planned during a weekend Swiss at the end of February.

Half-Way

The five positions from Thomas Engqvist, 300 Most Important Chess Positions (2018) that I worked through today were all familiar from endgame work I did with a student six months ago or so. Two--a simple Philidor Position and a Lucena Position--I have been teaching eighteen years. Although review, one position composed by Max Karstedt and published in Deutsches Wochenschach in October 1909 confused me slightly because Stockfish made a move that differed from the solution that I knew.

In my struggle with the difference, I made an inaccurate move that was still winning, except that I could not win it.

White to move

In Karstedt's solution, Black's rook is on h1. Hence, Rc6+ sets up a skewer if the rook is captured. Nonetheless, 7.Rc6+ is still the best move and after 7...Kd5, both Rc8 and Ra6 are winning with a shorter distance to mate after Ra6. If 7...Kb5, 8.Rc8 wins.

After some contemplation, I played 7.Rb1. The computer could have opted for the idea in Karstedt's study nonetheless: 7...Rg8+ 8.Kc7 Rg7+ 9.Kb8 Rg8+ 10.Kb7 Rg7+ 11.Ka6 Rg6+ 12.Ka5 Rg3 threatens mate if White promotes, so 13.Rb5+ Kd6 14.Kb6 Rg8 15.Ra5 and the pawn will promote.

Instead, Stockfish 16 played 7...Rxb1 and I spent the next ten minutes being reminded that I have not learned queen vs. rook well enough to succeed against software.

Today was the 30th day in my quest to race through this book at five positions per day instead of the recommended five positions per week. Even this relatively easy day added another item to my "to do" list that is growing because of this pace. Yesterday, three positions game me some difficulty and this morning I spend some time looking through the first few chapters of Yuri Averbakh, Rook v. Minor Piece Endings (1978). The endings of rook and pawn vs. bishop (chapter 3 in Averbakh) serve as an excellent supplement to some ideas that Engqvist introduced yesterday.

I have now completed the first 75 positions on the opening and middlegame, and the first 75 endgames in Engqvist's book. I am on schedule.

60 Days, 300 Positions: Day Twenty-four

In defiance of Thomas Engqvist's clear advice in 300 Most Important Positions (2018), I remain on track to complete the book in 60 days. Engqvist suggests five positions per week with review of the previous week's in addition to five new positions. The idea is to "assimilate the knowledge to be gained" and be able to use it for a lifetime. He warns, "If you study too many positions and gloss over them too quickly you run an increased risk of eventually losing your discipline and then forget what you once endeavoured to learn" (7-8).

There is no question that I am glossing over many positions, while I spend many hours with others. Accordingly, I am keeping track of positions or other resources that I intend to return to after concluding the 60 day sprint. Assuming that I remain on track, I will finish my first complete read of the book in the last week of February. More than likely, I will go through it again in the near future.

Today, I am running a youth chess tournament. Such an activity cuts into my study time. I will have the book with me and endeavor to work through with some attention positions 56-60. I am working from the front of the book and also from the middle. I have been through 60 endgame positions (151-210).

Books beget books. As I am reading Engqvist's text and studying positions, I am driven to some of his sources. Three positions in the section on development were taken from a game that Victor Bologan analyzes in Victor Bologan: Selected Games 1985-2004 (2007). That book was added to my personal library earlier this month and I am reading the biographical narrative with the intent to study some of the games at another time.

In the summer of 2023, I added to my library seven of the eight volumes of Comprehensive Chess Endings, edited by Yuri Averbakh. It is no surprise that Engqvist draws some positions and analysis from these books. There is more in each of them that I could be studying. When Engqvist draws a position from one of the volumes, I find myself looking at other positions nearby. 

Other books that have been referenced are among those I have occasionally dipped into and intend to again, such as Anatoly Karpov, How to Play the English Opening and Jose Capablanca, My Chess Career. Richard Reti, Masters of the Chessboard analyzes a game that Engqvist brought to my attention. On chessgames.com, Raymond Keene claims he earned many victories against the structure Black adopted in that game thanks to having studied Reti’s analysis.

Despite Engqvist's ideas about how his book should be utilized, I am enjoying and finding productive my accelerated study. Among the benefits are that I am playing fewer games online and playing somewhat more consistently. In this position from this morning, I missed an easy tactic. But it was one of only a few inaccuracies and I did a good job of depriving my opponent of any play--a theme I saw in several master games from which positions the past few days were extracted.

White to move

26.Nxg6+ should have been easy to spot, and a couple of moves later I was courting that opportunity. Even so, after 26.Qf6+, I remained fully in control and my knight is far better than Black's bishop.

Eight moves later, my position had improved while my opponent seemed to be moving backwards.

Black to move

Black attempted to bring some pieces into battle with 34.f6. My reply was not the computer's preference, but was aimed at bringing both rooks into play. Only one was needed as Black collapsed quickly.

35.Ra4 e5? 36.gxf6+ Rxf6 37.Qxe5+ Be6 38.Rxa6 Rf5 39.Ra7+ and Black resigned.

Interesting Exercise

This pawn structure arises after the Spanish Exchange and a similar one, but with Black’s doubled pawns on the f-file, can arise from the Caro-Kann. Opening theory states that Black cannot allow liquidation of all the pieces because the pawn ending would be lost. Max Euwe offers analysis of how to play the pawn ending in an obscure book. Thomas Engqvist presents the analysis in 300 Most Important Chess Positions (2018).

White to move

Naturally, after reading through Engqvist’s analysis, I played the game against Stockfish. My best result after several efforts has been a draw. I lost, used the takeback feature, and tried again. In repeated efforts, I’ve blundered and lost more than I have tracked, but completed two games with draws.

The win is elusive and worth pursuing for what I can learn about pawn endings.

Today is the ninth day of my 60 day quest to go through all of Engqvist’s book at the rate of five positions per day. Yesterday, I spent a fair amount of time looking at games from which positions 21-25 were or could have been derived. For instance, one position featured a novelty played by Hikaru Nakamura in 2011. Several other players have followed his lead and I played through some of those games.

Today’s position is the 16th in the section on pawn endings. I have been alternating between openings and endings. I will finish the development section tomorrow.

Edit: after multiple efforts, I dove back into the analysis in 300 Most Important Chess Positions. I have been struggling against the engine from the wrong position. Black's a-pawn should be on a6. How much difference does this make?

60 Days, 300 Positions: Day Two

Thomas Engqvist urges review as an integral aspect of the process of learning 300 chess positions. Today, I reviewed the first five positions in 300 Most Important Chess Positions (2018). Three of these appear among those in Rashid Ziyatdinov, GM-RAM: Essential Grandmaster Knowledge (2000), a book I labored part-way through more than a decade ago.

All five positions are derived from four games played by Paul Morphy. One, from a game against his father, is a position I had not studied prior to working through the first part of the book in February 2019, although I have a position from the game in my collection of exercises for students, Checkmates and Tactics (2019).

As noted yesterday, I wrote about the first position in the book shortly after it arrived in the mail. I noted there that two moves—both played by Morphy at different times—differ only slightly in their merits, but Morphy’s move in the reference game has been the dominant choice of masters. As both moves are playable, judgement is necessary. Engqvist’s observation that “one should avoid unproductive one-move threats” (14) is worth reviewing.

Positions 4 and 5 both derive from Schulten — Morphy, New York 1857, game 7 in GM-RAM. I have memories of attempting to imitate Morphy’s play in this game against a student in a blitz or rapid event a week or two after we had studied the game together. I remember his laugh as we found ourselves in the same opening. He won the tournament, but I won that game. Morphy’s play inspired my plans, but my young student avoided Schulten’s errors. That student achieved an expert rating as a high school student when he won the Spokane Falls Open in August 2019.

Both Engqvist and Ziyatdinov urged memorizing this game. Engqvist writes, “learn this model game by heart” (16). I had it lodged in my short-term memory when I was working through it with Ziyatdinov’s book about the time that I studied it with my young student, but I cannot completely reconstruct it from memory this morning.

Schulten, J. — Morphy, P.
New York 1857

1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5 3.exd5 e4!

I recall studying the opening stats and learning that 3…exf4 appears to score better. Nonetheless, I nearly always play 3…e4 here. I have had the position after 3.exd5 at least 426 times in online play. Black has won five games more than White. I've been White more often as the King's Gambit is an opening I play with some regularity. The first time that I played 3...e4 was in 2007 in a 15 minute game with a three second increment. I won in 45 moves.

My recollection of the game begins to falter here. I remember the next move, but with some uncertainty.

4.Nc3 Nf6

At first, I wrote Bb4 without sight of the board. I corrected the notation after checking the game score in 300 Most Important Chess Positions.

5.d3 Bb4

Of course, the timing of the bishop move is important, as here it pins the knight.

6.Bd2

Black to move

This is position 4 in Engqvist’s book. It does not appear in Ziyatdinov as a key position.

6…e3!

I played 6...exd3 in that 2007 game, which preceded my study of Morphy's game. I played 6...e3 for the first time in 2016. winning that game in 48 moves.

7.Bxe3 O-O 8.Bxd2 Bxc3

I still struggle with Morphy’s choice here, as it is not clear to me how the exchange of bishop for knight implements the principle of development.

9.bxc3

Why not Bxc3? This was the move played against me in 2016. According to the engines, bxc3 appears slightly better that capturing with the bishop.

9…Re8+ 10.Be2

This game is one of several Morphy games that merit study because of his effective use of pins. When my memory of this game gets me to point, I always remember Morphy’s moves when I’m able to recall Schulten’s.

10…Bg4 11.c4

Would Schulten have been better off here with 11.Nf3? Stockfish 16 favors 11.Kf2.

Black to move

Position number 5 in Engqvist is position number 150 in Ziyatdinov.

11…c6! 12.dxc6??

I identified this move as Schulten’s critical error when I first studied this game in detail, and capturing this pawn was one of my own errors in one of the worst tournament games I have played (see "Knowing Better"). In that game, my opponent played 3...c6!? and things went downhill quickly for me.

12…Nxc6-+ 13.Kf1

This position is number 151 in Ziyatdinov and I had it once doing tactics training on Chess.com.

13…Rxe2!

Morphy’s exchange sacrifice that maintains one of the pins on e2 is reminiscent of the Opera Game.

14.Nxe2 Nd4 15.Qb1

It is difficult to find a move for Schulten here that makes sense. The position is resignable. 

15…Bxe2+ 16.Kf2 Ng4+ 17.Kg1

Black to move

Morphy has a forced mate in seven.

17...Nf3+ 18.gxf3 Qd4+ 19.Kg2 Qf2+ 20.Kh3 Qxf3 21.Kh4

Philip W. Sergeant, Morphy's Games of Chess (1957 [1916]), 229 ends the game score here, giving the moves to mate as a comment. Other books and some databases carry the game all the way to mate.

Both 21...Nh6 and 21...Ne3 finish the job. My students rarely find 21...Nh6 and then 22.h3 Nf5+ 23.Kg5 Qh5#.

60 Days, 300 Positions: Day One

Thomas Engqvist, 300 Most Important Chess Positions (2018) has been in my possession about five years. I bought it early in 2019 (see “A New Book and a Morphy Game”). Often it sits on the shelf, but I read bits from time to time. I’ve studied some of the positions for my own edification, and used some with my students. This afternoon, I resolved to read the whole book in 60 days.

Failure may be expected. Life offers many opportunities that disrupt a disciplined schedule of study, as well as occasional challenges. But, perhaps, perseverance will get me through. I do not expect to blog the process every day and certainly will present only a fraction of the positions here. Readers who wish to know the contents of Engqvist’s book should buy a copy. It is not my intention to violate the author’s intellectual property.

Going through this book in 60 days is violation enough of the author’s work. He suggests five positions per week, not five per day. In my defense, I will note, however, his advice that a student needs “to integrate the positions into your conscious chess thinking as early as possible in your life” (6-7). I am 64 years old and have been reasonably serious about studying as well as playing chess since 1975.

Because of the nature of the book, I will not read it in sequence. Today, I did positions 151-155, the first five endgame positions. I use two of them routinely in my teaching. The ideas in the other three also occur while I’m working with students via other positions.

One of today’s positions intrigued me enough that I set it up to play against the computer on chessdotcom. Usually, I’ll play set-positions against Stockfish on my iPad or against one of several engines on my notebook computer with ChessBase and Fritz software installed. The website’s computer gave me the same frustration I usually find with elementary endgames on other devices: it did not make the moves that are most testing. The position is a Nikolai Grigoriev composition.

White to move

Unhappy with the computer’s move on chessdotcom, I also played this position on my iPad. That early version of Stockfish running on a weak processor started with the line Engqvist gives in the book, presumably the most testing.

1.Kg3 is White's only drawing move. Why?

If I could calculate deeply enough, I might recognize this square as the only one that assures I will be able to step onto b4 after Black plays Kxb6. White must take the opposition at that point.

1.Kh3 takes the distant diagonal opposition. Why does this effort fail? Black's shouldering manuever leaves the White king too far from the b-fil when the pawn on b6 falls. 1...Kc2 2.Kg4 Kd3 3.Kf3 Kc4 4.Ke4 White has taken the opposition with each move, but will no longer be able to maintain it when it matters.

Although Engqvist does not mention it, Kg3 begins an outflanking maneuver.

1...Kc2 is Black's critical try, as it leaves White only one drawing move. Chessdotcom's computer played 1...Kb2, giving me three three viable moves, including the option of seizing the distant opposition. Only after the subsequent 2.Kf2 Kc3 3.Ke3 Kc4, was there a single drawing move. In this case, it is an elementary outflanking maneuver. 4.Kd2.

2.Kf2 is the only move.

2...Kd3, is testing in the sense that White again has a single drawing move is offered in a variation in 300 Most Important Chess Positions.

2...Kd2 also leaves White a single drawing move.

3.Kf1 Kd3 4.Ke1 Kc4

Black to move

5.Kd2

It is clear that White's king will be able to reach b4 at the critical moment.

For the fifth time, White had only one move that draws. It would be nice if chess engine programmers could create an algorithm that has the computer choose the move that leaves the opponent a single choice to maintain the evaluation. Engines would become better training partners for this sort of endgame that way.

Over 1900 in Rapid!

The last time I was over 1900 in rapid on chessdotcom was mid-summer 2022. In September this year, it appeared that I would never get there again as I was struggling to get back to 1700 after a losing streak in late August. However, I’ve been playing a bit better the past few weeks.

My second game this morning was against an opponent in the mid-1900s while I was 1892. Somehow, I had a nice position as we entered the middle game. My opponent lost the exchange (I think it was necessary to save his king), but then found resourceful defense and generated some counterplay. As matters became tense, I found a nice move.

I offered the exchange back, my opponent refused at this point, but later I forced matters taking his last bishop so that I could eliminate the pawn on f7. In the ending I had a bishop when we were otherwise reduced to pawns.

The win lifted me to 1901.

Shifting Focus

For 34 consecutive days, I spent the first part of my day solving puzzles on chessdotcom. At some point during this time, it became a daily commitment. That commitment ended yesterday when I solved a single exercise from the book Improve Your Chess Tactics (2012) by Yakov Neishtadt. This book has sat idly on my bookcase for a year or more, but recently I started reading it. A few days ago, I solved the first five exercises after my chessdotcom session. Yesterday morning, I opted to start with the book.

Black to move

The position arose in Panno -- Bravo Sedamanos, Fortaleza (1975). It took me a few minutes, but I found the correct moves. The idea was known before solving because Nieshtadt organizes the book by themes. Hence, solving primarily involved calculation to verify the implementation of the deflection idea and the correct sequence. Most of my effort was expended finding the best reply by White.

After writing my answer, I checked my answers to the first six exercises in the back of the book. I failed one.

White to move

The position is presented by Nieshtadt as from Belov -- Ongemakh, Narva 1984. After seeing that I failed, I instantly saw the refutation of the move I had written.

Solving from books differs from solving for rating with online puzzles. Both methods have their benefits. I remain committed to doing both, but a daily commitment to one gets in the way of the other.

During my 34 day run from 18 May to 20 June, I attempted 599 puzzles, correctly solving 356. My rating started at 2993 and ended at 3051. It peaked at 3143 on 15 June and was as low as 2849 on 30 May.

I will return to the website and make a push to get the rating back above 3100 now that I've crossed that mark a couple of times. Also, I like to show my students that I solved more puzzles in the past year than the number of games I've played, although that number is considerable.

My focus has shifted towards books. Neishtadt, Improve Your Chess Tactics is one of the better tactics books available. Someone recommended it to me in a comment on this blog several years ago. It was a good recommendation for which I am grateful.

One Month of Puzzles

My training has rarely been consistent. Much of the time, it is not even training. I enjoy playing chess and enjoy studying it, too. Sometimes I set goals. Most of the time I achieve these goals.

Ten years ago, I began to abandon one of the few that I failed to achieve: a USCF rating above 2000. I had peaked at 1982 in 2012. In 2013, I recorded a series of training logs here on Chess Skills. In February 2014 and again in August, I fell below 1900. I rose back above that mark once more in August 2015 when I won a weekend Swiss for the first time (see “Winning an Open”). My most recent first place finish in a weekend Swiss was in 2023 (see “Misevaluation”). In that event, I was playing for the enjoyment of the game. Over the previous months, regular puzzles had been a habit and contributed to my enjoyment of the game during the tournament.

My USCF rating graph

Although my ambitions to cross 2000 USCF have dissipated, improving my knowledge and skills has continued. The goals are small and training related. I seek small achievements, such as getting my online rapid rating above 1800, playing through every game in a single issue of Chess Informant, memorizing a batch of classic games, or reaching the next century mark in puzzles.

I enjoy learning. The process of gaining knowledge or microskills* is often its own reward.

Nearly a month ago, I publicized a rating goal with chessdotcom puzzles. Dean Arond questioned the benefits: “but does it translate to your USCF rating?” The next four days saw my puzzles rating fall 200 points, but then some consistency brought it back up and I crossed 3100 on 9 June. Posting a link to Chess Skills, where I marked the achievement, provoked more skepticism and an informative discussion with Jon Jacobs. He offered a link to a 2008 blog post where his critical comment led to considerable discussion concerning the merits of following the tactics training regimen advocated by Michael de la Maza. There is a lot to process at that link and I appreciate the perspective that Jacobs offers.

The past month, since 18 May, I have attempted a minimum of ten rated puzzles every morning. During the solving, I have addressed a specific weakness that affects my playing performance, as well as my habits while solving tactics. I often see an idea and play it instantly or after superficial calculation. During my puzzle solving the past month, I have focused on accuracy. If I suspect a checkmate is present, I work it out to the end, laboring to find all manner of resistance.

Progress has been up and down. My tactics rating today (3027) is lower than it was on 18 May (3038). Nonetheless, I reached new highest ever ratings half a dozen times or more with a current peak four days ago at 3143. More important than rating level is the increase in my percentage of success. My puzzle accuracy (percentage solved correctly) over the life of the site (more than 15,000 puzzles) increased from 53% to 54%. In the past month, I have exceeded 70% accuracy during 16 sessions.

There have been three sessions where accuracy was below 50% and these were the longest sessions. Often I enjoy the process of solving puzzles, but experienced frustration on those days. Plans to solve daily seemed more of a burden on those days.

More than likely, I will not continue a daily regimen ten or more puzzles on chessdotcom much longer. There are other avenues for tactics, and other forms of productive learning. For instance, a book, 100 Soviet Chess Miniatures (1963) by P. H. Clarke, has been on the side table in my living room since January. I've gone through the first 23 games.

*I use this term for specific skills that are part of my teaching curriculum, such as specific pawn endings that I want my students to master, the Lucena and Philidor rook endings, or the not yet achieved queen vs. rook ending I plan to work on more in the near future. I expect to play against the computer every rook endgame in Jesus de la Villa, 100 Endgames You Must Know, new edition (2015). This practical book study is an example of microskill development.

3100+ Puzzle Rating!

This morning, I reached a new peak puzzle rating of 3121 on chess.com. Nearly 18 months ago, I crossed 3000 for the first time (see "Working the Puzzles"). On May 24 and 25 this year, I hit new peaks of 3071 and 3079. Then in answer to Max Illingworth's question on Facebook, I publicized a goal of reaching 3100. Illingworth posted in his group, Adult Chess Improvers, "New week, new start. What's on your mind today?" I replied, "Hoping to get to 3100 chessdotcom puzzle rating. Hit a new peak of 3079 this morning."

After publicizing this goal, my rating fell more than 200 points in two sessions over the next four days. That's smaller than my 428 point drop from 2975 to 2547 last August, but it is still significant enough that I began to regret posting the goal. Still, I knew what to do: keep solving ten or more puzzles each day, being careful to calculate accurately. Persistence leads to success. Since 18 May, I have started each day with puzzles and mostly solved with a great deal of care.

This morning's session started with four correct of the first five and a rating of 3093. Then, this this puzzle.

White to move

I saw immediately a sequence that failed, then I reversed the first two moves. The process of calculation and then moving took me 33 seconds. My rating jumped 15 points to 3108. I missed the next puzzle, but then got two correct and stood at 3121. It might have been time to quit if not for my resolve to solve at least ten each day. I could not quit after nine.

The next puzzle dropped me 13 points, so I kept going, failing three more. Now at 3073, one point below the day's starting rating, I felt that I had to continue. I was able to quit after solving the next five.

My Chess Journey

When I was eight years old, my sister, a year younger, returned from the neighbor's house and taught me what she had learned there. This became my first lesson in a game neither of us would understand for several years to come. Chess joined Parcheesi, Monopoly, Go Fish, Connect Four, Life, Scrabble, and many other games that we played with our siblings, neighbor children our age, and sometimes with adults.

Seven years later, I was visiting a friend and saw a book on chess, Chess in 30 Minutes. The idea that someone would write a book on a game that children played was revolutionary to my thinking. Our family regularly visited the library. On the next visit, I found the chess books and borrowed a few. First step was learning to read: 1.P-K4, P-K4 2.N-KB3, P-Q3 3.B-B4, P-KN3 4.N-B3, B-N5 5.NxP BxQ?? Once these codes were deciphered with help from one of the books, reading began. There were several books, but the one that I remember most clearly was Irving Chernev, The 1000 Best Short Games of Chess (1955).

I played a game or two with the friend who had the chess book. We decided that we would play a match of twenty games or so. The year was 1975 and we had some sort of vague understanding of the battles then raging between Bobby Fischer and FIDE regarding his World Championship Defense against Anatoly Karpov. By the end of our match, I was much better than my friend. I’ve mentioned this story before (see “My First Chess Book”).

Over the next few years, I played a lot of games with a couple of friends. We played war games like Panzer Blitz, Luftwaffe, Highway to the Reich, Russian Campaign. The majority were World War II simulations. We also played Risk, of course, and we played chess. Matt Jessick liked 3D chess and always destroyed me. I preferred the classic game and increasingly favored it over other games. My sophomore year of high school, a group of students formed a chess club. I was near the top in strength. Jim Van Epps was clearly the best. He loaned me his copy of I.A. Horowitz, Chess Openings: Theory and Practice (1965). I studied the four pawns attack and finally beat his Pirc Defense. He introduced me to the Spokane Chess Club.

Our school’s chess club sent letters to all the other schools in the district, resulting in matches against the other schools that have clubs. My opponent in the match against Gonzaga Prep, Patrick Kirlin, remembers our game much better than I do. We played that team match in 1977 and he told me in 1995 that I had played the Sicilian Defense. None of these events were rated. I played in one tournament at the Spokane Chess Club, also not rated. Not everyone wrote their moves. I remember feeling almost embarrassed when I beat an older man with a bank rank checkmate. He was crushing me until leaving himself vulnerable to a mate in one.

As I was finishing high school and starting college, I played a USCF correspondence tournament. The game scores I have from this event are the oldest games in my personal database. There is a position in one of them that I use in teaching.

White to move

In college, there was a guy on my floor who liked to play chess with me. Sometimes we would start a game in the late morning and I would end up skipping my Philosophy of Religion class at 11:00. I won most of these games. Gradually, other priorities displaced chess. Occasionally I would play through some games in a book, but none of my friends were at my level and I did not seek out a chess club.

Interest in chess was revived almost ten years later when I bought my first computer and with it Chessmaster 2100. I was in graduate school.

I rejoined the Spokane Chess Club in late 1995 and played in my first rated OTB event in March 1996. In October, I played my sixth event and no longer had a provisional rating. By the end of the year, my rating had risen to 1495, but it would be several years before rising over 1500 in 2002. In early 1998, my worst event ever (I lost all five games) dropped me from 1472 to 1378 and it took me three events to bring my rating back into C Class.

In November 1996, I played in the Washington Class in Federal Way. I nearly won my section. I was on board one in round four tied with one other player, my opponent, 1/2 point ahead of the others. A win would secure at least a tie for first place. I had a winning position. I faltered, losing that game and the next, finishing the event with 3.0 and tied for 8th place.

Black to move

From my return to active play in the mid-1990s, active study of chess books has been a constant in my life. I also played correspondence chess (postcard, then email, and then websites like ChessWorld.net and Chess.com) continuously from 1996 through 2018, but only a few games since. Beginning in 1998, live play online also became a norm. I estimate that I have played more than 160,000 games.

My rating remained in C Class for nearly a decade, but in the 1500s for the second half. I was getting better, gaining both knowledge and skills, but progress was slow. Too much online blitz may have held me back.

In the summer of 2006, Curt Collyer gave me some lessons. He was my third round opponent in that terrible 0-5 event in 1998. Now in college and with a rating near 2200, he was the top player from my city and offering chess lessons during his summer break. In fall 2006 after this work with Curt, I crossed into B Class for the first time.

In 2008, I won the Spokane Contenders and played a four game match against FM David Sprenkle for the City Championship, losing 2 1/2 - 1/2. He beat me fairly quickly in the first game played on Thursday night. In the second game, I lost in 72 moves, learning while entering the game in my database that we had a three-fold repetition as I had suspected during the game. In the third game, he offered a draw when a repetition appeared best.

White to move

I was rated in the mid-1700s during the match with Sprenkle having risen rapidly through B Class. The Washington Open in May 2009 lifted me into A Class. I tied for fourth in the Premier section 1/2 point behind the top three.

My rating continued to rise, peaking after an astounding run of eleven consecutive wins.

My journey from wholly ignorant beginner in the late-1960s, to competitive high school player in the late-1970s, to active C Class club member in the mid-1990s involved a lot of book study. The journey from C Class in my 30s to high A Class in my early 50s (I peaked at 1982) included books, active play, private lessons, chess videos.

After peaking in 2012, I have struggled to stay in A Class. Through four events in 2016, my rating fell from 1886 to 1750. My last 2016 event lifted me back to 1791 and then I won the Winter Club Championship, my first event of 2017, lifting me back up to 1845. See "Home Preparation" for my win against the top rated player in the event, Michael Cambareri.

Since then, my rating has fallen and risen again within the range 1809 to 1875. Now in my 60s, the effects of aging impacts my ability to maintain focus during tournament games. Ambitions to reach expert no longer motivate me. However, I study chess regularly and continue to gain knowledge and experience. In the past year, I have solved more than 12,000 puzzles and exercises, including 7,262 on Chess.com alone.

During the Inland Empire Open in May and two events since then, I am enjoying the game whether I win or lose. After misplaying the opening in one game, I was enjoying watching how my opponent capitalized on his advantage while I struggled to put up resistance (see "The Saving Fork?"). Of course, I enjoyed even more pressing my advantage when my opponent missed the forced checkmate and then blundered two moves later.

Appended is a list of my best tournaments.

Weekend Swiss Events

2006 Washington Challenger’s Cup
Reserve 4.0/5 first—tie

2009 Washington Open
Premier 4.0/6 fourth—tie (1/2 point behind winners)

2012 Collyer Memorial
                4.5/5 second

2015 Spokane Falls Open
        4.5/5 first

2018 Eastern Washington Open
        4.5/5 first—tie

2023 Inland Empire Open
        4.5/5 first

Club Events

1996 Taxing Quads
        Quad 2 3.0/3 first

2006 Koz’s Quick Chaos
                3.0/3 first

2007 June Quick
                3.5/4 first

2008 Spokane Falls Action
        3.0/3 first

2008 Christmas Chaos
                3.5/4 first

2009 March Madness
        3.5/4 first

2009 Ajeeb Quads
        Quad A 2.3/3 first—tie

2009 Chaos
                4.0/4 first

2010 July Robin
                5.0/7 first—tie

2011 Turkey Quads
        Quad B 3.0/3 first

2011 December Quick
                3.0/3 first

2014 Blazing Heat Blitz
                8.0/9 first—tie

2016 Quick Night
                3.5/4 first

2016 Turkey Quads
        Quad B 3.0/3 first

2017 Winter Championship
        4.5/5 first

Closed Events

2008 City Championship Contenders
2.5/3 first

2010 City Championship Contenders
4.0/5 first—tie

2012 City Championship Contenders
4.5/5 first

Online Events

2016 US Chess Blitz on Chess.com (5-23)
4.0/5 first—tie

2016 US Chess Blitz on Chess.com (5-30)
4.5/5 first—tie

2016 US Chess Blitz on Chess.com (10-24)
4.5/5 first

2020 Morning Membership (8-14)
        4.0/4 first—tie

2020 Morning Membership (11-6)
        4.0/4 first

2020 Morning Membership (12-4)
        3.5/4 first

2020 Morning Membership (12-18)

4.0/4 first

Thomas Engqvist's Study Plan

"Less is more", writes Thomas Engqvist in 300 Most Important Chess Positions: Study Five a Week to be a Better Chess Player (2018). His 300 positions are more positionally oriented than the 300 in Lev Alburt, Chess Training Pocket Book: 300 Most Important Positions and Ideas, 2nd. ed. (2000) and also include a larger number of endgame positions. I wrote about the first position in this book the week after I acquired it in 2019 (see "A New Book and a Morphy Game"), but have not been following his recommendation to study five per week. Nor have I followed any other disciplined training regimen. Even so, Engqvist's book has been a frequent reference and valued.

Study by J. Hasek

Although Engqvist asserts, "the less you know the less you'll forget. ... it will be easier to remember 300 positional ideas rather than, let's say, 1000" (7), his 300 series now constitutes a trilogy and contains 900 positions. The motivation to select five per week for serious study has been growing for me.

The fourth endgame position in 300 Most Important Chess Exercises (2022) caught my interest last Friday and again this morning because I set it up incorrectly Saturday morning while trying to show the critical idea to some youth players at a chess tournament.

At first glance, White's task appears hopeless (see photo). Going straight for the a-pawn leads to stalemate. Going after the f-pawn leads to a trebuchet (a position lost for White). The draw is better than a loss, but I had the sense that White should win this with a technique I was missing. After some trial and error playing against Stockfish on the iPad, I found the win, posted on social media the position that arose after two moves, and mentally questioned a response that identified the solution as one of taking the opposition.

The exercise is a study composed by Josef Hasek and published in Deutsche Schachzeitung (1928). Engqvist identifies the themes as "triangulation and corresponding squares" (222). I think it also bears similarity to the famous Reti study in which White draws by attempting simultaneously to accomplish two impossible tasks (see "Endgame Calculation"). Such is the power of the double attack.

Stripes, J -- Stockfish
14.04.2023

1.Kc6 Ke5 2.Kc7 Kd5

White to move

3.Kd7!

Yes, this move seizes the opposition and prepares an outflanking maneuver. But triangulation is a more precise term for White's idea.

3...Ke5

If Black tries 3...Kc5, the diagonal opposition is best because it threatens the f-pawn. 4.Ke7! From the initial position, White cannot imagine going after the f-pawn, but now this threat is what makes it possible to gain the a-pawn without getting trapped on the a-file.

4.Kc6

Because of triangulation, the position that has been reached is the same as after the first move, except that it is Black's move.

4...Kxf5

White to move

5.Kb7

Other moves draw. Black's king is now too far away to trap White's king on the a-file and White's pawn promotes long before Black's can make any progress.

1-0

300 Most Important Chess Exercises is divided into four sections of 75 exercises each. The first two sections are opening and middlegames with tactics emphasized in the second set. The last two sections are endgames, again with tactics emphasized in the final set.

I could see myself developing some consistency with Engqvist's study plan of five positions per week if these five come from all three books, instead of always following only one of them. Coming up soon in Exercises is the following position, the sixth endgame exercise. 

White to move

I have seen this position in other books and have trained with this it on chess.com. I know the idea--corresponding squares. Nonetheless, this is an exercise that I find difficult. The cases of correspondence which must be worked out encompass more than half of the board.

Working the Puzzles

The Puzzles feature on Chess.com has always been there, but I’ve used it only sporadically. That changed recently.

As of mid-December 2022 I had solved less than 5000 puzzles during 15 years on the site. Something motivated me to get to 5000 by the end of the year when I noticed that less than 300 more would get me there. Then, briefly on Christmas Day I peaked at a rating of 3002! Alas, my friend Anthony was at 3012. In the effort to catch him I fell back down to 2700 over the next hour. That session, one of my longest, logged a low of 2706, a high of 3002, and ended at 2802. I attempted 133 puzzles, getting 68 correct. The site shows a solving time of 2 hours and 15 minutes. 

In the past few months, I have completed over 3000 puzzles and finally got back over 3000 a couple of days ago. I hit a new peak of 3042 the morning of April 1, then 3043 in the afternoon. The next day, yesterday, I made it to 3044. Then, late at night when I was too tired to function, I pushed for more and fell to 2995. This morning the first three puzzles were fails, dropping me to 2944. However, by the time my coffee cup was empty, I had passed 14 and failed 8, ending with a rating of 3034.

Several friends remain higher. Anthony is currently at 3086. My top student is laboring to catch me. He certainly will. It is only a matter of when. It is my job to keep moving his goalposts as he nears them.

Books remain my preference for training. Currently, I’m working through Jesus de la Villa, 100 Endgames You Must Know, 4th ed. (2015) along with occasional work with the two companion volumes, The 100 Endgames You Must Know Workbook (2019) and 100 Endgame Patterns You Must Know (2021). Also on my table of active books is Sergey Ivashchenko, The Manual of Chess Combinations, vol. 2 (2002). I’ll likely repeat the sixth stage after I complete it because I fail half of the problems about every fifth page. Most often I correctly solve 5/6. Thomas Engqvist's 300 series also gets worked into the mix now and then.

Solving puzzles on Chess.com has become a principal part of how I enjoy that site. When I check my stats, I look at the quantity over the past 7, 30, and 90 days, expecting to see that the number of puzzles attempted exceeds the number of games played.  One goal over the next few months is to see more puzzles than games played over the past year. That will require a lot of puzzles.

Obviously, I have a long ways to go on puzzles to match and exceed my play.

Unfinished Business

Chess Informant 153 arrived last night, a day earlier than expected. I am trying to ignore it until I complete some business with Informant 152. As noted in "Try, Try, Again", I intend to go through every game in the Games Section of the issue. This morning I finished those classified ECO D.

If I manage to get through all of ECO E in the next few days, I will be less rushed going through the games in Informant 153. There are many things to learn in the 201 games that occupy the second half of the journal, as well as from the articles in the front half. My long-term habit has been to read a few of the articles, play through most of the games in one or two, and occasionally look at the combinations or endgames. When I have intended to play through the games section, I have failed to prioritize the task.

In the ECO D section, there are several positions that I will use with my students, even with beginners.

The instructive pin that ended this game (and the checkmate pattern noted in the annotation) pairs well with a classic that I use in my diagnostic exercises. From Dreev,A. -- Deac,B., chess.com 2022 152/159.

White to move

While playing through this game, I started to think about a sacrifice that was played by Bogdan Deac. It and the subsequent play offers a good example of destroying the pawn shield and keeping pressure on the exposed king. From Deac,B. -- Bok,B., chess.com 2022 152/150.

White to move

The checkmate threat at the end of this game is one for beginners. From Krysa,L. -- Salina Herrera,P., San Salvador 2022 152/152.

White to move

The drawing combination played here works because of a checkmate threat that all chess players need to know. From Mamedyarov,S. -- Vachier Lagrave, M., Beograd 2022 152/145.

Black to move

Take a crack at solving these. I respond to comments, so you can post your solutions if you like.