Chess for Beginners

Silman calls the Lucena Position “The Holy Grail of Rook Endings”. In this position Regardless of who’s turn it is to move, White wins.

1.Rf2+ Forcing Black’s King to leave the scene of the battle.

1…Kg7 [1...Kg6 2.Rf4 Kg5 3.Rd4 Kf6 4.Ke8 Re1+ 5.Kf8 Rf1 6.d8Q+ Ke5+ 7.Ke7 ]

2.Rf4 Building a bridge.

2…Kg6 3.Ke7 Only now should White leave the cover of his pawn. Since promotion is threatened Black must go into checking mode.

3…Re1+ 4.Kd6 Rd1+ 5.Ke6 Re1+ 6.Kd5 Rd1+ 7.Rd4 Rxd4+ 8.Kxd4 Kf6 9.d8Q+ 1-0

Study Schedule

Legend:

* If you run out of time during daily session, you can finish annotating your game during the study openings session

** Study strategy by going over annotated master games

*** Use Stoyko Exercises format

Virtual Chess Coach Pt I

About the Virtual Chess Coach Program

This program is geared for my improvement (a 35 year old 1278 USCF rated player), but I hope that others in a similar situation will be able to derive benefit from it as well.

I will be modeling this program on the teaching’s of Dan Heisman. Dan Heisman is one of the best chess teacher’s in the United States and if you don’t already know this, then run to danheisman.com and check out his Novice Nook articles at Chess Cafe.

Now not all of us can afford a chess coach, so we will be using books and information available on the web (Heisman’s Novice Nook Articles) to create a virtual chess coaching experience. If you can afford a coach, then there is no substitute for the hands on feedback that they can provide but I’m aiming to make this the second best thing.

Things to know before we go on:

• This program is aimed at the adult beginner / intermediate player (ELO 1200 - 1700)
• Our chess philosophy will be based around Dan Heisman (with a sprinkle of Purdy and Silman for good measure)

Absolute Beginners

For complete beginner’s to chess Heisman recommends they start with The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Chess and then go to a basic chess tactics book like John Bain’s Chess Tactics for Students. After doing this you should be approximately 1200 ELO and then this guide will be more useful to you.

The Assessment Phase

We need to assess our strengths and weaknesses, yet we are in no position to do so (how can we assess what we do not know / understand). This is one of the weaknesses of not having the feedback mechanism a coach provides. But do not fret, there is a great book that helps you assess your strengths and weaknesses in chess, and that book is Igor Khmelnitsky’s Chess Exam and Training Guide. After going through Igor’s book, you will have an idea of which areas of your chess need to focus your improvement efforts.

Assessing Your Games

Another area where a coach can provide much needed feedback is in going over your games. Because we’ll be going at it on our own the following process is very important in order to get a close benefit to that of having a real coach.

• Go over all of your losses.
• Quickly re-play the game again making light annotations
• Go over the game in detail, and this time make extensive annotations and analysis
• Go over the game with a chess engine and compare your annotations with those of the engine

Key things to look for when annotating your game

You should jot these down as part of your annotations and include them in your chess notebook

• See where you could have improved in the opening
• Look for missed tactical opportunities (both defensive and offensive)
• Look for missed positional opportunities
• Look for missed opportunities in the endgame, if necessary refer to Mueller’s Fundamental Chess Endings
• Look for moves that caused a shift in the game based on the engine’s evaluation. (any move with an evaluation change greater than .35) and find out the root cause behind the evaluation shift, then go back to your annotations and make sure you address this and don’t forget to add this to your chess notebook.

The games you annotate and go over, should be standard time control games if possible. You should make an effort to play at least 1-2 standard games (>= G/30) per week. You can do this by either joining the Team 45 45 league, or playing ICC’s Standard Tourney or even playing at your local chess club. These games will give you more food for thought than quickly played blitz games, but if you do not have at least 1 standard game to go over, then do go over your well played blitz games (which is better than not going over your games at all).

Thought Process Before Lessons

There are certain bad habits that you should eliminate before you consider taking lessons, otherwise you would be throwing your money away. Most of these stem from careless play or hope chess .

• Do not leave pieces en prise
• Do not move quickly and without thought
• Perform a blundercheck before playing your move

Reference

The following books and websites will be used for this program:

Tactics

Back to Basics Tactics

Chess Tactics for Beginners (Convekta)

Endgames

Silman’s Complete Endgame Course

Strategy

The Art of Logical Chess Thinking

Thought Process

Everyone’s 2nd Chess Book

Play

• FICS
• ICC
• Redhotpawn (Correspondence)

Tactics Program

This tactics training program should not take more than 30 minutes per session, and it is flexible enough where you can adjust the amount of puzzles and / or the amount of time spent per puzzle as well as the session time so that you can customize it to your needs and study time available.

Week 1

Day 1 = 10 puzzles @ 3 minutes per puzzle
Day 2 = 10 new + 10 from day 1(d1) = 20 puzzles @ 1.5 min / puzzle
Day 3 = 10 new + 10d1 + 10d2 = 30 puzzles @ 1 min / puzzle
Day 4 = 10 new + 10d1 + 10d2 + 10d3 = 40 puzzles @ 45 sec / puzzle
Day 5 = Review previous 40 questions @ 35 sec / puzzle

Week 2

Days 1-4 are the same as week 1
Day 5 Repeat 40 questions from week + include 10 random questions from the previous week for a total of 50 questions @ 35 sec/ question.

Resources

Since we will be using a smaller pool of puzzles, it is very important that the puzzles selected provide the user with the most critical patterns so that you can get the most benefit out of your study time.

While you can use any book or software that contains rich tactical / strategic positions, the following two books contain 900 critical positions that will assist you in getting the most out of your training time:

• Lev Alburt’s Chess Training Pocket Book contains 300 critical positions.
• Practical Chess Exercises by Ray Cheng provides us with 600 tactical and strategic positions gathered from real amateur level games.

Monday
Study Endings (30 min)
Solve Tactics (30 min)

Tuesday
Play (ST Tourney on ICC G/60) (up to 2 hrs)

Wednesday
Analyze my game (1 hr)
Study Openings (part of game analysis)

Thursday
Study Strategy (30 min)
Solve Endings (30 min)

Friday
Solve Strategy (annotated master game review with Stoyko exercise at critical points) (1hr)
Solve Tactics (30 min)

Saturday
Play G/30 (up to 1 hr)
Analyze game (30 min)

Sunday
Solve Tactics (optional) (30 min)

Resources

Strategy: Logical Chess Move by Move and Chess Strategy for Kids

Endgame:Silman’s Complete Endgame Course and Pandolfini’s Endgame Course

Tactics: Convekta’s Chess Tactics for Beginners

The Program

The following system is geared towards adult beginners with an ELO rating of 1200-1800. It is a modified version of Irina Mikhailova’s schedule which she used at the Petrosian Chess School. [1]

I have left the schedule flexible so that it can be modified based on the time you have to dedicate to chess study. For my own use, I plan on devoting 1 hour to chess at least 6 times per week for a total of 6 hours of chess study per week. If you want to add more time, simply multiply the hours per block. For example, I am using 30 minute blocks, so 1 block of study endings is equivalent to 30 minutes. If you want to devote more time simply multiply 1 hour X block for each theme.

Below are some of the differences between the original Mikahilova schedule and this version:

• Less emphasis on opening study.

• Spread across more days, but fewer hours of study per day. This is a 6 day program and the original was a 4 day program.

• Is geared towards a lower rated working adult.

• Strong emphasis on endgame studies, and contains a study endings theme which the original version did not.

• Strong focus on tactics training as the original.

• Incorporates the shortcut version of Michael de la Maza’s Seven Circles training.

• Time has been allocated for analyzing your games.

• Solving strategy session revolves around going over annotated master games.

In a nutshell, this program contains 4 of the things most chess coaches say are critical to improvement:

1. Going over annotated master games.

2. Repetition of tactical puzzles to burn in pattern recognition.

3. Playing slow games of G/30 or greater.

4. Analyzing your games, to find out your mistakes and preventing their reoccurrence.

Another benefit of the program is that it also grants structure and maximizes your chess study time.

Study Schedule

When performing the modified 7 circles training, I recommend that you use the difficulty level method, and begin with the level 10 puzzles. The first cycle will take you through the first 200 puzzles, which will range in difficulty from 10-20. You then begin the next cycle with puzzle 201, etc. I tried to keep the time per puzzle to 20-50 minutes since my block time is 30 minutes.

Seven Circles Shortcut

If you follow the schedule it should take you approximately 4 weeks to finish 1 cycle of 200 puzzles and 1000 puzzles in approximately 20 weeks.

Resources

Tactics: CT-ART 3.0, Chess Tactics Server

Study Endings: Silman’s Complete Endgame Course, Just the Facts by Lev Alburt

Solve Endings: Silman’s Complete Endgame Course, Personal Chess Trainer.

Solve Strategy: Zurich International Chess Tournament 1953

Study Strategy: Reassess your Chess by Jeremy Silman, My System by Nimzowich

Reference
[1] http://www.convekta.com/softscho/l1/lesson_3.html
[2] http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles148.pdf and http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles150.pdf

Triangulation refers to a King maneuver which aims to lose a tempo, and leave the opponent with the move. (Dvoretsky) The d5 and d7 square are in correspondence. White in this position can easily “lose” a tempo and place his opponent in zugzwang.

1.Ke5! Kc6 2.Kd4 Kd7 3.Kd5 White has acheived his aim, by creating a triange with his King. We are now back to the starting position, except that White now has the opposition and it is Black’s turn to move, and the rest is a matter of technique. 3…Kc8 4.Ke6! Attaining the diagonal opposition. 4…Kd8 5.Kd6 Attaining the vertical opposition. 5…Kc8 6.Ke7 Kb8 7.Kd7 Ka8 8.c6+-

Position after White’s 8th move.

The game would continue as follows: bxc6 9.Kc7 c5 10.b7+ Ka7 11.b8Q+.

Key squares are squares whose occupation by the King assures victory, regardless of whose turn it is to move. (Dvoretsky)

White to move is a draw.

It is important to note that a pawn on the 4th rank or below has 3 key squares, whereas a pawn on the 5th rank or higher has six key squares.

A Pawn on the 5th rank or higher has 6 key squares.

In the example below the key squares are a6, b6 and c6. The key to winning in this position is for the White king to head to the square furthest away from the enemy King (a6), since that square will be the hardest to defend.

1.Kc2! Ke7 2.Kb3 Kd6 3.Ka4 (3.Kc4? Kc6=) 3…Kc6 4.Ka5 Kb7 5.Kb5 +- and Black is in zugzwang.

The following is a classic pawn breakthrough that creates a passed pawn for the most advanced side. The key things to keep in mind is that this breakthrough will only work for the side that is most advanced and both the breakthrough and defense begin by moving the middle pawn.

White to move and win

1.b6! The breakthrough works for the side that is most advanced, in this case White. 1…cxb6 [1...axb6 2.c6 bxc6 3.a6] 2.a6 This move removes the b7 pawn. 2…bxa6 3.c6 and the c-pawn promotes, because the Black King is too far away to stop it. If Black had the move he could have defended with 1…b6! preventing the breakthrough.

After a few days using the Generic Training Schedule, I have a few minor modifications to adapt it to better fit the needs of the club level chess player. The original ChessOK article was geared towards 2000+ level players who have different needs than beginners. One major difference between experts and amateurs is the importance of opening preparation at the expert class, and this focus can be seen throughout the original GTS plan. Another feature of this new version of the schedule is that the play time is spaced in such a way as to allow you to try out new ideas and openings that were covered on previous days.

In this new adaptation I have halved the opening study time and focused on endgame and tactical study time which will better address the needs of amateurs.

The end result would look something like this:

Day 1

Study Openings 1U

Solve Tactics 1U

Study Endings 1U

Study Strategy 1U

Day 2

Study Endings 1U

Solve Tactics 1U

Play 1U

Study Strategy 1U

Day 3

Study Strategy 1U

Solve Tactics 1U

Solve Endings 1U

Study Openings 1U

Day 4

Solve Tactics 1U

Study Endings 1U

Study Strategy 1U

Play 1U