The Survival Guide to Queen + Rook ‘Endgames’
Positions with a queen and rook each (and no other pieces, excepting the kings and pawns) possess very different characteristics to other positions with simplified material.
Let’s start with the following position which illustrates the more dynamic nature of these positions:
Question: What is the oldest opening tabiya (theoretical position) in chess, aside from the initial position?
Answer: If you read last week’s post you will know the answer: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Qe7, which is pretty much forgotten today but remains unrefuted – Black allows White to play d4 and achieve a slight space advantage, but in returns obtains a solid d6/e5 central pawn structure and possibilities for counterplay against White’s centre.
Learning from the Old Masters
The Rudiments of Chess Understanding
Often you hear someone make a remark along the lines of ‘That player has a good understanding of chess’ or an excuse for losing like ‘My opponent has no understanding but I missed his cheap trick’. In chess, understanding refers to how well one appreciates the value of pieces, pawns and squares in a given position.
How to Ace the South-East Easter Tour
Blog Post 6-4-2013
Games Outside the Spotlight
With the Candidates tournament having such an exciting finish (for those of you who missed it – Carlsen is Anand’s challenger for the World Championship Match) it’s easy to forget that other tournaments were being played at the same time! So for this blog post I’ve decided to write a ‘Games Column’ of sorts with three lightly annotated games from various open tournaments. You’ll notice I haven’t covered any Doeberl Cup games – that’s because I’ll be going through those next week! ;
Blog Post 25-03-2013
A Theoretical Overview of Rounds 1-8 of the Candidates
Blog Post 18-03-2013
The Big Clamp
The World Champions (Part Four)
In this blog post I’ll look at two games: firstly a win by Kasparov against Anand and secondly a win by Kramnik with the black pieces against Kasparov, both games being played in 1996. Both games are very exciting with a lot of tension in the middlegame.
(267) Kasparov,Garry (2785) - Anand,Viswanathan (2735) [B14]
It (cat.17) Amsterdam (Netherlands) (3), 1996
[Illingworth,Max]
1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 [The Panov-Botvinnik Attack will almost always lead to an IQP position.]
The World Champions Part Three
For this blog post I’ll go through two more games played between the world champions. Unfortunately Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov never played each other, so we’ll have to settle for one of Fischer’s wins against one of his predecessors, namely Tigran Petrosian who had an exceptionally solid style and whose trademark was the positional exchange sacrifice, which he introduced into the arena of chess tournaments. Meanwhile Fischer possessed an extremely aggressive style, backed up by thorough opening preparation and machine-like calculation.
