Saturday, February 11, 2006

Finished unit 21 & 22 and working on 23


Finished unit 21 & 22 of tactics module 1, and currently working on 23. Progress has been kind of slow due to an increased difficulty and playing live games jitters. I got very inspired by watching the stuff (untill so far) on the Andrew Martin and The Basics of Winning Chess DVD, and really felt the need to go on a playing streak. For some reason the DVD inspired me also to try out different openings. Though the beginning of the new year also played a role in it. Anyway, i just wanted to try out and play, relying purely on basics. As in; Take the centre, develop your pieces, get castled... That sort of stuff. But also in an action and reaction kinda way. Inspired by an article i read quite a while back, in which a GM told a player that chess was actually very simple. That it was only a matter of "you make a move, your opponent makes a move, your opponent makes a move, you make a move" or something like that. I cannot exactly recall it. But i believe it was David Bronstein who said it. Naturally the player thought to himself that if it was really that simple, then everybody would be a master at the game. But if you look real closely at preferably a classic game, and dig into it deep, the simplicity which the GM tried to get across, really starts to appear. Well, to me it did... Anyway, i am going to show you some games now (little or no analysis/annotations) which i tried to approach with that same simplicity. Games in which i am using openings which i played when i just started out, and had very bad results with at that time. In the first place because i had a lack of knowledge, but i also feel i took a far too complicated approach to playing them. For about a year now i have been trying to avoid playing those openings.

Two Knights game as black (click to replay)
Nothing much to add, other then the fact that (with all due respect) my opponent probably was not that good at chess yet. Not that i consider myself good at it, but i was probably better :)

Closed Sicilian as white (click to replay)
Here i would like to add, that i never knew about the existence of this King's Bishop Sicilian fianchetto variation. I just played 3.g3 because it felt natural. Turns out it existed allready. For a very long time. So much for finding an opening renamed after me...

Sicilian Najdorf as black (click to replay)
Nothing much to add, other then the fact the Najdorf isn't really suitable for blitz games. Too complicated. Atleast, for me that is...

Sicilian Moscow Variation as black (click to replay)
Nothing much to add.

Ruy Lopez as white (click to replay)
I would like to add here, that after having watched a game from Fischer which is used as an example on the Andrew Martin DVD, and having listened to the commentary in which Andrew Martin explains that Fischer was always looking to keep it simple in a game, i felt that the exchange of Knight for Bishop right away in the opening, was the simplest way of dealing with the Ruy.

Ruy Lopez as black (click to replay)
I always hated playing the Ruy as black, untill i discovered the existence of a fianchettoed Bishop variation in which you fianchetto the King's Bishop early on in the game. And i like it. I really do... Come to think of it, i must have somekind of fianchettoed Bishop fetish :)

3 Comments:

At 11 February, 2006 08:11 , Blogger Calvin said...

in the first game, white used my opening! he didn't know how to play it though.

 
At 11 February, 2006 08:34 , Blogger Edwin 'dutchdefence' Meyer said...

I guess he didn't ;)

 
At 14 March, 2006 15:18 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

It was Petrosian. I think this is what you are referring to "You know, all these lofty matters we have been studying - strategy and endless opening subtleties - are not the main thing. The match will be decided, first and foremost, by our calculation reflexes during play, or, as they say, who is better at doing 'you go there and I go here..." – Tigran Petrosian
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