  Patzer's ½ Point By Craig Sadler | |||
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My name is Craig Sadler, webmaster of the Ottawa Chess Club and confirmed patzer. I decided to write a semi-regular chess article for the webpage from my point of view. I say semi-regular because in a previous incarnation of this webpage I had things like "Game of the Week" that turned into "Game of the Month" and then the "Semi-Annual Best Game" and so on. I will try to make up a new article every two weeks or so if time permits. So what is this section going to be about? Whatever I want :) It's sort of going to be a chess diary with some of my games thrown in (not for purposes of vanity Raymond Keene, believe me), patzer analysis of some famous and grandmaster games, book reviews and God knows what else. I'll admit it...I had/have a problem. Just looking through my chess library will tell you that - The Two Knights Defense by Mikhalchishin + Beliavsky, Modern Chess Openings, Batsford Chess Openings, How to Play the Semi-Slav, How to Play the Caro-Kann Advance, The Caro-Kann, Beating the Caro-Kann with the Advance, Caro-Kann Advance, How to Play the Evans Gambit, ... the list goes on and on. Knowledge is power in chess? So it would seem. There's nothing more frustrating than getting beaten by somebody because he/she knows more. I think we've all had a game like this at one time or another... 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6?! 3.Nxe5 fxe5 4.Qh5+ g6 5.Qxe5+ Ne7 6.Qxh8 h5 7.Qd4 Nbc6 8.Qf6 d6 9.Bb5 Bd7 10.d3 a6 11.Bc4 b5 12.Qf7# 1-O And this all happened because Tim didn't know that 2. ... f6?! was a *bad* way to defend the e5 square. I started off playing correspondence chess by email, so getting some opening theory books was a must. But I ended up memorizing lines for no reason, and when I'd be all set to do theoretical battle with somebody OTB in my newest idea in the Caro-Kann, they'd start the game like this 1.e4 c6 2.Bc4?! taking me out of "book" by the second move. Instead of studying things that would actually help me become a better player (like combinations, tactics, endings) I was wasting my time reading about obscure things that I would never, ever encounter OTB in my entire life, like the Botvinnik System (1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.Bg5 dxc4 6.e4 b5 7.e5 h6 8.Bh4 g5 9.Nxg5 hxg5 10.Bxg5 Nbd7).  So what to do? Obviously, *some* amount of opening theory is necessary (if even just to avoid traps like my game above) but how much? And where do you draw the line? Here is my Patzer's take on openings This is a *very* difficult thing to do (especially for me, considering that I've played in 3 CFC tournaments this year and switched between 1.c4, 1.e4 and 1.Nf3 in all of them). If you're just starting out, don't just flip through the MCO, open up a random page and say "I'm going to play the Benko Gambit." Play classical openings like the Ruy Lopez and Queen's Gambit Declined. Play some gambits. Play a lot of different things until you find an opening where you get positions that you enjoy and that you're comfortable playing. Once you've decided what you're going to play, play it often, even to the point of ad nauseum. I have kept track of all the correspondence games that I've played on the Internet and as of May 28th, 2001 I've played 173 games of "my" opening in the past 2 years. That's not counting the hundreds of off-hand games and blitz games that I haven't recorded. By repeatedly playing "my" opening I've learned how to get a playable position in most games of "my" opening (Grandmasterov may disagree). For a good link on how to make an opening "yours" go to Randy Bauer's page on Playing to Win with "Your" Opening. It may be a little extreme for people of my/our level, but it is instructive nonetheless. A great way to improve your opening theory without sifting through opening tomes is to analyze your games (particularly your losses) with free computer software such as Chessbase Light. This way you can improve your play not by memorizing move orders, but rather by memorizing ideas. I'll give a personal recent example of this: 1.d4 c6 2.c4 d5 3.c5?! b6?! 4.b4 bxc5 5.bxc5 Bf5 6.Bf4 g6
7.Nf3 Bg7 8.e3 Nf6 9.Nbd2 O-O 10.Ne5 Qc8 11.Qa4 Bd7 12.Nb3 Ne4 13.Nxd7 Qxd7 14.f3 Nc3 15.Qb4 Nb5 16.Bxb5 cxb5 17.O-O e6 18.a4 bxa4 19.Rxa4 Nc6 20.Qa3 f5 21.Na5 Nxa5 22.Rxa5 Qb7 23.Bd6 Rfd8 24.Ra1 a6 25.Rxa6 Rxa6 26.Qxa6 Qb3 27.Qa3 Qxa3 28.Rxa3 f4 29.Bxf4 Rc8 30.Kf2 Kf7 31.Ra7+ Kf6 32.Be5+ 1-O About a month later I got into a similar position vs. my brother on the Black side of a Caro-Kann after the moves 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 Nf6 5.c5?! and I knew the idea of how to create counterplay against the pawn-advance and followed up 5. ... Nc6 6.Bb5 Bd7 7.Ne2 e5!. My brother didn't follow up properly and got mated about 10 moves later so he didn't want me to post the entire game :) The point that I'm trying to make is that by analyzing your games and figuring out what the best moves are in positions can only help later on. The fact that Vivas played 3.c5?! against me brings me nicely into my last point... I had been preparing the Semi-Slav defense for at least two months before the tournament and never once in *any* of my Semi-Slav books did they have any information on the 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.c5 line that Fabio played against me in the above game. The same is true in 99% of the games that I play. Like I said above, I've kept track of the correspondence games in the past 2 years that I've played and let's see what "moves" (and I use that in the loosest sense of the word) that opponents have played against me after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3. In addition to the usual 2. ... Nc6, 2. ... Nf6 (Petroff) and 2. ... d6 (Philidor), I have repeatedly faced 2. ... f6 (Damiano Defense), 2. ... Qe7, 2. ... d5, 2. ... Bd6 and 2. ... Qf6 just to name a few and that's only some of the things played on the second move! What I'm saying is that at our/my level, it's not necessary to try and master the nuances of the Open Ruy Lopez at the 19th move when a lot of the times, people will play 2. ... Qe7. Just play and analyze your games and good chess will follow. As Alex Dunne says in his excellent book, How To Be A Class A Player, "As you get stronger, you will play stronger openings". The important thing at our level is just to play chess and avoid blundering the king :) I had no idea that people actually read this stuff :) so i was pleasantly surprised when I received an email from a reader. If anyone has any questions (about chess or life in general) that they would like answered from a Patzer's perspective, please send them to craigsadler@ottawachessclub.com Hey Craig,  There *better* be an explanation for this or else they would've stopped playing the Ruy Lopez 200 years ago :) The idea behind 3.Bb5 is to pin the knight on c6 to the king. After 3 moves, the knight is not yet pinned,but eventually Black is going to move his d-pawn forward (or else his center is going to be over-run) and the knight will be pinned to the king, which is never a good thing. The move normally played after 3. ... a6 is either 4.Ba4 or 4.Bxc6 (see Supplementary Games). Why not other moves? Other bishop moves could have been played on move 3 (Bc4, Bd3, Be2, etc.) so it actually *would* be a waste of tempo because you would be moving the bishop back to a square that it could have reached before, only Black would have the advantage of ... a6. So why is 4.Ba4played by most players? Because it keeps the pin on the knight! It takes another move by Black (...b5) to get the knight unpinned, but then it moves the bishop to b3, which is a great square for the bishop because it is on a good diagonal to attack the king, and particularly attack the f7-square. It may seem like a waste of tempo, but remember that it *costs* Black tempos (or tempi, if you prefer) to move the White bishop to a *better* square. If I haven't convinced you and you're really worried about tempo, then you should play the exchange variation 4.Bxc6, doubling up Black's pawns, but giving up the bishop pair. Normally in that opening, the queens are switched off early and it goes to an endgame. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 b5 5.Bb3 Bc5 6.c3 d6 7.d4 Bb6 8.dxe5 Qe7 9.Bd5 Bb7 10.Bg5 f6 11.exf6 Nxf6 12.O-O Qd7 13.Bxf6 gxf6 14.Nd4 Bxd4 15.Qh5+ Kd8 16.cxd4 Kc8 17.Rc1 Nxd4 18.Bxb7+ Kxb7 19.Qd5+ Nc6 20.a4 Kb6 21.a5+ Kb7 22.Ra3 1-O 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.O-O f6 6.d4 exd4 7.Nxd4 c5 8.Nb3 Qxd1 9.Rxd1 Bd7 10.a4 O-O-O 11.Be3 b6 12.Nc3 Bd6 13.a5 c4 14.axb6 cxb3 15.Rxa6 Ne7 16.Ra8+ Kb7 17.Ra7+ Kb8 18.Nd5 Nxd5 19.exd5 Bc8 20.bxc7+ Bxc7 21.c4 Bb7 22.Rd3 Rd7 23.Rxb3 Bd6 24.Ra5 Kc8 25.Rab5 Bb8 26.g3 Re8 27.c5 Ba7 28.c6 Bxc6 29.dxc6 Rc7 30.Rb7 1-O 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 e6 5.Bg5 dxc4 6.e4 b5 7.e5 h6 8.Bh4 g5 9.Nxg5 hxg5 10.Bxg5 Nbd7 11.exf6 Bb7 12.g3 c5 13.d5 Qb6 14.Bg2 O-O-O 15.O-O b4 16.Na4 Qb5 17.a3 exd5 18.axb4 cxb4 19.Be3 Nc5 20.Qg4+! Rd7 21.Qg7!! Bxg7 22.fxg7 Rg8 23.Nxc5 d4? 24.Bxb7+ Rxb7 25.Nxb7! Qb6! 26.Bxd4! Qxd4 27.Rfd1 Qxb2 28.Nd6+ Kb8 29.Rdb1! Qxg7 30.Rxb4+ Kc7 31.Ra6 Rb8 32.Rxa7+ Kxd6 33.Rxb8 Qg4 34.Rd8+ Kc6 35.Ra1 1-O 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 Be7 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bh4 O-O 7.e3 b6 8.Bd3 Bb7 9.O-O Nbd7 10.Bg3 c5 11.cxd5 Nxd5 12.Nxd5 exd5 13.b3 a6 14.Rc1 Re8 15.Re1 Nf6 16.Bh4 Ne4 17.Bxe7 Qxe7 18.Rc2 a5 19.Qc1 Rec8 20.Rd1 a4 21.h3 axb3 22.axb3 Qf6 23.Qb2 Nd6 24.Ne5 Rc7 25.Be2 Ne4 26.Bf3 Ng5 27.Bg4 Qe7 28.Rdc1 Bc8 29.Bxc8 ½-½  If you want to comment on Patzer's ½ Point or anything else, please do so at the Message Board | ||
