What have I forgotten? Part 1: On tactics

Its been a while since I’ve really been able to devote serious attention to chess. I can say at least 9 months have passed, though I had a couple of cameo appearances back during the holidays. Back then, I was looking to see what I could retain from training and what I had lost from memory with a focus on “rust proofing” my training.  I had some marginal success and managed to not drop terribly too much in rating and performance.  So now that it’s been even longer since my last serious look at my studies, I thought I’d spend the month of May re-immersing myself back into the practice of chess improvement.

I am not so concerned about chasing the ratings than I am about learning a key concept about learned skill versus memorization. I really think that the positional studies I did with pawn formations last year really helped me develop a skill of positional understanding. I also realize I can’t escape the memory issues as certain variations and sharper lines do require this aptitude.

What are things that can be regarded as skills?

•           Tactics
•           Knowing Key positional concepts ( ex: IQP, Minority attacks)
•           Endgame techniques
•           Transitions
•           Time
•           Handling imbalances
•           Defending
•           Attacking
•           Playing out of your comfort zone
•           Knowing “your game”

I am sure there are more and I deliberately left out openings as I feel that this idea falls into the category of some memorization required.  Like coming back to a musical instrument, you may remember the scales or your old favorite song from motor memory, but that difficult piece you once played after practicing it  for hours before a single performance, doesn’t come back as easily. You only recall fragments.

So as I come back into this game, the first I look at are my tactical skills. About six years ago, I started on the MDLM journey of improvement my tactics through the seven circles of hell. I’ve completed two sets of 7 times 1200 problems  and had been on my third pass through when I realized that there was diminishing returns.  Before 2006, my tactical skills were abysmal. At the very least, the MDLM approach BURNED into my memory key patterns and underlying themes behind the tactics. 

So why do I still struggle with tactics despite being a rapid improvement “graduate” twice over?  It has to do with how I went about it.  After a certain threshold, my ability to recall and recognize patterns  were not mapped correctly. I wasn’t consciously creating my own narrative during each puzzle and most importantly during the ones I missed, not taking the time to understand why I missed it. Instead, because of the repetitious nature of the MDLM method, it was masked over with subsequent success and a false sense of security. In order for me to utilize the pattern recognition powers of my prefrontal cortex, I need to employ the correct supervised learning technique that only comes from the internal dialog when you are FIRST struggling with the problem. This process creates the right labeling that I can then use to recall the correct technique. Otherwise it falls under unsupervised learning and I take the “canned” labeling providing by the tool which doesn’t really mean anything and tend to cluster similar ideas together increasing my failure rate during recall.

In other words, even though the lower level of tactics  may seem easy to some, simply rushing through them to get to the next level without classifying each instance on your own terms  leaves you with clusters of patterns that may seem alike but require a nuance to perform correctly.

So as I started back up on tactical training to take the rust off, I was well aware that I had some patterns well mapped because I recalled the inner dialog I associated with the pattern.  For instance “ This is a geographical motif with a knight, but I need to remove the guard first and then white wins a piece.” If I don’t have this down for ALL THE BASIC THEMES, solving the higher levels becomes that much more difficult as those problems compound on top of each other.

Well it’s back to basics for me but with a new twist, “Supervised Learning”.   My blogging friend Temposchlucker at http://temposchlucker.blogspot.com/ has several posts about breaking down tactics and his own supervised learning approach.

My next post I’ll look at the supervised learning techniques I  used for positional understanding and how it’s been impacted with my absence from play.

Pawn Formations Part 3: The Grunfeld

Ernst Grunfeld introduce this defense against none other than Alexander Alekhine in Vienna in 1922. Oddly enough, Grunfeld was known more for his classical style ( Tarrasch-Steinitz school of chess) which tended to stay on the side of avoiding complex variations. Thus, when he deployed this defense against 1.d4, he challenged one of the Hypermodern proponents from the start.

Hat tip to RC_Wood from Chess.com for providing this game with annotations.



In the game, Alekhine takes on the exchange variation throwing everything including an early h4 pawn march. You see an early Bg5 which was later developed by Taimanov. He throws in a Bb5+ line made popular in the 1990’s. Alekhine’s folly seemed to be in not playing e4 early.

The main line for the Grunfeld Defense’s Exchange Variation follows: 1.d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 ( to immediately challenge e4) 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Bg7

The position above reaches the main branching lines of either the Modern 7.Nf3 or the classical 7.Bc4. Other minor variations include 7.Bb5+ 7. Be3 7.Bg5, 7Qa5+ . This post will focus mainly on the Classical variation with 7.Bc4.

In my repertoire, with Rubinstein variation against the Nimzo-Indian and the Samisch against the KID, picking the classical in the exchange variation of the Grunfeld made the most sense since similar themes arise. The King knight typically goes to e2 but this time with the eye on f4, Castling King side is the only option, and the Queen Bishop will also go to e3 but can be played to g5 ( Taimanov variation).

The Queen rook will want most likely be used to support the c-file as Black will attack on the Queen side. White will have the initiative on the b-file in the end game but the weakness is centered around the c3 pawn. The pawn move to f3 comes about if the Black bishop moves to g4 or to prevent it in some cases.

After White plays 7.Bc4, Black has three main replies following the choices of either continuing with development or put pressure on d4. On 7…0-0, this keeps the development rush going, White plays Ne2 this is the main line continuation. The minor line with 7…b6 is a little slow and White can begin an attack on the Kingside with h4. 7…c5 makes a direct attack on the d4 square and white needs to support this with Ne2 followed by Be3 as Balck can build up forces on this immediately.

With the main line following 7..0-0 8.Ne2, Black needs to keep the pressure on d4 and white needs to respond according. Black has three main choices, 8…Qd7, 8…b6 or 8…Nc6. With the last one being the most energetic, White needs to keep the pressure balanced. Following 8…Nc6 9.0-0 is important 9…e5 10. Be3 Qe7 11.f3 Rd8 12.Rc1 gets us to a typical position in the grunfeld with dynamics on both sides:

White needs to be cautious of not advancing the pawn to d5 too soon as Black will attack the Bishop with …Na5 where typically the bishop goes to the more aggressive square of d5. The Bishop is on a good diagonal ( a2-g8) for a king side attack if he can muster the troops.

If Black plays 8..b6, White can immediately begin a King side assault with h4. If Black follows with Nc6 , white will play Bd5 almost immediately if he can. If Black plays the 8…Qd7 first, white has time to castle. After 8…Qd7 9.0-0 b6 then white can actually begin an assault with the e4-e5 push. With the Bishop on c4 ( a2-g8 diagonal), the troops will rally to Nf4, Qg4 h4 and h5 if allowed, making for a strong attack.

Similarities and differences within the repertoire so far:

It helps limit the breadth of opening variations to study if you can find similarities with certain groups. With the Samisch, Rubinstein and Grunfeld variations I reviewed in this past three posts, the similarities can be seen in early piece placement and d5-e4 pawn chain formations. But I have to caution about following “rote” systems of piece placements as the three variations covered are all very dynamic openings not meant for “safe” piece placement until you reach the middle game. Rather, knowing the nuances is critical and will help broaden my understanding of this complex game.

For instance, look at White’s King Bishop in all three opening variations. In the Grunfeld Exchange mainline, there is no doubt that the best placement for the King’s bishop is on c4 which is created after cxd5. This can not be achieved in either NI-Rubinstein or KID-Samish. In fact, the King’s Bishop becomes more of an awkward piece with Ne2 played early delaying the development of the king side.

Another factor to consider is when Black plays b6. The Fischer variation of the Rubinstein in the Nimzo-Indian is the most critical challenge ( in my opinion) and white needs to play energetically to save the king side. In the Grunfeld, this is more innocuous which usually allows white to grab some King side attacking initiative.

The last point I will bring up is White’s advance of the d-pawn to d5. We see this as a space grabbing move for the KID and NI variations discussed. This closes the center allowing for some careful piece maneuvering. The Black pawn on d6 could become an endgame liability so the middle game requires the right balance of piece migration and wing attacks. However, once the d-pawn is removed like in the Grunfeld, the position is not as closed. Both bishops are present for both sides. Quick precision and initiative take precedent over positional maneuvering.

I’m fired up! Next post I will look at the QGD orthodox and QGA.

Pawn formations Part 2: Rubinstein vs Nimzovich

A study on the pawn formations common to the Rubinstein Variation of the Nimzo-Indian Defense:

Akiba Rubinstein was a good endgame tactician in the times of hypermodernism in chess. He approached the hypermodern defenses with a sense of winning the endgame early on in the opening. He had a solid grasp of pawn formations. He stepped up to the challenge of the potentially weakened hypermodern pawn center brought on by the likes of Nimzovich and Reti. He knew that a well supported pawn center gave him the mobility he needed while Black conceded the breaking pawn moves to “release” the latent forces. The levers and breaking moves had a tendency to create targets in the endgame ( like d6 being backward) if he created a solid support system for his central position. Thus, the Rubinstein variation was exercised by this creative tactician against the Nimzo-Indian defense.

I actually tried to find an early game of Rubinstein versus Nimzovitch playing their signature lines. The closest I could come to this was a game played in 1928 in Berlin.



The variation takes on more of a classical but by move 5, you start to see the signature moves of his variation. Perhaps he played a move order variation to throw any preparation by Nimzovitch. It’s an interesting game that has a knight sacrifice on move 36 targeting the weakened d6 square after a middle game scrum over the center and pawns.

The true Rubinstein variation begins on move 4 of the Nimo-Indian following 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3. Black has several real choices 4… Nc6, 4…d5, 4…0-0, 4…c5, 4…b6. Before I get into a cursory discussion of these branches, I want to point out the starting pawn formation:



For White, e4 is weak and supporting it will become a theme for the next several moves. White does enjoy more space to place the pieces but Black tends to get a jump on development given the minimal pawn moves. Black’s choices from above can be broken into three categories, 1) Stay ahead of development, 2) Target e4 or 3) Attack the center.

In the category of developmental lead, 4…Nc6 and 4…0-0 follow that idea. 4…Nc6 is most assertive as it prepares the advance of e5 for Black. Best for White is to support e4 directly with 5.Bd3, e5 6. Ne2 ( intent is twofold, supports knight on c3 as well as holding g3 as a place to support e4.) 6…d5 ( thrash on the center) 7.cxd5 Nxd5 8.e4 Nb6 9.d5 and you now have the d5-pawn chain with similar themes from my previous post. The exception is that White enters this with initiative. Black will have to play energetically to make the break moves of c6 or f5. Position after 9.d5:



If Black castles on move 4, White can play 5.Nf3, 5.Bd3 or 5. Ne2. I like the last two as the Nf3 move is more like the classical variation. If Ne2 is played first, the light squared Bishop can fianchetto and white can grab some advantage. Remember, a characteristic move by Rubinstein, was playing a3 at the right moment which gave him initiative. With either Bd3 or Ne2, Black will attack the center with either c5 or d5. With 5.Ne2, white can immediately put the question to the Bishop with 6.e3 and then recapture on d5 right away without worrying too much on c3. With 5.Bd3 first, Black needs to challenge the center while white sets up Ne2 before playing a3. After 5.Bd3 d5 6.Ne2 dxc4, 7.Bxc4 e5 Black plays aggressively towards the center.



White can castle and either prepare for a good IQP position if Black captures on d4 or continue with a3 followed by d5 and achieve the d5-pawn chain game again.

If Black chooses to attack the center with 4…c5 right away, we can assume that Black will postpone castling in favor of immediate action in the center. White can use the same three choices as above with similar results preparing for either an IQP (if Bd3 first)with active pieces or perhaps an opposing pawn majority on the queenside (if Ne2 first).

The IQP has the following ideas:
Themes for White: d4-d5 break, sacrifice of the isolani, outpost on e5, kingside attack.
Themes for Black: Blockading the isolani, trading pieces for a favorable endgame.

The isolani leads to lively play revolving around the d5 square. If Black can clamp down on the pawn, her positional strengths and threat of exchanges give her the advantage. If not, the threat of the d4-d5 break is ever present, and the isolani can sometimes be sacrificed to unleash the potential of White's pieces, enabling White to whip up a whirlwind attack.


The other pawn formation is one with a pawn majority on the queenside with a space advantage.


The idea is to bring the expansive pawn forward enough to occupy Black’s pieces and then swing over to a king side attack. Black’s best hope is to muster up a minority attack against the mass before White can conjure up a king side attack.

If Black chooses to attack e4 with 4…d5, White transposes to a favorable position of the Samisch variation with 5.a3 Bxc3 6.bxc3 with a nice pawn center supported by c3 and e3. The open b-file is becomes a conduit for major pieces and a freer came for white.

This leaves the Fischer variation with 4…b6 with the intent of controlling the e4 square and further support of the advance of c5. This is probably one of the more aggressive responses to the Rubinstein variation. Here move order is critical. Moving the Bishop too soon forces the knight to play to f3 instead of the thematic Nge2 because of the weakness on g2. Making 5.Nge2 the best response. Here Black MUST play Ba6 otherwise white will be able to set up a strong pawn center after 6.a3 and 7.d5

This post is already too long. Next post I will cover the Grunfeld pawn formations. Enjoy.

I’ll have a Benoni Samisch on a light Rye.

Indian Pawn formations Part 1:

Playing the Queen’s Gambit as white opens the door to lots of responses from Black. The more popular defenses I encounter at the club against 1.d4 are the King’s Indian, the Benoni, Grunfeld and Nimzo-Indian. As a continuation from my last post I thought I’d split this into two parts and take a look at Benoni and King’s Indian pawn formations because I think they are related.




A look at the Pawn structure after the first couple of moves reveals the hypermodern theme of daring white an expanded pawn center. Black immediately takes a stance on slowing the advance of white’s e4 with the Nf6 move. The concept of these first few moves is all centered around control of e4 and d4. White wishes to accomplish this with pawns while Black will use indirect methods.

For the King’s Indian Defense,

both King side minor pieces are influencing the central squares while White gets a chance to get c4 d4 and e4 filled with pawns and a Nc3 for support. This opening shows up in 1922 by Reti with a Win against Samisch. Yates and Euwe popularized it as well in that decade where it showed up in Karlsbad, Leeds and Liverpool. At first, this defense was suspect because a lot of these earlier games seemed to give White a considerable amount of freedom.

I mention this historic introduction because this is Black’s first challenge in the pawn formation. How does he compensate for a slightly cramped position? If black holds back too long on either …c5 or …e5 to open the position, White will be able to enjoy the space advantage. Thus, after white grabs the center with 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 Black’s first objective is to deal with the center. The two choices are then either to castle or to begin playing pawns in the center with the supporting …d6.
The Modern games have …d6 favored over 0-0 since it opens the possibilities for a Bg4 and a place for Blsck’s Q-Knight to go in support of the center and the e5 push.

After d5 or 0-0, White has several options including the Main line with 5Nf3, the Fianchetto variation 5.g3 or the one I like 5.f3, the Samisch variation.

Black Follows with 0-0 or immediately with e5 and white advances to d5. At some point the following Pawn structure is reached after about 7 moves:



Right away, if this were an endgame, White’s King is positioned to march over to the Queenside and advance the troops. The essence of this pawn formation is that of the d5-pawn chain:


Themes for White: Massive queenside space advantage, c2-c4-c5 break (optionally prepared with b2-b4), prophylaxis with g2-g4 (after f2-f3), f2-f4 break.


Themes for Black: kingside attack, f7-f5 break, g7-g5-g4 break (after f2-f3), c7-c6 break, prophylaxis with c6-c5 or c7-c5 transposing to a Full Benoni formation.


The theme is a race for a breakthrough on opposite flanks - Black must try to whip up a kingside attack before White's heavy pieces penetrate with devastating effect on the c file. Opposite side castling is common with a pawn push by white on the King side. The position was thought to strongly favour White until a seminal game (Taimanov-Najdorf 1953) where Black introduced the maneuver Rf8-f7 (After f5 is played of course), Bg7-f8 ( to keep the watch on the weak d6 base for Black), Rf7-g7 as a strong defense agaisnt the marauding white pawns and pieces. Play is much slower with tempo being of little value and featuring piece maneuvering by both sides, Black focusing on the c7-c6 break and White often trying to play on the kingside with the f4 break.


Understanding this makes looking at a variation for the Benoni a little easier. Historically, the “Sorrow Child” was named as such from the studies of a Jewish Scholar, Aaron Reinganum who suffered from depression and sought relief on the chess board. Black’s pawn on d6 becomes rather sad if not handled correctly.

The benoni was originally thought to be a newer upgrade to the King’s Indian since it advanced one of the freeing moves right away. White wants to support the e4 advance with 4.Nc3. Black will fianchetto and have similar aspirations for King side attacks, timely and freeing central pawn breaks, while avoiding cramped positions.


The move order 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e5 is the old Benoni. While the Modern plays 3…e6. With either move, White tends to play 4.Nc3 followed by 5.e4 if Black doesn’t capture d5 first. So after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nb3 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.e4 g6, I like to stick with the Samisch theme and look at the line with 7.f3 we now reach a similar pawn structure:



The same ideas from the d5-pawn chain are relevant here too. Black’s weakness on d6 is pronounced. The breaking move f7-f5 is important. White will continue to advance f3-f4 and push e4-e5 if needed. Castling Q-side is common for White and then after sliding the king over to the b-file, action on the c-file with the major pieces is not uncommon. Black needs to wait on the king side attack and redirect efforts to queenside.

In the Samisch, White will play the g1 knight to e2, the pawn on f3 prevents Black from intruding on g4 with a Knight or a Bishop. Bishops on e3 and d3 ( though in the benoni formation if the Bishop can go to c4 that might actually be stronger) with the Queen on d2 creating a battery on the c1-h6 diagonal are typical as this sets up a nice advance of pawns on the kingside ( h2-h4, g2-g4, h4-h5 etc)

Here is a recent game I played at the club. It’s not perfect play but you can see I was able to be flexible with the understanding of the d5-pawn chain formation and actually gained a pawn at one point. The game ended in a draw as my concentration was distracted by outside influences part way through the game.








Next post, pawn formations from the Grunfeld will be discussed along with the Nimzo-Indian. With the Black’s pawn on d5, I elected a different approach.

I hope this information is helpful considering its from the understanding of an amateur such as myself. This is how I process the information overload of too many variations. I try to find themes I can identify through the pawns.

A Historical Perspective on the study of Pawn formations

In one of the comments to my last post lamenting the problems of trying to understand the openings beyond rote memorization, the concept of pawn structures came up. I find this is most essential today in navigating the waters of opening theory. In my process of discovery, I find that openings usually tend to follow a theme depending on the pawn structure. The side who doesn’t follow suit with the theme usually finds trouble early in the game. As I review the responses to 1.d4, I am trying to put into perspective how this may have evolved.

I look back in the days before Harry Nelson Pillsbury came on the scene. The romantic age of chess where swashbuckling gambits viewed pawns as more of an annoyance that gets in the way of carefully calculated sacrificial tactics. Pawn formation was not really considered since most of the games were open to allow the maximum piece play.

Howard Staunton penned The Chess Player’s Handbook in 1847. The mention of pawns is in Chapter VI under general rules. He goes on to mention that “..young players commonly overlook the pawns or deem them scarcely worthy of regard, and are amazed to learn that the combinations of these simple elements are among the most refined and arduous studies of the game.” His underscoring of the importance is critical in this handbook. He follows it with the first general advice around central pawns and cautionary advice about the struggle of maintaining both e- and d-pawns in the center. Most of the advice is given as cautionary and displays what I think is a timid approach. He emphasizes the weakness of moving the King’s knight pawn.

A few years later, at the dawn of the classical age of chess, Steinitz expand’s on Staunton’s ideas in his book, The Modern Chess Instructor. Prior to this, in 1862, at the London Congress, it was determined that when a pawn advances to the 8th rank, it no longer was held as a “dummy piece” until the right piece was captured to replace it. It was allowed to become any piece immediately. In the chapter of Relative piece values and Principles of play, he elaborates more on the importance of the central pawn phalanx. He goes on to describe a strategy for symmetrical e-pawn openings where both sides castle and how important it is to open the g-file. He also elaborates on the role of each of the pawns.

The positional ideas that Steinitz penned and later Tarrasch supported became the mainstay but many felt that chess was becoming stagnant as more and more draws were becoming commonplace at the top events. Here we saw the King pawn games move to Queen pawn positional games. Themes around isolated Queen pawns, the minority attack, the Wyvill and Karlsbad pawn formations and other closed systems were being realized and studied.


Enter, Pillsbury and Lasker at the end of the 1800’s and early 1900’s. They turned the dogmatic classical axioms upside down by attacking the Kingside with bishop sacrifices and attacking with Queens and minor pieces. They showed just how vulnerable an exposed king side could be if the defending forces were cut off by a closed pawn formation with pawns on e6 and d5. In essence, they demonstrated that positional play could account for material loss if given initiative and an exposed King.


This gave rise to the hypermodern defenses meant to thwart the Pillsbury attack and the Lasker Bishops. It evolved from the same roots of having a strong pawn center but challenged the idea of allowing the White pieces to over extend. They drew on the timid nature of Staunton’s warnings by allowing white to occupy the center with pawns. Having an indirect influence on the center showed later that when they broke through, the subtle positional elements proved important.

Nimzovich’s My System, has chapters dedicated on Pawn centers, Pawn chains, passed pawns, IQPs doubled pawns and more about pawn structure and weak squares. This was the first real manual relating positional elements with pawn structures. Weak squares created by pawn movement were first introduced by Steinitz. Nimzovitch takes it even further and talks about how to handle weaknesses created by pawns from both a defending and attacking perspective.

Later, we get Hans Kmoch’s landmark book on Pawn Power in Chess. Kmoch in 1959 builds on the same ideas of Staunton, Steinitz, Tarrasch, and Nimzovitch and breaks it down even further. He introduces terms like “lever” and Pawn cross as he dissects many variants and the interactions with each of the pieces. This is following the Modern Classical period highlighted with the Russian chess schools and the large opening theory that evolved 30 years after the hypermodern school debuted. The importance now shifts to the pieces and their interactions with the pawns.

Andy Soltis, recently wrote a book on Pawn Structure Chess and classifies the major pawn formations into 16 categories. He essays that understanding the schema of the pawn formations is the key to understanding the positional elements of the openings and prepares the player to handle subtle nuances and move order variations without having to study reams of opening lines.

In my next post, I will dig a little deeper on a few of these pawn schemas as they relate to my openings. In the meantime I suggest you look at this wiki link as it provides a nice synopsis of Andy’s ideas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_structure