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23 ... Rb8-b6.
Haven't listened to the podcast yet, but agree with Aaron. Generally speaking, there is a basic dynamic between "material" ( Queen = 9 points, Rook = 5, Bishop = 3, Pawn = 1 ) and "tempo" (the number of moves you have played). Often times players will sacrifice material to gain tempo, or vice versa. For example, I might give up my queen, if it gives me a raging attack against the opponent's king. Or I might take several moves to win some material (sacrificing tempo for material).
There's no mathematical formula to relate these two variables; its all position specific.
Consider the following game, considered the shortest master game on record:
1 d4 Nf6 2 Nd2 e5 3 de5 Ng4 4 h3?? Ne3! 0-1
Black is willing to sacrifice tempo AND material (the ...Nf6-g4-e3 route, ending with its death) for the win of the queen, or mate. (5 fxe3 Qh4+ 6 g3 Qg3 checkmate).
EDIT: found the above game on chessgames.com for you to play through; its Gibaud - Lazard, Paris 1924
sozin, I'm sure I must be misunderstanding your example in your last post. The game record seems to stop after 4 moves, implying that White resigned. Does this mean that White felt unable to win after losing the queen? If so, that would seem to reinforce, not refute, the idea that the queen is essential to winning the game.
I'm sure I must be overlooking something very obvious, here. I often do.
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24 ...Rc8-b8
Nope, you got it exactly right. In this case White saw that he was losing his Queen (nine points) for a knight (3 points), without any compensation in the form of tempo. It would be different if White had a raging attack going, and Black trapping his queen did nothing to stop the attack. But as it is, White had no "compensation" for the loss of material, and thus resigned rather than get ground down over the next 20 moves by Black.
So in some cases, being down a queen - or even a rook, or a bishop, or two pawns - is a bad thing, and a sufficiently skilled player will just exchange off material and be left with the extra quene/rook/bishop/two pawns.
The game we're playing right now is a good example of that. You have no compensation for the piece that you lost on e7.
And after that long wait, all I have to say is "I resign." And "Well played."
Here's my attempt at a post-mortem.
Another big mistake: At move 13, when my knight was threatened, it should've just retreated to e2. Why didn't I do that? I just had some vague plans to move a rook to e1, and up the e-file, and didn't want my knight in the way. (And what a waste that was! I never got to use that empty e-file!)
So I wound up sacrificing my knight just to get my pawn to that "precious" e5 square, both to clear the way for my rook and to clear the diagonal from my bishop, once I moved my remaining knight. Only after I made the move did it occur to me that you could move your pawn to d5. I could have kicked myself. I don't know why I hadn't thought of that before.
Another mistake was my 20th move. The obvious response to 19 ... cxd4 was 20. Pc3xd4 Qa5xd2 21. Nf3xd2. But I'm such a novice that I hate the idea of trading queens, especially when I'm at a material disadvantage. (Indeed, if I had played that way, I could easily envision you sacrificing your knight to damage my pawn structure protecting my king. I think it would have been worth a knight to do that. Even I could whip up a plan to dismantle my king's defenses then. You, undoubtedly, could come up with a better plan.)
So instead, my 20th move was to kill your pawn with my knight. Putting my Knight in the middle SEEMED like a good idea at the time. A lesser opponent than yourself might have played Ne7-f5, allowing me to play Nd4-c6, forking your queen and rook. I should have known better than to think that you might fall for such a transparent ploy. I honestly had no idea what you were going to do.
Well, now I know. You played Rfc8 and Qa3. I totally did NOT see those moves coming.
I think I can now see your plan now. Well, one of my goals in this game was to find out how you would crack my king's defenses. Now I think I know.
Feel free to comment on, add to, or correct my ideas, here.
I'm not sure we should start a fifth game. I'm sure you've noticed that my posting has been increasingly irregular lately. I no longer get to post very often, and don't expect that I'll be able to post much in the near future.
But thanks for playing, and for the advice. I learned more about Chess from this thread than I had DREAMED I might when I started it.
And I'll occasionally get to check in, so if you have anything to say about these games, or about Chess in general, please post!
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Hey there! Totally fine with taking a break, just post on this thread if you'd like to restart. (Or anyone else want some?! :-)
Re: post mortem:
No doubt, you (and jocundthejolly, if he's still reading this thread) are going to tell me that during the opening, I should have advanced my c-pawn ahead of my knight
Actually, no, the knight is quite well placed on c3. A typical maneuver is Nb1-c3-e2, and then c2-c3.
9 h2-h3 (after I played 8 ... Ng4) was a mistake. The first problem with h2-h3 is that you are wasting a tempo to get me to play a move I wanted to play anyways - Nxe3! The second problem with h3 is that it let me take your bishop e3. Since Black is playing a Indian setup, his Black square bishop on g7 is key to his overall plans and king safety, and you very nicely just let me take the bishop g7's opposing counterpart for nuthin'! 9 Bf4 was far preferable.
Another big mistake: At move 13, when my knight was threatened, it should've just retreated to e2. Why didn't I do that? I just had some vague plans to move a rook to e1, and up the e-file, and didn't want my knight in the way. (And what a waste that was! I never got to use that empty e-file!)
Yep. This was the move that effectively lost the game. After 14 Ne3 (instead of Ne7?), the computer has the position at -.25 (Black being better by one quarter of a pawn). After 14 Ne7 Black is up -3.25 (three and a quarter pawns).
A lesser opponent than yourself might have played Ne7-f5, allowing me to play Nd4-c6, forking your queen and rook. I should have known better than to think that you might fall for such a transparent ploy.
Yeah, e7 is the perfect spot for my knight, definitely leave him right there :-)
So: 9 h3?! and 14 Ne7? are the big takeaways on this one.
Glad to hear you're going to try out _Practical Chess Excercises_. Let me know when you start it, and I'll go back through it with you in case you want to discourse about it.
Okay, I started _Practical Chess Exercises_ by Ray Cheng.
(This is the first time I've directly spent money on anything Chess-related in over 20 years. Really. I still use my same old Chess set I got in my High School years. But I digress.)
I hesitated to mention that I started the book, as I've spent very little time each day looking at it. At the rate I'm going, it will take me months and months to get through the thing, assuming that I stick with it that long. Still, you did ask me to let you know, so I guess I ought to.
This post is addressed not only to sozin, though, but to ANYONE interested in Chess. You might be wondering about that book, or maybe you can help me to understand it, if that sounds like an interesting challenge to you.
In the past, when I read other Chess books (from the library), I often failed to understand them. I would often read "The player should do A. The player should not do B or C, because of the following consequences of those actions..."
And I would think "Huh? To me, the obvious move would be D. Why does the book not explain the consequences of D? Does the author consider D to be such an obviously bad move that it's not even worth mentioning? Why? What's so bad about D? I don't get it."
Or sometimes a book would speak of getting control of a certain square, and I would try to figure out, or at least guess, why that particular square is so important, rather than some other square.
I expected to feel that way reading this book as well, and sometimes, I did, as I will explain in a minute.
I would also add that when I read _Practical Chess Exercises_ I seldom get even remotely the right answer. To be sure, this is obviously a GOOD thing, as it shows that the book has much to teach me, but still, it's a pretty humbling experience.
Let me give some examples, like exercise 16. For those of you who don't have the book handy, it looks like this. White to move. What is White's best move?
I took one glance at that board, and the answer that hit me like a ton of bricks was 1. Bh6, with the intention of playing Bxg7 and Qg5. After all, Black's g7 pawn is pinned, and we're talking about trapping the king, here. Even if Black puts up a good fight, he'll be fighting with one hand tied behind his back if his king's defenses are broken. The best response for Black that I can think of is 1 ... Ng6, but then White could say 2. e5 gxh6 3. Bxg6 hxg6 4. Qxh6. Okay, so it results in the loss of the bishop for White, but look at the Black king's position! White's all ready to move the rook to h3 and then the queen to h8, unless Black sacrifices his queen to kill that rook. It looks good to me.
But my answer was not even close. The book recommends 1. Rf1 or 1. Qe2 to "maintain his clear advantage". The book then goes on to deal with 1. Rxg7+?, explaining that 1 ... Kxg7 2. Bh6+ Kh8 3. Qg5? is bad. And I'm like "Well, yeah, it's bad because you moved the rook, queen and bishop in the WRONG ORDER. And in the rook's case, in the wrong PLACE as well." I mean, why sacrifice a ROOK to kill that king's-guard-pawn, when you could sacrifice the lowly bishop to do it instead? And once White has cut up the king's defense as well possible, while Black is busy trying to defend against that, THEN White can play Rf1 to "maintain his clear advantage."
I realize that my answer is rather vague, because I often fail to see what the OTHER player's best moves are too. I have no doubt that the book's answer must be better, but why is my answer worse? I'm guessing that Black could have some better response to my moves than any I could come up with, but what response is that?
For another example, take Example 23 (White to move). The book says 1. Qc1! to win the Black h-pawn. Okay, so far I understand. But the book goes on to say that 1 ...Kh7 is a "?" move, as White wins more material by 2. Qa3 Nbd7 3. Na4.
Um... what?
How does this win material? Is the idea for White to open fire on c5? Like... 4. Nxc5 Nxc5 5. Bxc5 sort of a thing? In that case, why can't Black just play 3 ...b6, putting more firepower onto c5? Then 4. Nxc5 bxc5 would be an even trade. Or if White tries to put more firepower onto c5 himself by saying 4. b4, then Black could either nullify this with 4 ...axb4 5. Qxb4, or else pull the plug on this whole battle altogether with 4 ...Nb7, now that Black has freed b7 on move 3.
And anyway, if 2. Qa3 is such a great move, for whatever reason, then why does White need Black to play 1 ...Kh7 for White to do it? My guess is that the book is implying that Black should have played something to prevent 2. Qa3, like moving his knight out of c5 to let his queen cover a3. But this is not clear to me.
Just one more example: Exercise 24, White to move. The answer is 1. Rxf6! gxf6 2. Nd5 Qd8 3. Nxf6+ Kg7 4. Bd5.
I won't say that this is a bad move. Hey, I just went on about the attraction of damaging the King's defense (in exercise 16). However, when the book praises the virtues of this move, it claims that "White gets a pawn."
Gets a pawn?!?
White had to lose a whole ROOK for a pawn and a knight! I love knights myself, but is one worth as much as a rook?
(Come to think of it, some of my confusion with exercise 16 might be reduced if I assumed that a BISHOP is worth as much as a rook. Maybe Cheng is assuming that all pieces are equally valuable? He'd have a hard time convincing me of that!)
Another virtue of that move, according to the book, is that White gets "heavy pressure on the f-file." Huh? Before, White had TWO rooks and a queen on the f-file. Now, white has ONE rook and a queen. How does having one FEWER rook make the pressure MORE heavy?!?
In short, I'm confused. Can anyone help? Or at least comment?
(And this is by no means an exhaustive list of my questions. But maybe some explanations can help me get a better understanding of this book, so I can answer some of my other questions myself.)
I'm back.
Some time ago, I got to number 38 in "Practical Chess Exercises". It looked like this. Black to move.
This was a one-star (that is, easy) problem... and yet, I utterly failed to understand the answer. I quote:
1... Bd5! immobilizes the White knight. With the White king likewise chained to b3, Black will now attack the kingside.
The White king is not chained! It can move to many squares, and when it does, the knight can move to b3, so it's not immobilized.
And "Black will now attack the kingside"? How? Surely nothing good will come of 2... c4?
Because of the easy level of the problem, I'm sure I'll feel quite ashamed once someone explains it to me. Consequently, I never posted this question. In fact, I gave up trying to understand every problem, and just contented myself with getting what I could. However, my curiosity has just finally overcome me. Does anyone get this?
But what REALLY prompted me to post was problem 76. White to move.
The answer gave three basic paths, all of them impressive, but the main, "bolded" one, was 1. Nxf5! Rxd1 2. Ne7+ Kh8 3. Rxd1 Bb6 (defending d8) 4. Bg6!
I was quite impressed with this answer. That Black king looks seriously screwed.
What I don't understand is that the book says "Black must shed heavy material or face a deadly check along the h-file." I don't see how Black can avoid a checkMATE, no matter how much material is shed.
I still pick up _Practical_Chess_Exercises_ from time to time. I'm up to problem 130. White to move.
The answer begins by saying that White has an advantage after any routine developing move. It then goes on to say that he can trap the black queen with 1. h3! Qg6 2. e5.
I'm proud to say that I figured this much out myself.
But the book goes on to say 2... f5 3.exf6 Qxf6 (or 3... Qf7 4. Ne5) 4.Bg5 Qf7 5. Ne5.
This puzzles me, because presumably, the bolded text is the optimal choice (if there is one) for Black. But look at the NON-bolded text. After 3... Qf7 4. Ne5, Black can say 4... Qxf6. That recovers the pawn, and more importantly, it saves the Queen, doesn't it?
True, Black loses TEMPO, but still, it's better than losing the queen, isn't it?
I'm sure I'm missing something very simple here. Can anyone help?
My next question is similar to my previous one. Problem 152. White to move.
The bolded text answer is 1. e4! wins a piece, for if 1... Bg6 then 2. e5.
That's fine. But the NON-bolded text, which I again assume is not Black's optimal choice, if there is one, is 1... dxe4 2. fxe4 Bg4 3. Bxf6.
Huh? How does that win a piece? After 3. Bxf6, then 3... Qxf6 or 3... gxf6.
Again, Black doesn't look too GOOD after that. 3... Qxf6 could be followed by 4. e5, forcing the black queen to move so that Black could lose TEMPO. Or 3... gxf6 results in awkwardly doubled pawns. But Black doesn't lose a PIECE this way.
Maybe this is a mistake. Maybe Cheng meant to say 3. e5.
But if this is a mistake, then how many MORE mistakes does this book have...?