Building Mental Muscles

One of the hardest things to do in chess is for a junior to actually beat a good player even though he may have a “winning” position.

At the start of the game the good player is expected to beat you and the game is played out on that basis.  You have nothing to lose so perhaps you go for a wild attack … perhaps you get lucky and get a winning position … then something strange happens.   Suddenly the roles are reversed!   You have the won game and are now expected to win.   You tense up in expectation of this major upset.  You don’t want to spoil your win so suddenly you start playing safe instead of pushing home the attack.  Your opponent switches into “swindle mode” and starts trying to set you problems.   Your time is running down.   A crowd is gathering around.  The pressure mounts.

Of course you can guess what happens.  You make a mistake, perhaps only a small one.   You overlook a trick and your opponent escapes with a draw … or worse still hits you with an unforeseen tactic and you snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  The good player has no doubt been in this position many times before and knows how to make it hard for you.   That’s why he is a good player.   Still it is a valuable lesson to be learnt on the path to becoming a chess master.

I showed some of my students an example of this from one of Luke Li’s games in the Box Hill Championships the other day.  Luke was a passed pawn down with no attack and his opponent’s pieces were all well placed.  He should have lost but his opponent was too desperate to try to exchange queens and soon gave Luke counter-play.   I gave my student’s Luke’s opponent’s position to play out … and of course they too lost rapidly!  They just didn’t come up with the correct plan and then allowed their opponent to create chances.   A valuable lesson that has been dealt out many, many times over the years.

Last week’s column was about Frank Marshall, one of the top players in the world in the early 20th century, and in today’s puzzle Marshall found himself with an easily lost game against a lesser player – the British master Yates.   Did Marshall lose?   Did he draw … or perhaps even snatch an unlikely win?

Let’s find out.   It’s White to play.   See if you can beat the American grandmaster.

Now that the Zonal tournament in Fiji has finished and our players have returned home with their new titles attention turns to local tournaments.

The Victorian Championships started last week. Unfortunately James Morris is unable to defend his title as he is still in rehabilitation recovering from his traffic accident however a good field turned up to contest the Championships. IM Bobby Cheng is clear favourite but it will be interesting to see how Zonal heroes Ari Dale and Justin Tan fare in this strong, round-robin tournament. The first round featured one very amusing finish where David Hacche had a rook and two pawns against two Knights and one pawn – should be an easy draw but Hacche managed to get his King trapped on the side of the board and ended up losing by one tempo.

Another local event is the Box Hill Club Championships which has the added bonus of having 5 dgt boards to demonstrate the top games live every Friday night. For today’s puzzle I’m going to show you a position from one of Laurence Matheson’s games. We’ve been discussing how Victoria’s better juniors are going at the moment and what they need to do to keep improving. “Imagination” was his emphatic reply. Not many kids have good chess imagination but rather just rely on calculation or knowing their openings well. He’s probably right. I tested my on-line squad last night with two games involving a queen sacrifice and only two players had the imagination to look at the sacrificial move and see that it was good. That’s why I tell my students to “look at all checks and captures” but that is easier said than done. Also not all chess combinations involve a check or a capture, for instance it could be a zugswang or interference theme that wins the game.

So let’s test your imagination with today’s puzzle. Black is threatening Nc2 but White is a pawn ahead. What should white play now?

I’ve just returned from a small chess adventure in the baking heat and winding roads of Sydney.

Evelyn Koshnitsky

First stop was Cabramatta to visit Evelyn Koshnitsky, aged 95 years or so (she can’t remember) in her nursing home. Evelyn has done more for Australian chess than any other living person, and it was great chatting with her for 40 minutes about her memories of tournaments and players past. My favourite tournament is still the 1971 Karlis Lidums International which Evelyn organised in Adelaide. It was Australia’s first big tournament (with 5 grandmasters playing) and I’m sure inspired a lot of Australian players.

Next stop was Greenwich to visit Felicity Purdy, wife of John Purdy who passed away last year. They have a lovely home overlooking the habour. It was nice chatting with Felicity as, whilst we have only met on a couple of occasions, we both have known the major figures in Australian Chess over the past 45 years and we swapped anecdotes about our experiences. I was taken to the Greenwich Baths, where John has a seat named in his honour, and behind which is Cecil Purdy’s old home where the Greenwich Chess Club used to meet. Felicity showed me a lovely silver pocket chess set which was presented to Spenser Crakanthorp (John’s grandfather) in 1905 when he won the Australian Championship. Then on to his library to see if I’d like any of his chess books. There were about 10 shelves of books which I eagerly examined and selected about 30 or so which took my fancy. To my surprise one turned out to be a Philidor book from 1762 – 250 years old, and now my oldest book. I’ve offered it to the State Library of Victoria if they want it.

Unfortunately such a book would be of no interest to juniors. Indeed, I’m trying hard to foster a love of reading chess books amongst my students, but it’s an uphill battle. I’ve lent Jason Chew Purdy’s “The Search for Chess Perfection” and he says that he’s enjoying the history part at the start of the book so maybe there is hope after all.

So now we come to the problem of which puzzle to offer today? I’ve had a request for a Jordan puzzle. The only problem is that Bill doesn’t often do combinations these days. I can however offer a Jorden combination. It’s Black to play and win. Perhaps it’s not forced but it’s a pretty variation by Jorden, a very talented Dutch Junior.