The Tactical Endgame series: The deadly Triumvirate, 2 Bishops an Knight, against Queen

Another episode of the on-going serie about interesting Endgame studies aimed at improving your tactical imagination.

2 Bishops and Knight against Queen is an interesting fight: where the queen is unsually viewed as supremely powerful (and from a purely math standpoint, the material balance is there), the 3 minor pieces are most of the time superior to the Queen.

Below is a list of studies that will excerce your skills and uncover some interesting abilities of my favorite trio. Most of those patterns used in these studies are omnipresent in regular games.

A special mention of Henri Rinck (composer of three studies below) who was one of the greatest composer of all time

Enjoy!

The black art of calculation - Blindfold Chess with a Twist!

En route to the next level of training!

In a previous article, I showed how much fun and valuable it is to play (or at least try to play) Blindfold Chess.
I'll introduce today a modified form of blindfold play that will provide even more benefits to your over-the-board game.

BCT! (Blinfold Chess with a Twist!).

This is a little known training exercise that I used to practice at my Chess Club "Caissa" in Paris during the days when the extraordinary Mme Chaude de Silans was the owner of the club; You'll need a chessboard, a partner (no computer GUI can play this as far as I know) and a clock (optional though); This goes as follows:

• Decide upfront how many moves who want to "skip":
  • let's call it the "skipping factor; "The best pick is between 2 and 5, so let's say 2 for the purpose of this explanation but I usually pick 3
  • the game can now begin!
• The white player announces his/her move but without playing it on the board i.e. e2-e4
• The black player announces his/her reply but without playing it on the board i.e. e7-e5.
• At this point, the board is unchanged but the players already played 1 move each.
• Then The white player announces his/her next move but without playing it on the board i.e. Ng1-f3
• The black player announces his/her reply but without playing it on the board i.e. Nb8-c6.
• At this point, the board remains unchanged but the players already played 2 moves each.
• The white player announces his/her next move, say, Bf1-b5 but, as we reached the "skipping factor" (3 in this example), the white player has to play on the board the move announced 2 moves earlier i.e. e2-e4.
• The black player announces his/her reply, say, a7-a6 but, again, we reached the "skipping factor", the black player has to play the move announced 2 moves earlier i.e. e7-e5 in this example.

At this point, the board shows the position below:

Where, in reality, the game already reached the position below:



and then you keep playing along the same lines; In our example this could go like this:

• The white player announces Bb5-a4 and play Ng1-f3 on the board
• The black player announces Ng8-f6 and play Nb8-c6 on the board
• The white player announces O-O and play Bf1-b5 on the board
• The black player announces Bf8-e7 and play a7-a6 on the board
• etc...

This exercise is both fun and extremely useful when it comes to improving your visualization and calculation skills, give it a try!

The black art of calculation - Blindfold Chess is easy!

It is easier than you think!

For some reason, I was always, right from the start, interested, if not fascinated by blindfold chess, probably because it seemed to me like a amazing "tour de force"!

So very early in my Chess journey, I tried and eventually succeeded in playing reasonably good blindfold chess.

In fact, I was able to play my first blindfold game as a 1500 elo player... and then 2 games simultaneously...and up to 4 games simultaneously! That was pretty cool!

Of course, the games' quality was not super high (even thought good enough to win more than several games against late 80's computers) but this was not the point: I was playing BLINDFOLD CHESS! ...and I was reasonably good at it!

More importantly, I was having fun and my Chess skills were improving in the process.

So...just try it!

You can play with the help of family and friends or against a club mate if you belong to a real-life Chess club. :-)
But probably, the easiest way to start is to play against a computer.

First off, you will need to weaken it a bit as you don't to get demoralized right of the bat!

Then, we've got 2 options:

• Playing a computer program (like Fritz (Commercial)/Stockfish for iOS or Mac/Windows/Lunix (Open source, Free)) with a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that allows the user to play without showing the pieces: this is usually available in the settings. Then, you can play as usual except that you do not see the piece on the board, only when they move!
• Playing against a Winboard Chess engine (like Delfi) where you need to enter the coordinates (i.e. e2e4, e7e5) of each move via a command line.For some, it might seems a bit hardcore but I found this is a better option for me as it helped me to be comfortable with the algebraic notation and removed the "distraction" of an empty board in front of me...but this is really a matter of taste.

How to play your first game

Now, you are all set up and ready to go for your first game...

Well, I hate to break the news but you'll unlikely play a whole game at your first attempt! It'll take many attempts (but not that many; actually less than 10 for me) before you can complete a full game (i.e. a ~ 40 moves game)

This is how I proceeded:

• Play a certain number of moves depending on your comfort level (5, 10, 15, ...)
• Stop and try to visualize
  • the position of each pieces as clearly as possible and more importantly interactions between them (who is threatening who / what)
  • the pawn structure as clearly as possible
  • the various threats and possible plans
• Try to continue the game as much as possible but stop when you start to make "obvious" tactical mistakes or do not "see" the chessboard anymore
• Repeat the process above until you play your first blindfold game!

Some additional tips:

• For the first few games, start with the white pieces (should be a bit easier)...but, after some time, do not forget to play the black ones too!
• Play an opening you are familiar with.
• Ideally, this opening is rather solid and not too complex from a tactical perspective (forget those wild crazy poisoned pawn sicilian lines!)
• Pace yourself!...as this can be a very tiring experience but...

Benefits are immense

• Improve your calculation and visual representation abilities
• Increase your capacity of concentration
• Boost your self-confidence during over the board play.
• This fun and rewarding! Playing (and winning) a blindfold game against a family casual player will establish your Chess reputation in the family for years to come! :-)

If you want to learn everything (and a little bit more) about blindfold Chess check http://www.blindfoldchess.net out: some of the positions below are taken from the fantastic book "Blindfold Chess: History, Psychology, Techniques, Champions, World Records, and Important Games"

To wrap this post up, you will find below fantastic combinations and great blindfold chess games!

The longest combination ever played during a blindfold game: Blackburne announced mate in 16(!) in the position below:

This is one of A. Alekhine's most famous combination, played during a blindfold game!

Famous, high quality, spectacular blindfold games

So start practising and have fun! 

A remarkable position {1}: Anderssen - Zukertort

A recent post from the excellent Hufftington Chess blog caught my attention. It talks about the quite amazing story of a training game between Adolf Anderssen (famous for the "Immortal Game") and his pupil (!) Johannes Zukertort (who will eventually become one of the strongest player of the 19th century).

I encourage you to read the whole article for the background story (which demonstrate, one more time, Alekhine's amazing blindfold skills).

After reading the whole thing and with the help of my silicon friends, Hiarcs, StockFish and Komodo, I decided to take a crack at the intriguing starting position: I felt that the attack could be improved somewhere...and I was right!

Minor pieces in action!

The analysis below shows how agile can be minor pieces when it comes to attacking the King: here is one more example...enjoy!

Feel free to comment, praise or demolish the analysis and share yours!

The Tactical Endgame series: The devilish Bishop duo vs. the clumsy Rook

Here we are: the first hands-on session on endgame studies!

After my lenghty, and hopefully convincing, post about including endgame studies in your Chess training, below is the first serie of endgame studies for you to practice ... and enjoy!

Beware that after working hard on those puzzles, you may experience serious improvements in your tactical abilities! :-)

The Bishop pair

I chose to start those endgame studies series with a special piece duo: the Bishop pair.
Often, the bishop is viewed or considered as a definitive asset in open positions but not that often we see it operating at full force.....now it is time with those great studies!


Should you know other interesting studies of this kind, feel free to share!
To wrap this up, below is a nice game showing the power of the "duo inferno" from a player who is largely overlooked, Rashid Nezhmetdinov, but who was one of the greatest attacking player of all time!
Cheers!

Endgame Studies...Really?

Why on earth would we want to solve endgame studies to improve our chess skills?

Well...this is not exactly a theoretical novelty and I am not exactly the first one to talk about that...
In fact, the famous chess trainer Mark Dvorestsky advocates quite heavily solving endgame studies to improve our Chess skills in his book "Secrets of Chess Training".

So what's the big deal about endgame studies?

There are a number of reasons why those are so useful for your chess development and your over-the-board (OTB) skills:

• Improves your calculation skills: Endgame studies often require accurate and lengthy calculation.
• Enriches your tactical imagination: Endgame studies often feature usual or imaginative ideas or unexpected solutions to common problems. They also favor non straightforward patterns or means to achieve a surprising outcome.
• Get to know each piece better: Solving Endgame studies will show you on a different light the pieces you thought you knew. Knights' forks, Bishops' double attacks and rooks' short moves will keep you awake at night!
• (Re)-Discover how a set of pieces can really work together: The bishop pair or the knights duo will shine differently when you see them in action! Discover how the rook and knight team can be devastating against the (not-so-often) powerless queen.
• Get use to material imbalance: A lot of endgame studies feature unconventional material balances: NNB vs. Q, BB vv. RR, etc: this will help you getting used to unusual material imbalance and also help you wrestle your way out of tricky situations or, on the contrary, baffle your opponents with surprising sacrifices. All in all, you will be more confident in your ability to navigate in muddy waters and find either the decisive move or the saving one!
• Strengthen your intuition: Being exposed to so many unusual and unconventional ideas will broaden your intuition and help you come up with imaginative solutions during your own games

...and, best of all, they are fun!

To wrap this up, below is a well-know, yet amazing, study from Alexey Troitsky who "is considered to have been one of the greatest composers of chess endgame studies. He is widely regarded as the founder of the modern art of composing chess studies" (Wikipedia).

 
More to come on this topic in the following weeks.

Finally, I cannot resist to show you a great and entertaining game demonstrating, once again, the power of the bishop pair: Ravinski - Panov, it should make your day!
Cheers!