Posts Tagged ‘Carson’
The Minority Attack
The minority attack in chess is a rather advanced strategic concept. But that’s ok, even if you are a kid or a beginner. First of all, you can impress your friends when you walk around talking about the minority attack. If they don’t know what it is they might just nod and pretend they do, or if they do know what it is their eyebrows will go up and they will say “aha!” and think, wow, this kid really knows chess! So either way it’s great!
The minority attack in chess is simple to explain though. It is when you have a smaller group of pawns in an area of the chess board than your opponent and you begin storming your opponent’s larger pawn mass with your smaller one. And why should you do it? Well, for the same reason a poodle attacks a great dane! And sometimes the great dane looks at the tiny barking noisy animal and thinks maybe I better not mess with it! But there’s more reason. To open lines for your pieces to attack, and when you open lines for your pieces you often find tactics. You are also weakening your opponent’s pawns too, after which you might give up one to win two, if you can visualize that. For example if they capture your pawn they might double theirs, and you can win them by placing a rook on the file. Or if they just let you exchange they might end up with a backward pawn, or a pawn that isn’t protected by another pawn, and that can’t move forward without being captured.
Review of HBO Documentary Bobby Fischer Against the World
The HBO documentary Bobby Fischer against the World shows the lead up to the Spassky Fischer match in which Fischer won the World Chess Title and became the first, and so far the only U.S. chess player to become world champion. It is an interesting story of obsession, the cold war, politics and the chess genius of Bobby Fischer. Having lived through these times it was nice to see them recapped, and there was plenty to learn about him, and about the times of his championship that I didn’t know before. Very interesting documentary, I highly recommend chess players and chess fans watch it when it comes on again. Watch the trailer here.
Chess Scholarships
In addition to all the known benefits of chess, there are many college chess scholarships available out there that people don’t know about. Kenyon College offers $10,000 toward their tuition to the top 50 scholastic chess players in the country. The top 50 players are all above master level, so it is not an easy club to get into, but there are lots of other chess scholarships available as well. Chess in schools, and chess study is becoming a rather financially beneficial activity for kids and their families!
Creating a Passed Pawn in Chess
The most important rule about passed pawns to know is that two connected passed pawns, if you can get them to the sixth rank, are worth seven points. It’s as if suddenly an extra rook appeared on the board for you, if you can get them there. It can be worth a piece sacrifice to get them there, and you will suddenly find your opponent willing to do just about anything to get rid of them, including sacrificing his own pieces. If you have a pawn majority, meaning you have one more pawn than your opponent, then, so long as they are not doubled, you can create a passed pawn if they are pushed far enough up the board (ie. especially the sixth rank). Because then if you have to sacrifice a pawn to get your opponent’s pawn out of the way, you get to queen your pawn. And since you’re closer to the eighth rank, you queen first. So even if your opponent gets a passer, he won’t be able to queen it. For a very instructive game about pawns on the sixth, take a look at Grigory Serper vs Ioannis Nikolaidis 1993 St. Petersburg Open.
The Lucena Chess Position
One of the most important and basic things to learn in chess is the Lucena Position. When you have a pawn, a king and a rook, and your opponent has only a king and a rook, it can still be very difficult to win. But if you can get to the Lucena Position you can win from there. Sometimes the trick is getting there. Sometimes your opponent can stop you from getting there, but if you at least know what it is you are trying to achieve, that is, the position from which you can win, then you will win a lot of games you could have drawn. Take a good look at the position you need to get to in the diagram. It’s White to move. First check the king. If the king blocks the file where Black would check if the king were to e7, then it’s a synch! You can queen the pawn next move. But if the black king moves to the “c” file, then you need to build a bridge. You do this buy letting black check you and moving in front of the pawn. Then you move one square diagonal from the pawn and toward the rook. Then when the rook checks you again you move back in front of the pawn, only this time you leave one square between the king and the pawn. Then when the rook checks you again, you block with the rook. That’s called building a bridge. Now there is no way to stop the pawn. This is named after a man named Lucena who lived the late 1400′s in Salamanca, Spain. They don’t know much about him, but they do know that there is a famous Roman bridge in Salamanca. Who knows, maybe that’s where he got the idea.
Chess Tactics
Tactics puzzles are a must for anyone wanting to improve their chess game. It is a good idea to try and do ten minutes a day of tactics puzzles, or three puzzles a day, spending only a short amount of time on each puzzle and then checking to see if you got the answer. This way you get into the habit of looking for puzzles, and you see lots of tactical patterns over and over again. You can find tactics books, tactics puzzles online, often the newspaper will have a tactics puzzle, or you can even purchase software like Ct-art that generates tactics puzzles for you to solve. Colorado chess player and former editor of the Colorado Chess Informant has a section he publishes called Tactics Time that he has turned into a website full of tactics puzzles from real games, which is particularly useful, as these are tactics that have actually come up and either been missed by the player, or that actually happened in the game. Tactics are fun and are what make chess sparks fly! You can also check out CheckMates Chess Academy’s Online Resources for Chess Puzzles divided by skill level.
Child Prodigy in Colorado
Twelve year old Jackson Chen is the current winner of the Colorado Scholastic Closed. He is considered a child chess prodigy, capable of beating masters, and certainly the rest of us chess players too! Technically, and perhaps unofficially, the definition of “chess prodigy” is a chess player whose USCF rating is 800 points highter than their age. So under this definition he was a prodigy up until he turned twelve. If he wants to be a prodigy now he needs to achieve the rating of 2000, and become an “expert.”
Welcome Anthea Carson
I would like to welcome Anthea Carson to our family of chess bloggers. She is the author of the book “How to Play Chess like an Animal” and one of the top 100 female players in the United States. Anthea’s articles have been published in Colorado Chess Informant Magazine and she has even been quoted in Edward Winter’s Chess Reference. Her book, “How to Play Chess Like an Animal” approaches chess is a unique way that fits perfectly with CheckMates Chess Academy’s Curriculum. It focuses on making chess fun for kids to learn, while making sure its stays challenging and interesting. A review of her great book about chess from Chessville can be read here.
Look for Anthea’s Posts every Thursday for Chess Thought of the Day Thursday!
The Things You Learn From Chess
Everyone knows chess improves math and logic skills, and the statistics show it! But there’s more! Chess is great for many areas of life. The touch move rule, for example, teaches self-control and that actions have consequences. It can be painful for a kid to experience the consequences of touching a piece and subsequently losing a game. But what a soft way to learn something that we all have to learn eventually. That you really can experience painful consequences from having a lack of self-control. Chess also teaches us to stay focused on the position and what is relevant to it. This is something that becomes evident as a child improves at the game. Early beginners often don’t understand this concept but as players become more advanced, each move becomes critical. An irrelevant move can result in the loss of a tempo and thus the game. This then becomes an aspect seen later in writing skills. As they grow up and start writing college papers, they have a better instinct (and this has been shown) for staying on topic. In addition to all these things kids learn, they also have fun and meet other kids who like the same thing they do. What a great game chess is!
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