Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Yusupov 1.02

Glancing at the contents, I could explain Legal's mate, Damiano's mate, and Loli's mate off the top of my head. The other three (Greco, Blackburne, Pillsbury) I wasn't too sure about.

Diagram 2-3

I overlooked the starting move, 1...Nh5!

Diagram 2-6

The backwards queen move was hard to spot for a moment. Actually there's a book called Invisible Chess Moves that discusses moves of this nature.

Diagram 2-7*****

I'm not sure why, but this one took me forever to solve. And yet the solution is so easy. I don't know what part of my brain was switched off, but I tried solving this for about ten minutes without touching the pieces, then nearly another ten minutes with manipulating the pieces before the light bulb finally went off.

Diagrams 2-8*****  and  2-9*****  were also challenging. For whatever reason, the Greco mates do not come naturally to me.  I will need to create a problem set on chesstempo and drill them into my head.

Diagrams 2-12 and 2-13 also challenging. Blackburne's mate*****. Need to create a problem set.


Test Exercises


Exercise 2-1

Easy. But after ...Qg6, I give 0-0-0, whereas the text gives King moving to d2 instead, leading to an entirely different variation. Since my line isn't mentioned, I don't know if it's correct.

Exercise 2-2

Didn't see it right away, so I set it up on the board. I missed the ...Qxc4+, Rxc4...hxg5, h4 line.

Exercise 2-3

Mate in 6. Very simple Damiano's mate.

Exercise 2-4 (three stars)

This took me about ten minutes. Finally realized that I had all the right moves, but had to switch the order. Wow! I even found the best defense. I found all the lines. Super proud of myself at the moment. Woohoo!

Exercise 2-5

A very simple version of Blackburne's mate.

Exercise 2-6 (two stars)

Found an additional winning line. After ...g6, Rh7+ also wins, though the text move Qh7+ is more efficient, allowing for only a single escape square instead of two .

Exercise 2-7

I knew enough to easily earn the point, but the best fight black can put up requires quite a bit more, and I had to play this line out over the board.

Exercise 2-8 (two stars)

Simple Pillsbury mate.

Exercise 2-9 (two stars)

Easy Blackburne-style mate. For some reason, I see these easily, whereas I had to exert a lot more effort with the Greco mates. Go figure.

Exercise 2-10 (two stars)

Wow. This had a lot of variations and was far from easy. I was impressed with myself for figuring out most of the lines, though. I saw the 1. Nxd4 line, which also looked good (and indeed it's also worth two points), so I had a difficult time deciding between that line and the main line. I was afraid I was missing something in the Nxd4 line, and since it didn't seem to fit the theme of Legal's mate, I rejected it for the main line. That in itself is an error, if you think about it.

After 1. Nxe5! … Bxd1, of course the rest is easy. But I also saw some more "stubborn" ways for black to hold out, including …f6 and …Nxc2, both of which I reasoned were okay.

I remember looking at 2…Qa5+ but forgot to analyze it. It's actually a really interesting line.

I really like that Artur gives such in depth variations. They are just perfect for me. He doesn't expect me to get all of it. Indeed, usually he states you get the points at a certain point in the line, but nonetheless gives the continuations so you can see how they turn out. Sometimes I surprise myself and I'm able to see them to the end. Other times, I am delightfully and contrarily surprised at what I overlooked.

When I used to study martial arts, my sensei used to tell me that his job wasn't to instruct me from HIS level, but, using the analogy of a ladder, to instead stand on the rung above me and pull me up, one step at a time.

I feel that Artur is using this same technique. Sort of like, "Okay, here is what you needed to calculate to earn the points. But can you see a little deeper? Here, let me show you…"

At the same time, the lines are not SUPER complicated either. Sub-variations are often just 3-4 moves deep. Those that go 6-8 moves are often forced lines. In this way, I feel that he is demonstrating for us what Master level chess looks like, even though we are not quite there yet.

Anyway.

Exercise 2-11 (two stars)

Tricky, but I found it almost right away. I wonder how many times in the past I had a similar situation on the board and didn't know how to proceed. I'll definitely be on the look out for play against f7 in the future.

Exercise 2-12 (two stars)

Very cool mate. Took me a minute or two to find the right continuation.




My Score: 20/20 points. "Excellent"

I dread the idea of failing a chapter, so I think I often earn points out of sheer stubbornness.


Conclusion

What I learned from this chapter is two-fold:

First, never underestimate the resourcefulness of your opponent. Artur has shown, time and again, that the opponent often has myriad ways of resisting. You therefore really need to do your job of looking for such resources. Chess isn't easy, my friend.

Secondly, I learned that I have a weakness in spotting the solutions to Greco's and Blackburne's mates. Sure, I passed the text exercises, but that's owing to sheer determination.

Again, in my attempt to get the most out of these books, I will be using Chess Tempo to create custom problem sets for these two mating motifs. At some point I will combine the sub-motifs into a larger group (you can combine custom problem sets) so that I can continue to drill them without necessarily knowing in advance what the motif is (more realistic this way, just as with regular tactics).

I'm also going to either create a set of flashcards or a binder with printed pages detailing things I need to remember, which is the real purpose of labeling those problems with asterisks*****. It'll help me locate them later. This could also be a folder of past game mistakes combined with problems I found difficult to solve. Flipping through this binder (or going through similar flash cards) before a tournament could be a useful warmup exercise. Also, the very act of creating such notes should prove beneficial in helping to eradicate said weaknesses and oversights.










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