White to move

The black rook is dominating the position and attacking a2 and d2. White must play 1. Rd1 Rxa2 -+ . It's almost shocking how quickly White went down. Why? Because he allowed c-file control and easy second rank access with a double-attack. Don't play like White. 

Pins are great to have but if you find your pieces pinned, try to break the pin quickly. If you don't, you could end up like my opponent, with a pin from hell that can't be broken. Usually this leads to disaster.

White to move

Note that Black has no way to break the pin on his f8 Bishop. So, we continue with 1. c5 Ra6 and 2. Bd6 wins!
​If you find your pieces pinned, try to correct the situation quickly. Unpin!

​White to move

I played a two-move combination here thanks to my tactics training; I saw it immediately. Do you?

​1. Nxc7 (drawing the Black Queen in) Qxc7 2. Be8! (Double attack on the Queen and the knight on g6).  Black sacrificed his Queen on c1 2. ...Qxc1 3. Rxc1 Rfxe8 and surprisingly White had a lot of work to do. I won the game but it was technically difficult.

Let's take a look at some easy tactics from my online games. Practicing tactics is critical if you hope to become a strong player.


1. Black to move​

2. White to move

3. Black to move

Solutions:

1. 1. ...Nxd4! and Black wins a huge central pawn, 2. Qxd5? loses to Bc5

2. 1. Qxc6!+ Kb8 2.Qxb7 mate

3. Here Black played 1. ...Bd7? and eventually lost. 1. ...0-0-0!+ wins the rook on b7 because it's check. 

I love reading the Sunday New York Times, and the March 17, 2019 edition printed a great story about an 8-year-old boy. The son of Nigerian refugees, he lives with his family in a Manhattan homeless shelter. And he loves chess!
He learned how to play a year ago and today his USCF rating stands at 1480, which is good for his age. A bright beginner usually has a rating around 1000. 
Tanitoluwa Adewumi is now New York State's chess champion for K-3rd grade. Not bad at all. 
 People around the world have talent but not all of them get the right opportunities. This boy now has access to chess lessons and people have started a GoFundMe page to help his family.
 This is an awesome story and I wish the boy great success. 


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GM Vladimir Kramnik, the former World Chess Champion, had a poor tournament result in the 2019 Tata Steel Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee. And at the end of the event he officially announced his retirement from classical chess.
Details will follow later but it appears that Kramnik is excited about working on new projects, especially with chess and kid's education. That, I believe, should be great for chess. 

If you're interested in Kramnik's rise to the top, I still have two copies of his ChessBase DVD My path to the top. Local Vancouver-area readers can send $29 by PayPal to gaijinniwashi@gmail.com and arrange for pick-up.


DVD description:

Born in 1975 in Tuapse on the shores of the Black Sea, Vladimir Kramnik studied at the Botvinnik-Kasparov chess school. At 16 he was included in the Russian Olympiad team and scored a sensational 8.5/9, the best result at the Olympiad. After that followed a string of great tournament results, culminating in a world championship challenge. In 2000 Kramnik played the chess legend Garry Kasparov and beat him to take the title, which he successfully defended in 2004 against Peter Leko and 2006 against FIDE champion Veselin Topalov, whom he defeated to take the unified world championship title.
On this DVD Vladimir Kramnik retraces his career from talented schoolboy to World Champion in 2006. With humour and charm he describes his first successes, what it meant to be part of the Russian Gold Medal team at the Olympiad, and how he undertook the Herculean task of beating his former mentor and teacher Garry Kasparov. Kramnik dissects his wins against Leko and Topalov, giving us a vivid impression of the super-dramatic final games of the 2006 match. His commentary is full of useful advice and provides a fascinating insight into the thought processes that govern top level play.
The DVD contains more than six hours of video with narrative and game analysis. There are also five additional segments from an exclusive video interview on the intrigues that surrounded the 2006 world championship, and on the state of the chess world in general.

White to move! 

White has three moves and they all lead to disaster. 1. h7 Rxh7-+ and Black just walks his King over; 1. Kb7 or Kxa7 Rxa5 2.h7 Rh5 -+.  A few moves earlier I was still sweating because White had his g and h pawns and was clearly hoping to take on a7 and march his own pawn down to a8. Luckily I found the holding move Rh5. I love it when everything works out in the endgame.

My chess team -Chess First! Academy-overcame a slow start to post a 5-4 win and collect two match points. With two rounds to go we should make the playoffs.

My young opponent rushed in the opening and gave me his d-pawn for free; then we reached this position where he is losing the f2-pawn. 

One pawn is bad enough but two pawns down makes it hard to hold the endgame. Now check out the position later in the game.
Black promoted two queens and mated the white king. Now the match score was 4-4 and Len Molden offered a draw, which would have tied the match 4.5-4.5. His opponent declined and promptly lost his queen. This was the crucial point we needed to win the match 5-4.

​

One word of caution to online chess players.  In the position below black promotes his pawns into two queens. But when you play exclusively online you get sloppy like me last year. I pushed a pawn and mechanically pressed my clock which made it an illegal move. The arbiter gave the game to my opponent and his friends wondered how an NCM-titled player can't promote his pawns!? Hahaha. 

So, promote your pawn, grab a queen and place it on the board, then press your clock. It sounds obvious but online the queen appears automatically or you get a prompt before the move is completed. When that becomes a habit you can run into problems over-the-board.
​ The obvious solution is to play more over-the-board chess.

I spent some time this Saturday preparing for Sunday's rapid chess league. I have to play a minimum 7 games to qualify for playoff action.

​So let's take a look. 

A.
Black has just played 1. ...Bb7 and your puzzle rush junkie chess coach knew what to do. Do you?
White to play

​

B. 
It's always more fun to attack than defend. The key here is to go after your target: the black king. Examine the position and know that this is NOT a good moment to worry about material balance. Attack bravely and get bonus points for seeing deeper.
White to play

Too easy?

27. Bxg6! (There is no time to waste because Black is ready to play Rc1. Attack bravely.) fxg6 28. Qxg6+ (Very sloppy, 28. Qe7 and mate next on g7) Kf8 29. Ng5 Ke7 30. Qg7+ (Sloppy: 30. Qf7 + Kd8 31. Nxe6#) Kd8 31. Nxe6+ Ke8 32. h7 Nf8 33. h8=Q Rc1 34. Qhxf8# 1-0

C. 
This is the final position with White achieving the dream doubled rooks on the seventh rank. Note how helpless black is. 

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