Even National Masters suffer from Materialism

The diagrammed position, arising from the Leningrad Dutch Defense, is sound evidence that even titled USCF players fall prey to the Chess Sin of greed. ICC player National Master rpenquin, is a gentleman and a scholar, but became fatally weak along the h1-a8 diagonal after mistakenly "winning the exchange" snapping off the inactive Rook in the corner.

It is just a blitz game, but look at the c1 Bishop and a1 Rook the NM is neglecting while all of Black's forces are active poised to attack on the permanently weakened light squares near White's Monarch. The NM should have "talked to his pieces" in the chess psychologist Rowson fashion. They would have articulated their abject misery about being locked out of the action and poorly coordinated due the avarice and materialism of the first player.

Concretely, with White to Move, the NM has no choice but to "castle into the menacing assault" on his trepidating King.

Neophyte players should be comforted to learn that even GMs are willing subject themselves to brutal onslaughts hoping to hang on to their precious material for an endgame conversion to victory.


Finally, I would welcome the valued input of Seattle, Washington GM Gregory Serper on the soundness of this National Master's decision to engage in such risky play. Serper is flexible in his approach to Royal Game capable of attacking or defending as the position dictates. Go Seahawks!!

Online Chess IM generously exposing himself to the Chess Masses

Francis E Anquandah(Ciseric) is a decent human being and humble sportsman. He is an IM or an International Master of Chess. One of his many laudable attributes is his willingness to play the much weaker players in Blitz at the Internet Chess Club(ICC).

In the diagrammed position you see below, the weaker second player chose the variation of The French Defense where the d pawn captures the e pawn on move 3 literally destroying reams of John Watson theory on the Winawer, Advance and the positional Nd2 variation. Black managed to use his only Rook to help stunt the promotion of the White b pawn while maintaining the Queening threat of Rook to King's Knight one if we must encumber ourselves with the onerously tedious English Descriptive Notation.

Francis confidently played Rh1 believing his b pawn would jettison down the board queening before the Black pawns got rolling. This turned out to be a misjudgement by the IM as the Black King can single handedly blockade the anemic White pawns. Meanwhile Black's g pawn will reach g3 forcing through Rg1 winning for the much weaker American player.

GM Alex Ipatov would have been proud of the dominating fashion Black made his pawns "go faster" than White's foot soldiers. Sexy Anna Rudolf would concur and I believe someone so beautiful should contemplate another profession! 

Also Charlotte Chess Center & Scholastic Academy does a marvelous job of training their students in subtle nuances of Rook and Pawn endings which have reputation of being ALWAYS DRAWN.

Punish this Greedy Player

The chess champion and philosopher E. Lasker was not fond of greed and spoke of ways of punishing greed and avarice in life and chess.

Lordi, a 50 year old player at the Internet Chess Club, must not be familiar with Lasker's aversion for pawn grabbing out of the opening. With the White pieces, Lordi misplaces a Bishop at a3 and a Knight at a4 to win the Black c5 pawn. Dan Heisman would get nauseous and Rowson would excoriate the Indian player fot not "talking to the Horse and Prelate" before engaging in such unprincipled abuse of the Royal Game! You see this idea in the Nimzo Indian Defense, but the pawn chains are more locked up or closed.

So how do we punish this careless and materialistic Caissa sacrilege? The move is not  obvious, but it refutes White's poor understanding of material and piece coordination. Alex Yermolinsky student Rikkitikkitavi also still battles the addiction of pawn grabbing in opening and late middle game. The relatively slow move solution appears under the diagram.

Qe7!