Elegant Square Clearing Pawn Move

 Austrian Chess player Arsenal11 must have thought he stood no worse after the solid looking g6 pawn move. After all, his King on e6 had the opposition over its White counterpart on the e4 square.

However, he overlooked the game winning space clearance move pawn to f5 EXCLAM. So what space was cleared from this temporary pawn sacrifice? The f4 square, to be occupied by White Monarch, is the answer when Black finds himself in Zugzwang( German for NO move I think) 

Not only will Black's f5 fall, but the c5 pawn could be lost in some variations. Also if Black moves his pawn f6, White's g pawn jettisons Bruce Pandolfini! 

BTW, I have heard soccer goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale has more than a mild interest in the Royal Game

Thematic King's Indian Bishop Sacrifice

 Was reminded of an old chess friend from Houston, Texas in the following game. Mick Bighamian(USCF rating of around 2400 at the time) said something that really stuck in my mind. The specificity of his claim made me realize that Chess players are really inveterate nerds. "when the unmoved c8 Bishop sacrifices itself at h3 the result of game is frequently, if not always, in favor of the second player". Now that may not be exactly the way Mick phrased it, but if he reads this I am sure he would agree with the paraphrasing. He had close to a photographic memory for positions which is a big part of the reason he was a senior master and one of the top 5 or so players in Bayou City. 

Another master from the region, Todd Thomas, penned an accurate quote in the Texas Knights monthly periodical stating that the late Robert Brieger was on chess nerd fringe in the same fashion that chess nerds are on the fringe of society at large. Todd was lampooning Brieger for making a big deal about the difference between the terms Zugzwang and Squeeze. Funny how certain things just stick in your head!!

So check out the position, arising from a Dutch Defense,  where Mick's always winning move wipes out Australian player Pritoka. After Bxh3, the f8 Rook occupies f3 square with fatal consequences. The Black king regicide is only avoided by the 9 pointer giving herself up. 

I do love this kind of position where an "undeveloped piece" is actually the most active force on the board! This actually shows how the nebulous concept of development as it is taught sometime in middle school as "just getting you pieces out" is quite mistaken.

Would like to close by paying tribute to the now defunct Dave's Chess Studio. Lotta good times there around 20 years ago, but alas the inconstancy of friendship and life getting in the way prevails. 

Winning Isolated Queen Pawn KP Ending

 I still have quite a few issues of Inside Chess which was a bimonthly periodical brain child  of Seattle native Yasser Seirawan prior to easy access to the internet. I thought of Yaz after reaching the following KP ending where I was left with the doomed IQP.

It is crazy, but Whites last pawn move f4 is LOSING. I screwed it up with the game becoming a draw. Despite Black's ostensibly weak d4 pawn, White is busted with Black enjoying the enviable extra pawn move advantage which will create a zugzwang favoring the second player. 

Also the only winning move is h6 which was not noticed by this slightly above average player! So, despite Black having 3 pawn islands to White's more manageable 2, Black is winning for concrete reasons rather than blind adherence to general principles. 

Queen Satisfactory Blockader in this position

 So you always hear some old guy at USCF tournaments saying that a Queen is a bad blockading piece and then he will look up at you with a twinkle in his eye, smacking his dentures, like he has imparted the chessic wisdom of the ages.

I wish I could find that same old fart to show him this position where the Black Queen must blockade on d6 square or White's d5 pawn will kick ass and shoot through to promote to a Queen at d8.

White does not seem to have a way to break the blockade in the above diagram since the Black King can just move back and forth from g7 to f6 it appears. Zugzwang is certainly a theme that White seeks to utilize CORRECT EDWARD WINTER and your desire to copyright. 

Author Ronan Bennett figured out a way to monetize the nerdy concept of the Z word in a military novel. A professor emeritus of architecture in Connecticut United States of America and a lover of Rand's Atlas Shrugged also has a fascination/obsession with the notion of Zugzwang as it applies to game theory in general.

Weak Play by Moroccan Chess Expert

 Mokhliss El Adnani may know this Moroccan chess player who was in poor form during a 3 minute blitz game at ICC. NZCA, playing White, will lose after Black plays pawn to f4 creating Zugzwang. The Black Monarch will penetrate via the  c4 or a4 square winning White's anemic b pawn which will result in lost King and Pawn ending. 

Observe that the blunder pawn to g4 allows the First Player  to draw as Black will have to move his King backwards to c6 with all entry points blocked!!  

I guess the dude must dig the British synthpop band.

Despite the claims made by El Mahdi El Mhamdi, cutting off the power or electricity will shut down AI computers. His argument that us humans could learn from the distributed intelligence/decentralized nature of an ant colony is quite profound. Seems quite connected to bitcoin's inevitable surge upward as digital gold. 

I also wish he would explain the overused term ROBUST with respect to information technology. Sound cool but WTF does it mean!?!?!?

How to handle hyper patient White buildups against the French Rubenstein defense?

 Austrian chess player obt(apparently this stands for obituary which places him in the company of the infamous attacking ICC player Widowmaker), playing blitz at the Internet Chess Club, was in a prophylactic mood when he played the square weakening f3 pawn move with the White pieces. The square he fatally weakened was the e3 square. 

It was his reaction to a tepid system advocated by Rubenstein in the French Defense. The move f3, ostensibly, blunts Black slowly developed fianchettoed Bishop at b7. The move is a lemon as it denies the White Horse the natural and superior f3 square. Obt's plan was to place his horse on e4 hoping that Black would cooperate by capturing leaving White with the sought after pawn duo d4,e4. 

Author Hannes Langrock writes about this "solid defense"  to 1. e4, but his book does not address the very slow buildups that the first player has against this Black defense that cedes pawn control in the center.  So Ich habe eine frage. What does Black do about the almost Zugzwang positions that occur when White plays ultra patiently? Thank you in advance for your well informed and erudite response. Auf wiedersehen!

Another Defenseless Stonewall Dutch Formation

 Superboy playing out of the country Denmark loves playing the Stonewall Dutch and I equally love showing him how positionally bankrupt his opening choice is!

This particular Dutch Defense is characterized by voluntarily weakening all the dark squares and then allowing White to trade off the dark square guardian, the f8 Bishop! So Black is irrationally putting all his faith on the rigid c6,d5,e6,f5 pawn structure which leaves White with the juicy and unassailable e5 and d6 dark squares as outposts.

In the diagrammed position, Whites positional hegemony is manifest(one of Stu Rachels favorite words even though as a philosopher he uses very common language in his school classes, almost afraid of using the SAT exam type of vocabulary)

White can win with the pawn avalanche beginning with the tactically supported h5. Note that if the anemic bad bishop at e8 captures, then the knight fork Nd7 picks up the impotent Castle(Rook)

I doubt that even Krishna Prem really believes the Stonewall is a viable opening. Krishna has invested quite a bit of time in producing monetized YouTube videos advocating the Stonewall Dutch and could lose ad revenue if it was widely known it had been refuted!

Max Dlugy knew long ago that Nh3 refutes the entire setup CRUSHING D. Gurevich forcing the aloof GM to switch to the Slav Defense which his best friend Yermolinsky had long suggested.

Fascinating Conversion to Winning KP ending an Exchange Down!!

ICC player eternalwarrior blundered in below diagram by moving his Rook to c7 rather than c8. His logic was impeccable wanting to protect d7 pawn, but there was a tactical oversight in his reasoning. 

Can you see the flaw in his reasoning based on Black's King location and the harmonizing/coordination of the g5 Knight an the e6 pawn?

After pawn to e7 there are two Knight Forks that lead to a won King and Pawn ending where the White King ends up at the dominating d5 square and Black possessing a weak isolated passed d pawn still stuck on its original d7 square!!! One of the variants actually forces the Black Monarch to block the passed pawn in order to to gobbled up by f6 Knight Fork!!!! SO BEAUTIFUL

It is impossible to go through all the variations as to why White is winning, but some of the ideas are White has two pawn islands to Black's three, White has 3-2 King Side pawn majority, Zugzwang(means German for every move loses),  a more active centralized King, and maybe even triangulation in some variations. 

I would love to know if Doug Hyatt or Russian Speaking White guy GM Bryan Smith would consider this position, after the blunder, to be worthy of study?

Deceiving King and Pawn Ending for this Ohio Football Devotee

Les Horvath, Jersey number 22 according to well written piece by Matt Gutridge , was a venerated historical football player at Ohio State by being the college’s first Heisman Trophy winner.

So what does this have to do with chess Bobby Fischer would exclaim!? A gentleman, who plays solid and strong chess online, goes by Buckeye22. Well, what is a Buckeye or a Brutus Buckeye to be more exact?

A Buckeye looks like a chessnut, but is poisonous and can kill you like their vaunted defensive line! A weak idea for a mascot, but a mascot nonetheless.

So this ICC chess player from Ohio probably thought he was winning as he entered this King and Pawn ending with both White's d6 and f5 pawn being in the crosshair's of Buckeye22 's King at g7. However the Ohio State fan played the natural Kf6 and resigned 5 seconds later. 

Look carefully at diagrammed position to see how this chess addict self paralyzed himself leading to Zugzwang! I would have made the same blunder!! The on prix f5 pawn cannot be taken or the d5 pawn will Queen while in the meantime the fatally advanced Black e3 pawn will gobbled up by the White Monarch.

So logic dictates that the Ohio native can only advance his Queenside pawns  onto exposed and vulnerable squares!!!

Back to the Buckeyes football team who lost to Clemson this year. They fought hard and could have beaten Clemson had it not been for mistakes in crucial situations. BTW Black is losing also after Kf8, but it is much more challenging for White to convert.

Talented IM Valeri Lilov and beautiful breasted Anna Rudolf, also an International Master, write about Zugzwang in an illuminating fashion

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Widening the Beachhead

In armed combat, a beachhead is a defended area within the enemy position where two armies are engaged or fighting. Not surprisingly, widening the beachhead occurs in war games like chess. In the following position involving only pawns, Black temporarily goes down a pawn to create a maurading King Zugzwang position.

Black paradoxically, moves his King Backwards to c7 or in reverse which is always winning according to Bill Reuter. This strategy allows the second player to get to the a4 square uncontested as the second diagram shows.

Despite White's extra pawn, he is in Zugzwang and will lose both queenside pawns and the d4 pawn resulting in him likely tipping over his King. Widening the beachhead effectively means spreading out your attacking area(creating a path for your King into your opponent's position) oftentimes at the cost of a pawn. It is a common theme in King and Pawn endings

Bad Bishop And/Or Zugzwang

In the diagrammed position with Black to Move, see if you can determine if there is a way to for White to hold the position. Put differently, can White find a way to make a draw?

If it were White to move in this chess position, then Ke1 would most certainly draw as it would prevent the Bf1 encroachment.  If there is a win for the second player, it has to involve getting the Black Monarch to g1 attaching the White f2 pawn.

There is some risk in this idea as the Black e4 pawn could become vulnerable. This weakness would be no more if the Black prelate could get to the d3 square where it is also attacking the White c4 pawn.



A theme here is Zugzwang which means any move you make will eventually lose. White's King is stuck at e1 defending f2. Maybe White could play pawn to a3 clearing the a2 square for his Bishop to occupy and perhaps avoid Zugzwang.