Three Squares

If GM Alex Goldin were to read this, he would be pleased as he has instructed me to focus on end games to learn – really learn – calculation. Additionally, this happens to be one very interesting endgame.



White has just played 49.g5 and it is at this point Black resigned (!).

GM’s Beliavsky and Mikhalchishin use this introductory position in their book Winning Endgame Strategy as an example of Premature Resignation of a Game for GM Timman now had a draw available to him.





A short note: the position above was from a game between GM Alexy Shirov and GM Jan Timman in round 11 of a 13 round robin 58th Annual Hoogovens Chess Tournament, a category XVII event, held in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands from January 12th to January 29th 1996.

The authors note that for both players the draw seemed “to be in order and appropriate comments [later] appeared in ChessBase…”

But if Black should not have resigned, what should he have done? The authors give the following moves: 49. … Kd6 50.h4 Kxc6 51.f5! Kd6 52.f6, ‘when there are [now] two ways to draw.’

The two ways or two moves the authors provided that permit a draw are

Position A - after 52…. Kd7


For Postion A the three squares d7, d8, and e8 provide the ability to triangulate against the approach of the enemy King while both protecting the pawn on c7 and keeping a watchful eye on f8 (remaining ‘in the square’) should the pawn on f6 advance to f7 and f8 to Queen.







and Position B - after 52…. c6





For position B the three squares d6, d7, and e6 (along with d8) again provide the ability to triangulate against the approach of the enemy King while protecting the pawn now on c6 and keeping a watchful eye on f8 (again remaining ‘in the square’) should the pawn on f6 advance to f7 and f8 to Queen.



The following diagrams provide a great visual showing the key three square in each position and where Black must carefully place his King.







Position A’s 3 key squares














Position B’s 3 key squares








There is a great deal of enjoyment and a lot to be learned by trying to find a way for White to win either position. So far, Black always draws with best play.

For example:






From Position A, after 52…. Kd7 53.Kf3 Ke8 54.Ke4 Kc7 55.Kd5 Ke8! And Black holds! (if Ke6 then Kf8!)













From Position B, after 52…. c6 53.Kf3 Kd7 54.Ke4 and either Kd8! or Ke6 holds for Black.








A little background on the game: up to the point of Black’s resignation he had moved his king a total of 15 times (including castling), traveling from c8 to b3 and back to g8. In a 15 move span (from move 21 through move 35) GM Timman moved his King 12 times. An amazing tour de force which as the authors have noted, should have resulted in a draw.

You may find the game here or here. Enjoy.

Why We Study Tactics

One the reasons, no, the main reason chess players study tactics is to enable them to use the tactics against their opponents at the board. Just as important, but seldom talked about, is that we study tactics to avoid having our opponent use them against us.

Sometimes it is to no avail, due to time trouble or just trying to find something, anything to stay in the fight.

The following two positions are from a game I won – barely – and as will be shown I should have lost. The game was played in round 3 of Dayton Chess Club’s #44 Next To Last 2011 Quick , game in 25 minutes, time delay of 5 seconds.

I was in dire straits through much of the game so I did something I seldom do afterwards. I went over the game and critiqued my moves and those of my opponent, Andre Jaworowski.

I chose a poor plan and Andre properly punished me for such a poor plan. The following position is after white played 31: Bd3
















Black to move.

The following week, I wanted to show Andre the position because he should have won the game directly here with 31. … Qxg3 and if 32. hxg3, then 32. Rh6 mate. Pretty neat and something I wanted to make sure I didn’t give Andre an opportunity to do again.

Imagine my chagrin when Andre set up an earlier position after the moves 25. Bxf8 Bxf2+ 26. Nxf2 Qxf2+ 27. Kh1 with black to move. Andre already in time trouble, played 27. … Rxf8. Instead he had an absolutely killer move. Do you see it?
















Black to move.

Do you see it yet? Andre set it up at the Dayton Chess Club and told me a killer move was there, but I didn’t see it.

Okay, the move is 27. … Qxd4!! where not only is white’s Rook on a1 threatened, but if the Rook moves a mate in three (3) ensues. 28. R moves, Nf2+ 29. Kg1 Nh3 dble+ 30. Kh1 Qg1 mate.

So I tip my imaginary hat to Andre while telling myself I will never (NEVER) let him have this opportunity to do this again.

Yeah, Right!

Too Good Not to Share

Wednesday night, September 14, 2011 it was a “Movies and Matches” night. No one showed up to play any match chess. However, there were a few of us for the “Movie.”

To be sure, this was not a movie in the normal “movie” sense. Instead it was a selection from www.chessvideos.tv that was free for public consumption. I titled it “Knightmare!” as it was a case of an eventual good Knight against a bad Bishop where the play with the Knight resulted in a Knightmare for the player with the bad Bishop

Peter Lumbaers with the Black pieces provides solid instruction on how to win with the smallest of advantages – in this case a good Knight vice a bad (but not too bad) Bishop – against Anne Haast with the White pieces.

He is very frank about the position being a draw, until Ms. Haast made an error resulting in amplifying Lumbaers’ Knight’s mobility as well as that of his King.

If you care to watch 25 minutes of quality instruction for free, you may find the game here. I have seen it three times and enjoyed it each time as well as learning something each time.

Watch, learn, enjoy, and be entertained - all at the same time.

Grand Kids

Grand kids, three to be exact, are truly a wonder, at least at a young age. And all of mine (ours) are of a young age – 6, 5, and 4.5 months.

The one in the middle recently captured my heart – again. Her name is Rheya which I believe is my name unconsciously modified by her mother (our daughter). Just imagine if you will, a horizontal bar connecting the “I” and the “l” in Riley and you have a backwards (flipped horizontally) “h” when turned around makes a normal “h” then add an “a” to feminize it and you have “Rheya” …

Okay, I know it’s a stretch and Rheya’s mother denies it, but she would have to do so, wouldn’t she? Could she really admit our first granddaughter is named after her grandfather and not her grandmother?

More to the point, all of “our grandchildren are a crown to us as we age” (Proverbs 16:6 paraphrased). How is this so and how did Rheya recently capture my heart again?

It was during a ladies day out – Sharon (my bride), Jennifer (our daughter), and Rheya (our granddaughter). Sharon and Jennifer set up a surprise meeting between Rheya and Grandmother which Rheya liked, but would rather have known so she could plan on the meeting … sounded like she wanted the joy of anticipation to me.

After the surprise was over as well as lunch, it was over to half price books – a favorite of all three ladies. There Rheya got another surprise – a half price books gift certificate from grandmother.

Then Rheya surprised everyone by insisting on buying grandfather (me) a chess book. Side note, everyone in the family knows I have a serious fondness (love?) of this ancient board game. Anyway, grandmother accompanied her to the shelf with the chess books and as they looked through them explained that grandfather actually already had all of those there.

So what was Rheya to do now? Well, while I don’t know how it came about, she ended up buying me a small very nice journal or diary.

For some reason this really touched me and I felt blessed after I opened the self-addressed package from Rheya for Grandpa – see picture of same below.

I am a man blessed in so many ways, but this blessing, this gift of love from Rheya, I shall carry with me to heaven.

Glimpse of God

Sometimes, without realizing it, we are given a glimpse of God. It may be a blade of grass, a new born baby, the look in your son’s or daughter’s eyes when they understand something for the first time, a baby who looks at you with total trust and love and then smiles, the soft touch of your wife’s hand when you need it most.

It can be anyone of those things or something entirely different. The problem arises when we see something so often we become calloused, used to it, and no longer see God in the blade of grass or the look and smile from a baby or the touch from a loved one.

Then God sometimes steps in to remind us of his presence everywhere. The Old Testament tells us God “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) and “then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth’; and it was so” (Genesis 1:14-15). I believe that, every word of it. No doubt at all, but I kind of take it for granted as well. It was a truth I was used to and had become somewhat calloused about.

No more, for recently I got to see the evidence the ancients, those of the Old Testament, the ancient saw everywhere, but especially in the sky. I think it must have been the same for the plains Indians of North America.

Randy Halverson put together a time lapse video of the Plains Milky Way in the plains of South Dakota and for the first time I saw the Milky Way and had a sense, a real sense of the incredible immensity of God and His creation. In a video of 3 minutes and 17 seconds I got to see the Milky Way sweep across the sky a number of times in the South Dakota night sky.

After watching the video a number of times, I went back to Genesis and reread the verses above and understood in the Milky Way I was only seeing a glimpse of God, just as if I were looking at a blade of grass. You see the estimate for the number of stars in the Milky Way is somewhere between 200 and 400 billion stars. Let’s ‘spell’ that out, between 200,000,000,000 and 400,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way. We are on the outside edge of the Milky Way galaxy with our sun. And the Milky Way Galaxy is only one of the estimated hundreds of billions of galaxies.

The numbers overwhelm me. It’s like when I read (#20) According to the America's Foundation for Chess, there are 169,518,829,100,544,000,000,000,000,000 ways to play the first 10 moves of a game of Chess I get overwhelmed too, after all that’s more than one times ten to the 30th power. That is likely one of the reasons I love the game of chess, but it is after all just a game.

The stars are not a game, they are clearly a creation of and by God. And if sometime, we ever get far enough out of the city to see them, we will clearly get a glimpse of God as we watch the Milky Way Galaxy sweep across the plains of South Dakota. Then we can be reminded (I can be reminded) we (I) serve “a great and awesome God” (Nehemiah 1:5), a God of great and “awesome majesty” (Job 37:22).

I think I will check out a blade of grass again as well.

What To Do?

The year was 1983. I was working at PMEL, pronounced "'P' mel." The acronym stands for Precision Measurement Electronics Laboratory, a metrology laboratory and no, metrology is not misspelled.

At the lab I was the in house instructor for digital electronics and microprocessor controlled test equipment plus the basics of assembly language programming. We were leaving the era of tubes and discrete electronic components and moving headlong into test equipment loaded with solid state digital electronics and integrated circuits.

I was asked if I wanted the job because while serving in the Air Force I had been an instructor and a StanEval team member on ARIA aircraft for the antenna tracking system. But I really did not know digital electronics except for a correspondence course I had taken from the Cleveland Institute of Electronics (CIE). Thus, many a night was spent working on digital circuits until I fell asleep with my face in a maze of jumper wires connecting various integrated circuits. But it got me off the lab bench for a few hours three times a week and looked good for my annual review. Plus promotions were coming up.

About those promotions, there were three openings. I was the number one candidate with one other lab technician close by and then three or four right behind us. When the names came out, my name was not on the list. It was Friday. Boy oh boy, I am glad it was Friday. I was so angry, I was kicking doors all day Saturday, scaring my bride of 12 years and our two children.

Finally, I calmed down and then Sharon and I talked and talked. We may as well have been praying. The question came down to, "Will you quit the extra curricular work (teaching) and back off on how hard you work?" I had been asked the same question by a half dozen coworkers who wanted me to 'punish' management because I had not been promoted.

What to do? A decision from the recesses of my soul came out. I would not quit teaching and I would not quit performing on the job. That would be a lose/lose proposition with long range negative consequences. Instead I would work harder on the regular part of my job and also on the instruction portion. Part of me wanted to embarrass them by my positive performance after not being promoted. The decision had been made, I would not back off, I would perform.

Monday, I was back at work and instructing digital electronics. Many of my coworkers shook their heads in bewilderment. A few came by and shook my hand admiring the choice I had made.

Then nothing for about six weeks until my direct boss, the one who chose not to promote me offered me an opportunity to attend a ten week course on calibrating microwave test equipment. He had been instructed by his management to offer me the class. To his astonishment (I can still recall the surprise on his face) when I immediately accepted the offer. I was an honor graduate of the class.

Months later, I had decided to quit playing and studying so much chess. I was looking for a way to better invest my time for myself and my family ... there was no money in chess for a player like me who could (maybe, probably) become a National Master. In my casting about I found an Engineering Science University Program at our local community college. A college algebra class was available, but would require an extra 30 minutes for lunch to make it happen.

I asked my boss (yeah, that one) if I could have an extra 30 minutes three days a week for the quarter. His answer was not unexpected, "No." However, when he told me to go ask the front office (his management) to see what they would say, that was unexpected. He surely didn't think anything would come of it.

Thinking the worst that could happen is another "No" I went to the front office. What a surprise, they said yes. Plus they added, "You have done everything we asked you to do, even when you didn't get the promotion, we will be glad to help out with this." When I told my boss, he could not get to the front office fast enough. He did not believe it. He returned shaking his head and muttering to himself. Then he said, "Well, I guess you get to go."

Got the shock of my life when the first class was on imaginary numbers. I almost quit until I recalled the same thing in my CIE course with a different application. Stuck it out and made an "A" and then took another class and then another ... Before I knew it, I had an Associate's Degree in Engineering Science.

Two years later I had an Electrical Systems Engineering Bachelor of Science degree with a second major in applied mathematics. Then the job opportunities came. I maintained the same work habits, doing my job and then some. The job opportunities continued.

The only thing wrong with my diploma was that it had only one name on it - mine. But it was just as much my bride's ... I could not, would not, have completed the engineering program at Wright State University without her. The story behind that is whole other blog entry.

But back to what to do when you get passed over for a promotion and it is given to someone less deserving? My answer should be obvious by now - "Continue doing the best you can and then do some more." My sig line on my emails from work all end with "... and then some," meaning do what you are supposed to do and then some.

Leave the rest up to God. Honor Him with your work.

When You Stop Calculating

I am a chess player or at least I used to be. Now I mostly organize and direct chess tournaments plus run the Dayton Chess Club (Dayton, OH) while working full time and taking online classes in a very different field - Christian Studies.

Nonetheless, I decided to pay to attend a lecture by Grandmaster (GM) Alexander Goldin this morning (Saturday, June 26, 2010) at the Dayton Chess Club at the prompting of my wife. Plus I was curious as I had attended GM lectures before and while I was always dazzled, I was also always disappointed. I was disappointed because they frequently talked over my head (and those of others in attendance) while seeking to impress us with their brilliance. That was unnecessary as we all understood what it takes to be a Grandmaster. The GM title does not come easy, the percentage of chess players with the title is a small part (very small part) of the top one percent of chess players worldwide.

That being said, this lecture was different, very different. GM Goldin stretched a 75 minute lecture into a 90 minute lecture while doing his best to communicate with those in attendance what they would need to do to improve their chess game. Like many or most GM's he stressed the study of the endgame. But it was with a twist. The purpose of studying endgames - beyond gaining the knowledge and techniques necessary to draw or win a given endgame - is developing one's ability to calculate. He asked the question, "Why?" Then he proceeded to provide the answer. Unlike estimation of positions which takes years of experience, one's ability to calculate can be improved in months or weeks or even days - depending on one's dedication to practice or in his words, regular exercise. Timed, purposeful exercises are the key. Almost any good endgame book will do, but he recommended starting with "Chess Endings" by GM Averbakh with a specific focus on king and pawn endgames to build up the calculating ability.

GM Goldin did not stop there. He went on to emphasize the necessity to calculate "move by move" throughout the changing position. He was emphatic, stating "The moment you stop calculating you lose your grip on the game." And again, "When you stop calculating and start 'thinking' you lose the game!" In case you are wondering, the exclamation mark is indicative of the emphasis he placed on this.

As an example he next gave a 'simple' endgame position (White: K-h7, p-d2; Black: K-f7, p-c4) with White to move asking how White might draw. We discovered rapidly that walking White's king down the h file towards the pawns did not work as it never really got closer to the pawns. It was a matter of calculation. Then most of us rejected the idea of moving the White king further away from the pawns to h8 as a bad idea (thinking). However, if you calculate it out this counter intuitive move works. Lesson learned. Thinking without calculation is indeed bad. We also saw here an application of Sherlock Holmes' famous dictum, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Or applying this deductive logic to chess, "When you have eliminated all the natural moves by calculation, then it is time to try - by calculation - the most unlikely moves no matter how counter intuitive or impossible looking."

With one more problem and two of his games - one as an IM and one as a GM - to demonstrate his practice of his personal dictum - "Calculate, always calculate!" There was much more, but if you want to find out what else was covered, come to one of his lectures or take an hour or more of his private lessons. He will be at the Dayton Chess Club every 1-2 months to play in the Game in 25 minutes on Friday night followed by lecture and lessons on Saturday and more lessons on Sunday.

Don't take my word for it, calculate it out yourself. Also take the time to compare GM Goldin's remarks about regular dedicated exercise with "deliberate practice" and what you find on the latter when you Google "deliberate practice."

End.