All posts by NigelD

ENGLISH CHESS ACADEMY, TIGER CHESS ENDGAME COURSE, TIGER CHESS STRATEGY COURSE

ENGLISH CHESS ACADEMY – SEPTEMBER 2018

For the last year I've been coaching at ECF (English Chess Federation) Chess Academy weekends with the most recent one being held last weekend. These events have been hugely successful, with many of the most promising juniors in England receiving expert coaching as well as taking part in events including a blitz tournament on the Saturday evening. Some of the younger coaches even took part whereas those needed a break retired for the evening to a local hostelry. Picture below, from left to right, are FMs Tim Wall and Charlie Storey, IM Andrew Martin and GM Glenn Flear:

Chess Coaches Relaxing

The Academy was created by the outgoing ECF Junior & Education Director, Traci Whitfield, who has done an amazing job putting it together. Tact and diplomacy tend to be rare talents in the chess scene but they are invaluable for such a project. I am sure that she will be missed by the ECF.

Traci Whitfield

As usual the basis of my sessions were examples taken from the 160 lesson Tiger Chess Strategy Course, which members can access here. Occasionally I have to take material from the 160 lesson Tiger Chess Endgame Course which is here. One of this weekend's topics was the role of the open file which I cover quite extensively; for the young players I was teaching this weekend I took the classic example of Alekhine - Yates, London 1922:

Alexander Alekhine had successfully penetrated along the open c-file and doubled rooks on the 7th rank. He finished the game beautifully with 36.Nf6! Rgf8 (capturing the knight with 36...gxf6 allows 37.Rh7#) 37.Rxg7! Rxf6 38.Ke5! 1-0. The only way for Black to save the rook on f6 is to move one of his two rooks to f8, but this allows mate with 39.Rh7+ followed by 40.Rcg7#.

Nigel Davies

CLINIC, ITALIAN GAME, OPENINGS, TACTICS, UPDATES

LLANDUDNO SIMUL

On August 22nd I visited the ICCF Congress in Llandudno to give a simultaneous display. It went quite well despite my lack of tournament practice with 15 wins and 3 draws against a field which included two ICCF Grandmasters, two Senior International Masters and some young Welsh stars. I confess that I have been playing a lot of blitz (5 minutes with a 3 second increment) against my son Sam and it does seem to have sharpened us both up. There were several moments where I found some strong tactical sequences, such as this one:

Here I sacrificed a knight with 23.Nxf7! Kxf7 24.Ng5+, seeing that after 24...Kg8 I had 25.Re8+! and that after 24...Kf6 I had at least a draw with 25.Nh7+. When my opponent did play 24...Kf6 I found 25.Qf4! threatening 26.Re6 mate, and when my opponent failed to find a defence he graciously asked me whether I would prefer him to take the queen or allow the mate. I plumped for the latter and the game ended with 25...Nxf4 26.Nh7#.

The opening is worth noting as I think that the quiet Italian Game (the game started with 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d3) is an excellent option for those who open with 1.e4 but prefer to learn strategy rather than opening analysis. For members interested in the complete game I have included it in the August 2018 members clinic. If you are not a member but would like to join you can do so here.

It was also interesting to play over the board games against very strong correspondence players, not least because I have suffered against them when playing them at their own time limit. For many years I have used secret correspondence games to test openings, a practice I believe other over-the-board GMs use as well. My impression was that they have a good understanding of chess and better openings than players of a similar strength who just play over-the-board. At the same time they might benefit from faster time controls where fast reactions and tactical awareness are at a premium.

Nigel Davies