Category Archives: POSITIONAL PLAY

MIDDLEGAMES, OPENINGS, POSITIONAL PLAY, TIGER CHESS THEMED TRAINING TOURNAMENTS, TOURNAMENTS, TRAINING

THE EASTERN CLAMP ANTI-SICILIAN

This week I published a first series of videos on of a new set of 1.e4 openings for White. I had previously balked at the idea of doing so as I felt that 1.e4 was too chaotic to allow the assimilation of positional ideas and too theoretical for amateurs to play with confidence. I changed my mind after discovering 1.e4 c5 2.d3 Nc6 3.f4, which I've dubbed The Eastern Clamp Anti-Sicilian. 

What's the idea behind this line? There are several. In the late 1980s I used to play 1.e4 c5 2.d3 Nc6 3.g3 in order to get a Closed Sicilian but without White's knight on c3. However I struggled against 3...d5 4.Nd2 Nf6 5.Bg2 e5 6.Ngf3 Be7; White's position is playable here but he's certainly not better. Reluctantly I gave it up and started using 1.d4 and Flank Openings instead, but I wish I'd taken a closer look at 3.f4. Yuri Balashov, a Closed Sicilian aficionado, was already playing this in the 1980s and it was also being advocated by Mikhail Shereshevsky, a famous coach. White takes central space, and the onus is on Black to try and offset this somehow.

From an amateur's perspective the advantage of this line is that it does not require a lot of theoretical knowledge, or any updates of such knowledge on an ongoing basis. It can be played mainly with ideas and plans, and the one sharp line looks rather dubious for Black. There are other low maintainance lines with 1.e4 and I will be covering more of these over the coming months. As an example, the Caro-Kann (1.e4 c6 2.d3 d5) can be met with 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Bd3, the strategically clear Exchange Variation.
 

Training Tournaments

This week's training tournaments feature the Eastern Clamp Anti-Sicilian, with two major branches from Black:

Sunday February 16th at 5pm UK Time: Eastern Clamp Anti-Sicilian with 1.e4 c5 2.d3 Nc6 3.f4 d5

Sunday February 16th at 6.15pm UK Time: Eastern Clamp Anti-Sicilian with 1.e4 c5 2.d3 Nc6 3.f4 g6

My Upcoming Events

Here's my schedule over the coming months, though it is subject to change. I often don't know until fairly late in the day:

February 16-27, 2025: World Senior Team Championship
I've accepted a place in the 50+ second team which means I'll play a much stronger field than on bottom board of the first team. Although this diminishes my chances of winning a medal I'm looking forward to the challenge.

April 4-14 2025: European Senior Team Championship

I finally got confirmation that I'll be in the 50+ 1st team, apparently on board 3 of a team that includes Michael Adams, John Emms, myself, Steve Dishman and Graeme Buckley.

April 24-28 2025: English Senior Championships

I'm hoping to be invited to these and may now be eligible for either section. You can find details here. 

July 31st - 10th August 2025: British Championships
These have now been confirmed for Liverpool on these dates, you can find details here. If I get invited to play in the main Championships, I'll probably accept. Otherwise I'm eligible for both the 50+ and 65+ sections, and should have a chance of doing well in either.

There will probably be one or two events between April and the end of July, it's important to keep playing in order to maintain good form.

Twitch Channel

My new Twitch channel has new shows every Monday ('Chess Questions Answered), the Webinar on training tournaments and games is up on Fridays and another weekly coming soon. Please follow it if you'd like to get updates etc, all the shows will be available to Premium members in the Tiger Chess members area, even when they are no longer available on Twitch.

Have a good weekend.

Nigel

CLINIC, POSITIONAL PLAY

SEPTEMBER 2022 CLINIC

In the September clinic there are games from the Kasparov line of the Rubinstein French (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Nf3 Ngf6 6.Nxf6+ Nxf6 and now 7.c3) and the Semi-Tarrasch (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 c5). As usual, the games were taken from the Tiger Chess Themed Training Tournaments on Lichess, which are unrated and offer a chance to practice some key opening positions from Tiger Chess opening repertoires.

Here's a position from one of the games, Black has just played 22...e6-e5, a positional mistake which White now exploited. What would you do (see diagram)?

White played 23.g4!, sealing Black's pawns on dark squares so he could later penetrate with his king on the light squares. The game continued 23... Rh8 24.Bd2 h5 25.Rh3 h4 26.Rf3 f6 27.c4 Rd8 28.Rd3 b5 29.cxb5+ axb5 30.Rxd8 Bxd8 31.Kd3 Kd5 32.f3 h3 33.a4 bxa4 34.bxa4 Bc7 35.Be3 Ba5 36.Bf2 Bc7 37.Be1 Bb6 38.a5 Ba7 39.a6 Bb6 40.Bd2 Kc6 41.Be3 e4+ 42.Kxe4 Bc7 43.f4 Bd6 44.Kf3 Bb8 45.a7 1-0, which was a nice and strategically consistent win.

The Tigerchess.com Themed Training events are a great opportunity to practice key positions from regular openings, and are open to everyone who joins the Tiger Chess Team. Participating in these events helps players develop real insight into the openings played, above and beyond looking at them in a book or on a video.

Nigel Davies

BUILDING AN OPENING REPERTOIRE, FRENCH DEFENCE, POSITIONAL PLAY

FEBRUARY 2019 CLINIC: POSITIONAL PLAY

Positional play is a major focus here at Tiger Chess. When I started teaching chess to club players in the 1990s, this was one of the areas which I felt was least developed, so I set about creating a course which focused heavily on this aspect of chess. Originally I sent this out as a correspondence course over a two year period, and a cut down version of this was later published as The Power Chess Program in a two book form. Its latest incarnation is the Tiger Chess Strategy Course which is available to members with 160 weekly lessons.

This work was later supplemented by opening repertoires which helped players use some of the strategic themes presented, including the Building an Opening Repertoire course for both Black and White, and more recently a specialist course on the French Defence. This summer I will be bringing out another course, this time for White, which will present an economical 1.d4, 2.Nf3 and 3.c4 repertoire in which the focus will be on strategy rather than computer generated variations which are very difficult for players to remember.

The February clinic was devoted to positional play in which five games were presented, four by members together with one of my own. Positional play is often misunderstood at club level and is perhaps best thought of as operations with the pawns. The following position provided a good illustration:

N.C. versus . N. Other

White to play used a thematic pawn lever with 36.a5!, undermining the pawn on b6. Black's position collapsed quite quickly after this, the game finishing with the moves 36...Ke8 37.axb6 Rxb6 38.Rxb6 Rxb6 39.Rxb6 Nxb6 40.Ba5 1-0. Black's resignation may seem premature but he is defenceless against an invasion of White's queen along the b-file.

This shows the power of good positional play, White simply levered open a file and his opponent's position was hopeless; no fireworks or calculation was required.

Nigel Davies

CLINIC, ENDGAMES, POSITIONAL PLAY

JANUARY CLINIC ON BEST GAMES

The January 2019 clinic is now out and features members' best games. There was quite a mix sent in, from a violent tactical game to several purely positional games.

The following position was reached in one of the positional games in which U. S. had established a stranglehold on the position after getting a pawn duo on e4 and d4 in the Colle and then turning this into an e4/d5 wedge. He closed in for the kill:

U.S. versus A. N. Other

White now played 37.Qc6!, with the game ending with the moves 37...f6 38.Rc8 Qxc6 39.dxc6 1-0. Black's knight has no squares so he must lose a piece.

I like to focus on positional play and endgames at Tiger Chess because this is where many players at club level can improve. Brilliant tactical ability tends to be more dependent on innate gifts rather than methodical learning.

Nigel Davies