Opening preparation – pt 1

The chess season is getting under way. A couple of club matches so far with the 4NCL coming up and I’m playing in the London Chess Classic Open in December and also most likely Hastings in December/January.

So what am I doing to prepare? There are two things that are obvious to prepare for a tournament at the 2000+ level. The first is opening repertoire. The second is technical (tactics and endgames).

Of the two the second is more important, although I feel my tactics and endgames are pretty sharp (unless I try to play too quickly). However tactics tends to decide games for players under 2200 so should not be treated lightly.

As a lower rated player, opening theory should just be a means of getting a playable middlegame while avoiding any nasty traps. Openings such as the Grand Prix Attack in the Sicilian are highly popular because they score quick points against players who do not know how to deal with them. If you are someone with limited time, you should try to avoid positions where you have to know [detailed theory], and are unable to blag your way through (preferably with natural looking moves). This doesn’t mean avoid main lines, but it does suggest that lines where you have to play exactly the right moves to keep going (beyond your ability to find them over the board in reasonable time) might be too risky.

The problem is a lot of players want to know what to play in an opening rather than facilitate an ability to play it (or chess in fact). Why bother with an equal’ish’ middlegame when you have a crushing position at move 15 just because you read a book your opponent didn’t and remember the ‘secret’ sequence.

I think this is ingrained in our culture [UK] where we are losing our ability to innovate and self-start because we are looking to be spoon-fed information rather than be able to generate it from what we know and the skills we have. Add to this the Americanism of get results now rather than over the longer term and it’s a recipe for disaster.

We are too reliant on crumbs of wisdom from experts. Experts make mistakes, experts are not experts on everything, experts don’t always have our interests at heart. Even if you take the work of a great player (Fischer) you will find errors in his analysis (run the games through a computer and database and see frowned upon mistakes be perfectly playable, and moves played in games throw an advantage away). This is not detracting from such amazing ability in a time without GM strength computers and databases, but it does show even the greats are human. If Fischer can make mistakes in a book which was a labour of love (I am referring to his 60 Memorable Games of course), what chance does ‘Play the ….’ series written by a master who has to put several books into the market a year to survive (and make them juicy enough to sell) have?

Would it be better to know what options you have when the opponent plays something you haven’t seen before, rather than hoping he’ll play a particular line you studied three years ago and hoping you’ll still remember it.

Learning openings by rote (as in sequences of moves and little else) is fraught in both time and returns from study. There are hundreds of playable and not-so-playable lines in each opening. Learning them all is impossible and counter-productive. Yet, we still go out there and buy books on the opening just because we are ‘promised’ a winning system (or the cover art looks pretty!).

I will talk about my current approach to studying openings in the next article.

I’m still alive

Just a quick note to say I’m still alive. Summer is usually a quiet period for chess and I haven’t had that many games recently that I strongly want to say something about. Of course there is general training, but I have another priority right now.

I’m writing some software which will greatly aid chess improvement and analysis of chess games. No doubt in a few months I’ll be back with some new insights and analysis, hopefully aided by my software.

I’m running some chess training sessions at my club, so maybe an article or two even might develop from that.

For now feel free to drop comments or your own analysis on anything I’ve said.

Are coaches going to become obsolete?

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2011/02/augmented-reality-system-teaches-you-chess.html

‘Augmented reality system teaches you chess’
‘A new system that can track your moves could replace human chess coaches’

Sometimes people should not write articles about subjects they know little of. Here is what I posted as a comment (no idea if it’ll appear on there):

—

If anything it’s just a cheap digital board system and the markers are probably going to be more an annoyance than anything – why not simply use some artificial intelligence to track/recognise the pieces?

Whether human coaches become obsolete will depend on how good the software is, and given current (abundant) software hasn’t replaced coaches I don’t see how this will.

—

Yes it’s a new twist, but I don’t see it teaching chess any better than a computer screen currently does.

Three lessons in one: draws, trusting your judgement, paralysis of overthinking

For such a short game, I can get three lessons out of it. I’m playing White vs K Woodcock (1600ish).

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6

Black wants to play sillies and is going for a hyper-accelerated dragon.

3. d4 Bg7 4. c3

Two can play at that game. I was thinking about c4 or Nc3, but why not c3 and go into a c3 sicilian? After all g6 is hardly a test of it.

4. … cxd4 5. cxd4 d6?!

Black really has to aim for d5 here. d6 is not highly regarded because White gets a good position that is hard to break down. Of course that assumes that White is able to play it right.

6. h3 a6?! 7. Qa4+?!

Perhaps I should have played more simply, but I liked this move as it stops b5 (b5?? 8. Bxb5 as the a-pawn is pinned) and the bishop on d7 (with or without Nc6) isn’t as nice as getting it to b7. If Nc6, d5 doesn’t win the knight as Qa5+ saves things. Black eventually gets b5 in so perhaps Qa4 doesn’t work.

7. … Nd7?! 8. Be2 Ngf6 9. Nc3 O-O 10. O-O b6?

I give this a ? as b5 is actually on – Bxb5 isn’t pinning the knight so Nb6 is possible which attacks the queen while protecting the rook.

11. Re1?

Here White throws away his advantage. The computer recommends 11. e5 now with 11. … dxe5 12. dxe5 Nc5 13. Qh4 or 13. exf6 with a three piece for queen ‘sacrifice’. One of the keys to this sort of position is knowing when to push the centre and which pawn to push first.

11. … Bb7 12. Bd3 b5 13. Qd1?!

Now the position is gradually slipping into Black’s favour.

13. … Rc8 14. Bg5 h6 15. Bh4 e5 16. dxe5 dxe5 17. Qe2 Qb6 1/2-1/2

Black offered a draw so I accepted, particularly as I had only about 20 minutes to make another 23 moves.

Black is wrong to offer a draw here, he’s slightly better and I’ve got 20 minutes to play lots of moves. Even if White is slightly better, he’s got a lot of moves to play and it’s complicated. If White is put under a bit of pressure (make it complicated and/or tactical) it’s quite possible that he’ll run out of time or make a mistake. Black should take his time, set a number of problems and carefully examine White’s replies for mistakes. The odds are in Black’s favour here against a non-professional.

Let’s talk about draws. This is one bit of golden advice I received from IM Andrew Martin when I attended his Millfield sessions (essentially I was difficult cannon fodder for the kids to practise against, but free lessons for me). When is the best time to offer a draw? Well if it’s best as in a draw is all you need to win a tournament, it’s when you’re better, but the position isn’t good enough to be guaranteed of a win. If there is no way of losing though, why offer a draw? Just keep playing on. If the game is really drawn it will just happen eventually.

I’ve seen far too many players who will get into a position they don’t know what to do or it’s quite complicated (they will have an advantage sometimes as well) and they will just offer a draw. Their opponent accepts and they stay rated 120 and below. If you want to progress beyond that sort of rating you need to know when to offer draws and when to accept them. It’s still a game of chess, you don’t have to know everything to play a position any more than knowing every opening perfectly. If you think you might be better or you aren’t sure how to play the position but aren’t losing, play on. If your evaluation is wrong, you’ll learn something. Chess is not for the meek. Ok don’t turn down a draw if you’re clearly losing, but don’t offer or accept draws if you’re on top. I advised this to one of my friends and his rating shot up – he was offering and accepting too many draws.

So I accept a draw against a player rated roughly 400 points below me, but I was trusting my judgement. I looked carefully at the position, decided he was slightly better and I didn’t have enough time, so I took the hit to my rating. Trust your judgement; if it turns out wrong you need to work on your chess. That doesn’t mean you jump to conclusions based on intuition (despite the implications of my other article), but if a bit of calculation on top of it is telling you something, trust it. Then after the game go to the computer and check if you were right.

So we’re analysing the game in the post-mortem. Perhaps it wasn’t as bad as I thought, at least against the replies he came out against my tries. It turned out the earlier h7-h6 move gave a tactic on in certain positions where the f-pawn had moved leaving Bxg6 on. This was hard to see over the board and I certainly hadn’t spotted it in any of the lines I looked at. The thing is, my opponent then spewed (for want of a better word) lots of generalities that he was worried about, one after the other. I think with that kind of analysis I would have won. Perhaps I might exchange pawns giving me an isolated passed pawn which might be dangerous because it might eventually queen. Really? Sure, but an isolated passed pawn can be blocked, the pieces can be swapped and then it is often easy to round up. I was hearing line after line like this. His mind was going full throttle at any ghost in the position without anything concrete to back it up.

Another Andrew Martin gem: You can’t have everything. You’ll have some advantages and disadvantages and so will your opponent. It’s very rare you’ll have everything. That is: you make what you can of your advantages, while trying to ensure the opponent doesn’t exploit your disadvantages and you try to stop the opponent making something of his advantages while you exploit his disadvantages. To what emphasis you put on each (since you can’t deal with all four) is a matter dependent on the position and your style. I had another player in a post-mortem ask me what I thought of some moves. He asked if a6 is it a bad move because it weakens b6. The problem was there was no piece poised to land there and even if it did, I couldn’t see the advantage it conferred.

This is my point. It’s very lazy to learn a few generalities and then try to refer to them to work out a position without actually looking at it and attempting to analyse. This sort of thing ruins your chess if you use it anything beyond beginner level. By all means learn how an isolated pawn can be an advantage or disadvantage by seeing some typical plays in a few well annotated (appropriate for your level) master games. This is all good experience that can help you find the right move in a similar position. However, you cannot decide if such a pawn is a good or bad thing without taking into account the position and (usually) some concrete analysis to prove the point. You might be wrong because your analysis or positional understanding is flawed, but you tried, and it hints to where you need to improve. Don’t be frightened to fail, you can only do the best of your ability, it’s the best way to learn so that ability improves.

Even opposite coloured bishops doesn’t guarantee a draw vs an IM

I had this game as black in the second round at Hastings vs IM Bellin:

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 e5 7. Nb3 Be7 8. f3
Be6 9. Qd2

All standard theory up to now.

9. … d5?!

I couldn’t see why d5 couldn’t be played here. Actually it has been played, but Black gets at best a draw because he gets into trouble developing. Black should play the usual O-O or Nbc7.

10. exd5 Nxd5 11. Nxd5 Bxd5

The computer thinks taking with the queen was the better option.

12. O-O-O Bc6 13. Na5 Qxd2+ 14. Bxd2

14. … Bc5?!

Bc5 was trying to get the bishop to a better square, but Black cannot afford to waste time – O-O should be played. The computer doesn’t think Bc5 is so bad though.

15. Bc3 f6 16. Bc4 b6 17. Nxc6 Nxc6 18. Rhe1

I had seen the idea of doubling the rooks, but I hadn’t seen Rhe1 with the idea of f4.

18. … b5

19. Bd5

Robert thought that Bd5 was perhaps a mistake and maybe Bb3 was better. The computer seems to prefer Bd5 though as 19. Bb3 allows 19. … Rad8 – eg. 20. f4 Rxd1+ 21. Kxd1+ b4 and when the bishop moves a fxe5 capture can be answered by Nxe5. Bd5 had the advantage of pinning the knight.

19. Bd5 allows me to get my king off the e-file, but 20. f4 should be played next instead of 20. Be4+ to weaken the centre.

19. … Kd7 20. Be4+?! Kc7 21. Rd5 Bd6 22. Red1 Rad8 23. R5d3

Here I panic as I thought White had threats of the bishop moving and Rc3. g6 should be played with f5 to follow.

23. … Nb4?!

Although I’m a pawn down, I thought the opposite coloured bishops gave me drawing chances. Black’s aim to to swap as many pawns as possible and leave them on squares the bishop cannot attack. Unfortunately White finds an ingenious way to win.

24. Bxb4 Bxb4 25. Rxd8 Rxd8 26. Rxd8 Kxd8 27. Bxh7 Kd7 28. c3 Be7 29. b4 Bd8 30. h4 a5 31. a3 axb4 32. axb4 Bb6 33. Kd2 Bf2 34. h5 Bg3 35. Kd3 Kc6 36. Bg6 Be1 37. Be8+ Kb6 38. g4 Ka6

39. g5!!

The computer doesn’t see the value in this and drops the score 20 centipawns (0.2 of a pawn). Computers are bad at plans and seeing how things fit together though so I can’t trust this. The problem is that with the g5 pawn in the way, the bishop can’t flit between as a defender h7 and f4 when the king attacks the h and pawns. Defending by getting the bishop to f6 doesn’t work either because the king can get to g6 and then play h6 undermining the protecting pawn.

39. … fxg5 40. c4 Bxb4 41. cxb5+ Kb6 42. Ke4 Bc3 43. Kf5 Kc5 44. Bc6

44. … Kd6?

Loses quicker – 44. … Bb2 – if 45. Kxg5?? (which the silly computer wants to play!) Bc1 and the bishop flits between f4 and h6 with a draw. I thought on initial analysis with the computer I’d missed a draw in this position because when the white king gets to g6 I can play g5 then after fxg5 distract the bishop with e4 so I can take the b-pawn. This is now a draw because one of the h and g-pawns must be swapped for my g-pawn and the bishop then sacrifices itself for the last pawn. However, White can prevent this by Bc6 and Be4 which although I capture the b-pawn, prevents opening up of the a1-h8 diagonal as the e-pawn is in the way.

45. Kg6 Ke7

A last cheap tricks hope that White will overlook the idea of Kxg7 e4+ then e3 and queening. This is easily stopped by Be4.

46. b6 Kd6 47. Be4 1-0

Chess players use both sides of the brain

An interesting article on New Scientist’s page suggests masters use both sides of the brain to process chess tasks. I’m going to assume that their ‘international player’ means an IM or GM.

From a armchair point of view, it does seem that additional resources (to non-chess players) are used to process chess tasks. When a player moves I can quickly see whether the piece is en-prise. I can also see simple tactics or the basis of more complicated ones. I don’t need to engage logical thought to do this (he moved here, so here so checking along the diagonals, ranks and files for attacking pieces…), I just ‘see’ it.

The first issue with the reported study is using masters vs beginners. Most club players can quickly see whether a position is check or not as well. Do normal players (and what approximate rating ranges) differ in brain scans to grandmasters. That is, is a grandmaster really superior because of the use of the right side of the brain, or is this something that most chess players possess? Interesting would be to see how the brain scans differs when solving puzzles vs. strength (rating) of player.

The second is that they are equating determining if a position is check with chess tasks as a whole. It’s hardly a rating boost to quickly see check. What is something that a grandmaster excels at, is being able to calculate a long (perhaps non-forced) variation and noticing that it’s check towards the end of it, where as a club player might calculate the same variation (albeit slower) and miss the check which was vital to the combination succeeding/failing.

Then of course there are all the classic psychological experimentation issues: lack of sample size (8 participants in each ‘condition’), race (likely to be European of origin, particularly the beginners), gender (likely to be male), age (are the beginners students?) and so on. The full paper might give more information here.

It’s interesting food-for-thought in that the key to playing good chess may be in dividing tasks better between the halves of the brain and that this might tie into De Groot’s study about the chunking of chess positions. Also perhaps the right-side of the brain being involved is the ‘intuition’ that many strong players report, vs. logical spiel of comments about a position when a lower rated player analyses it.

However while this study gives limited information, there maybe is ground to experiment with training right-brain tasks in chess calculation rather than logically trying to think through a position.

Thinking under pressure

This game is a very good example of handling pressure (or rather failing to). Pressure happens to all of us. As time gets short and the position critical, our heart beats faster, it seems harder to find simple moves. We’re trying to win our won position, yet the clock is ticking away. Digital clocks are a great use here. We don’t have to try to gestimate how much time we have left and we just need to glance to know the answer, so we aren’t put off what’s going on the board.

The game vs Messam-Sparks (Black) rd 1 from Hastings Masters 2010 goes as follows:

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6

About now I notice there is a problem with the clocks (what is it with me and clocks?). My clock is not using any time at all and Black’s just keeps ticking. An ideal trick clock for those time-scrambles.

7. f4 Be7 8. Qf3 Nbd7 9. O-O-O

9. … Rb8?

What is Rb8 doing for Black? Effectively Black is playing down a tempo which in critical positions is suicidal. Qc7 needs to be played anyway otherwise b5 leads to Nc5 forking queen and rook. It’s not really helping b5-4 as the c8 bishop needs placing on b7. Black should instead transpose into the mainline with Qc7.

10. g4 The aggressive plan intending Bxf6 and g5. And why not given White has an extra tempo on this plan. Black will have to play Qc7 and b5 with either b4 and/or Bb7

10. … Qc7 11. Bxf6 Bxf6!? normally it’s a knight or a pawn capture here.

12. g5 Bxd4 13. Rxd4

Ah! So here is what she was intending. I think this is better for me as d6 is weakened, but I need to watch that e5 doesn’t become a good home for a knight after e5.

13. … b5

14. Bg2?!

This is a critical position and I’m not sure about Bg2. The computer wants me to play a3 to stop b4, and I guess that’s the normal move in this sort of position. f5 doesn’t work because of Ne5 and Black then considers castling out of trouble.

14. … b4 15. Ne2

After Ne2 O-O the computer thinks it is equal. Perhaps g4, g5 was premature after all.

15. … e5 16. Rd2 exf4 17. Qxf4

I wasn’t sure about Qxf4, although the computer favours it. The knight is pretty strong on e5, although in compensation, I have pressure on d6. Nc5 intending b3 axb3 and Nb3 exploiting the pin doesn’t work because of Qxd6.

17. … Ne5 18. Rhd1 O-O?

This is careless and loses the d6 pawn. White still has to be careful of Nc4 and Be6 though. The computer suggests Nc4 instead first then O-O.

19. Rxd6 Nc4

White should now play 20. Rd8! Rc7 21. Rxf8. Not easy to see though, and I’m slowly getting into time trouble.

20. R6d4

The computer suggests Ne5 stopping the queens coming off. However, I think the line that is played gives me more chances of going wrong.

20. … Qxf4+ 21. Nxf4 Ne3 22. R1d3 Nxg2 23. Nxg2 a5 24. Nf4 Ba6

25. Rd1?

I should play c4! solving the problems that happen later.

25. … Rfc8 26. Nd5 Kf8 27. Kd2

The computer suggests 27. Ne3, perhaps I should have played that instead of Nf4.

27. … Rb5 28. b3

I’m trying to get in c4, but this causes me problems with a backward pawn on c2. The computer thinks it’s not too bad here though.

28. … Bb7 29. h4

The computer suggests playing Kc1 here which means that Kd2 was the wrong idea. h4 was to stop the pin on the knight against the g5 pawn.

29. … Bxd5

The computer suggests 30. cxd5 is better.

30. Rxd5 Rxd5+ 31. exd5 Rc5 32. Kc1 Ke7 33. Rd2 Kd6

34. Kd1?

I have to play 34. Rf2 Rc7 35. Rf5. If then g6 36. Rf6+ and 37. Ra6. I didn’t see this in time trouble.

34. … Rxd5 35. Rxd5+??

I should play Ke2 here getting the king towards the centre. If Rxd2 Kxd2 and I can get in c4.

35. … Kxd5 36. Ke2 Ke4 37. Kd2 Kd4 38. h5

Setting a trap.

38. … f6??

Black falls in.

39. h6! 1-0

‘Cheap Tricks United’ scores again.

This position is immortalised on the Hastings commentary page and eventually ChessBase. After the game IM (S) Salov pointed out that f5 wins. It’s really pretty as en-passant can only happen on the next move thus the capture is no longer on after h6.

Gavin Lock says that surely Black would have some inbuilt mechanism to look out for danger like this. It’s not difficult to consider all my replies to see this is a bad move. Under pressure though it’s very easy of course. Black was quite upset (understandably so) after coming back.

If you’ve 3 minutes to play 3 moves and there are about 5 replies (easy to calculate) that the opponent has, breath deep, close your eyes and relax for 5 seconds. Now look at what you’re going to play and all the responses. Spend a minute on the first move assuming there are no tactical or trap setting moves the opponent has which would require a think longer than a minute. Now do the same for the next two moves.

Otherwise you too may end up like Black.

Hastings Masters 2010-2011 – games coming soon

Hello, and happy new year to you all. I’ve got a number of interesting games of mine to post. Currently I’m on 2 out of 4. Unfortunately I can’t get my linux partion on the Internet at the guesthouse where I’m staying. So therefore I’ll post an article on my games shortly after I get back home.

Am expecting a caro-kann tomorrow against a 2200, so will need to do a bit of prep.

You can watch the top games live on the official page: http://www.hastingschess.org.uk/

FICS (www.freechess.org) is also relaying the games.

Learning to use the knights

Hello and Merry Christmas (or whatever you celebrate). Sorry there hasn’t been an article for a little while because there aren’t any league matches until January. However, I’m playing in the Masters at Hastings so I might have some interesting games to write about soon. Meanwhile I’ll post a general training article about knights.

The knight is the hardest piece to get to grips with, but hopefully some simple exercises will make life a lot easier. I don’t think it was a coincidence that I’d spent some time working with the piece just before I won the British U125 championship with a score of 5/5 in 1998.

In this article I’m going to propose a number of exercises and investigations that will improve your skills with this piece. The results and conclusions I’ll add in a separate comment so as not to spoil it for those who want to do the investigation themselves (being active aids learning).

== Exercise 1: How many moves does it take to get from square to square? ==

Take a screenshot of an empty chess board and print it out – use ctrl-alt-PrtScn on a Windows PC or a program that supports window capture on Linux such as xv (no idea about MACs, sorry!). If you’re really stuck you could just draw an 8×8 grid by hand on paper.

Draw an x on e4 representing the knight.
In one coloured pen, write a 1 on all the squares the knight can reach from e4 (eg. f6, g5…)
In a different coloured pen, write a 2 on all the squares that can be visited from the squares marked one (exception squares already marked, here e4).
Repeat with 3s, 4s and so on until all squares are filled.

Now do the same exercise again on a different board, this time with the x at a1.

You might want to refer to the diagram to note the following:
How many moves it takes to (usually) go from one square to the next horizontally, vertically and diagonally.
How many moves it takes to go from one square to two squares away horizontally vertically and diagonally.
When the knight is in the centre, what’s the maximum number of moves it takes to get to any other square, and what pattern these maximum squares take.
When the knight is in the corner, what’s the maximum number of moves it takes to get to any other square.
When the knight is in the corner, how many moves does it take to get to one square diagonally away.
If I place a pawn on e4, how many light squares are there where I _cannot_ place another pawn so that I can then place a knight which forks both pawns.

== Exercise 2: Tour round an empty board ==

Place a black knight at a1, and now move it to h1 visiting b1, c1 etc on the way in as few moves as possible. Now move to h2 and back to a2, and then up to a3 and so on like a snake until a8 is reached.

== Exercise 3: How many ways are there to reach other squares ==

Place a knight at e4.
How many difference paths (using the minimum moves possible) are there to get to:
e5?
e6?
d5?

(If one of the squares in the sequence of moves is different from the paths found so far, that counts as a new path.)

== Exercise 4: Tour round a board avoiding pawns and their attacks ==

Repeat exercise 2, this time with the following modifications:
Place white pawns at c3, f3, c6 and f6
This time skip past the squares the have pawns on and squares that they attack.
You also cannot move to those squares en-route to somewhere else.

Note this exercise takes about 10 minutes the first time you do it, but with practice you can get it down to about a minute.

You might want to try a variant where the pawns are swapped with knights (use counters or inverted rooks for 2 of them).

== Exercise 5: How many knight fork patterns are there? ==

By knowing what all the forks look like, finding them becomes easier. Imagine two pieces are forked. Place a square/rectangle around those forked pieces. Take the dimensions of the rectangle/square and which we will use for the fork’s name – for example a pawn on e4 and one on d7 forked by a knight on f6 is a 4×2 fork. Note that we will not count ones we’ve seen before that are rotated or reflected, so a pawn on c4 and one on f5 forked by a knight on d6, a 2×4 fork, is the same fork as a 4×2 fork.

Place a pawn at f6 and a knight at e4. Now place another pawn on each square (other than f6) in turn where the knight can move (thus both pawns will be forked by the knight). Make a list of the dimensions (ignoring any that have been seen before even if rotated or reflected as noted above). How many different forks were there? Can we place the first pawn on a different square that the knight is attacking and repeat to generate even more patterns?

==Exercise 6: How many ways can forks be executed?==

For each of the fork patterns found in exercise 5, place two pawns at any two opposite corners of the square/rectangle. How many squares can a knight be placed on to fork those squares (assuming the fork takes place in the centre of the board)?

Commentary on what you should find coming up. Have fun.

Using Arena to learn an opening

This is quite experimental, so I’ll put in a disclaimer that I’m only just trying this now and I’m not guaranteeing anything.

Arena is a free frontend GUI (graphical display) for a number of computers. You can obtain Arena at http://www.playwitharena.com/. What’s more is it comes with a number of computers already installed so you’re ready to go.

You’ll also need a number of games to study in the appropriate line, a book or a database is the obvious source. Enter a game or a sub-line and then move through the line to see what the computer thinks of the line or moves the author suggests. Computers aren’t always right, particularly when material is involved (they often given material too much of a significance when attacks and other dynamic factors are in play), so don’t take anything as gospel. Of course if the book thinks the computer is wrong, investigate why that is.

Now use the Position->Export function to save interesting ideas and positions you come across to the clipboard and then paste them into a word processor document (OpenOffice is a freebie here). Add a few comments to the significance of the position. You can then review the positions and ideas later on.

Now play a few games against the computer using some of your knowledge. You can correct tactical errors (although you should try to determine why you didn’t see what happened) and this can also be part of library of positions you record.

The idea is not to remember lines of moves, but to be familiar with a few key positions, ideas and know what roughly happens to guide the way in unfamiliar situations. You can also print out your positions and review them quickly before a match.

Have a play, see what you think.