Local Club

Leave a Comment / Local Chess Club, Ruy Lopez, Traxler Counter Gambit /
Last week I visited my local chess club. It was good to catch up with a few people I had not seen in a while and to play a few games with actual pieces! I won my first game playing white against the Scandinavian defence. I lost my second game playing the Ruy Lopez with the white pieces. This brings us to my third and final game. I was ready to play something a little different so as black I opened with kings pawn against the Italian game and continued into the Traxler Counter Gambit. Now my knowledge of this opening is still growing and I struggled to find the right moves! I went on to play less then perfect moves that made my position quite unflattering.

 

 

This next game is an example of a winning attack in the Traxler Counter Gambit that I found on chessgames.com The game was played in 1955. Blacks two strong Bishops create a bind on the 6th rank, trapping in Whites King.

 

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Tal Memorial 2011

Leave a Comment / Mikhail Tal, Tal Memorial /
The Tal Memorial is once again getting under way. The Tal Memorial is a 10 player round robin held in Moscow named after the chess great Mikhail Tal. The following players will be participating in this years tournament.
 
Magnus Carlsen – 2826
Viswanathan Anand – 2811
Levon Aronian – 2802
Vladimir Kramnik – 2800
Vassily Ivanchuk – 2775
Sergey Karjakin – 2763
Hikaru Nakamura – 2758
Peter Svidler – 2755
Boris Gelfand – 2744
Ian Nepomniachtchi – 2730

 

I am definitely looking forward to viewing the games and following the results of the tournament with such a strong field involved. The tournament has also motivated me to view some of the games Mikhail Tal played during his career. I found the following game quite interesting. Mikhail Tal plays white against Pal Benko in 1959. The opening is the Sicilian defense with the interesting hyper-accelerated variation, one that is not very familiar to me.

 

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It’s a sacrifice?

Leave a Comment / Sacrifice /

The term sacrifice comes up quite often in chess. The question is whether it is a sacrifice when you have seen ahead to force a checkmate and win the game. A true sacrifice is one when you can’t see ahead. When you can see that there are chances but you are unsure of the outcome. I find myself often tempted into these.

Sometimes they work out and sometimes they don’t! I think the key for me is to try and see further ahead in these variations and make sure whenever possible that the sacrifice isn’t actually a sacrifice after all. Sometimes this means that I have to pass on the tempting opportunity to sacrifice a piece. But then again sometimes you just have to dive into the deep end and see what the outcome will be.

The following example is a fun one I noticed online where White sacrifices his Queen in the early stages of the game to gain a quick win.

 

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Chess Traps – Mortimer Trap

Leave a Comment / Mortimer Trap, Ruy Lopez, Trap /
The following chess trap can occur in the Berlin defence variation of the Ruy Lopez. This trap involves black purposefully falling behind in development and leaving the e4 pawn vulnerable, tempting the white Knight to capture it. If you play the Ruy Lopez and come up against this be careful not to take the temptation!

 

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