Chess960: A lesson in methodically exploiting structural weaknesses

At Mainz 2001, Adams took a win with a very good display of patient technical exploitation of blacks structural weaknesses. For me the lesson of how Adams carry's through the methodical build-up of pressure is excellent, yet an even more important lesson is how black should avoid creating unnecessary structural weaknesses in the first place.

SP811: Adams takes a win

The standout lesson for me is that Leko probably should have avoided creating a weakness on e6 at move ten with more dynamic and creative play:

 

A creative alternative to 10...d5



Chess960: Leko's amazing bishop

I'm hoping to work my through all the competitive ELO 2000+ games of Chess960 listed in my Chess960 compilation database

 

Here is one of the first ever competitive games of Chess960 played at Mainz. It features a really nice Chess960 opening idea by Leko.

 

SP934: Just watch Leko's amazing dark bishop win the game

 

 

 The stand out moves for me were:

• 4.Bb2!? - Leko decides to put his bishop on the long diagonal despite that it will be blocked by the d4 pawn and that he already had spent a tempo releasing it along the c1-h6 diagonal! The point is that white will have to play e3 to release the light bishop (Leko cannot play e4), and so the dark bishop would have been trapped in any case. With the dark bishop on b2, it plays a defensive role keeping control of the dark squares around what Leko realises, is very likely to be a queenside castling system.
• 27.Bd2! - Leko finds the best move that engines only find at depth 17. Black is totally lost because of the mating configuration b4/Qc5+/Bf4+. Notice that it features that amazing Leko dark bishop!

Chess960 database - compilation of games 2001-2018

DOWNLOAD HERE (Courtesy of Dropbox.com and Bitly.com)

 Here is my own compilation of all human Chess960 games played since Fischer Random Chess was invented, according to these criterion:

1. Human ELO 2000+
2. Over the board competition preferred
3. No blitz games
4. Online tournaments at long time controls but not correspondence
5. Simultaneous exhibitions

There are a lot of famous players in this database, including games by Anand, Aronian, Svidler, Nakamura, Carlsen and Kasparov!

The compilation remasters the original pgn games still available from around the web, repairing them by hand so that they are fully replayable in software that recognises Chess960.

The standard I used for the remastering is Chessbase 12 and it's interpretation of Chess960 PGN format and start position numbering. 

THE FORMAT IS NOT UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED and the database will not load in some software. The difference is in the [variant] tag. Chessbase use a space between Chess and 960. Here is an example: [Variant "chess 960"]. 

Some databases omit the space. Other databases use a different variant tag altogether. Winboard uses [Variant "fischerandom"].

I think it should be:
[Variant "chess960"]

But that doesn't work in my chessbase software!

Here are some tips for people who want to search the database:

• If you want freeware that can import the database, winboard works. If you want a Chess960 specific version of winboard you can download a modified winboard app from this blog that can import the database and display the games with the official Chess960 number in the title bar (plus more).
• If you are using Chessbase you can search by the official Chess960 number if you first convert the PGN into native Chessbase format.
• If you are using Chessbase you can sort the games by their official Chess960 number if you first convert the PGN into native Chessbase format.

The sources I used to compile the database were:

• Chess Tigers Chess Classic (Mainz) (big thanks!)
• Archive.org for missing links to Mainz (big thanks!)
• The Week In Chess Kings vs Queens 2011 (big thanks!)
• Lechenicher Schach Server database (LSS) (thanks!)
• Moscow Center for Chess Education (thanks!)
• International Correspondence Chess Federation (thanks!)
• Frankfurt City Chess960 Championships  (thanks!)
• Mark Weeks Chess960frc Blogspot (thanks!)
• Chess.com (thanks!)

If you think I missed any games, please let me know!

Let's crowdfund the first ever Chess960 simultaneous

WARNING, I've had an idea.....

In response to this post from Mark Weeks "Who Needs Fide?"

 

We crowd-fund the first ever Official Chess960 Simultaneous between Hikaru Nakamura and the Chess Tigers club in Germany. The event is held some time this year before the next world championship match. Hikaru's manager is contacted to find out what the minimum attendance fee would be so that we have a funding target.

 

Just imagine how wonderful it would be to see Hikaru in a Chess960 simultaneous competition! Suddenly we would have a wealth of openings to study!! The Chess960 players in Germany would be good enough and plentiful enough to make it at least a bit of a challenge for him!

 

Enjoy960

Chess960: The Bishop Sweet Spot

Here is the start of series of posts on what I call "the bishop sweet spots" on the chessboard, which are squares that allow the bishops to come out and be active, yet avoid being exchanged off. Usually in the opening we are trying to avoid changing the strategic quality of a position by exchanging a bishop for knight before the opening has had a chance to evolve (the bishop might be needed). The bishop sweet spots are not really outposts, because they are not solid enough to be called an outpost. They are just important squares in the Chess960 opening system, that need to be considered.

 

From classic standard chess (SP518), a very well loved and well worn bishop sweet spot is on b5 and it's mirror on g5. As we all know, the knight gets pinned and the bishop can sit on it's sweet spot for a long time, creating some important thematic tactics:

 





The Classical Queenside Bishop Sweet Spot (b5)

 



Finding the sweet spot is really easy. Look for any SP where a bishop and knight are separated by a minimum of three squares, triangulate vertically, and the bishop sweet spot will be three ranks directly above the knight.

 

Triangulating to find the Bishop Sweet Spot

In summary, the general definition of the bishop sweet spot is:

 

Classic Bishop Sweet Spot:

1. The start does not contain Military Knights
2. Bishop and knight separated by at least three squares

 

So, what are the benefits of the bishop sweet spot?

1. The sweet spot square allows a bishop to sit without being attacked by another knight
2. A bishop on a sweet spot does not have to waste tempo relocating
3. Since the bishop is actively placed, it can create tactics striking the enemies back row
4. Finding a safe square to place pieces helps with rapid, coordinated development
5. Gives the bishop a chance to transition to a different diagonal
6. If the enemy tries to kick the bishop off the sweet spot, this can be at the expense of pawn structure

Here is a start that fails the bishop sweet spot test:

 

Military Knights mean the sweet spot can be attacked

 

 

Here are some examples of the many bishop sweet spots in Chess960!

 

SP007 - Classic Bishop Sweet Spot



 

Notice that when the bishop is in the corner, the bishop on its sweet spot (d5), attacks the position of blacks castled king (g8).

 

Variants of the classic bishop sweet spot:

Chivalry Knight Sweet Spot:

1. The start contains Chivalry Knights
2. There is still a space of three squares between bishop and furthest knight

SP007 - Chivalry Knight bishop sweet spot

 

Even when the chivalry knight sits in the middle, the bishop sweet spot can still not be attacked by an enemy knight.

 

Variants of the classic bishop sweet spot:

Monastic Knight Sweet Spot:

1. The start contains Monastic Knights
2. There is still a space of three squares between bishop and furthest knight

SP114 - Monastic Knight bishop sweet spot

Notice that the monastic knight variant is not as tactically strong as the classic bishop sweet spot because the bishop only ever hits a knight on the enemies back rank. However, the sweet spot might still be useful to use as a spot to temporarily locate a bishop to aid in rapid, coordinated development.

 

Finally, don't forget that the mirror version of the bishop sweet spot also exists and is just as powerful.

 

SP001 - The bishop sweet spot reflected on the queenside



Finally here is a sample game that demonstrates the bishop sweet spot quite nicely:

 

SP511 - White finds the bishop sweet spot!

 

White finds the c5 square to pin black's knight against the rook

 

Enjoy 960



Chess960: Opening Puzzle no.12

Please don't hit me over the head with this next puzzle but enjoy it anyway!

  

SP510 white to play castling possible both sides:
What is white's best move here?

 Answer given below

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In chess960, you have to know the castling rules very precisely.
Although blacks bishop is hitting the b1 square, the passage of
the king for queenside castling is unaffected by the enemies
possession of that square.

Answer:
1.O-O-O hitting the d6 bishop in three ways

Chess960: Titular bishop strategy clarified

Well I've had a bit of encouragement to post again, because someone over at Reddit.com was kind enough to link to this site and the hits to this blog have spiked for a short moment in time.

 

If you are a reader of this blog, you know I love giving names to the bishop and knight pairs because it gives Chess960 more ways to distinguish between start positions. I think of the titular bishops as "bishops without a diocese" and even great players like Yasser Seirawan have been perplexed about how to deploy them (commentary from the Kings and Queens 960 tournament 2011).

 

So here is a discovery I have made about them which is relevant to a few dozen starting positions (SPs) in Chess960.

 

SP505: Pawn structure with titular bishops separating the king and queen

In this example, I've played out the position to show the basic strategy available to both players:

1. In SP505, the king is unlikely to castle queenside because four pieces have to be cleared out of the way.
2. The queenside is very heavy in pieces. The rook and queen team combine to allow a rapid space gain on the queenside by pushing pawns there (even the rook pawn).
3. The titular bishops are deployed to the queenside in the space made available, so that they form a powerful diagonal battery attack against the enemies king.
4. Now the queen switches between backing up either colour of bishop using the freed squares on the back rank, so that diagonal battery is at maximum strength.
5. The twist in the strategy is that white does not castle kingside and so does not give black this same strategic option.
6. The e-pawn is played to e3 so that it does not get in the way of the diagonal battery and the king plays to e2. This is safe, because white has gained so much queenside space that black cannot organise any kind of diagonal attack or knight attack against the king on e2.
7. Now white uses the kingside pawns as a storm front to break open blacks kingside defences to combine a crushing attack in combination with the bishop battery. The queenside rook is shifted across the back rank to aid in the kingside storm attack. 

Do you see this strategy? It works for black as well if white is not vigilant. The point is that when the king and queen are separated by the titular bishops in the middle, this strategy almost plays itself. In fact, I studied this SP in the LSS database only to find the rough sketch of this idea repeated a number of times.

 

Now I hear some critics of Chess960 say that this means that SP505 is relatively crude, because the strategy is so clear and potentially crushing. However, I looked at this SP in detail with Houdini-4, and I found that in fact, black has some amazing and efficient ways of undermining whites ideas. For example, check out the trial game of SP393 that Mark Weeks and I played with the titular bishops where black snuffed out this plan right out of the door!

 

So to me, the titular bishops in the combination [QBBK] or its mirror, are a wonderful study in how black efficiently prevents the strategy outlined here or deploys it themselves if white is clueless to it.

Who says that there is no theory or nothing to remember in Chess960 :-)