An experiment in style

How do you decide what your chess 'style' is? At the amateur level talking about styles is perhaps slightly pretentious (your style is probably best described as 'weak'), but at the same time everyone decides on which openings they will learn and play, and most amateurs probably have some idea of the kinds of positions they feel more comfortable in.

When I started playing chess I mainly played 1.e4 as is typical, but when I entered my first tournament I decided to play 1.d4 and adopt a Colle type structure based around an e3-e4 break move. A month later I started playing chess on ICC and from that point on played 1.c4, mainly with the idea of avoiding opening theory and leaving opponents unsure of exactly what to do. In my most recent tournament I switched to 1.Nf3 2.b3 3.Bb2 for an ultra flexible set-up, and I've used this set up several times on ICC since returning. As black I learned the Queens Gambit declined, the French and Caro-Kann.

As I mentioned in an earlier entry I was very impressed by the style of play of the only child in the recent tournament, and looking back at some of my early 2008 games I can see myself playing strong moves which I might shrink from now. I think I have become too obsessed with getting a 'solid' structure and my openings lack force or purpose. Playing through an elegant Capablanca game recently reinforced on me that perhaps I've lost my way a little. Am I still improving? My standard rating on ICC doesn't seem to be increasing particularly.

I have decided to force myself to change my approach and try to make every move energetic, principled and purposeful, with an emphasis on piece activity rather than structure. I have switched to a 1.e4 2.Nf3 3.Bc4/b5 approach, and answer 1.e4 with 1.e5 as black - although I don't know the theory at all yet.

I have played 5 games like this so far, and they have been a lot of fun - much more so than my old approach. The result has been 3 wins and 2 losses, but with no immediate significant net rating change (in some ways this is quite encouraging, as I had thought my rating might drop quite a lot in trying something new). The games have been a lot more tactical and exciting, with interesting inbalances rather than equality. They have also repeatedly showed real weaknesses in my ability to recognise or assess certain threats and opposing tactics, but this is also good as each game comes with more obvious learning opportunities.


In the above position I am playing as white and have made some fairly aggressive and ambitious choices. One advantage of a stucture emphasising piece activity is that when you do make tactical errors there are freqeuntly defensive resources available. In this game I missed a knight fork tactic but thanks to the strength of my position had a good reply. See below.


11.Rxf2 ...Qxf2 12. Nd5! ...Nc6? 13.Be3, and black resigns.


In the above position I have just played 23...b4. Played continued 24.Ne2 ...Rxc1 25.Nxc1 ...Qc5 26.Nd3 ...Qc3 27. h4. A very interesting and complex game, which I went on to lose in short order.


Above shows a different game, and in the position I am lost (although I wasn't sure of this at the time). It does however show the nature of the positions that can come up quite early on if you adopt an aggresive approach... the games certainly tend to end with less moves played.


In the above position as black I became fixated on the 'threat' of f4-f5, and in overestimating the trouble this would cause (in reality ...g6-g5 would be a good reply) felt compelled to trade down into an endgame where I was worse but hoped to draw. I played the endgame well and actually managed to win thanks to inaccuracies by my opponent, but this is a good example of me damaging my own position thanks to a mis-assessment of threats.

Various opinions on blindfold

During the Amber coverage on ICC today I asked about peoples views on blindfold, and on the best way to learn it.

Mig (the ICC chess host):

Definitely can be learned with practice. We used to practice with it with quite weak club youth teams and you'd have 1500s who could play 1300 level blind after a few months and 1800s who never tried it couldn't get through more than a dozen moves without hanging stuff.

IM Touzane (ICC energie):

I think there is only one point...[to practising blindfold]... that is to improve your calculation ability, and I think there are better ways to improve your calculation ability

Energie suggested that practising problems involving calculation was more beneficial to ability in general play.

'Jedi-Master' (ICC standard 2077, blitz 1650, "I am probably rated about 1850-1900 blindfolded, 2000+ without"):

...sit down with a board that has the notations on it turn your back and play... you will either become able to see it after a while, without giving in to the pressure, or you will not...for me, when I started I disciplined myself to never look at the board before or during...[I didn't train gradually as] I felt it would only make me dependent and insecure...the most important thing to remember is not the strength of your play, but the accuracy of knowing where everything is, I would rather lose, then make an error...[blindfold training helps calculation] very much, it makes it so I don't need to concentrate as much, I can usually see what I want to do with less effort, yet it can also make you get careless if you get over confident...I would strongly recommend playing against beginner/intermediate players at first, because it will build up your confidence and you will focus more on accuracy rather then execution, after you become confident in accuracy and remembering the board, you will get better at tactics...I begun about 15 years ago, I got very confident with where everything was immediately, after I realized I could remember things if (you) really want to.. then the confidence was there...[practising to reasonable standard took] 1 year

I found my conversation with JM (above) very interesting, however he took an approach where he went for complete blindfold (including no board) from the off. I'm not entirely sure I want to use that approach, though perhaps most of my 'handicap' stages and using the semi-blindfold approach is unnecessary - maybe it would be better to just jump ahead and remove all the pieces and place only pawns on the board as the next stage. He is right in saying that accuracy is more important than the level of opponent you are practising against, so maybe I'm taking entirely the wrong approach in looking at my performance rating to determine whether I should remove more pieces. However I think I will follow my current approach at least until I meet the criteria I set in the 'Amber' post, and decide then.

During the broadcast I asked GM Kaidanov (the expert analyst for the commentary session) about his experience in playing blindfold, and any suggestions he might have on learning to do so. He spent several minutes discussing this 'on air' with GM Har-Zvi.

Kaidanov described himself being very impressed when losing to a blindfold player when he was eight years old. Later in life, after reaching the master level, he found he could play blindfold chess despite no time spent training to do so. He felt that it usually came naturally when people reached master level, although there were individual differences in ability. He said there were no short cuts to learning it, but that following games without using a board or solving puzzles without moving the pieces was a good approach.

Har-Zvi said that he had been afraid to attempt blindfold play up until last year, when he tried it for the first time, and was pleasantly surprised to find himself good enough at it to be able to give an eight player simul. He described the deep calculation in high level games as being similar to blindfold, and said there was a big difference in how deeply an amateur looks into a position compared to a master.

They also talked a little about how blindfold games differ from 'sighted' games in terms of style, with the suggestion being that people play more conservatively (e.g. trying to keep most pieces protected by default) to avoid unexpected tactics. Kaidanov suggested that the most difficult situation for a blindfold player was when play was happening on both sides of the board (e.g. the King's Indian), as you normally only manage to look at part of the board at a time.

The Amber games today had some entertaining moments. World number one rated player Carlsen played former world champion Ponomariov in an excellent blindfold game that I have included below.

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A position from the blindfold game Karjakin versus Gashimov is shown below. Although the subsequent piece sacrifice had been seen before (a novelty played by Ivanchuk last year) it takes quite some confidence to be willing to go into the resulting position in a blindfold rapid game.



In the above position Karjakin played 14.Qxe6+!! As it turned out Gashimov had prepared for this move, and the game ended in a draw by repetition starting from move 22.

Although I have mainly focused on the blindfold here, it would be remiss to ignore an amazing moment from one of the 'sighted' games - Carlsen winning a 4 vs 4 rook endgame vs renowned endgame expert Ponomariov in the rapid. The game is included below, with the 4 vs 4 endgame beginning with move 41 (note: moves 29 and 30 are relay errors).

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This result puts Carlsen half a point ahead of Ivanchuk, with two games to go.