Guile's Chess Blog: February 2024

Saturday, February 24, 2024

The Road to Chess Mastery

Published 2/24/2024

There is a long road that leads to nowhere, then there are roads that lead to somewhere, and becoming a master is definitely a multiple year endeavor. Therefore, if you don't have the stomach for dedication, determinedness, and commitment, then it would indeed be a pipe dream for you to become a Master, at best. However, if you are determined to become a Master, then you will need to utilize a few tools, follow a prescribed path, and master chess openings, from every angle.

The best angler in the game, read Chess Engine, is Alpha Zero, which works wonderfully on the Nibbler Chess GUI App (PC with a Nice Video Card Required), the reason you need this app and engine is, well it's faster than Stockfish at analyzing, and it's even smarter than Stockfish, but the main reason is you will need it to analyze your game to find better moves! A Chess Master is one who has learned an opening with every variation as well, knows by heart every move, and can perform the opening at least at 90+% accuracy, meaning you can't make mistakes or blunders!

Yes, chess is a game of memorization, but you need to pick a solid opening first, which I've outlined for you in the "Best Chess Strategies" blog post, and my personal favorite openings for White are the Scotch Game and the Jobava London System, which are exceptionally good openings. You can play the Scotch Game multiple ways, either via Gambits, or just solid playing vs various openings, it doesn't have a win rating like the Jobava London, and I've seen Grand Masters (GMs) play it successfully vs other GMs, but the Scotch Game is so much more versatile and fun than the Jobava London System. (To me that is.)

Moving forward here, after you pick and opening you like, you'll need to review your games, and learn the best moves in each instance of play, this way you can vanquish future opponents with killer moves! It's very easy to get to 1800++ rating if you master at least 4 openings, two for White & two for Black, and that's going to take you a while trust me.

Memorizing multiple variations for an opening is no easy feat, but if you are dedicated, practice every day, and really work hard, you'll be at least a master of those 2 openings. Though to reach Grand Master, you'll need to master more than just 2 openings, for sure, because you will be playing against people who really know their openings, and that's going to be quite a few years of practice indeed!

The secret is practicing a lot, you need to live and breath chess, daily, and once you have been able to defeat people consistently online, then you are probably ready to go to a real tournament and see how you do. Don't get discouraged if you bomb out, it requires a lot of patience and focus to win tournaments, truly, and every master must have a signature weapon, which is your best opening.

I'd also highly recommend becoming very familiar with every opening you can, even lesser openings like the Grunfeld Defense, because making huge blunders will cost you the game, and that's something you have to eliminate before you are ready to try to take on real Chess Masters. I've seen even Grand Masters make blunders in chess, but it usually in Blitz (5 or 3 Min) and Bullet (1 Min), and don't listen to the chess engines, mistakes and blunders are still possible even by GMs!

I've watched the World Champion make blunders and mistakes, but still win, it's just that in 10+ minute games, you won't see it very often, and mistakes can cost you the game easily against a real Chess Master. I'm not teaching the steps to becoming an actual rated master here, therefore, if that is the direction you choose, you should research that topic, and if you are really just seeking to smoke the pants off of the locals, then you just need to master 4 openings.

I say 4 openings because you need at least 2 to handle most of the main openings, each one is specific in what it can defeat broadly, if played well, some openings are more limited in scope, and others are much more broad, like the London System, which also includes the Jobava as well. Some openings are not great because they are easy to destroy if your opponent knows what they are doing, these openings usually fall into the Gambit category, but make no mistake, some Gambits are indeed top notch, like the Evan's Gambit from the Italian Game, which is one of the best openings in chess!

If you pay close attention to the highest rated Grand Masters, learn what they play the most, and study their game well enough, well you could easily defeat most of your opponents playing like these GMs do. Assuming you aren't playing a GM mind you! These are the basics of the road to becoming a master, whether you become an officially Titled Master or not, and that road is yours for the choosing entirely, because not everyone has the money and time to dedicate to that road.

"..only the top 20 or so chess players in the world could make a living at it..." - Stanford Mag

Oh yes, I almost forgot about my favorite openings for black, the King's Indian Defense and the Caro Kann, both of which are very strong indeed. If you are a serious brainiac, then these openings will test your ability to play well indeed, and you can learn a bit more from this guy about some of the topics I've covered here, because he's definitely big into learning from Chess Engines.

Lastly, you get the results you pay for, meaning, if you are cheap, then you will get cheap results, though you can learn a lot from Grand Masters in videos, but you will need to be better equipped to win with actual books to reference, quality Chess GUI Apps, and more importantly a chess coach! Having a chess mentor makes all of the difference in the world, even the best of the Grand Masters today truly know how to play because they were mentored by Grand Masters! (Like Garry Kasparov)

Here's an example of top 2 Chess Engines "Going At It"!

Here's a great article on becoming a chess master.

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Tuesday, February 20, 2024

The Trap Game (Chess)

Published 2/20/2024

Traps are a means to trick an opponent into making a move or a series of movies that open up their defence to a critical attack, which may result in a loss of a queen, checkmate, or allow you to utterly decimate your opponent by taking multiple pieces. Traps basically allow you to win games of chess very quickly, they are found in many openings, and though they can be used in gambits, gambits however usually just sacrifice a piece to gain a positional advantage.

Traps are also a way to trick an opponent into a very bad position, one which often seeks to win their valuable queen, or totally devastate the opponent's board quickly, like what a queen can do in the Ponziani Trap. Traps can vary in scope in that they can happen early, middle game, or even late game, and quite a few openings can offer multiple traps.

A few good examples can be found in the Rousseau Gambit, the Stafford Gambit, the Bishop's Opening, or even the London System which has an amazing 17 traps within it, and the list of traps gets extremely long indeed, because there are so many different variations of chess openings with their own different traps. Here is a list of 10 traps from a very popular website chess.com, another more exhaustive list of 25 traps can be found here, and that list includes PGN games you can analyze slowly to memorize. (NOTE: Chess is largely a game of memorization.)

Keep in mind that traps are often the most powerful in openings, though they can happen in the middle game, and they are much rarer in the late game, because you don't have a lot of pieces on the board. Traps can be very simple and minute in detail as well, where as gambits seek to gain a long term positional advantage than short term rewards, and though they may also include traps, gambits are not traps because they seek positional strength instead.

Also, I would highly recommend learning how to counter attack very common Traps, like the nefarious Queen Attack which is part of multiple openings, and then there's the rather common Scholar's Mate, which can be punished quite easily. Counterattacking tricks and traps are far more brilliant than just defending against it, it's like pulling out a gun on the block bully and demanding they give you their lunch money, which by the way is an extremely fun game! (It's like Uno with a violent twist!)

Once you get a taste of traps, you'll be hooked on using them, but don't let tricks and traps be the only reason why you play chess, and that's because traps can often be easily foiled or defended against, the true mark of a chess master is how far ahead they see every trap and trick that you play against them, by countering it before they can happen! What really separates the novice from master in chess is, how thoroughly you study, practice, and of course how much experience you have, because a pro is going to just bowl over anyone without many years of experience & study!

I hope this short dissertation on Traps is enough to help you get to studying one of the most satisfying thing to pull off in chess, like smothered mate traps, because when it works you'll be smiling big, and when it doesn't, well then you have a game of chess on your hands! I have lost badly trying to play traps, it taught me to play better too, and that's because when you start losing, then you really start taking the game more seriously. ^.^

Here are a couple videos on traps that are quite good...

chess.com has a lot of great videos, like this one!

Levy excels at explaining chess simply!

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The Gambits

Published 2/20/2024

(Marvel's Super Hero - Gambit)

Everyone loves a good gambit, which is where you basically go on this wild adventure to find the holy-grail of chess moves to pull off the proverbial stomp-out on your opponent, win a queen, and save your kingdom from total destruction, or something like that. Anyway, all humor aside, here are some of the trappiest, trickiest, and coolest gambits ever played in chess. ^.^

Tier 1 Gambits

(Highest Ranked by Grand Masters)

Evans Gambit

Vienna Gambit

Danish Gambit

Blackmar Diemer Gambit

Nakhmanson Gambit

Urusov Gambit

Staunton Gambit (vs Dutch Defense)

Tier 2 Gambits

(Very Deadly & High Quality Gambits)

Scotch Gambit (My Personal Favorite)

From Gambit (Defeats the Bird Opening)

Marshall Attack (Ruy Lopez / Spanish Opening - Gambit)

Tal Variation (Mikhail Tal's Caro Kann Defense Gambit)

Mengarini Gambit (Vs Black's Caro Kann)

Rousseau Gambit (Black vs White's e4)

Tier 3 Gambits

(Considered Quality Gambits)

Stafford Gambit (Very good when played well)

Smith-Morra Gambit

Ortho-Schnapp Gambit (Vs French Defense)

Milner Barry Gambit (Vs French Defense)

Albin Counter Gambit (Vs Queen's Gambit)

Ponziani Steinitz Gambit (Also called the Dark Knight Gambit)

O'Sullivan Gambit - (Very Tricky!)

Queen's Gambit - (Many Variations!)

Jerome Gambit

Grand Prix Attack

Duras Gambit (Vs Ruy Lopez)

Portsmouth Gambit (Vs Sicilian Defense)

Trompowsky Attack

Tier 4 Gambits

(These are pretty easy to defeat)

Tennison Gambit (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Gambit)

Blackburne-Kloosterboer Gambit

Falkbeer Counter Gambit (Vs King's Gambit)

Lowest Tier Gambits

(Considered Trash by some GMs, but they do work!)

Alekhine Gambit

Blackburne-Shilling Gambit

Englund Gambit

Wing Gambit (Vs French & Sicilian)

King's Gambit (Has Multiple Tricks!)

Cochrane Gambit

Benko Gambit

Latvian Gambit

Winningest Gambits

(By Total times won, may be easy to defeat!)

Friend Liver Attack (Very Common & Dangerous, but easy to defeat)

Elephant Gambit - Wasp Variation

King's Gambit Accepted - Double Muzio (Winningest Gambit)

Silberschmidt Gambit

Matsukevich Gambit

Meitner-Mieses Gambit

Landau Gambit (Vs Black's Caro Kann)

Every Chess Gambit for White & Black Explained

(Feel free to skip to the top 100, lol!)

That's a pretty thorough introduction to most of the gambits that are out there, though there are indeed hundreds more, but most of them aren't worth playing to be honest, and so I only listed those that are common, good, at least decent, or those even played by Grand Masters, though I've included 2 videos to help you learn more gambits and how to use them.

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Monday, February 19, 2024

Chess For Beginners

Published 2/19/2024

In this blog post, I'll be covering a wide range of topics, and introduce you to the game from a player's perspective. Though I'm not a Master of the game, indeed I'm not even internationally ranked, and I've never played in a tournament, but that doesn't mean I'm not experienced or a bad player.

Chess is a great game, keyword game, and it is rather time consuming to play, indeed it requires a lot of focus. Among other things, it's in-depth, strategic, very challenging, and takes many years to get good at it, but that doesn't mean you'll become a master in a few years. (Hardly) Indeed, some people have been playing for decades and have never achieved a Master title of any kind, but it's probably because they didn't take learning the game seriously or they just never took the opportunity to do so.

You can expect to spend at least 2-4 years studying & practicing daily, before you will become good enough to play with anyone over 900 ELO Rating online, those below 1,000 ELO are not really a master of the game yet, and you won't be either unless you can consistently beat 1,400+ ELO rated players which are really good. However, if you play on chess.com, you should take note that masters can play what is known as "Speed Runs", so you may indeed face some of these very difficult opponents who have between a 600-1,200 ELO, though they are truly much higher rated than this, and so you shouldn't get discouraged if you get blown away.

You cannot get better at chess by playing just chess bots alone, because every player makes mistakes, and you will make a lot more mistakes if you play fast games (10 minutes or less). If you are just trying to learn an opening, then it's better to play 5-10 minutes games, and when you want to learn the middle game and late game tactics, it's best to play at least 1 hour games. Longer games give you a chance to learn more, think more, and learn how to play better, you simply cannot do that in short games.

You really need to take the time to self-analyze your games, figure out where you made mistakes, and learn one opening at a time, I don't recommend playing more than 4 openings. You need to master the basics, then learn openings, and then master at least 4 openings, however you will need to learn a lot before you are ready to learn more openings.

The chess game really is about the middle game, the opening largely determines the outcome of the middle game, and whether you will become overwhelmed by your opponent in the middle game, that's because the opening is all about gaining an advantage and building a defensible position. If you just randomly move chess pieces with no clear game plan or tactics, then you are probably going to get annihilated, and often too.

Players who know all of the basic tactics, have learned traps and gambits, and know some devastating combos, will have a decisive advantage over those who do not. Gambits are a game play of attack in the opening, some of them are exceedingly deadly (4 move checkmates), but aren't very good against any experienced player. (They have been owned by them before and know how to properly defend now.)

The game of chess is largely about memorizing openings, tactics, positions, and learning to use tricks, traps, forks, pins, skewers, etc., but don't worry if you don't know what these things are, it's critical that you look at the videos I've linked at the bottom of this article to learn more about chess. Another popular chess site is lichess.org, also you can also play offline by installing any chess game from any of the app stores for your phone, tablet, or PC (Desktop / Laptop), and there are also chess applications that are known as "Chess Gui" apps, which allow you to play offline for free as well.

Popular (Free) Chess GUI Applications (For Desktop / Laptops)

One thing to learn about Chess GUI apps is, you can utilize what is known as PNG files, also you can use them and create them as well on chess.com, and you can also save your games in PNG files for loading into Chess GUI apps. Here is a quick link to quality videos on "How to" with PNG files.

You should also become familiar with Alpha Zero & Stockfish chess engines, because you can load these engines into Nibbler. (This is the actual link to download the Alpha Zero's Engine) Stockfish is by far the most common and best engine, because Alpha Zero requires a quality video card in order for it to work at it's peak performance, the bigger card the better, and Alpha Zero is even better than Stockfish! Also, many Chess GUIs already come with Stockfish and other Chess Engines, but make sure you have the latest Stockfish installed (16 is the current version as of this writing.).

How to Use Chess Engines

There are also commercial (Pay for use) chess GUIs, but I wouldn't bother paying for those, when you can literally play against bots and even stockfish on chess.com, and though they offer a lot of nice features, they can however help you improve your game significantly if they offer game analysis and a coaching AI. I wouldn't waste my time with puzzles at first, puzzles are more entertainment that real training, but they can help you learn how to think better at chess, and they are helpful for learning difficult tactics. (Things most normal players don't see outright.)

Some chess apps offer a full selection of training, puzzles, and even offer game analysis, which can help you improve your game a lot, those kind of apps are definitely worth the money, paying a yearly subscription however is NOT worth it. I believe you get what you pay for, chess.com offers a yearly subscription and if you are serious about becoming a pro, then I would invest in it long term, but not if you are a beginner, and you should wait till you are indeed 1500+ rated before you invest in a yearly subscription.

All time and money invested in chess is as good as gone, you'll never recover even 1/100th of it, unless you are a chess prodigy, and will some day make Grand Master, that's highly unlikely for 99% of the millions of chess players in the world. Chess is much like a sport, a game of wit, it's also a game of counter attacking, and attrition, even timing matters (Known as Tempo), because making the correct move at the correct time gains you a move advantage. (Your opponent waste a move, but you develop a piece on the board.)

I say you'll never recover the money because, for example, let's say you spend 15 years before you are winning paid tournaments, and the prize is $10,000, that's not much for 15 years of your life. Indeed it actually amounts to about $1.35/hours spent learning, of course if you keep on winning money, well the return on your time investment can indeed become profitable, but that's highly unlikely for most people who play the game. (e.g. the 99+ % of players)

Developing at chess requires serious focus, you cannot take this lightly, and once you have practiced the fundamentals, you can check out my quality Best Chess Strategies blog post. That blog post gives you a quality array of links to videos for openings and all sorts of things, so once you are ready to learn more, be sure to bookmark that post!

Getting Started with the fundamentals:

How to play Chess
Full Beginner's Guide
Basic Chess Openings Explained
Basic Chess Tactics
Chess Fundamentals (I'd highly recommend you learn these!)

As a special treat, I'm offering a download of some of the best games by the top Grand Masters of 2024, some of their best games they've ever played. (For Desktop / Laptop Chess GUI Apps) These files are a collection of games grouped into a database of games, you can study these to learn how to play like a grand master! (I use Tarrasch Chess GUI to open these)

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Best Chess Strategies

Published 2/19/2024

Best Chess Strategies

Best Chess Openings for White

In Order from Best to lesser Solid Openings

NOTE: Click on Blue Name for the main video, additional videos may be provided because of the opening being either really good, complex, or requires more in-depth study.

Italian Game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3vIRzfi5pg&t=854s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efuWmK1IHQQ

Queen's Gambit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUokvI0Cz6o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICXoGdCcsFI

Caro Kann for white (Trappiest!)

Ruy Lopez (Advanced Players Only)

Catalan Opening

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMuvv1HksL4

Bishop's Opening (Very Strong)

Scotch Game (Similar to Bishop's Opening & the Italian Game)