People always want me to explain the “Magic 10”! Before we get into our explanation, I need to point out several things. The Magic 10 and all the other tools we share with you here at SCBC are for tournament chess!? Your Lightning, Bullet, Blitz, and Quick Chess may improve but those time controls will never allow you to accurately and conscientiously follow the procedure! The Magic 10 work in conjunction with checks, captures, threats, and sacrifices. To use the magic 10 effectively, it will usually require that you look at least 2.5 to 3.5 moves ahead. The point I’m trying to make is, if you want me to take the guess work out of chess, the 1st thing you have to do is stop guessing!! The reason you must see that far is that the “Magic 10” can be referring to a piece or a group of pieces! There is usually more than 1 feature of the magic 10 affecting the position! You may have to invest 1 or more moves for each feature for them to lead to a more advantageous position! Ideally, the magic 10 should be evaluated on your opponents turn. If your opponent is moving too fast, you will need to evaluate them on your turn. The magic 10 have many functions, but the major functions are; 1.) When there are no checks, captures, threats, or sacrifices, present in the position, the magic 10 will show you how to create some. 2.) The magic 10 will let you know how well your opponent is playing! You should be evaluating if your opponent is meeting the demands of the magic 10. 3.) The magic 10 will let you know which piece or pieces can improve their value and effectiveness and in what order to play the moves! I could go on all day but I’m going to give you the elevator version.

1.) Range: What is range when it comes to chess? Range is the distance a piece or group of pieces can travel to use power and/or force against an opponent. Range as far as individual pieces is pretty easy to grasp. The queen has the greatest range, then the rook, bishop, knight, pawn, and king. The ability to know when and how to increase the range of our pieces and limit the range of our opponent’s pieces is a practical and needed part of every chess player’s weapons group! Range can be increased and decreased by checks, captures, threats, and sacrifices.

2.) Speed: Speed is really a measure of convenience/method. If you need that piece, how fast can it get there. Speed is a team function in most cases. Checks, captures, threats, and sacrifices are the tools of great speed.

3.) Power: Power, to keep it simple is usually a threat. It’s not enough to determine the outcome of the game yet, but if allowed to get out of hand or it’s not watched it will have to be dealt with. Power does not always lead to powerful!?

4.) Force: The primary difference between power and force is that power can be ignored and force can not! Force either causes an advantage or puts a stop to your opponent getting one. Once force is in use, checks, captures, threats, and sacrifices will have to be met with checks, captures, threats, and sacrifices!

5.) Time: Time is all about tempos and obstructions. Checks, captures, threats, and sacrifices are the best friend of time or for your opponent must become their worst enemy. lol Time is another one of those team sports!

6.) Space: Fritz always kibitzed about how it loves space. The more space you have the more of everything else you usually have. Space also allows for bigger attacks.

7.) Mobility: Mobility is the culmination or combination of range, speed, power, time, and space. Mobility definitely changes powerful to forceful when you keep adding pieces. You can have 1 mobile piece, but mobility is about units, not just a unit most of the time!

8.) Initiative: The right, duty, or justification to attempt to impose your will on your opponent, (attack!/counterplay). The initiative is temporary! Quite often, you must use it or lose it. To stop an initiative will usually require checks, captures, threats, sacrifices, your ability to see 3.5 moves ahead and more than 1 feature of the magic 10. If you don’t start it, you better finish it or you may be finished!?

9.) King Safety: The board is smaller than most players think. Compromised king safety causes casualties. When king safety is not good, the magic 10 becomes unclear and requires a more critical evaluation. Again, compromised king safety can place the whole team in danger! Some types of compromised king safety are worse than others, but anytime it exist there are chances for the other side!

10.) Material: Material is the spending money of the war effort! Material is not an end onto itself. There are combinations based on material, but they are the least important! If you read books, you’ve seen… “with compensation for the material”. There is no symbol that means… “with compensation for anything else”!! You invest material to get everything, not invest everything to get material. Desensitization to material is one of the requirements of chess mastery!!

A few examples:

In this position white’s pieces have range, speed, force, mobility, and black’s compromised king safety as a great reason for a combination! 1. Qxc7!! Kxc7 2. Nb5 Kb8 3. Rd8!! Rxd8 4. Bf4 Ne5 5. Bxe5 Ka8 6. Nc7 Kb8 7. Nxa6 Ka8 8. Nc7 Kb8 9. Nd5 Rd6 10. Bxd6 Ka8 11. Nb6 axb6 12. Ra1#

1986… Here black sacrifices a pawn for a slight material plus and the initiative. We have range, speed, force, mobility, initiative, and white’s king safety to win material and the initiative! 1… c4!! 13. Nxc7 Qxc7 14. Be2 Qb6 15. Kh1 Nf2 16. Rxf2 Qxf2 17. Bxc4 Bg4 =/+

2014…This is one of those positions where if you refuse to sacrifice, you lose the initiative!? The magic 10 are a tremendous help when dealing with complications too! We have range, power, time, mobility, initiative, and king safety. 1. Bxh6!! Nxe4 2. Bxg7 Kxg7 3. Rxe4!! dxe4 4. Nhf5 Nxf5 5. Nxf5+ Kg8 6. Nxd6 Qc6 7. Nxc8 Rxc8+/-

2014…This is one of SCBC’s best training diagrams. 9 of the magic 10 can be used to produce over 20 checkmates. I say 9 because every continuation is mate!!! I played this e game almost a decade ago! If you don’t understand the magic 10 by the time you find 20+ checkmates, you need more help!

If you benefitted from this blog, please click on, “buy something you need to help chess“. If you’d like to talk about coaching or lessons, as always… If you’re not ready for lessons, we will get you ready for free!?!

Hope you enjoyed!

Coach Mike C

SCBC Founder and CEO Coach Mike Callaham has a proven record of getting results at all socio-economic levels and all ages. Checks, Captures, Threats, and Sacrifices is the tip of the iceberg. His definition of a combination and SCBC’s “The Magic 10” move strategies are inarguably original and defiantly easy to learn and use!?! He can literally raise your playing strength with just 1 lesson!

He’s been balancing philanthropy and entrepreneurship for years as a means of proving that being a, “Total Chess Personality” is the key to rapid improvement and gaining the cooperation of virtually any adult you meet. The, Total Chess Personality plays, coaches, directs, organizes, writes, analyzes, and theorizes, in a way that elevates the play, services, and culture of the game.

This year, SCBC former students and coaches took top honors in the Under 1200 and in the Open Championship at the Virginia Closed. Saket Sambaraju’s picture and accomplishments are in the pages of this blog. His rating went up more than 1100 points in less than 70 games!!! His mom has no equal when it comes to following coaching instructions. Jason Morefield is a, SCBC Master Coach with more than 150 coaching appearances before he turned 18!! Having our 2 time state champion tell everyone that your company financed their career is every coach’s and organizer’s dream! Coach Mike has had the opportunity to live it. While SCBC was paying Jason $75.00 a stop, there were other companies that wanted to pay him less because of his age even after his rating passed 2000!?! His peak is 2382!

Here are the levels of instruction available to individuals and groups! 1.) Tutor, This is mainly games review and playing tips. 2.) Instructor, Lessons designed to give exposure to certain areas of the game.  3.) Teacher, This combines the Tutor and Instructor and has optional homework assignments. 4.) Coach is the transition to tournament play, tactics, strategy, and training habits. Homework is not optional!?  5.) Prodigy, Students are monitored on Chess.com, parents receive reports and SCBC selects the tournaments the student will play in, 6.) Campaign This is when we custom design an opening repertoire for the player for white and/or black for tournament play. 

Whether you want to just get your feet wet or you want to go deep sea diving at chess, you are at the best place if you want value for your money. Why? Because there is valuable free overflow! Top 9% player, level III advanced team coach, local director, local and state organizer, published openings theorist, published analyst, news paper columnist and international playing experience. You can’t turn that down or off completely because sooner or later, the good students are going to ask you for it anyway! Coach Mike wants to share in your chess success while others only want to share in your financial success. Just remember, every time you hear, “We have to start somewhere…”, what that means is, they get paid, and you get nowhere!?! That’s why coached players are averaging 3, 4, and 5 points a game with a “k” of 50 points plus bonus!?! Our training is always designed to take you farther than you could have ever imagined. If you are not ready for coaching, we will get you ready for free. Rates as low as $30.00 per hour. Call today for a free consultation! 804-426-6058!

1st of all, Congrats to the ACC for it’s Grand Re-Opening! Chess is getting back to normal in so many places. Rumor is that the competition is fiercer than ever before. Some people have been pulling a Botvinnik! That simply means studying and not playing until it counts. They know their openings, they improved their tactics, they’ve even begun studying the endgame, but do they have a, “Campaign”? For the last 2 months this blog has been about variations, transpositions, branchpoints, errors, and now the campaign. What tools does one need to create a campaign? When does the campaign start? How long does it last? When is it done?

The tools you need are a grandmaster written book on the variation you are aiming for, a database of what has been played by masters, a chess board, a notebook, an engine, and most importantly, a willingness to watch whole games that were won, drawn, and lost by grandmasters! Leaving out any one of these items is a recipe for disaster, not a campaign. So let’s explain…

Books talk! I can’t stress enough about the tidbits, secrets, and maneuver information that’s in books. The books when compared to the database let you know how well the general field of players are preparing. Books also give you comparisons, contrasts, and history. There are gems in the notes of books that are rarely being played even when the results are both favorable and desirable! The best lines are always in the notes!?! Depending on the year it is published, the book should explain all the moves you are seeing in the data base.

The database you pick is very important. Chess.com, Lichess, and ICC have databases. You can not design a campaign strictly based on what online players are playing!! Why?! 2 reasons… 1.) It’s online… none of those players ultimately cares deeply about their performances. I watch 2600, 2700, 2800, and 2900 players make blunders all the time. I’ll guess a move, they play something else, I check it with the engine, and I was right, but that game still goes into the database. 2.) All the online databases are made up of games were at blitz or near blitz time controls. If you are preparing for a blitz tournament then it is a great database. If you are preparing for a real tournament with real time controls, you need to give more reliability to your books and your engine!?!

A student and I were going through a variation. We decided to ask the engine what was the best continuation. Even when we made sure to match our settings, the engine lines, evaluations, and order of priority never agreed!!! Do you know how to get the truth out of an engine?

Let’s face it, if we could really just snap our fingers and have someone prepare, or teach us how to prepare a logical and reliable campaign that’s good for 15, 20, 25 moves, it would be a no brainer. Just pay for the training or pay for the preparation!?! Grandmasters know it’s possible but for the mere mortal, human, novice, amateur, or never read a chess book cover to cover chess player, it’s an impossibility… The beauty of campaign training is that you only need to be shown 1 time and you can use it for life! After that, you’ll always know if you are getting what you paid for!

This is a game played on line in 2015. We each have 3 days to decide on our move. Most players that are playing e games just look at the board without ever moving the pieces around, without checking a book, or a database!?! This is how that got punished. 1. e4 e5 2. f4 Bc5 3. Nf3 d6 4. Bc4 Nf6 5. d3 Nc6 6. a3?! It’s the 6th move of the game and already white has made a serious error!? 6… Bg4 7. h3 Bxf3 8. Qxf3 Nd4 9. Qd1 b5 10. Ba2?! Diagram (10. b4 Bb6 11. Ba2 O-O -/+)

The game concluded with 10… Nxe4!! 11. dxe4 Qh4+ 12. Kd2 Qf2+ 13. Kc3 Ne2+ 14. Kb3 a5 15. a4 Nxc1+ 16. Qxc1 Qd4 17. c4 Qd3+ Resigns

How long can a campaign last? I have documentation for a campaign lasting 22 moves!! That’s right 22 moves!! I published my campaign for the Callaham Attack in the Hanham Variation of the Philidor Defense in the 2010-1 issue of the VA Newsletter. All campaign work has to start with the main line and usually after castling. This was considered to be the main line of the Hanham Variation. 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Nd7 4. Nc3 Ngf6 5. Bc4 Be7 6. O-O O-O. Every player can make it this far.

So here is black’s campaign: Gain space on the kingside to induce h3 or f3. Eliminate the useful forward movement of the knight on f3. Take 100% control of f4 to prevent the opening of the f file. Use the knights to pressure the g and h files as well as f3. The king will need to slide, lift, or both to allow the rooks onto the g and h files. The queen will need a couple of tempos to get over and out on the wing. The king may also need tempo help for his lifts and slides. Give away the whole queenside if you have to!! Eliminate white’s dark squared bishop if at all possible… pawns left on a5 or a7 will usually draw it out to where it can be taken with the a8 rook. Stay alert for opportunities to play …d5, and for bringing the knights into f4 and h4, even when g3 has been played!? Understand that any white pieces returning to save their king must use e2, f1, or the 3rd rank. Other squares are too far away and will take to much time. Lastly, remember that there is no turning back. Sooner or later something always comes if you’re ready to sac and attack.

This is white’s favorite position in the Philidor!? It is still subject to the campaign! The game continued… 10… Rd8! 11. a5 Nf8 12. d5 Ng6 13. Nd2 Re8 14. Qe2 Bd8 15. Rf1 Ne7 16. Qd3 Bd7 17. b4 cxd5 18. exd5! Nf5! 19. Bb5 a6 20. Bxd7 Qxd7 21. Nde4 Nxe4 Nxe4 Nh4! (…and for bringing the knights to f4 and h4 even when g3 has been played)!!

The campaign has been a success. Now that the opponent has been softened up, it’s time to reap the rewards. This was a vote chess game. That’s right, vote chess. It was coach against coach. His rating was 2178 and mine was 2117. He had actually insulted me before the game asking, “The Philidor is an inferior opening?! Why would someone ask for that kind of beating with trainees watching”!?! The game continued… 23. c4?! f5 24. Nc3 Bf6! The trainees kept asking why we weren’t pushing the pawns. I explained that it would make it too easy for white, and that we should patiently redevelop and wait for another melt down! 25. Rac1 Qf7 26. Bd2 Rad8 27. Ne2 Rd7 28. Kh2
Rc7! Redevelopment is complete!

29. c5? e4 30. Qg3 Ng6 31. Kh1 Bh4 32. Qb3 dxc5 33. bxc5 Ne7-+ They never responded and lost on time. No one on the whole team voted for 3 days to make that happen!!! This is the tip of the Iceberg!

Tournaments are back and they are close. Arlington has $1900.00 a month, The Atlantic Open 30K, The VA Closed in Sep, Fredericksburg Oct, Zofchak Nov, Eastern in Dec 25K, Northern VA Open in Jan, North Carolina Nov, National Chess Congress Philly Nov, K-12 Nationals in MD…

Every opening has a campaign, you just have to research it enough to discover what it is. If you don’t know how to do it, hire someone to show you how to do it or do it for you. We would love to be your coach or your 2nd to add campaigns to you road arsenal. Our rates are very reasonable and hurt a lot less than repeated weekend hotel stays that produce 12-15 rating points. At $600.00 + per weekend, (gas, food, room, entry fee, time off work, kennels, and baby sitters) not to mention the time away from your family, you are paying $40.00 – $50.00 per rating point?? That’s insane!

Call Coach Mike for a free consultation today. 804-426-6058. If you are not ready for coaching, we will get you ready for free. Let us save you some trips and some money!

Watch for more Campaigns and campaign games the whole month of August!

Thanks,

Coach Mike C

It’s funny how I stumbled upon the idea of chess campaigns. Most of the books I bought early in my chess career were books that were translated from Russian. I speak English and have learned to read write and speak Spanish fluently and I speak a little bit of German. In all of these languages the word for, “Campaign” is only defined in politics or war. Any other time, they translate the word, “campaign” to the word, “plan”!?! If you are bi, tri, or quadrilingual, you know exactly where I’m going with this. My chess books were telling me I needed a plan when the author had used the word campaign. That 1 word was enough to explain how the Russian Grandmasters could tell us everything and we still would never understand!! Context: A plan is the strategy and dong of 1 thing. Combine enough plans together and you get a campaign! At every BRANCHPOINT THERE IS THE OPPORTUNITY FOR A CAMPAIGN.

This is a transposition in the King’s Gambit Declined. After 1. e2-e4 e7-e5 2. f2-f4 f8-c5 3. g1-f3 d7-d6 white can play 4. b1-c3 and immediately gambit the e pawn with 5. c3-a4!? and have an equal game. It’s there earliest hope of ending the nightmare on the a7-g1 diagonal!?!

So White has to move the bishop, go after the Bishop from the center, or take the pawn. There’s a campaign for each. One of the best parts about putting together a campaign is how easy it makes it to take your opponent out of book without making mistakes! The other part to mention is there are a great many novelties to be discovered that have never been played or recorded when you know how to research and analyze!! The thing to understand about chess campaigns is that you can’t make one that will cover an entire opening. You have to pick variations, transpositions, and branchpoints that you can virtually force to be played. You must know the gift you have received if your opponent errors.

This is a branchpoint. This forces white to push or castle before the b8 knight is developed. The game is going off the grid. There must be a campaign for this position. Can you find out what a7-a5!? is for, the logic behind the move, and what the coming struggle will look like? I don’t think you can do it at the board or when you get home.

Campaigns differ from plans because of their interdependence!?! Every time a part of a campaign is eliminated, another desirable option should take its place. I’ve been making moves from a campaign as late as move 22!!! Each tournament player that enters an, “Under 1400” should be actively researching, analyzing, and creating campaigns. They save time, they save money, and make chess a lot more fun and predictable. If you don’t know how to create campaigns, it’s time you learned! If you need a “2nd”, (someone to do your research and analysis for and/or with you), look no further. Custom campaign design and/or training for white and black can be done in as little as 3 or 4 weeks!!! There’s still time to prepare for the VA Closed Championship in September! Prices vary based on the openings, your rating, and the variations you want to play. Zoom, in person, or at our office. Nobody makes you better faster than SCBC! Call today for a free consultation and quote. 804 426 6058

Good luck and remember, if you are not ready for coaching, we’ll get you ready for Free!!!

Thanks,

Coach Mike C

Every once in a while you have to grab an old book and get in some nostalgia!! I’ve got this old title called, “The King Hunt”. That and a couple of other books are at home waiting for my tired attention as I try to enjoy the games. This book, published in 1970 is fun, entertaining, and instructive. There are as many errors in the attacks as there are in the defense. I took the liberty of analyzing it and thought I would share it with you!

Before computers, VCR’s, microfishes, pagers, cable, wifi, discs, tablets and cell phones, there was the book! One finger on your place and the other hand is used to move… Timeless!!

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/its-cool-to-just-grab-an-old-book-and-watch-the-games.

The last year and a half has been absolutely devastating. When everyone started staying at home, guess what game’s popularity soured? That’s right chess! Then we had the outstanding movie, “Queens Gambit” by Netflix! I think it is TVMA! Do not let anyone through K-12 watch this movie alone!! The interest sparked is good for chess. The challenge comes when trying to help these new, and many experienced players, put their online activity into a real world perspective!

To me, this has been a challenge for a long time! I’ve read this article, that article, Chess.com this, Lichess that, ICC is the best, no, Chess Live is the best, and so on, and so on, and so on. Winter hit the nail on the head when he said that each site develops a culture. Over the board chess also has a culture. The average ratings of all of those sights and US Chess are within a couple hundred points. The higher the rating, the narrower the margin. With that in mind I do boldly declare that when properly considered online chess ratings are accurate!

Let’s get into that properly considered part and that will help you better understand. For people on line, chess is a pass time. Some of them may go days, weeks, months, or even years without playing a single game of chess and they don’t feel like they missed out on anything. For others online chess has and will continue to be a part of their daily, weekly, and even perpetual growth in the game. How can you tell which one you are playing with? You can’t! Sometimes you are playing against their computer and you can’t tell!

Online chess is not real chess!! Online chess is a chess substitute that is so close to the real thing that it has people comparing the incomparable!! Did you know that all the conversations about online ratings and how they translate to over the board ratings is based on Blitz, Bullet, and Lightning time controls? Did you know that a game has to be 30 minutes or longer to receive an OTB regular rating from US Chess? This is only part of what I meant when I said properly considered. At US Chess you can have a Regular, Quick, Blitz, and most recently an, “E” rating. So yes, if you play 5 minute games all the time, your rating should be relatively accurate. I’ve only heard of Bullet and Lightning being side events at a real tournament. There are no Bullet and Lightning championships in the real world!

What this means is that while everyone has been trying to see if they are accurate by comparing the general, the only accurate and advantageous comparison would require data from each time control!?! You’d never be able to get one of the chess websites to give you that information!! Why!?! Because they don’t want everyone to know that online chess is not very serious! Go to your favorite site and pick tournaments. If they aren’t holding tournaments that are longer than 30 minutes, it’s because no one plays in them. 95% are 5 minutes or less.

Let’s start with the puzzles. You can not earn 11 points for beating someone that is 393 points below your rating in any OTB Rating System!! The puzzle system is designed for immediate gratification. For each correct 1/2 move answer you get a prompt to continue solving. That’s like having a puzzle book and looking in the back of the book each time you make a half move to see if you were correct. That’s not helping you build visualization, concentration, or stamina! As a matter of fact, the prompting is an interruption that will make it impossible to build those characteristics. It may have been a great puzzle but you needed to write out the entire answer and any variations before checking for accuracy if you want your brain to remember anything. lol When you get an answer wrong, the puzzles get easier and the points you get for a correct solution get ridiculous again!

They have your immediate gratification covered on both ends. While all of websites will give you puzzles to solve that are 200, 300, and even 400 below the rating you have, they almost never make the puzzles 200, 300, or 400 more than your rating! To add insult to injury, how do you give me 11 points when they are 300 and 400 below me, 14 or 15 points when we are equal, but just 16 points when they are 200 higher? If points are your only concern, it helps to get one wrong every once in a while so that you get more points per puzzle.

They don’t just do this to the weaker players!! I just looked at Nakamura’s history for puzzle rush survival. He got 75 correct answers before a 4000 puzzle knocked him out the box. When I went to his last 25 puzzles, I saw that his rating had fluctuated between 3259 and 3331. 11 of the last 25 he did had ratings below 3000. The highest puzzle he was offered was 3384. With a 400 point difference at that level he still gets 10 points for a 3 move problem!?!

Online Chess sights are designed to appeal to the masses. Pass times have to be fun, or people won’t come back. The difference between a tournament and online chess is that online chess has to be fun whether you ever actually get better at chess or not! It’s a playground, not an arena, it’s a batting cage, not a baseball game, you’re using a ball launcher, it’s not a tennis match, you are bowling without keeping score! Playing serious chess is not the main attraction!

If you haven’t already, you must conquer the bots. Don’t believe the ratings they give them. Bots don’t have real ratings because they haven’t been to any tournaments either! lol I make all of my students play the bots for 6 reasons!?! 1.) The bots never resign! You either win or lose. 2.) There is no way to offer the Bot a draw. 3.) There is no time limit, so there is no clock to lose to or time pressure. 4.) When you lose and ask for a rematch you have to change color. We all need a balanced game. 5.) The Bots vary their opening responses enough to learn many variations. 6.) The Bots play harder after they have made a mistake. Now that you have an advantage, you must learn to convert it. I can’t tell you how many times I was leading and let the Bot back into the game. While it doesn’t offer or accept draws, the Bots will force a draw to keep from losing!

Adults and children alike failed miserably when asked to sit at a screen for 45-55 minutes, then take a 5-10 minute break, 4, 5, and 6 times a day, and then be responsible for what was covered. All of a sudden everything required concentration, stamina, memory, and interest! That’s where over the board chess and online chess part company. One of the things I’ve noticed about on line players, is they think they have gotten somewhere, and they think they have changed into something great when all they’ve been doing is having bad practices and failing the practice test. Could you imagine a coach or instructor that holds 15 minute practices or coaching sessions and expects documentable change and improvement?! I laugh when I hear about serious chess lessons only lasting an hour. At a real tournament they have to play 2, 3, 4, and maybe even 5 games in a day! The games start with 40 minutes each and go longer. Yasser used to lock himself in his study for 5 hrs at a time! His reasoning was that his study sessions need to be as long as the games he was going to play. According to him there was no other way for him to judge his concentration, clarity, and stamina!! That has always stuck with me!

Online chess is like having the best toys and the best tools in the same place. If someone new comes in and doesn’t know which is which you’ll have people tooling with the toys, and toying with the tools. It’ll be a lot of fun, but nothing meaningful will get done. “Over the board”, “in person” chess, has one major and differentiating distinction that websites will never be able to match…IT MATTERS!!! Even today there are stigmas about the accomplishments people make on line. Just about every type of online accomplishment is less valuable than what is accomplished in person. When it comes to chess, only playing, coaching, directing, and organizing in the real world is worthy of the, “Accomplishments” sections of school applications, college applications, scholarship applications, and resumes. If everything you ever do with chess is online, it will wind up in the, “Hobbies and Interests” sections of those documents. If you ever get asked about having played in a tournament and you say no, their curiosity about how your involvement with chess can help their school or business will be over!

You can’t be serious if you wear whatever you have on just because you want to go to the Gym!? That means you must play with longer, real world time controls. Study using a board, books, pencils, and paper. Hold yourself accountable for accuracy and results instead of aesthetics and speed. The true grit, metal, character, fiber, strength, skill, and worth of a serious chess player is in there ability to draw and win against strangers!!! The only test for that is on the road!

Online Ratings are accurate for whatever time control you play in. Online, that’s 5 minutes or less!!! They reflect your level of interest and can give you feedback if that’s what you want. Unfortunately nothing about online chess can be considered a result to anyone except the player that is getting them. Online chess results don’t mean or prove anything because there is a form of chess that does mean and prove, and it’s not played on line. Online players will always lose to over the board players of the same ratings because the OTB player expects results based on how they play, not how much time is left!!!

If you’d like our help turning your playground into a gym, If you’d like our help in making your chess activity worthy of the, “Accomplishment” sections of your life’s documentation, you know how to reach us!

Hope you got the message. Declare and enjoy. We love tools and we love toys! lol

One of the great things about being in charge is having flexibility. I can’t tell you how many calls I got about the snow. We are a 1 snowflake state! lol Whether they played chess or not, Fri, Sat, and Sunday I could have sold chess stuff to people if I had eggs, bread, and milk!?! The Sale continues!!

Tues – Fri 5 pm-830 pm, daytime , by appointment.

Saturday 9 am – 7 pm

Sunday 11 am – 6 pm

Book dealers and wholesale equipment dealers are welcome. Remainder to be donated to the North Ave, Hull Street, and 25th Street branches of the Richmond Public Library.

Call if looking for titles. 804-426-6058.

What’s your, “It” for 2021? We no longer have an elephant in the room! Covid, masks, social distancing are here to stay for a while. Why? Because people are nasty, hard headed, selfish, law breaking, hypocrites, that’s why. Reread, “Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” and then wear your mask!?! People won’t wear masks, they won’t wash their hands, they won’t stop touching their faces, and they refused to social distance. We had the opportunity as a country to show the world how this virus could be contained. Instead we acted like it wasn’t that serious. Real or not, serious or not, curable or not, vaccinable or not, it is changing the social structure of the world. Chess does not have to be one of it’s casualties!!!

The good news is that chess is a brain function more than it is a social one. By that, I mean you can prepare and improve the same way people always have… Alone!?! Chess is an inner game. So how do you measure your success if you can’t get to any tournaments. The sad part is that most people don’t know how to measure chess success at all!

Most people think that you measure chess success by ratings. That’s simply ridiculous. The only thing you are measuring is the player’s, “Estimated Strength”! If the only thing your coach cares about is your rating, you will waste thousands of dollars and waste thousands of hours taking the slow route to get good at this game! Using ratings exclusively to determine if someone is a success at chess is the same as using a High School Diploma to determine if someone was a successful student! Every degree you can get is a bench mark of strength. High School Diploma, Bachelor’s, Master’s, PHD, are all just measures of minimum performance strength. What was their GPA? Did they graduate on time? Early? Late? What courses did they take? How many courses did they fail? Did they go on campus or get their degree through continuing education? What else did you do while you were in school to make sure you got a, “well rounded education”?

So now we come to chess. C Player, B Player, A Player, Candidate Master, Master, Senior Master. These are indications of strength for sure, but are they indications of success? As a coach and an employer, success has to be determined by their road to success as well as their destination! How long have they been playing? How regularly do they play? What type of competition have they faced? What is their winning %? Higher rated? Lower rated? What is their P %? What is their career PPG? Annual PPG? What is their Category? Does it match their rating? How well rounded are they? Are they a Certified Coach? Are they a Certified Tournament Director? Do they have any Affiliate experience?

This former World Champion, Viswanathan Anand is giving us a lesson just by taking a picture. Your computer is a toy and a tool but it’s not the boss!?! Everyone of us plays and studies differently on a computer than we do on a board. At some level what’s going on just isn’t real to our brain until it’s, “out in the real world”. Until we start the conversion from toy to tool, any success you think you are having on the computer is an indulgent delusion!? Let’s say you are doing tactics on Chess.com and your rating is 1600. If you solve a 1600 puzzle it will give you 12-16 points. If you fail that 1600 problem, it will deduct 12-16 points. Here’s the delusion. After you fail that 1600 problem you will get a 1200 problem and get 8 points, then a 1300 problem and get 10 points, then a 1400 problem and get 12 points. That’s not the ELO system! That’s the, “Please don’t leave when you fail because you weren’t paying attention because it’s a toy.” system!! LOL

If we are going to grow in our capacity to win and draw chess games we must remember that perfect practice makes perfect! You must be determined not to settle. For most of us, (me too sometimes) the computer is like setting up a puzzle on the board and then peaking in the back of the book to see if we got the 1st move right. still LOL If you want your computer to help you, then you must set up for serious training. You must write out the entire answer and any variations before you move. You must play to win or draw at all times if you expect to develop your, “Tournament Eye” and intuition. And, finally, you need to look at your statistics, not your rating to determine if you are actually making progress.

To lend some definitions;

P%= Protection Percentage. If you play 50 games with a record of 25-10-15, Your P% is 60%! Awesome if you are playing up most of the time, average if you are playing in your class most of the time, weak if most of your opponents are lower rated than you.

PPG = Points Per Game. Points Per Game is taking the number of points you’ve earned since coming out of the provisional ranks and dividing that by the number of games played! An average of 6 or better is good money! Anything less means you need to be doing more analysis and fixing instead of playing all the time. Just so you know, learning from playing alone is the slowest way to get good at chess!!! Let’s say that after your 25th game your rating was 754. After 3 years and 300 games your new rating is 1995. That’s good money. If after 25 games you were 971 and after 5 years and 600 games your new rating is 2237, you should have spent more time doing analysis and studying instead of playing so much!?!

Category and Ratings match. If they’ve played 100 games since they got to 2000 and they are still a Category 1 player, or they’ve played 100 games since they got to 1800 and are still a Category 2 player, that means that they are only good at beating players their rating and below. You can not experience growth by playing in your class all the time. You been duped into using prize categories as achievement markers!! The only time you are supposed to play in your class is when you are trying to win the prize! Parents select class sections for their children all the time. It’s a direct contradiction to Grandmaster advice!!

To get a scholarship or make chess count on a Middle School, High School, College Application, or Resume, you need to be a complete Chess Personality/Manager. Being a Nationally Certified Coach or Referee of any kind demands respect and elevates these applicants to peers instead of subordinates during any kind of interview!

In Closing I want to say that, “It” is possible for you in 2021! Whatever, “It” is, we can help!

Coach Mike C

So how is the virtual school going? It’s hard to sit there for 40-55 minutes, get a 5 or 10 minute break and then repeat that 4 or 5 times in a day. Uninterrupted, that’s like having year round, daily, company training!?! LOL Just imagine it’s a year round chess tournament with 4 or 5 rounds a day! If you want your child to excel, they need to learn more about virtual stamina. My classes have always been 2 hours. If you talk to my students, they’ll tell you that in the 1st couple lessons, I wore them out in 20-30 minutes. In a little over a month, they found themselves going 50, 60, even 75 minutes before they even thought about their snack. Every one of my students can explain, “Chess Fatigue” and what to do about it! They’ve told me it works for more than just chess!

Learning to concentrate at chess is only hard if your opponent is annoying. Every act of thinking about chess encourages optimism, confidence, and commitment. Becoming better at chess is sure to improve their concentration! That includes school work. If you want to know how to get the most from virtual learning, we’ll teach you the shortcuts.

Private lessons only. Homework, No-Homework, and Prodigy Programs are still available. Our programs are 6 – 12 weeks. Ask about the free zoom consultation. Coach Michael Callaham 804-426-6058.

It’s funny to watch all the incomplete chess personalities that are out there marketing chess programs.  They’re scrambling, throwing together any babysitting program they can.  It’s been barbaric to say the least!  What do I mean by incomplete… It’s simple, They’re uncultured, uninformed, and the only thing they know how to do is play!  I’ve watched PHD’s become famous in school systems for teaching chess for 20-30 years and the last trophy they have is from 2008.  You’d know just how bad that is when you discover that we never give away all the school trophies at a VSCA tournament.  Yes, they could have eventually gotten a trophy for just showing up!  To be a “Complete Chess Personality” means creating national value in what you do.  There are no age requirements to become a Nationally Certified Coach,($25-$300 hr), Tournament Director,($125-500 a day) or US Chess Affiliate.  All of these certifications are Zero based!!  You only need 3 rated tournament games to become a rated tournament chess player!!  You don’t even have to have played a tournament game to be a Certified Coach, Tournament Director, or US Affiliate.  You can research all of this at the US Chess website.

Never a Us Chess Member, Never played in a tournament, no coaching certification, not a tournament director, does not have a current rule book, no organizational experience and making claims that they can take your child to the heights of the game.  The blind leading the blind!  What a bunch of nonsense that is!!!  My Question is; Are you going to rely on these same people to translate, “On Line Chess” into something that can meaningfully measure progress??  On line chess is a toy and training tool, it is not a measuring device!!  They’re scrambling too with all of their, “promises” of being able to catch on line computer cheating!  Good luck with that!  How come no one came out with a full proof, guaranteed way of catching cheaters until the pandemic!?!  All I can say is garbage in garbage out.

In America we’ve become so preoccupied with chess as a toy, we’ve stop acting like chess is a serious scholarship sport!  It has state champions, national champions, and world champions.  A full scholarship at the schools that offer it is worth between $240,000 and $400,000 of tax free money!  It’s a cowardly new world out here in chess.  No one wants to follow Grandmaster advice, everyone is being told to play to get better, everyone plays in their class, concentration and stamina are not part of the training regimens, and kids have learned how to push and manipulate the boundaries of truth, honor, and obedience with Instructors, teachers, parents, and relatives!?!

What is the answer to all of those problems?  I can sum it up real briefly for you.  You have to declare!  What is chess going to be?  Is it going to be a toy or a tool?  If you don’t care when you lose chess games, if $240,000 – $400,000 of tax free scholarship money means nothing to you, if you think being a complete chess personality doesn’t make you unique to adults, if having business opportunities that have no age requirements is unimportant to you, if you don’t care if chess goes in the hobbies and interests section of a middle school applications, high school applications, college application, and/or  resume, instead of the accomplishment section of those documents, you need a chess teacher, an instructor, or a relative teaching you/them how to play!  Why? Because chess is just a toy!!!

You can’t be a chess prodigy if you learn to play at the age of 16.  Every scholarship venue is looking for evidence as far back as possible.  Jennifer Yu won our state championship at the age of 13!  Last year she became the US Women’s Champion at 17!  Jason Moorefield won the state’s amateur championship at 12 and since has become a Master, a certified coach and a tournament director!  Anagha Sinkar became a coach at the age of 6!  Nathan Boguslavsky became a certified coach at the age of 16.  We have created more rated tournament chess players and more complete chess personalities than any other chess services provider in central Va!!!  If you want to take anyone to the top in their field, they need a coach, not instructors, or teachers!

We now have a “Prodigy Program”.  This is a coaching program for serious chess personalities and their parents!! What would you do if you had to train a, “Prodigy”?

1.) The coach must be able to blow the student off the board with odds, for the entire length of the training!

2.) The, “between class”, work must be clear and concise.

3.) There needs to be a monitoring and reporting system.

4.) The training must be for the, “Complete Chess Personality”, ie player, coach, director, and organizer!

5.) The coach should be qualified to provide endorsements.

6.)  Parents must take an active role like they would for any other scholarship sport or venue.

Here’s a partial list of some of the services that are included with our, “Prodigy Program”!

Virtual students have a lot more work to do than in person students.  In person there are many expected and unexpected interruptions that in some ways help students reflect, catch their breath, and anchor the subject matter.  During a virtual lesson, even a break is compartmentalized, the rest of the time is spent in virtually uninterrupted exchanges of communication.  Just imagine if every time there is an interruption of any kind you had to flip an hour glass.  You’ll be flipping more in person than on virtual.  What does it mean?  For many of us, this is the 1st time in years, and others it’s the 1st time in their lives that they’ve been exposed to the necessity of taking in large amounts of uninterrupted information.  If you’re in 1 of our classes, it’s 100% interactive!!  I’m finding that most students of all ages, just don’t have the stamina for it!!

“Chess Fatigue”  happens in person and even faster in virtual lessons!!  “Chess Fatigue” is something I explain to all of my students.  The only thing that will eliminate “Chess Fatigue” and increase stamina in chess is having a minimum performance standard when you are practicing and studying.  What is that minimum performance standard?  You have to hate losing!!  Desire brings out the best in people, not authority.

At in person classes there was some imposed standard of engagement and performance!  People couldn’t put up a screen saver and hit the mute button!  In virtual, you have no authority and the students know it!  At school you had their code of conduct, the program director, teachers, and even the principal if necessary.  That particular change in the environment is the deal breaker.

With 2 types of students come 2 types of programs;

The, “Custom Homework Coaching Program” and the, “Custom No Homework Coaching Program.  Everyone goes into a no homework program for the 1st 6 weeks.  They are allowed to stay in a no homework program for up to 12 weeks if they are k-8 and up, and 24 weeks if they are k-5 or lower.

We’re looking for the next superstar!  Somewhere in the world, a superstar is playing chess right now because it’s the only thing available.  If you are a casual player and think losing games and getting experience is the only way to get better at chess quickly, you should not be paying for chess training…there’s enough free stuff out there to learn how to do that!!  We are very expensive but once the student is in the homework program, we guarantee results as long as they complete their assignments!?!

If you’d like private lessons, we’ll want to test the student, discuss goals, length of commitment, and the rules that must be followed.  If we are all in agreement, then we will give you a detailed proposal and with your acceptance, begin right away.  The student we are looking for could be in your home right now!!  Let us know if you’d like to find out! 804-426-6058.  Ask for coach Mike C

Our goal is to teach our students mastery of the tools and toys at Chess.com. We show Novice/Intermediate players the 1st 6-9 moves and Intermediate/Tournament players the 7th-12th moves of a game. These are custom training sessions!! No one is muted in these classes! Our classes are a fun, easy, and engaging! There’s even a Chess.com, “Scholarship Chess Business Center Learning Group”! Sign up today for the most custom and interactive classes on the web today!

13 July – 5 August Monday and Wednesday, Group 2.) 3 pm – 5 pm.

13 July – 5 August Monday and Wednesday, Group 1.) 7 pm – 845 pm.

14 July – 6 August Tuesday and Thursday, Group 1.) 3 pm – 445 pm.

14 July – 6 August Tuesday and Thursday, Group 2.) 7 pm – 9 pm.
10 August – 2 September Monday and Wednesday, Group 2.) 3 pm – 5 pm.

10 August – 2 September Monday and Wednesday, Group 1.) 7 pm – 845 pm.

11 August – 3 September Tuesday and Thursday, Group 1.) 3 pm – 445 pm.

11 August – 3 September Tuesday and Thursday, Group 2.) 7 pm – 9 pm.

Cost
1 session, $89.00, 2 sessions, $159.00. To Register, please call or email with the students, name, number, email, class strength, and day of the week. Mike Callaham, 804-426-6058 and waterman2010kir@aol.com. You will receive an invoice from Square with further instructions.

Coach Mike Callaham

Scholarship Chess business Center has made the switch to ZOOM!  Our 1st course is starting on the 27th of April!  One of the really cool features of Zoom is you can pick and choose what material you want out of any of our courses!  This is the current line up;

Wk 1.) Mon. Tour of Chess.com. Every tool to get better at chess fast is here! Wed. Settings for chess.com and how to use it’s computer. Fri. How to use Chess.com to get free game analysis!  $7.50 each or all 3 for $19.99
Wk 2.) Mon. Components of tactics and puzzles. Wed. Puzzle Rush, speed is good for training. Fri. Battle Rush and components review. $7.50 each or all 3 for $19.99

Wk 3.) Mon. 4 Knights Trexler punish beginners that won’t leave the 4 Knights and the Fried Liver! Wed. 4 Knights Gambits are forced and dangerous lines that stop your opponent from copying your moves! Fri. The Ruy Lopez is the next evolutionary step in every chess players growth!  $10.00 each or all 3 for $24.99
Wk 4.) Mon. Queens Gambit Accepted. Taking the pawn is fundamental to understanding d pawn play! Wed. The Budapest Gambit forces d pawn players out of their game. Fri. The Albin Counter Gambit is a highly respected argument against 1.d4. We’ll show you why!  $10.00 each or all 3 for $24.99
Wk 5.) Mon —- Memorial Day. Wed. The Nimzo Indian is a solid reply to the Queens Gambit and offers chances to the player who is best prepared! Fri. The Queens Indian Defense goes about solving the problem with black’s light squared bishop!  $10.00 each or 2 for$14.99Wk 6.) Mon. Coach Mike’s Philidor Defense and all the dangers before castling. Wed. Philidor middlegame strategy. Fri The Philidor In Reverse. Most openings can be played in reverse. This one is a killer!  $15.00 each or all 3 for $34.99
Wk 7.) Mon. It is only after you have seen other openings that you are ready to look at the Sicilian. This class covers the ideas behind it and the gambits that try to stop it! Wed The Grand Prix Attack throws every tool available at black and has themes good against all variations of the Sicilian. Fri. The Dragon. For decades this was the most feared variation of the Sicilian. We’ll cover the old variation and the accelerated! Everyone knows that It is something special when I decide to sit down to teach the Sicilian!!  $20.00 each or all 3 for $49.99

Dates are April 27 – June 12th

Days: Mon, Wed, and Fridays.

Times: 3 pm-5:00 pm (last 30 minutes is question and answer!)

Take all 7 weeks for just $99.00!

Players that know how to move the pieces and rated under 1600 will get the most from the course!!

For those of you that don’t know, group chess instruction usually starts at $10.00 per hour of instruction per person!  That’s for beginner lessons!!  With SCBC you can pick and choose what is most important to you.  You get the best deal when you take all 7.  That’s over $230.00 if taken separately, $189.93 week to week or just $99.00 for all 7!  Please take advantage of this special Corona Discount!   

To register, send the students name along with your name, email, and phone number to, waterman2010kir@aol.com.  If you wish to register by phone the number is 804-426-6058.  Just ask for Coach Mike C.  Must have 72 hours notice!  registrations after 5 pm on Friday will have a $10,00 late fee! 

Your registration confirmation will come with payment instructions.  Keep updated on new courses at the website and on Facebook!

Analyzing a game is a very detailed and beneficial part of everyone’s chess training. Many Grandmasters have talked about the importance of analysis. Alekine had a book maker sow 5 pages between each game of a tournament book he wanted to anyalyze. Botvinik when asked for advice would ask a player if they analyzed their own games. If the player answered no, Botvinik would simply walk away without replying to the player at all. Bobby Fischer took 400 of Spaskki’s games every place he went in preparation for his 1972 world title match. You should be analyzing Grandmaster games in the openings you play all the time.  It should be a regular part of your development.  The greatest benefit to analyzing your own games is that you know what one of the players was thinking. I made a committment to myself that I would analyze every tournament game I played. When you are new, you should record and analyze every game you play.  Don’t think so, where do you think all the classic, simul, coffehouse, odds, and off hand games came from.  The great players have always recorded more than their tournament games.  Once you begin to analyze your games, I guarantee you will meet yourself for the very 1st time. Knowing you will analyze every game you play improves your play instantly because finding the correct continuation at home instead of at the board isn’t acceptable! You want to increase you courage at the board, you want to increase your determination for, “at the board excellence”, recording and analyzing every game you play is a great start! This is how I go about analyzing a chess game.  You may develop your own method.  Try mine and see what you think!?  There are no diagrams because analysis is done with a chess board. At the end I will tell you how to use your computer!

Step 1) Watch the entire game 1st. You are doing this to get a feel of the game, refresh your memory, and to make sure your score sheet is accurate.

McClellen vs Callaham Rhein Main Air Base, Germany 1985

1.e2-e4 d7-d6 2.d2-d4 g8-f6 3.b1–c3 g7-g6 4.g1–f3 f8-g7 5.f1–e2 0–0 6.0–0 c7-c6 7.h2-h3 e7-e5 8.d4xe5 d6xe5 9.c1–e3 b8-d7 10.d1–d2 f8-e8 11.a1–d1 d8-c7 12.a2-a4 d7-f8 13.e3-c5 f6-d7 14.c5-d6 c7-b6 15.e2-c4 f8-e6 16.c4xe6 e8xe6 17.f1–e1 b6xb2 18.d1–b1 e6xd6 19.b1xb2 d6xd2 20.f3xd2 d7-f8 21.d2-f3 f8-e6 22.e1–d1 e6-d4 23.b2-b1 b7-b6 24.f3xd4 e5xd4 25.c3-e2 c8-b7 26.e2xd4 c6-c5 27.d4-b5 b7xe4 28.d1–d7 e4xc2 29.b1–e1 c2xa4 30.d7xa7 a8xa7 31.b5xa7 b6-b5 32.e1–e8+ g7-f8 33.e8-a8 c5-c4 34.a7-c6 g8-g7 35.c6-d4 f8-c5 36.d4xb5 a4xb5 37.a8-a5 c5-d4 38.a5xb5 d4-f6 39.b5-c5 c4-c3 40.g1–f1 g6-g5 41.f1–e2 g7-g6 42.e2-d3 h7-h6 43.g2-g4 f6-g7 44.c5-c6+ g7-f6 45.f2-f3 g6-g7 46.c6xc3 f6xc3 47.d3xc3 g7-g6 48.c3-d4 f7-f5 49.d4-e5 f5xg4 50.h3xg4 h6-h5 51.g4xh5+ g6xh5 52.e5-f5 ½–½

Step 2) Now on this trip through the game circle the moves that you think are suspect for white and for black. If there was a move that you thought was really good or bad circle those. The turning points in the game, circle those. At what you think were difficult or theory breaking moves for you or your opponent circle those. I’ve analyzed this game several times and have found improvements each time. To be brief, the moves to circle here are: 6…c7-c6, 7… e7-e5, 11. a1-d1, 12…d7-f8, 16 c4-e6, 17…b6-b2, 21…d7-f8, 25. …c8-b7, 28. d1-d7, 33..c5-c4, 36.d4-b5, 37…c5-d4, 46.c6-c3.

Here we are at the main line of the Classical Pirc. From here Black can play about 7 different alternatives. I’d read all I could find on the Pirc at the time, The Pirc for the Tournament Player, RHM Press, Batsford chess openings, Modern chess openings, and even Horowitz’s Chess openings theory and practice. I chose c7-c6 because it fit well with my style at the time. I also knew my opponent played classical lines exclusively to avoid tactical skirmishes. My plan was to secure good space and then start trouble.

7… e7-e5! this is the correct notation for this move. Studying is one thing but playing is another. A true Pirc player is going to know that any attempt to punish this with exchanges, fails!! Don’t get me wrong, white has a slight plus here but it can’t even be called an initiative. It is one way to test your opponent. Their response it may be an indication of their background, ability or mood! See for yourself.

8. d4-e5 d6-e5 9.f3xe5 f6xe4 10.c3xe4 g7xe5 11.c1–g5 d8-c7 12.d1–d2 c8-f5 13.e4-f6+ e5xf6 14.g5xf6 b8-d7 15.f6-d4 d7-b6 16.e2-f3 a8-d8; 9.d1xd8 f8xd8 10.c1–g5 b8-d7 11.f1–d1 d8-e8 12.g5-e3 b7-b5=

11. a1-d1?! Once you’ve really studied an opening that allows you to clear the back rank most of the time, you have to know which rook to move! Realizing your opponent is out of their opening book is a great confidence booster during a game. A couple moves from now, having left that rook on a1 would have not allowed c7-b6.

12….d7-f8?? A big mistake that allows the white pieces to take up residence. I under estimated e3-c5 and c5-d6.

16. c4-e6?? big mistake. White gains a lasting advantage after, 16.c3-e2 c6-c5 17.d2-e3 a7-a6 18.f1–e1 e6-d4 19.e2xd4 c5xd4 20.e3-a3 g7-f8 21.d6xf8 d7xf8 22.c2-c3 b6-c7 23.c4-d5±

17…b6-b2!? Here I thought I would win a piece by getting white to take the rook on d6 with his queen in the combination. When he didn’t, I got that feeling we all get when we think we’ve just blown the game. The truth is after this combo I’m actually in the best position I’ve had all game. My opponent and I are feeling the same way and the position is level. LOL!

20…d7-f8? It’s getting late in the game, I didn’t know anything about stamina at the time. I really needed to give this position a good looking over since it was the 1st free move I was getting after a forced, and surprise continuation. I Was getting tired and didn’t know it. I’ll admit I also needed an attitude adjustment! 21…d7-c5! holds like a rock. It’s an out post that cannot be allowed to stand, and I have the 2 bishops and a pawn for the exchange! I should have been thrilled. 20…d7-c5 21.e1–d1 c8-e6 22.d2-b3 c5xb3 23.c2xb3 g7-f6 24.g1–h2 a8-c8=

21. d2-f3? Gary Kasparov said it best that the person who make the last mistake loses. I’ve learned that mistakes come in pairs. One apiece or two in a row, they come in pairs. Analysis has taught me to expect and avoid the second error and leave that for my opponent. Mistakes shock both of us and we must both remain calm afterwards to keep from making more errors!! 21.a4-a5! f8-e6 22.d2-c4 e6-c5 never getting to the d4 square any way! 23.c4-d6 g7-f6 24.g1–h2 f6-e7 25.d6xc8 a8xc8 26.e1–d1 and the 2 bishops are gone.

25…c8-b7? I called myself being fancy. I should have made the pawn chain. I wanted the e pawn so bad. At this point in the game, I was still mis judging who was winning. Today I would maintain that 4 against 2 majority and not let it get knocked down to 3 against 2. 25…c6-c5 26.a4-a5! b6xa5 (26…a8-b8 27.a5xb6 a7xb6 28.e2-f4 b6-b5 29.f4-d3 c5-c4 30.d3-b4 c8-d7=) 27.b1–a1 d4-d3 28.c2xd3 g7xa1 29.d1xa1 a5-a4 30.a1xa4 a7-a5 31.e2-c3 g8-g7 32.f2-f3 c8-d7=

28 d1-d7?? We all love to brag about how we had the game won. Analysis reveals the back and forth nature of the struggle. 28.d1–d2 e4-c6 29.d2-e2 g7-f6 30.b1–d1 g8-g7 31.d1–d6 a8-e8 32.e2xe8 c6xe8 33.b5xa7 e8xa4 34.d6xb6 a4xc2 35.b6-c6 Look familiar!? The trouble with endgames is you have to be able to see farther and farther away!

35…c5-c4?? This was one of my early analysis positions. It’s one that stands out in my mind because of this error. Calculating this win was well within my ability and I missed it. I was tired but more than anything else I committed the rookie not calculating which pawn I should push and acted like the result would be the same. I don’t think I’ve ever been meaner to myself than I was when I analyzed this game! Analysis will make you take vows that you will never break. [33…b5-b4!! 34.a8-c8 g8-g7 35.a7-c6 b4-b3 36.c6-a5 f8-d6 37.a5-c4 a4-b5 38.c4-b2 g7-f6 39.g2-g3 b5-d7 40.c8-h8 h7-h5 41.h8-a8 d6-e5 42.b2-d3 e5-d4 43.a8-b8 c5-c4 44.d3-e1 d7xh3 45.e1–f3 d4-c3 46.b8-b6+ h3-e6 47.b6-b7 e6-d5 48.b7-b6+ f6-e7 49.f3-g5 c3-e5 50.b6-b5 b3-b2 51.g1–h2 e5-g7 52.b5xd5 b2-b1 and wins if they hadn’t already resigned!

36. d4-b5?? Not time to throw themselves on the sword yet. At least try to fight it for a few more moves. [36.d4-e2 c5-b4 37.g1–f1 g7-f6 38.a8-a7 c4-c3 39.a7-c7 f6-e6–+ The knight must take now or let black chase the rook from the c file. Neat stuff.

37…c5-d4?? Angry with myself is an understatement. This isn’t even hard enough to be a puzzle for anyone over 1000!!  37…c4-c3 38.a5xb5 c5-a3 39.b5-b7 c3-c2 40.b7-c7 c2-c1+ –+

46. c6-c3?? The final throw away of the game by either side. White wins by forcing the bishop to protect the pawn from another diagonal.[46.d3-e4 g7-g6 47.c6-d6 g6-g7 48.e4-f5 f6-e7 49.d6-c6 e7-b4 50.f5-e4 b4-a5 51.e4-d3 f7-f6 52.c6-a6 a5-b4 53.a6-a4 b4-d6 54.d3xc3 d6-e5+ and the king will walk around and take everything.

This may look long but we only questioned 14 out of a possible 104 half moves. Now that you have finished your analysis and have written down all the possble continuations, here is how you make your analysis stick. Set the board up one more time and begin to rewrite the game. As you rewrite the game, put the proper punctuation for each move you looked at. Stop and look at the position and ask yourself if you understand the position and the punctuation you are giving.

1.e2-e4 d7-d6 2.d2-d4 g8-f6 3.b1–c3 g7-g6 4.g1–f3 f8-g7 5.f1–e2 0–0 6.0–0 c7-c6 7.h2-h3 e7-e5! 8.d4xe5 d6xe5 9.c1–e3 b8-d7 10.d1–d2 f8-e8 11.a1–d1N d8-c7 12.a2-a4 d7-f8?? 13.e3-c5 f6-d7 14.c5-d6 c7-b6 15.e2-c4 f8-e6 16.c4xe6? e8xe6 17.f1–e1 b6xb2!? 18.d1–b1 e6xd6 19.b1xb2! d6xd2 20.f3xd2 d7-f8? 21.d2-f3? f8-e6 22.e1–d1 e6-d4 23.b2-b1 b7-b6 24.f3xd4 e5xd4 25.c3-e2 c8-b7? 26.e2xd4 c6-c5 27.d4-b5 b7xe4 28.d1–d7?? e4xc2 29.b1–e1 c2xa4 30.d7xa7 a8xa7 31.b5xa7 b6-b5 32.e1–e8+ g7-f8 33.e8-a8 c5-c4?? 34.a7-c6 g8-g7 35.c6-d4 f8-c5 36.d4xb5? a4xb5 37.a8-a5 c5-d4?? 38.a5xb5 d4-f6 39.b5-c5 c4-c3 40.g1–f1 g6-g5 41.f1–e2 g7-g6 42.e2-d3 h7-h6 43.g2-g4 f6-g7 44.c5-c6+ g7-f6 45.f2-f3 g6-g7 46.c6xc3?? f6xc3 47.d3xc3 g7-g6 48.c3-d4 f7-f5 49.d4-e5 f5xg4 50.h3xg4 h6-h5 51.g4xh5+ g6xh5 52.e5-f5 ½–½

Finally it is time to load the game on to your computer. Set it up for infinite analysis and have it show 12 possible lines of play. Give each even slighlty non obvious move at least 20-30 seconds to see what your engine thinks. When you get to the moves you checked, see what the computer thinks and check your analysis. Once you have corrected all of the analysis with your computer, print it out and repeat the verification exercise.  Never ever allow your computer to go over a game before you do.  The computer is the tool, not the boss.  If you let the computer go 1st, Botvinik would just walk away from you!!!!!!

Now, go play chess with anyone or anything and notice how differently you are looking at the board.

If this has been helpful to you please leave a positive comment! If this has blown your mind, please leave a coment and a donation.

Always wishing the best for chess,

Mike Callaham/President