A Gem of an Endgame Book

Back at my first chess club we had a National Master, originally from Russia, that gave group lessons. He would set up positions for us to play against him, and then we would discuss what was played and what proper play would have been. Many of these lessons were on endgame technique. At least one group member questioned the value of the lessons, along the lines of: "What are the odds that I'll see this position in my own games? Maybe I should just work on my openings." I, however, felt I really "got" what the instructor was doing and why.

I have been working through Chess Endgame Training by Bernd Rosen, and I'm strongly reminded of these group sessions from years ago. This endgame book, while instructive on its own, is actually structured pedagogically so that an instructor can use the material in their own group lessons. The bulk of the book consists of the positions and their analysis, with the final section of the book giving advice on how to teach the material.

I am about halfway through this book, and I am completely enthralled by it. This review from Chesscafe.com struck me as being relatively accurate, but lukewarm. In particular, this book is not intended to be the first endgame book you ever read. However, I would say that players class C and above that have already spent time covering endgame basics can get a lot out of this book.

First, let's look at the breakdown of chapters:

• 6 chapters on pawn endgames
• 1 chapter each on knight, bishop, and bishop vs. knight endgames
• 4 chapters on rook endgames
• 2 chapters on queen endings
• 1 chapter to test your knowledge

plus the final chapter on Advice for Teachers. This may seem heavily weighed towards pawn and rook endgames, but I think that this is justified. Pawn endgames serve as a foundation for other endgames (for example, you always have to consider possible transitions from an unclear piece endgame to a concrete pawn endgame). I also think that pawn endgames are more coachable than the others, and that they are good tools for practicing visualization and the calculation of variations. Rook endgames are the most common endgame in practice, and are technically demanding, so emphasis there is warranted.

Each chapter contains roughly 8 easier problems and 8 tougher problems. What makes this book special for me is how the more advanced problems are related to the easier. The author is making connections between the classic endgame positions that you may have seen time and again to more complex positions that resemble actual games. Someone casually flipping through the book in a book store may think that this is old material. For example, many of the positions in the first two pawn chapters are old chestnuts. However, dig deeper and you'll see the author bringing in fresh material (fresh to me, at least) that extrapolate from these basic concepts.

The end result is an endgame book that, in a relatively concise manner, manages to both cover the essential basics of endgames and provide examples to challenge good endgame players. I would estimate that players from Class C to Class A can benefit from this book. Weaker endgame players will find many of the endings difficult, and stronger ones will find much of the beginner material obvious, but there is a lot of middle ground here. The easier positions demonstrate standard endgame techniques, but many of the harder positions demonstrate that sometimes there's no substitute for brute-force calculation.

I'm going to share a handful of the many endgames from Chess Endgame Training that, to me, shone like jewels. I've struggled with what to include here, since there is so much to enjoy. The following are taken from the first four chapters. I'm going to show a basic endgame, followed by a more advanced endgame of the same theme. In some cases I've truncated the analysis--in part for brevity, and in part because I want to encourage people to check out Rosen's book themselves. I've also added my own comments and analysis in places. Once again, I'm trying to cleave closely to the Nunn Convention for annotating endgames, so you will see a lot of "!"...there's not much room for error in these endgames.

Chapter 1 covers the square of the pawn, the opposition, waiting moves, and key squares. For this introductory chapter, all of the examples look like standard positions you'd find in endgame manuals, so I've selected a pair that demonstrate the opposition.

1.6
Black to move

This is a standard position on opposition. Its position in the chapter (1.6) places it on the more difficult side of the "easy" half. I think that this is a good test to see if Rosen's book may be for you. If this position elicits a "yeah, yeah, I know how this position is played, with either side to move, and can do it in my sleep", then you're ready for this book.

(The solution is 1...Kd8! taking the distant opposition, e.g. 2.Kd5 Kd7! 3.Ke5 Ke7!).

1.13
Kranki-W. Lange, Bad Oeynhausen 1940
Black to move

Although this position looks like a study, it's taken from an actual game. This is a great example of how the opposition is used to invade and capture your opponent's pawns. It's pretty obvious that Black needs to seize the opposition, but less obvious to see how they can penetrate. If you still don't have a feel for how to use the opposition, this could be a good position to play against the computer.

1... Kg2! seizes the opposition 2. Kc3 (2. Kc1 was played by Fritz vs. me: ...Kf3! 3. Kd2 Kf2! 4. Kc2 Ke2! 5. Kc3 Kd1! 6. Kd3 Kc1! 7. Kc3 Kb1! 8. Kd3 Kb2! 9. Kd2 Kxb3!) 2... Kf1! the only move that doesn't cede the opposition 3. Kd2 (3. Kd3 Ke1! 4. Ke3 Kd1!
5. Kd3 Kc1! 6. Kc3 Kb1! Note the theme of "scraping off" the opponent's king on a barrier such as a pawn or an attacked square, causing them to lose the opposition) 3... Kf2! 4. Kd3 Ke1! 5. Ke4 Kd2 6. Kd5 Kc3 7. Kc6 Kxb3! 0-1

The next three positions from Chapter 2 demonstrate body-checks and the opposition. The first is a standard position you'll find in many books:

2.5
Schlage-Ahues, Berlin 1921
White to move

1. Ke6! Kc3 2. Kd5! the body-check (in the actual game, 2. Kd6? led to an instructive draw: Kd4! 3. Kc6 Ke5! 4. Kb7 Kd6! 5. Kxa7 Kc7!= A standard technique in K+RP vs. K endgames) 2... Kb4 3. Kc6! Ka5 4. Kb7! Kb5 5. Kxa7! Kc6 6. Kb8!+-

However, the next two are far from obvious:

2.10
White to move

Seizing the opposition with 1.Kd5? draws, as does 1.Ke5? and 1.f4?. However, 1.Kd4! wins by force (see Rosen for details, or play this against a chess engine).

2.11
White to move

A common theme in pawn endgames is defending from the rear. For example, 1. Kc3? Kg4 2. Kd4 Kf4! 3. Kxd5 Ke3!=. White has to take a more coy approach to winning the pawn:
1. Kb4! Kg4 2. Kc5! Kf4 3. Kd4!+-

I feel these last two endgames demonstrate a point: sometimes there's no substitute for calculation. Some people prefer books that help them "understand the ideas" behind endgames, openings and whatnot, and certainly there are standard endgame positions where such commentary is helpful. On the other hand, there are endgames where rules of thumb and pattern recognition are actually detrimental. For example, in 2.10 using intuition and taking the opposition is wrong.

The next two examples from Chapter 3 cover the protected passed pawn:

3.2
White to move

1. h6! Kf8 2. g5! creates a protected passer 2...Kg8 (2... f5 3. gxf6! Kf7 4. h7!+-) 3. Kd2! (3. Kc2? The king cannot dilly-dally; the passed pawn doesn't win on its own: 3...Kh7! 4. Kd3 f6=) 3... Kh7 4. Ke3! f6 5. gxf6! Kxh6 6. Kf4! g5+ 7. Kf5 Kh7 (7... g4 8. Ke6! g3 9. f7! g2
10. f8=Q+!+-) 8. Kxg5 Kh8 9. Kh6 +-

3.14
White to play

1. b4! creates a passed pawn (1. Ke2? Ke7 2. Kf3 Ke6 3. Kxf4 Kd5=) In the pawn race that follows, both sides queen but White can win by force. However, this is not something that I would care to have to play over the board! 1... Ke7! (1... axb4 2.
a5 +-) 2. b5! Kd6 and the main line, stripped of Rosen's analysis, runs 3. Ke2 Ke6 4. Kf3 Ke5 5. Kg4 Ke4 6. b6 f3 7. Kg3 Ke3 8. b7 f2 9. b8=Q f1=Q 10. Qe5+ Kd2 11. Qxa5+ Kd1 12. Qd5+ Kc1 13. Qc5+ Kd1 14. Qd4+ Kc2 15. Qf2+ +-

One of the most useful chapters for me dealt with separated, isolated, passed pawns. Rosen did an excellent job presenting rules for determining whether such positions are a draw or not.

4.2
Black to play

Rosen's rules indicate that here the pawns cannot defend themselves on their own: 1... Kh5! threatens to capture on h4 and still remain in the square of the e4 pawn 2. e5 now 2...Kxh4? would be a mistake, but 2...Kg6! switches the attack to the lead pawn: 3. Kg2 Kf5! 4. h5 Kxe5!=

Here again, Rosen takes basic endgame examples (here: separated, isolated passed pawns) and extrapolates to more complicated scenarios:

4.16
White to move

The first stage is a Reti-style manoeuvre (pursuing two objectives at once): 1. Kg3! a5 2. Kf4! a4 3. Ke5! White's king couldn't get into the square of the a-pawn, but by threatening to it got close enough to its own passed pawns. 3...Kg7 (3... a3 4. Kf6! a2 5. g7+! Kxh7 6.Kf7! a1=Q 7. g8=Q+! Kh6 8. Qg6#) 4. Kd4! d5 5. Kc3! +- White can now capture both pawns in the same manner as the previous example.

I hope these examples have whetted your appetite for more. This book is chock-full of positions whose solutions made me think, "whoa, cool!"

In a nutshell, this book impresses me because:

• it relates basic endgame positions and concepts to more complicated and realistic scenarios
• it provides rules and guidelines, yet ultimately reinforces the need to think concretely and analyze accurately
• the careful selection of examples, combined with the chapter "Advice for Teachers", makes this a very good resource for trainers

I highly recommended this book to students that have already studied elementary endgames, and to trainers looking for lecture material.

ZOMG WTB l33t Chessbase h4xX0r Skillz!

Translated: "Jeepers! I wish to obtain elite Chessbase hacking skills!"

Whereas my DVD on the French Defense by Ziegler has a spiffy database of annotated games that's easily accessed, the King Powerplay and the Muller Endgame DVDs have the game fragments embedded in the multimedia lessons.

I would like to be able to access the chessbase content itself, directly, for a couple reasons:

1. You can't enter your own variations. You can't hit pause and then say, "Yeah, but what if I play..." and explore your own line of inquiry.

2. I want to play the positions over versus Fritz.

The only way I've found to circumvent this is to pause each lesson (preferably near the end of the discussion, so all variations that were covered are present) and then use "save as..." to save it to a .cbh file of my own creation. It's a bit cumbersome, but it works.

One trick you can then do is open two game windows: one with the multimedia lesson playing, and another with your saved copy. You can right-click on the bottom of your screen in Windows and select "Tile windows vertically" (or horizontally, but I prefer the former) and get something that looks like this:




(I have no idea what happened to Muller's video image in the left window. Depending on what copy of the image file I was using, you could either see the bottom half of his head or nothing at all. Weird.)

The left window is the video lesson, and the right window is my own copy, with personal annotations and with Fritz+5-man tablebases providing assistance. With the above setup, I can pause the lesson at any point, and in my own game window check the variations with Fritz (hooray for tablebases!) and add my own commentary and variations. This is good, because when Muller gets the bit in his teeth he goes through variations at breakneck speed. Some of the endgames towards the end of his first DVD were just crazy. "check check check andnowdoyouseeit ofcourse! decisivezugzwangdecisivezugzwangdecisivezugzwang and the game is over decisivezugzwang decisevezugswang and...fatal...zugzwang"

Also, Muller very frequently points out positions that he feels should be played against Fritz or people at the chess club, in order to master them. You can indicate these moments in your copy of the game, and later load them into Fritz and practice them.

I very strongly recommend using such a two-window approach when viewing DVD lessons.

Review of Daniel King's Power Play 2/3 DVDs

I've finished going through Daniel King's second and third DVDs in his Power Play series, and want to give my assessment of their utility to the club player. I have not viewed the first DVD in the series that deals with mating attacks. I will explain why at the end of this post.

First, a few relevant quotations:

"I can see the combinations as well as Alekhine, but I cannot get into the same positions."
-- Spielmann

"The player who is better must attack or risk losing the advantage"--Steinitz

"Properly taught, a student can learn more in a few hours than he would find out in ten years of untutored trial-and-error."--Em. Lasker

The two reviewed DVDs show how one initiates an attack so that you can get to the point of mating your opponent. The second DVD (Attacking the King) focuses on the idea of "inviting everyone to the party" by bringing pieces into the attack, in particular the heavy pieces. It also demonstrates the use of the g-pawn to crack open the g-file (particularly when the defender has played P-KR3). The third DVD focuses on pushing the f- and h-pawns.

I purchased these DVDs because I felt that, in my own games, I wasn't making the most of my attacking chances...I have a tendency to be risk-averse (although I do routinely sack a piece if I can get two defending pawns in exchange). However, I wondered if the DVDs would show example of example of sparkling attacks, and thereby encourage the viewer to launch into unjustified attacks in their own games. Then, through weakness of tactics and disregard of positional elements, their games would end in smoking ruins.

In short, these DVDs are an excellent example of Lasker's quote above. King provides a balanced, objective assessment of these attacks. In both DVDs, he has you pause the playback, set up the positions on a board, and think about the next move (in the second DVD, pauses during the lessons are common, and a few test positions are at the end of the DVD; in the third, there are fewer pauses in lessons but seventeen test positions at the end). Frequently, you are asked not for the attacker's next move but for the defender's. He shows not only attacks that break through but attacks that are ill-conceived. This approach adds instructional value, not only by encouraging a "real chess" approach (considering your opponent's responses) but by indirectly providing a primer on defence in chess. One benefit of learning mating patterns and attacks is so that, as a defender, you can see them looming and take prophylactic measures.

A strength of King's presentation is the use of repetition to drive home key concepts--and not just attacking principles, but general principles such as central control and space advantage. Here are some of the themes I detected:

• In order to attack, you must have the center under control. You don't need opposite-side castling in order to launch a pawn storm. The center doesn't need to be locked, or even occupied by pawns, but it must be under control. Otherwise, your opponent can counter your attack by counterplay in the center (editorial aside: queenside counterplay may also be possible, but a counterattack in the center tends to be more powerful and more common.). This was wonderfully reinforced throughout the DVDs.

• One signal for the attack is a lack of defenders around the king (well, der!) but particularly where the defender's queen is off on an adventure on the queenside, and/or when the cramped opponent doesn't have their rooks cooperating. An overriding theme of the second DVD is the following "story arc": central control cramps the opponent; their position gets pinched in two, limiting communication between kingside and queenside; the lack of communication prevents defenders, particularly queen and rooks, to come to the rescue of the king; the attacker gets overwhelming, localized superiority of force around the defender's king and mate follows.

• You really want to get the heavy pieces into the attack. This was a bit of an eye opener for me, not because it doesn't make sense (a common patzer problem is activating your rooks), but that they are that much more special than other pieces. Previously, I followed Colin Crouch's advice from his handy little book Attacking Technique: "In general, a successful kingside attack will need at least three pieces participating; one to be sacrificed and two to give checkmate." Also, paraphrasing crouch, 0-1 pieces attacking the king = premature; 2 = consider getting a third (or play elsewhere); 3=may be in business, 4 or more = start looking for winning combinations. I didn't place that much higher an importance to getting the rooks involved than the minors.

• Getting the queen early into the attack adds urgency and can provoke your opponent to create weaknesses. Transfering the queen to the kingside is emphasized. For example, the f4 push allows the queen to enter via the manoeuver Qd1-e1-g3(h4).
  

• Pawn moves leave weaknesses. Pushing the f- pawn makes the king not only vulnerable along the diagonal (e.g. the a7-g1 diagonal after pushing the f2 pawn) but also along the second rank (a2-h2). (editorial aside: in Kopec's Mastering the Sicilian, he talks about Black's "Queenside-Kingside Swipe" where he penetrates down the c-file then swipes down the back ranks towards White's king. This demonstrates King's point nicely). Pushing the h-pawn is surprisingly safe in many cases, but you have to worry about, say, weakness on g4 after pushing h4. As the defender, if you can avoid making a weakening pawn move, avoid it. For example, DVD 2 really drives home how playing the modest P-KR3 can be asking for trouble.

A few comments about production quality of the DVDs: King is very engaging and entertaining. He sounds a lot like the old speech recordings used by Fritz 5.32...I wonder if he's the guy behind the curtains there (and I wonder if they'd use him again...the speech from Fritz 7 and 9 annoys the hell out of me). There's some minor fumbling with drawing arrows and making moves, and in some cases he desparately needed a drink of water, but it wasn't that distracting. I enjoyed the second DVD more...the third has fewer "pause and think" exercises during the exercises (although more "test positions" at the end of the DVD), and moves at a faster clip. The third DVD was more overwhelming at times with the rapid-fire analysis (but you can always pause). Besides the hours of DVD playback, the DVDs come with databases of annotated games (although some of the annotations appeared to be in German), so I would have to say that they are packed with value.


So, let's return to the plight of the club player and ask if this is $70 well-spent (>$100 if you decide to get the first DVD as well).

In theory, this material is covered in other formats. Looking at my bookshelf, I have books on attack by Vukovic, Znozko-Borovsky, Crouch, Tal, and Alburt. I've read all of them cover to cover except Vukovic (which I hope to re-read to completion soon) and yet these DVDs had many revelations for me. King's repetition of themes was very effective. It's becoming instinct for me to look at these positions in the following way:

• Does one side have an advantage that would justify considering an attack? (Space, development, coordination etc.)

• Does the attacker have the center under control? Can the defender counter in the center or on the queenside?

• Can I get a local superiority of force through piece play alone? If not, can I do so via a pawn storm? Will my king be safe enough if I execute the pawn storm? Will the pawns leave serious weaknesses in their wake?

After taking a few weeks off from Blitz, I played a handful of games recently. I didn't seek to go out and put this new knowledge to the test...I just tried to play chess as usual. However, during play my new training automatically kicked in. I had several mates, and one failed attack where I missed the best continuation and the opponent regrouped. Fritz revealed multiple tactical errors in both attack and defense, but my attacking ideas themselves appeared to be justified.

Granted, this is a handful of blitz games, but it suggests that I successfully internalized a lot of King's material.

Another beneficial side-effect of the DVDs is that it ultimately reinforces what you already knew: tactics and calculation are the most important part of chess. There were a few instances where a Grandmaster had a winning attack and then couldn't convert at the end because they missed the mate. If you can't spot the basic mates, or have trouble with calculation, it doesn't matter how brilliant the attack was if you can't put the puck in the net. King didn't have every line completely mapped out, so when he would get to a certain position in the attack he would stop, analyze and assess on the spot. This was very enlightening, not only to see how he goes about thinking about the position but also how rapidly he spots and executes tactics. So, while it's been great learning how to set up these attacks, it's back to the grindstone for me.

So, in a nut shell: studying tactics probably will have more effect on your chess strength than improving your attacking technique. However, as I mentioned in my Synergy post, a little bit of basic knowledge can pay off disproportionately. These DVDs added to my knowledge and to my game something that was lacking. My games are still going to be decided largely through tactics, but I now have a better feel for if I should attack, how I can attack, and thus how I can get a stronger position where I will have an easier time than my opponent. I suspect after these lessons I'm going to need a dose of prophylaxis to balance me out, so it's back to My System shortly.

Finally, about the first DVD: I'm delaying getting this because, from the description and preview from Chessbase.com, there seems to be considerable overlap with the material I already have (particularly Znozko-Borovsky, Vukovic, plus Tal's Winning Chess Combinations). Both Znozko-Borovsky and Vukovic, for example, have multiple examples of the Greek Gift sacrifice in different settings. However, because I found that I more efficiently learned (and hopefully retained) via DVD, I may yet relent. I am still adverse to getting the fourth DVD because I think I have had enough material on opening play for now.

However, if I were to somehow receive review copies of the other DVDs in the series I would gladly review them here (crosses fingers, hopes someone from ChessBase is reading this). Yes, I'm shameless.

Synergy

In advance of a more complete review of Daniel King's Power Play 2/3 DVDs, I'd like to express (or maybe, re-express) an opinion of mine on selecting study material.

Obviously, the biggest payoff for improving your chess strength is to focus on your weakest area or areas... the facets of your game that are costing you the most points. For most of us that is probably playing "real chess" and tactics. For some people it may be the endgame, or maybe it's playing reasonable opening moves (less likely). However, I think there are two caveats to this approach:

1. This approach ignores synergy between different areas of chess knowledge. A little bit of positional understanding (a la Silman, Nimzovich and Kmoch), endgame knowledge, and basic opening principles goes a long way. You may understand that a certain opening move is bad because it creates an understandable pawn weakness; a tactical threat may only be parried if the opponent allows you to have the two bishops; you may be able to tactically sacrifice the exchange to force a winning endgame. I can't tell you how many master games I've played over where a kingside attack is converted to an endgame advantage.

2. You may not realize what some of your weaknesses are unless a stronger player looks over your games. Fritz can spot the more glaring tactical boo-boos but it can't tell you that you habitually ignore the center, routinely overlook attacking possibilities, or commit cardinal sins in your rook endgames that "every Russian schoolboy knows about".

One example of point two : Only after re-reading My System, did I really come to terms with how little I appreciated the center. I mean, I've known for a quarter of a century that it was important, and I would think about the center in vague terms as I played, but it wasn't often that I would think about it concretely (e.g. "If I trade off the Nc3, I weaken White's control of d5 and can push d7-d5"). Now this is becoming more natural. There are fewer instances where Fritz looks over a blitz game and says, "dumbass, your opponent played a weak move and you should've pushed d5, der!" The games I'm playing over from the 1920s are constantly harping about the center. In the Daniel King DVDs, he's constantly pointing out that such-and-such an attack was only possible because the center was under control, and so on. It's like in the movie "They Live", where I now have these special glasses that allow me to see (or, more accurately, pay attention) to things I was oblivious to before.

The thing is, I figured this out the hard way. If you can, take advantage of stronger players at the club, or lessons if you can afford them, to periodically check if you have hidden weaknesses you were unaware of.

Returning to the subject of synergy: I'm sure I had a lot of losses that I wrote off as "tactical blunders" or "mishandling the opening" where central control was the main underlying factor. Maybe it was the tactic that ultimately cost me the game, but it was exacerbated by the difficult position I got into because I didn't act in the center when I should have. So, while studying tactics may be the most important area for most club players to work on, a little bit of work put into other aspects of chess can have disproportionately large payoffs.

This is one reason I'm enjoying studying master games: I'm working on spotting tactics and visualizing variations, but I'm also getting small doses of opening ideas, strategic principles, execution of attacks, and endgame technique. In particular, I think that once you're familiar with the basics of chess strategy that you're better off playing over master games than buying more and more books on chess strategy.

One Guide for Improving Adult Players

I found this post at the Kenilworthian website. I agree with most of it except the suggestion of an opening repertoire based around limited positions such as the Isolated Queen Pawn. I personally think openings that lead to a wide variety of pawn structures will provide more experience in strategy, and force you to calculate and think "outside the box" in these less-familiar positions.

If You Read Nothing Else, Read This

At the time I'm writing this, my only "Recommended Chess Link" on this site is to ChessCafe.com, and specifically to Dan Heisman's "Novice Nook" column there. Eventually I'll add more links, but I intend to limit the list to those sights that will most help the average player improve.

I strongly recommend to anyone trying to improve their game to dig through the ChessCafe.com archives and read everything Heisman has written. However, before you check out the archives, let me explain why I endorse his articles so strongly.

Some people will have the same initial reaction that I had when I first glanced at his columns: "This is basic stuff. I'm beyond this." For quite a while, I would glance at the topic of the month, see what topic was being discussed without actually reading it, and then move on.

I'm not sure which of his articles I first read where I realized just how wrong I was, but it was probably one of the following:

1. One of his series of articles on "real chess". His original article for chesscafe.com is in text-only format, but he has elaborated on the theme in several articles. In a nutshell: "real" chess is where you consider your opponents threats, come up with a list of possible moves, consider your opponent's responses to those moves, and only then make your move...all while practicing good time management (which is in itself another topic, and one Heisman addresses in several articles). If you skip a step, you're playing "hope" chess (where you hope you'll be able to deal with whatever your opponent's next move is) or, worse yet, "flip-coin" chess (where you pick a move almost randomly because it's your turn and you have to do something).

I'm possibly mangling his message, so I suggest you go straight to the source. This may seem like a simple or obvious concept, but the trick is to do this consistently on each and every move. This is like a basketball player being able to consistently make 3-point freethrows, or a golfer being able to consistently chip a ball onto the green and close to the hole. It only takes one "hope" move to blunder and lose a game. I'll likely be returning to this topic in the near future. To quote from one of Heisman's articles:

Ask yourself the following question, “Of all the games I have lost recently,what percent were lost because of something I did not know, and what percent were lost due to something I already knew, but were not careful to look for?” If you are like most non-advanced players many, if not most, of your losses are due to a tactical oversight on a pattern that you already knew: putting a piece en prise, miscounting the safety of a piece, missing a simple double attack or fork, allowing a back-rank mate, etc. Since you already are familiar with those tactics, that means either that

you played carelessly, did not practice “Real Chess”, or have no
consistent thinking pattern.

2. A Counting Primer. Up until I read this article, I had more or less been using the "Reinfeld" values for chess pieces (bishops and knights are worth 3 pawns or a bit more; rooks are worth 5 pawns; the queen is worth 9 pawns; the bishop pair is an advantage worth about half a pawn). That's a fine place to start, and really any "point count" system is inherently flawed and can only provide a "guesstimate" of the relative power of your pieces compared to your opponent. However, Heisman presents a more refined system based on an article by Larry Kaufman. With several caveats, the values are:

• bishops and knights are worth 3 1/4 pawns
• rooks are worth 5 pawns
• the queen is worth 9 3/4 pawns
• the bishop pair is worth 1/2 pawn

Not that different, except for the evaluation of the queen. However, the articles give examples of evaluating unequal exchanges using this system, and this had several revelations for me. For example, it's common for a beginner to sacrifice a B and N on f7 to gain the opponent's R and f7 pawn, while "weakening" their kingside:

However, if you do the math, this means that White sacrificed 6.5 pawns of material to gain 6, and usually the king's position isn't significantly weakened. If the exchange cost White the bishop pair, they are now down a full pawn's worth of material for and exchange they may have thought was slightly better for them. Also, if this exchange occurs early in the game (which seems to be the rule), the minor pieces are often more powerful than the rooks because the latter don't have open lines yet.

This counting system also makes sacrificing the exchange (rook for bishop or knight) more attractive, and these articles completely changed how I viewed these transactions. For example, if you sacrifice the rook for a bishop and get a pawn in compensation, you're only sacrificing about 3/4 of a pawn. If that exchange cost your opponent the bishop pair, your sacrifice is a measly 1/4 of a pawn, so other positional factors can easily outweigh this disadvantage. Kaufman's original article isn't quite this simple, but you get the point.

3. A Guide to P-R3. To someone new to chess, this might seem like an awfully specific topic, but this is such a common move that it deserves its own article. It is very common to push a rook's pawn to either challenge a bishop that's pinning a knight, or to prevent a bishop from creating that pin in the first place:

The rook's pawn can be used to deny other pieces a key square as well. For example, in the Sicilian defense a pawn on a6 often keeps the white pieces out of b5, or a pawn on h3 keeps black from playing ...Ng4 and chopping off a bishop on e3:

The push of the rook's pawn can be a fine move, a waste of time, or a stinker, depending on circumstance. Often your opponent will waste time with a move like ...a6 or ...h6 when they should be bringing their pieces out. Another consideration is that the move ...h6 weakens the king's position (e.g. allowing a piece sacrifice on h6 to open up the kingside). Heisman presents a series of rules to guide you in deciding whether moving your rook's pawn is a good or bad move in a particular instance.

As soon as I realized how wrong I was about Heisman's column being "beginner stuff", I devoured his other articles. Other recurring themes include counting errors, time management, and the importance of studying basic "winning material" tactics (i.e. not mating combinations).

Heisman's target readership is about the same as my own, and I agree with most of what he says. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I want to direct people to his articles right off the bat. I will be posting on topics that he and others have covered, but with my own spin and personal experience thrown in.