6.Lesson (22.February 2013)

After 2 Lessons of opening study and 3 lessons on strategical themes the lessons continue with endgame study. First some basic pawn endgames.  Here is one where black can draw , but how is the question. Endgames are good for your calculation skills and requires accurate play.

This a nice endgame study where white can draw although he isn't inside the square of the black pawn. From endgames you learn a lot like in this one.

The following endgame is interesting. I think i would have some difficulties to win this endgame. Is a bishop endgame with 1 extra pawn. The Idea is to bring the bishop to b8 which threatens the exchange of the bishops. If the king goes to a6 to prevent you to go to a7-b8 you can go for the c7 sqaure and finally you can reach b8 with a tempo winning move.

Here are 2 basic rook endgames everybody should know :

1. Lucena-Position, First check the king, bring your rook on the 4 rank , build the bridge and the past pawn promotes to a queen -  winning for white 

2 .Philidor-Defense. Defending the 6.Rank and after pawn push the rook goes to the back rank and gives checks from behind -draw.

After some  basic endgame knowledge a few endgame puzzle I had to solve for homework.

5.Lesson (15.February 2013)

In this lesson the topic was positional play. In a position where white could go for the kingside attack,he decides to play positional in the centre. White  plays some quite moves to increase the pressure there and exploit his positional advantage. White simply improves the position of his pieces and at the same time black gets bad pieces which don' t have mobility like a locked  and passive bishop. When the pieces are improved to the maximum the real action begins by attacking weak points or the king. In another position whites  strategy is based on a poor placed queen, by threatening to attack the queen he forces the black queen back and simultaneously he improves the position of his pieces. So the whole concept of positional play is to force the opponents pieces to  bad squares where their possibilities are limited ans simultaneously get the best squares for the own pieces where they have high mobility , are targeting weak squares and can quick launch an kingside attack. At the end of this lesson i got some puzzles to solve. Here are some of them :

4.Lesson (8.February 2013)

In this lesson the strategical theme was prophylaxis. What is prophylaxis ? It is a kind of save quiet moves to avoid surprises like the Kh1 move to get away from the bishops diagonal or pins,skewers and other tactics. Prophylaxis is as well to stop your opponents plan by simply making moves that don't allow your opponent to enforce his plans. You are playing against his plans without following your own plan. That surprised me again in the shown games . How can the whole strategy of a game be to stop your opponents plan and to frustrate him. It is  a psychological strategy to force your opponent to make wrong decisions and weaken  his position.My task in this lesson was 1. to find out what the opponents plan is 2. how to stop this plan. I liked this exercise, I had to think and find out what is going on in the positions. Here are a few prophylaxis exercises.

3.Lesson (1.February 2013)

After 2 Lessons of opening study, we had 2 lessons with strategical themes.In this lesson the theme was weak squares. I learned that the plan to exploit weak squares is a follow:

1.Exchange or crowd out all enemy pieces that control this square

2.Make the weak square to an outpost for a piece 

3.Connect the other pieces with the outpost

The strategical concepts are 

1.Exchange

2.Improve the position

3.Open lines with pawn storms

He showed me a few games where the whole game was based on exploiting weak square in the enemy position. It is strange if the play is only focused in creating weak squares and  make use of them. It was interesting and enlightening. But the big question that arose to me was how do I know that there are weak squares ? Pawn moves create weak squares. So I should look at the position if a certain pawn move creates a weak square. For homework I had to solve some puzzles  that were harder than the last ones. I spent 15 minutes for each puzzle. I could solve 8 of 10 them. At the other 2 puzzles I couldn't find a satisfactory solution.

Here are some of them:

2.Lesson (25.January 2013)

We started with the discussion of my homework.  My solution of the first  position was right. At the second my evalution was right but my plan wasn't good. I misevaluated the third position and my plan wasn't right.The last postion was right. So I scored 2/4. I think that I have a lot of work to do for the improvement of my strategical skills and planning.

The lesson continued with an opening repertoire for black against 1.d4.I got  in touch with the semi-slav. My coach said that the pawn structure is similar to the caro-kann and therefore it fits to my reportoire. I liked this opening from the beginning . The explanations were good only the speed was somewhat   fast. I learned the plans of black in different variations.  At the end we discussed a few tactic  and endgames puzzles. In addition I got 2 databases. 1 semi-slav repertoire and 1 with almost 700 tactic puzzles. For Homework I should solve some tactic puzzles.

Here are some of them :