Articles
Tactical Super-Test!

Tactical Super-Test!

Gserper
| 53 | Tactics

Most chess players have probably heard the saying "Chess is 99% tactics". While it is an exaggeration, the goal of this saying is to emphasize the importance of calculation in chess. Indeed, the fastest and most efficient way to improve your chess results is to boost your calculation skills. I bet most of you have books on tactics (or just use Tactics Trainer on chess.com!) that offer you hundreds of puzzles to solve. In such puzzles you need to find a combination that allows you to win by force or save a losing position. While such textbooks should be a cornerstone of your tactical training since they show you typical tactical patterns, today I want to offer you a different kind of exercise.  The real game of chess is multidimensional, so it is not always as simple as just finding a winning combination.  In most of the positions from the tournament games you play, such winning combos simply don't exist!

But at every moment of the game we need to make a decision based on our calculation abilities.  And sometimes the final position of a variation is not clear-cut like you usually find in books on tactics.  Say I have two promising moves which lead to complicated variations. The final positions at the end of both variations look kind of unclear.  Which one should I choose?  In real tournament games we need to answer questions like this on many occasions. So, when you solve today's quiz don't assume that there is a move that wins by force.  I'd recommend you to treat every single puzzle as a position from your own game.  Try to find a good move which you would play in your tournament game and then compare to the solution.  

The game we are going to analyze today is very famous. It was played in the first tournament which the great Emanuel Lasker played after his four year period of inactivity. (It is well known that he had many other interests in life besides chess. Math is one example.) His opponent, British Champion William Napier, called this game the finest he ever played.  How often have you heard a chess player call his lost game the best he ever played? Now, without further ado, let's analyze this exciting game!

( Please remember that you can always replay the whole game from the first move and also see the annotations if you click "Solution" and then "Move list".)

White's pawn storm looks very dangerous.  What should Black do?

 

White's position is close to a total collapse. What should he play?
How should Black defend?
In the actual game Black made a mistake.  How should White punish him?
Lasker made a mistake and gave Black a chance to obtain a serious advantage. Can you find the best move for Black?
After Napier's mistake Lasker never gave him a second chance. Try to finish Black off as efficiently as the great Lasker did!
This is one of the most complicated games Lasker ever played, so don't be discouraged if you didn't solve some (or all) of the puzzles correctly.  I am planning to offer more tactical exercises like this in the future, so you'll have a chance to redeem yourself. Meanwhile, I strongly recommend to do this kind of exercise on your own to further improve your calculation skills.  All you need to do is get a well-annotated, complicated game played by two strong chess players and thoroughly analyze it.
Good luck!
More from GM Gserper
The Most Important Tactical Pattern In Chess

The Most Important Tactical Pattern In Chess

The Unexpected Advice Given To A Future World Champion

The Unexpected Advice Given To A Future World Champion