A Must Do Drill for Attacking Players Below 2000

The chess.com's drills are one of those things I like, and I don't do as often as I should.

They are usually fun, challenging, instructive, and, perhaps most importantly, unrated. This last quality means that, for once, we can practice chess online without the fear of losing in one day of tiredness the benefits of a week of focus and hard work.

Today, I want to highly recommend one specific drill, the first in the attacking section called "development."

You play white and starts with this position:

Material is equal. But you do have the "dream opening," which the computer evaluates as +5.7. And against the engine at the maximum level... it's surprisingly hard to transform into a win.

For the low-rated player who loves to attack, this drill is a must-do.

This is especially true if you like to study openings. Indeed, if you want to spend hours learning how to gain a strong center or a few tempos, perhaps you may want to make sure you know how to use those advantages.

Personally, I came across this drill after analyzing my gain in the Scillian Allapin variation. Most Sicilian players understudy this opening, so I often got amazing positions out of the opening: +2, +3, or +4, all with equal material, just better positions. And I often lost the middle game because I didn't know how to attack. Doing this drill many times definitively helped me improve on that front.

Now, I know how to punish the player who let me have the center and a development lead!

Set-up

Here is my recommendation on how to play this drill:

• Don't start with the maximum level of computer as it can be quite depressing. First, set the computer to 200 to 300 elo points above yours and check that you can crush it with these opening advantages. Then, and only then, you should try to go against master (2600) and maximum (3200)
• Deactivate the move suggestions and move feedback (keep that for the analysis), but you can keep the eval bar to see how quickly you are losing your advantage.
• Play it seriously, as if it was a game. Otherwise, it's simply pointless.

Examples:

I put below two of my annotated drills, one against the 2600 (victory) and one where I end up losing it all against the 3200...

When it goes well (winning against the 2600)

When tragedy struck, being greedy against a 3200

That's it for today. I hope you'll give it a try!

Until next time, happy learning!