I am going to start this blog with the endgame I studied. Here is the position :
If it's white to play what's the result ? If it's black to play what's the result ?
If you want to know is the time to try to find the answer
Ok, here were my thoughts, I calculated that this position was reached with white to play :
h2 was losing to Kf1 and I guessed that Kg2 was losing to Rg8+ but I only analysed Kh7 with Rh8 winning the pawn and didn't look a the line with Kh8 where the brilliant Kf3 wins by forcing Kh7.
With black to play the extra tempo allows a draw after reaching this position with white to play
This position is an easy draw as long as when white plays Rg8+ you play Kh1.
The tactics started with the successfully destruction of black's castled position, here's the position :
The next tactic simply grabbed a pawn so I missed it because I looked for more (I played the right first move and the second move was a candidate move but didn't seem good enough)
I was defeated by a random blunder.
Licking my wounds I succeeded the next tactic without to much difficulty
The final tactic of the sessions was reassuringly easy.
I may have failed my aim of 4/5 but I got 1/3 and 5/6 in the tactics so it's wasn't too bad. As an aim it should be reasonable.
The chess game I chose was insane, there were many tactical shots and even in the dying seconds of the game I could have lost, I was worse or it was equal for most of the game but the position was complicated enough for me not to lose and then escape with a win on time.
The position I got out of the opening was disappointing, the move e5 is a knew variant I'm learning in the Italian game and I haven't perfected it yet.
I was entirely losing until I got the move Bb4 that seemed to get back the pawn, the move Bb7 that I had analysed but dismissed was the correct response in the computers opinion but black is still better.
My move h3 was questionable but the lack of Bxb3 gave me a second chance, I blundered again and reached a worse position after Nc5 and was lucky with a5, Bxc5 looked better. Black was still better and the position was caos.
The computer claims that black missed two mates but that is understandable in my opinion because he was under twenty seconds on the clock. I dodged a bullet in that game but I think that always looking for tactics helped in making it complicated, this wasn't my best game of the day but was by far the most interesting.
The first lesson in the middle game analyses a middle game ''myth''. John Nunn criticised the belief that queen side majority's are always advantageous and pointed out that a lot of examples are exaggerated ignore active defence and take positions where there are already big advantages for one side. He points out that dynamic factors are sometimes more important than static ones (disclaimer this is a short explanation of a long and nuanced argument).
