Novice Game Excerpts 1 - Chess Forums

Nanobot16

Feb 23, 2016

0

#1

Hello Chess.com,

I have decided today that I would attempt a new format for game analysis. Instead of rambling on about one particular game, I thought that doing a focus on key ideas would be much more instructive. In this post, I will cover the idea of piece restriction and activity, and share some tactical puzzles. If this seems to be well received, then I may begin posting more games with an in depth analysis (more so than will be provided in the first one) of more complex ideas. For consistency, I shall use 5 minute games with a 5 second increment.

Piece Restriction is the amount of influence that you have over your opponents piece activity. A couple common themes include minimizing your opponents movement and guarding all of the square they can utilize. A common example is a white pawn on c3 that prevents a black knight from jumping c6 to d4 or b4. One of my recent games highlights another example.

The lasting impact of this move can be seen later in the game. While a tactical opportunity eventually decided the fate of the game, the idea of limiting opponent play has its advantages. While black has the potential to use their entire army to stage an attack, white will have to play, essentially, a piece down (or create weaknesses to gain activity).

If restriction deals with limiting a piece, then activation of a piece is concerned with opening lines. These types of ideas will sometimes require a pawn sacrifice, which is common when seeking to open files for rooks. In a recent game, I had decided to gain quick development by imposing a structural weakness.

Puzzles:

As mentioned, here are some puzzles. All of them have a key idea in mind, so try to find the connection.

Hopefully you have found some interest within this post. I would have also included a bit on the endgame, but it a bit late for such. If you wish to leave feedback on the format of this post, then feel free to do so. I think this style will be better suited to highlighting key ideas as a whole. If you have any suggestions, then leave those as well.

Regards,

Nanobot16

Prologue1

Feb 24, 2016

0

#2

I really like these ideas, and I hope you will continue with them. I have 3 things to note. The first diagram, shows a particular structure that usually happens in the exchange grunfeld. Where the bishop on g2 may seem dead, it can aplly massive pressure on the diagonal, with moves like c4 Nc3, and so on. Also the last puzzle, is shown where black makes the "wrong" moves, not sure if that was the point. And at last, more people will prob recognize this if you put it under the right topic ;)

Nanobot16

Feb 24, 2016

0

#3

Thanks Prologue 1. I hadn't noticed that the third puzzle was prompting moves for black (when it was designed with white in mind). For those that view this page, I would suggest simply coming up with a couple of moves and then comparing them to the answer provided.