What It Takes to Become a Chess Master E-Book

Andrew Soltis

• Herausgeber: Batsford
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 299

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

So you're a fairly decent chess player. You compete in tournaments, you play on the Internet. But you would love to make that leap to become a chess master. What do you need to know, how much do you have to practise, and how much of the success of the masters is simply a matter of innate talent, superior brainpower or just good luck? This useful book, aimed at all chess players who aspire to become chess masters, shows you what the masters know and you don't.  Written by one of our biggest-selling and best-loved chess authors, in his trademark chatty, accessible but always informative style, this book is filled with practical exercises and test games that will reveal the secrets of how to join chess's elite ranks.

Leseprobe

First published in the United Kingdom in 2011 by

Batsford 10 Southcombe Street London W14 0RA

An imprint of Anova Books Company Ltd

Copyright © Batsford 2012

Text copyright © Andrew Soltis 2012

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

First eBook publication 2012 eBook ISBN: 9781849940887

Also available in paperback Paperback ISBN: 9781849940269

Reproduction by Rival Colour Ltd, UK

This book can be ordered direct from the publisher at the website:www.anovabooks.com

Or try your local bookshop for the paperback

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One: What Matters Most

Chapter Two: Habits

Chapter Three: Little Tactics

Chapter Four: More

Chapter Five: Sense

Chapter Six: Winnability

Chapter Seven: Easier

Chapter Eight: Comp

Chapter Nine: Knowing

Quiz Answers

Introduction

Only a tiny fraction of people who play chess become masters. In fact, only two percent of the people who take chess seriously make master. Why?

Or, to put it personally: You take chess seriously. You read and reread books and magazines. You may have acquired a large collection of books and/or software. You scan the Web sites that helped you get to where you are. But it doesn’t seem to help you get further, to master. Why?

The answers aren’t mysterious. The main reason is that the skills and know-how that helped you get this far – such as tactical sight, awareness of general principles and knowledge of basic endgame positions – have almost nothing to do with making progress to the master level.

Sure, being good in these core areas is necessary to get to where you are. But becoming better in them – going from good at tactics to great at tactics, for example – doesn’t translate into much greater strength.

It’s like height in basketball. Being 6-foot-tall is virtually essential to making it as a pro. And being taller, say 6-foot-6, offers a much better chance of playing in the NBA than a mere 6-foot-1 player.

But a 6-foot-9 player isn’t necessarily superior to a 6-foot-6 player. (If you don’t believe me, look up a 6-foot-6 guy named Michael Jordan.)

Chess players are born with their own limitations. Some, for example, have very good memories and others don’t.

You need a relatively good memory to reach average strength. But a much better memory isn’t going to make you a master. There have been plenty of great players with merely good memories. Or worse. Take the case of Sammy

Reshevsky. He was a world-class player for 40 years. But he had one glaring weakness, the opening. He made book mistakes as early as the sixth move and was lost in some games by the tenth move.

Fans blamed Reshevsky’s lack of study. Not true, said Pal Benko, who served as his second. “We would study openings all day,” Benko sighed in his memoirs. “And by evening he wouldn’t remember anything we looked at.”

Another ability you needed to get to where you are is calculating skill, to see at least two or three moves ahead. Many amateurs think that if they learn to calculate better, they’d play at master strength.

Well, it certainly doesn’t hurt to be able to see one move further than you do now. But there’s a powerful law of diminishing returns in chess calculation, just as there is in basketball height. The human who can see two moves ahead has an enormous advantage over the human who can see only one move. But being able to see, say, seven moves ahead, rather than six, is of minuscule value because you rarely have to calculate that far.

And, finally, many amateurs think that becoming a master is all about gaining ‘experience.’ They know that without some tournament experience they’d never have gotten as far as they are now.

True. But more experience doesn’t convert into more rating points. There are players who have thousands of tournament games of experience and don’t improve. On the other hand, there are 12-year-old masters who have a tiny fraction of that experience.

The Wall

The vast majority of players who take chess seriously will hit a wall: Your rating may have been steadily rising when suddenly it stops. Some players will hit the wall at about 1500 strength, others at 1700, others higher.

It’s extraordinarily frustrating. Even if you reach a rating of 2100, a splendid achievement, it’s just not the same as being able to call yourself a chess master.

Ed Edmondson, a longserving US Chess Federation official, helped guide Bobby Fischer to the world championship. When asked about his own strength, he said, “It depends on your point of view. The top players quite rightly consider me a ‘weakie’ – even though I have an expert rating and am in the top 10 percent. In this game, masters are really an exalted group.”

One explanation for the wall is that most players got to where they are by learning how to not lose. When two 1700 players meet over the board, one will typically self-destruct. Not in the opening, as an 1100 player would, but by move 40, if not 30. As a result, many players can reach 1900 strength simply by not blundering.

Mastering chess takes more. It requires a new set of skills and traits. In this book I’ve identified nine of the attributes that are most important to making master. Some of these may be familiar to you. Others will be new.

Many of these attributes are kinds of know-how, such as understanding when to change the pawn structure or what a positionally won game looks like and how to deal with it. Some are habits, like always looking for targets. Others are refined senses, like recognizing a critical middlegame moment or feeling when time is on your side and when it isn’t.

You already know the main method of acquiring these skills, traits and habits: Study master games. But that advice alone is much too vague to help anyone improve. You need more specific answers to questions like: Which games? What am I looking for when I study them? What exactly am I supposed to get from a game?

In the chapters that follow I’ve tried to answer some of those questions. I’ve suggested study techniques, study material and new approaches. These are things that typically aren’t taught in books, the Internet or other obvious sources. But, after all, if it were available that way, the ranks of masters would be counted in the millions, not the thousands.

Chapter One:

What Matters Most

The biggest difference between you and a master is not his deeper opening knowledge. It is not his endgame skill. Or his ability to calculate further. The biggest difference is that he knows what he wants.

Yes, I know what you’re going to say: You also know what you want. You want to deliver checkmate. We all want that.

But mate typically comes 20, 40, even 60 moves into the future of the position you’re looking at. A master looks at the board and knows what kind of position he’d like to play two or three moves from now.

That’s hard for non-masters to do because in any position there are so many things to weigh. There is material to count, king safety to evaluate, weak squares to consider, as well as good and bad bishops, outposts for knights, and so on.

A master can figure out what future position he wants to play because he can isolate the one or two factors that are most important: He knows what matters most.

What do you notice when you first look at this position? Most players will start by counting material. They’ll conclude White is better because he has an extra pawn.

Better players will know better. “What matters most in queen endings,” they’ll say, “is how close a pawn is to queening.” They’re right. The player with the passed pawn closest to queening usually has a big, if not decisive edge.

But here that doesn’t help much. Black’s b-pawn is just as fast as either of White’s pawns, as 1 e7? b3 2 d6 b2 shows.

Is there something else, something that matters even more? Yes. A master will notice another feature of the position that stands out. Believe it or not, it’s a diagonal.

It’s the one that runs from a8 to h1. Whoever controls that diagonal controls the queening square of the a-pawn. That’s a big deal.

But there’s more. Next to queening the b-pawn, Black’s only source of counterplay is checking the White king. The only way he can do that is if he controls the a8-h1 diagonal. For example, if White plays 1 c6 Black shoots back 1 … e4+!.

If White moves his king (or plays 2 f3 e2+) Black will suddenly have the winning chances following … b3!. Plainly, 1 c6? fails.

Well, then, what if White eliminates that pesky b-pawn? Then Black’s counterplay will be limited to queen checks.

The way to get rid of the b-pawn is 1 a6 so that 1 … xa6 allows 2 e4+ and 3 xb4. Black can’t avoid this by way of 1 … b3 because after the queening race, 2 a7 b2 3 a8() b1(), White can mate on g8 or h8.

White will probably win in the 3 xb4 line. But he still has a lot of work to do after, say, 3 … a8.

Instead, White was able to end the game in a few moves with 1 d6!. The point is that he wins control of the diagonal after 1 … xd6 2 e4+! and b7. For example, 2 … g6 3 b7! threatens xf7+ as well as pushing the a-pawn.

Black can resign in view of 3 … g7 4 a6 and 5 a7. Black also loses after 2 … g6 3 b7 or 2 … g8 3 b7. The b7 idea beats all defenses. It wins because what matters most is the a8-h1 diagonal.

In the game, Black met 1 d6 with 1 … b3. But he was too slow in the queening race after 2 d7, e.g. 2 … c6+ 3 h2 b2 4 d8() xe8 5 xe8 b1() 6 xf7 and wins.

When you realize how important that h1-a8 diagonal is, this ending goes from being incredibly difficult to fairly routine. And note how little White had to calculate.

He only had to visualize the position in the last diagram when he looked at the first one. That’s just two and a half moves into the future. Anyone who aspires to be a master should be able to see that far, particularly when there are so few pieces on the board.

By figuring out what matters most, a master strips a position down to its most important elements. Let’s consider a case that comes straight out of the opening.

Timman – Winants, Brussels 1988: 1 d4 f6 2 c4 e6 3 c3 b4 4 g5 h6 5 h4 c5 6 d5 d6 7 e3 g5 8 g3 e4 9 c2 f6 10 e2

Black chose a natural move, 10 … exd5. He assumed that after White recaptured, 11 cxd5, he would obtain good play with 11 … f5. The bishop move protects the e4-knight and threatens to discover an attack on the White queen (12 … xg3, 12 … xc3, 12 … xf2).

But consider the diagram a little more. What strikes you about White’s position?

There are a lot of things to focus on. But White realized that what really matters is that he has a slight lead in development. Four of his pieces are out, compared with three for Black. That didn’t change after 10 … exd5 because the capture is not a developing move.

Black believed he had made a forcing move. But even in a complex position like this, development matters more. White lengthened his lead with 11 0-0-0!.

Castling like this is the kind of magic-move that some amateurs marvel at. But it isn’t magic. It’s appreciating how development trumps material once again. (Paul Morphy would have spotted 11 0-0-0! immediately.)

Because of the threat of 12 xd5!, Black has no time for 11 … f5, not to mention 11 … xf2. He chose to get rid of the White knights, 11 … xc3 12 xc3 xc3.

But White tipped the ratio of developed pieces further in his favor with 13 xc3!. Black didn’t have a good alternative (13 … d4 14 exd4 c6 15 e3+!) so he went reluctantly into the endgame, 13 … xc3+ 14 bxc3.

He would have been in bad shape after 14 … e7 in view of 15 h4! g4 16 xd5 d8 17 h5. But what he played was worse, 14 … dxc4 15 xc4.

This truly strips the position down to its most important elements. All the extraneous factors are gone.

Black will lose the d6-pawn and material will become equal. But White’s active pieces, particularly the two bishops, confer a huge edge. He has a choice of strong continuations, e.g. 15 … c6 and now 16 xd6 b6 17 d2 and hd1 or 16 xd6 and 17 hd1 are both strong.

The game actually went 15 … e6 16 xe6 fxe6 17 xd6 e7 18 hd1 f6 and now 19 f4! c6 20 fxg5+ hxg5 21 d7! b6 22 f1+ g6 23 d6 d8 24 e5! resigns (in view of 24 … e8 25 g4! and 26 f6+).

Do’s and Don’ts

Figuring out what matters most is hard. What makes it hard is that from our first days of studying chess we are bombarded with do’s and don’ts.

At first, these tips seem like a godsend. They give you a way to evaluate positions. You decide to advance a knight because you were told the value of outposts. You shift a rook because you read about how good it is to control an open file.

But after you’ve digested another bushel or two of do’s and don’ts you realize that some conflict with others. You can’t obey all of them in the same position. As a result, you can find yourself more confused than you were before you had any advice. This is painfully clear in the games of some novices who talk themselves out of winning a knight because it would mean doubling their pawns.

Here’s how a master puts pawn structure in perspective.

On general principles Black has to be wary of putting his attacked knight offside at h5 or g4. The natural reply is 1 … fd5 and then 2 xd5 xd5.

But that leaves White with a free hand to attack the kingside, which now has only one defensive piece, the bishop at e7. Black might have to worry about an immediate, forcing line, perhaps, 3 g5 xg5 4 h5, which threatens xh7+ and xf7+/xd7 as well as xg5.

However, Garry Kasparov solved Black’s kingside problems with virtually no calculation. He replied 1 … fd5 2 xd5 exd5!.

He reasoned that White’s bishop at d3 was his most dangerous weapon: No bishop, no attack. The go-for-mate line 3 g5 xg5 4 h5 now fails to 4 … xd3!.

True, 2 … exd5 sticks Black with an isolated pawn. But that pawn is much less significant than a kingside attack.

White was forced to look for another way to win. He chose 3 e1 h6 4 c3 xd3 5 xd3.

He was aiming for a positional edge. A well-placed White knight can dominate Black’s bad light-squared bishop. That can be an important, even winning advantage in the hands of a good player.

But Black understood that what mattered most is whether the knight gets to d4. If it does, it severely restricts the bishop at d7. If it doesn’t, the knight isn’t a big factor.

Once you realize this, it’s easier to find 5 … c5. General principles tell us that the player with the two bishops should not trade one of them. But 5 … c5! stops the knight from enjoying his ideal outpost because 6 xc5 xc5 7 d4? xe5 just drops a pawn.

Instead, White played 6 xd5 but Black had foreseen that 6 … e6 would be good for him. After 7 d2 xb6 8 axb6 c6 the b6-pawn is lost. The game was drawn soon afterwards. Black had twice passed the ‘what matters’ test.

Bobby Fischer gave the highest praise to young players who had a clear idea of their goals in a position. When he saw 16-year-old Ken Rogoff for the first time, Fischer said what impressed him the most “was his self-assured style and his knowing exactly what he wanted over the chessboard.”

What White wanted in the next example changed significantly from move to move. That can happen even in a quiet position.

Black has spent several tempi in the opening to get his pieces to protect the pawn at d4 (that knight on c6 came from g8!).

White, in turn, played c2-c3 to tempt 1 … dxc3. Then 2 bxc3 would allow him to control d4 with a pawn. If he can follow up with d3-d4!, he gains important space and shuts out Black’s bishop.

So, Black played the consistent 1 … b6, which overprotects d4 and threatens 2 … dxc3 and 3 … xf2+.

White shot back 2 c4!. At first this looks inconsistent and ugly: It surrenders the fight for d4 and makes his bishop on b3 into nothing more than a big pawn.

But White appreciated that 2 c4! renders Black’s bishop and queen toothless. It also means there is only one obvious target left on the board and it’s a big one, the Black kingside. After 2 … d6 3 g4! 0-0, White obtains dangerous play with 4 cxb5 axb5 5 f3, threatening 6 h6.

Black preferred 3 … g6 and then came 4 cxb5 axb5 5 f3.

Black has won the battle for d4. But that square has become virtually meaningless. White’s attack is what matters most.

With h6 or g5-f6 coming up, Black was in major trouble. The rest was 5 … h6 6 h4 d8? 7 g5 b6 8 f6 f8 9 xh6 a6 10 g5 e5 11 g7 resigns.

Throughout history, masters have changed the way we play this game by pointing out new ways to appreciate ‘what matters most’. F.A.Philidor explained how pawns, not pieces, could be the most important feature in a position. Morphy showed us how development can matter most in open positions. Wilhelm Steinitz stressed that positional goodies, like the two-bishop advantage, matter a lot. Fischer demonstrated why you have to give up control of certain squares in order to control others that are more important.

What today’s masters appreciate is that even subtle changes in a position, made by just one or two innocuous-looking moves, can make a big difference – as long as the changes affect what matters most.

Black has weaknesses all over his side of the board. But it’s hard to get at them because he also has targets to attack, at b2 and f4, and he can use the f2-b6 diagonal tactically.

For instance, if he is allowed to play 1 … c5 and 2 xc5 xc5+ 3 f1 he has 3 … b4!, attacking the f- and b-pawns.

White can avert that with 1 c4 and then 1 … c5 2 xc5 xc5+ 3 f1. But 3 … f5 is annoying.

It stands to reason that if tactics are the problem White should take steps to eliminate them. He began with the unassuming 1 g1!. Then came 1 … c5 2 xc5+ xc5+ 3 h1.

White has played three more or less routine moves since the previous diagram. But the position is no longer double-edged. White has a serious edge.

What made the difference? Of course, it’s the White king. It is now out of checking range. Once the king is no longer a factor, there’s something else that matters most, the insecure Black king and pawns.

White can hammer e6 with b2-b3 and c4. Or he can try to get his queen to g7 via g4. Or he can look for action on the other wing with ac1.

Thanks to g1-h1 the previously unclear position was won by White in a few moves, 3 … b4 4 e3! a5 (or 4 … xb2 5 ab1 and 4 … b6 5 g3 f7 6 b3 and c4).

Black resigned after 5 b3 d7 6 c4 bd8 7 e1 b6 8 g3 dg8 9 h3 in view of 10 xe6.

Priorities

All players set priorities. You do it in some positions, such as when you choose between a two-move win of a pawn or a three-move sequence that forces checkmate. Yes, the two-mover is shorter. It’s easier to calculate. There’s less chance of an oversight.

But it’s obvious to you that the three-mover is more desirable. Mate counts more.

As you face stronger opponents on your road to masterhood, you don’t get such easy choices. To break 2200, you need a more refined sense of priorities. You need to appreciate how, for example, a single misplaced piece may be decisive.

White’s pieces are better placed. But that can be temporary. In light of the symmetrical nature of the position, a draw is likely if Black can trade a pair, or all, of the rooks.

However, Black is not ready for … ac8 or … ad8 because either move would hang the a7-pawn. This tells us Black has to move his knight so he can play … a6.

White appreciated how much that knight mattered. It’s actually the most important feature of the position. Once you understand that, it’s easier to realize how good 1 a3! and 2 b4! are.

Then the knight can’t move (1 … b8 2 c7). That means the a-pawn can’t move. And that means the QR can’t move.

After 1 a3! Black tried 1 … fd8 2 b4! e5 3 b3 c4 based on 4 xc4?? xd1 mate. But after 4 f1! xd1+ 5 xd1 e7 6 e2! he was running out of useful moves.

The a-pawn would fall after 6 … d8 7 xd8 xd8 8 d3!. Black would also lose a queenside pawn after 6 … b6 7 a5.

Black tried 6 … f6. In such a commanding position White has a choice of promising plans. One idea is 7 c1. Another is 7 e4 followed by d5 and d3.

White preferred to create an invasion route on the kingside with 7 g4 h6 8 h4. Black lost his patience and the game as well after 8 … e6 9 c5+ xc5 10 c7+.

Siegbert Tarrasch would have been pleased by that game. It validates his own views about what matters most. To Tarrasch, chess was all about piece mobility. If one piece stands badly, like Black’s knight at a6, his whole game stands badly, he wrote.

But in middlegames there are lots of pieces, and this increases the likelihood that you can afford to make one bad. The sum of all the other pieces and pawns matters more.

The position is riddled with positional plusses and minuses: Good and bad pieces, holes and outposts, doubled pawns, pawn islands, and so on.

Black might be tempted to play 1 … c4+, to liberate the b6-bishop, his worst piece. But he chose 1 … d4!, making it much worse.

One reason he did so was to open the diagonal of the other bishop. The one at b7 has a brighter future than its brother because it has targets to hit, at f3 and (after … g4) at g2.

Another point in favor of 1 … d4! is that White wanted to bring his knights into play, via e3. After 1 … c4+ a White knight might also be able to occupy d4, either immediately or later.

But 1 … d4! makes the White knights almost useless. Play continued 2 a3 d5 3 c4 c6.

Black might not be able to use his b6-bishop until an endgame, 30 moves away. But all his other pieces are doing their jobs in the middlegame, and that’s what matters most.

His immediate plan is … g4 and … gxf3. But 1 … d4! also gave Black more operating room, and that enables him to consider an alternate winning plan. He can double rooks on the e-file and win the e-pawn (4 d3 e7 and 5 … ae8, followed by … xg3 and … xe5).

White stopped the … g4 push with 4 h3 so Black switched to his second plan, 4 … g6 5 b5 e6.

White avoided … xg3 by playing 6 h2 but 6 … f4! shut the bishop out of play.

Black’s b6-bishop is still a bystander. But White is losing, if not lost. This became clearer after Black doomed the e-pawn – 7 xf4 gxf4 8 h2 h5! (to stop g4) 9 d2 f5 10 e2 ae8.

The e-pawn fell with 11 ae1 xe5 12 xe5 xe5 13 xe5 xe5. However the ultimate humiliation was that White’s knights remained useless while he was done in by the resurrected b6-bishop.

The finish was 14 f1 c8 15 f2 c6! 16 a3 d8! 17 g1 f5 18 b3 h4 19 d1 e1! 20 d2 g3! White resigns. After 21 xe1 xe1 and … b4, it is White’s QN that proves to be the worst piece on the board.

Prioritizing Practice

A good way to develop and refine your sense of what matters most is to examine early middlegame positions from master games. Your aim is to figure out what are White’s priorities, what are Black’s and why some changes in the position will favor one side significantly. If a position in an annotated game changes from unclear or even at move 15 to a plus-over-equals at move 20 or 25, try to figure out what changed. That will likely tell you what mattered most.

One approach is to focus on middlegames that arise from opening variations that are new to you, ones you’ve never played or studied before. A Catalan Gambit or one of the sacrificial lines of the Queen’s Indian Defense may be useful for a 1 e4 player, for example.

For the sake of introduction, let’s consider some Sicilian Defense middlegames, beginning with one from the game Sanikidze – Kacheishvilli, Georgian Championship 2004: 1 e4 c5 2 f3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 xd4 f6 5 c3 c6 6 f3 e5 7 b3 e7 8 e3 0-0 9 d2 a5 10 b5 e6 11 0-0-0 e8 12 g4 c7 13 b1 b8 14 b6 c8 15 a4

Black carried out an unusual maneuver of his knight to c7 and put his queen on the unlikely square of b8. Meanwhile, instead of attacking the king, White piled up his pieces on the queenside and made the rare move b6. What’s going on?

If you consider this for a while you may be able to see that there’s a below-the-radar battle. Black is trying hard to play a move and White seems almost desperate to stop that move from happening.

Which move could be that important? It shouldn’t be difficult to figure it out. It’s … b5.

If Black cannot push his b-pawn, his queenside attack is halted. White would have a free hand to advance his pawns to g5 and h5 and break open Black’s king position. This is why spending time on prophylactic moves can win time for you later, as we’ll see in Chapter Five. Here White would get an edge after 15 … b4 16 h4 7a6 17 a3 c6 18 d5! for example.

Once you appreciate how much … b5 matters, the next few moves of the game begin to make sense: 15 … a6! 16 f2 a8! 17 e3 c7 18 b6! a7! 19 c1 a8! 20 e3 b5!.

White’s blockade on b6 is broken. His kingside attack never got past g2-g4. Both of these factors freed Black to take charge after 21 b3 a4 22 xe6 fxe6 23 3e2 b4 24 f4 b5!.

There are a lot of clever tactical points from here on. But what you should appreciate is that the game became one-sided once White lost the battle over … b5. There followed 25 fxe5 c3+! 26 xc3 bxc3 27 b3 axb3 28 xb3 b4!.

White can’t stop the queen from reaching a4 or a3, and the game ended with 29 c1 a4 30 a3 dxe5 31 hf1 xa3 32 h6!? a7! 33 e3 c5! 34 d3 a2+ 35 c1 a1+! White resigns in view of 36 xa1 xa1 mate.

Okay, that wasn’t too hard, at least once you figure out how big a deal … b5 was. Let’s move on to another Sicilian position, a quite a bit different one, from the game Kasimdzhanov – Anand, Linares 2005:

1 e4 c5 2 f3 d6 3 c3 f6 4 e2 g4 5 d3 e6 6 bd2 c6 7 f1 d5 8 exd5 xd5 9 a4 h5 10 g3 b6 11 d1 g6 12 0-0 e7 13 a4 0-0 14 a5 d5 15 a4 c7 16 d4 cxd4 17 xd4 xd4 18 xd4

It’s a Sicilian position that may be quite unfamiliar to a devoted Dragon or Najdorf Variation player. Once again your task is to figure out what matters most. Before reading on, take several minutes to consider what should be important to each player and which factors take precedence.

Done that? Then let’s consider the plusses for White. He has a queenside majority of pawns. We can also see he has a nicely centralized queen.

But the queen can be driven away by … f6 or … c5. Or by putting a Black rook on d8 and discovering an attack along the d-file, such as … b4. And as for the queenside majority, well that might be a factor in an endgame. But as for now …

Black appreciated that what matters most is the kingside majority because it is immediately useful. He played 18 … f5!, which prepares … e5 with a commanding center.

This makes his bishop at g6 bad. But taking e4 away from White’s g3-knight matters more. This becomes clearer after 19 f3 ad8 20 a4 e5! and 21 … e4.

White chose the superior 19 a4 ad8 20 d1 so that he could meet 20 … e5 with 21 c4!, gaining counterplay on the c4-g8 diagonal.

Black can advance his f-pawn again but that gives up control of the e4-square that he just seized. So take a few minutes before you read on and see if you can figure out what matters most.

Time’s up. What matters most is White’s constricted position. The way to emphasize that is 20 … f4! It severely limits White’s bishop at c1 and thereby keeps the rook at a1 in limbo.

If White had retreated 21 f1 – or even 21 h1 – the overwhelming benefits of 20 … f4! would have been obvious. White played 21 e4 but 21 … e5! was strong, e.g. 22 d3? xc3! loses material (23 bxc3 xe4).

White chose 22 f3 instead. There are several appealing responses but the best was 22 … b5!, based on 23 xb5? xe4 and 23 axb6? xb6 24 c2 xe4 25 xe4 xe4!.

White had to play 23 c2 and Black forced a favorable position with 23 … f6! 24 xf6+ xf6 25 b3 xd1+ 26 xd1 d8 27 e2 d3 28 e1 e5.

This culminates the strategy begun by 18 … f5!. The Black center pawns are choking White. He still can’t activate his queenside (29 d2 e4 30 xe4? xe4 31 xe4 xd2).

Instead, he chose 29 e2 xe2 30 xe2 and now 30 … e4! based on another last-rank tactic (31 xe4?? d1+).

The Black center pawns performed one final service, creating a mating attack that ended the game soon after 31 g3 e3! 32 fxe3 f3! 33 xb5 f2+ 34 g2 f8, with the idea of … f1()+.

The reason that examining games like these is valuable is that it increases your knowledge of different kinds of positions. The main reason that a modern player would be superior to, say, Rudolf Spielmann or Richard Reti, or any of the great players of the early 20th century, is that today we know many, many more positions than a Spielmann or a Reti. We know what counts most in those positions.

This also provides one reason – there are others – for why today’s masters are superior to today’s amateurs. The masters know and understand more positions. Occasionally an amateur will do well against a master because he gets into one of the positions he understands well. But the master will win the majority of games from him because he’ll be able to reach middlegames that the amateur doesn’t know.

Let’s try one final Sicilian middlegame. It comes from Short – Topalov, Novgorod 1997:

1 e4 c5 2 f3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 xd4 f6 5 c3 a6 6 e3 g4 7 g5 h6 8 h4 g5 9 g3 g7 10 e2 h5 11 xg4 xg4 12 f3 d7 13 f2 c6 14 0-0 e6 15 xc6 xc6 16 d4

White wants to eliminate Black’s two-bishop advantage and create kingside chances. The bishops and the kingside are among the most important factors in evaluating the position.

But what else matters? Once again, take several minutes to examine the diagram. See if you can determine what the two players are aiming for. Where are the weaknesses?

And specifically, how should Black answer 16 d4 ? Is it worth preserving his bishop with 16 … e5 ? After all, he does it with a gain of time. Or is the hole created on d5 more significant? And what are the worthwhile alternatives? Does Black really want to castle here?

If you’ve given this position the attention it deserves you may have considered the best move. It is 16 … e5!.

Black knew from similar positions that the doubling of pawns on the e-file wasn’t as important as having pawn control of d5 and d4. He pressed the point by meeting 17 d2 with 17 … f6!.

White didn’t relish the prospect of going into a somewhat inferior ending after 18 ad1 xd4+ or 18 … f4 19 xf4 gxf4.

So the game went 18 xe5 dxe5!.

Note that White has no way to open up the position further for his rooks now that f3-f4 is ruled out. Moreover, he has no obvious target to attack.

When you can’t change the pawn structure favorably, you should make the most of your pieces. Here that means White should try 19 d6 d8 20 c5.

That would prompt Black to find a way to get his king to safety and connect rooks, such as after 20 … g7 and … f6/… e7/… f7. In other words, what matters in this position is the temporary discomfort of the Black pieces after 19 d6!.

Instead, White slipped into the worst of it after 19 a4? 0-0 20 b3 fd8 21 e3 and then 21 … f4! 22 xf4 gxf4!.

Quite a bit has changed so it’s time to re-evaluate. What matters most now?

Well, White has a queenside majority of pawns and a frisky knight that can carry out a useful regrouping, such as a2-b4 and then c2-c4.

Black’s plusses include control of the d-file but that’s temporary. He has targets at g2 and possibly f3, which could be exposed by … f5. White went steadily downhill – 23 fd1 h4 24 xd8+ xd8 25 d1 c8!. Black preserves his rook to attack g2 and/or c2.

Then came 26 d2 f8 27 d1 e7 28 f2 f5! 29 f1 fxe4 30 fxe4 a5! (to fix the queenside pawns) 31 e2 e8!.

Black’s bishop can join the attack in variations such as 32 c4 h5+ 33 f1 d8 34 xd8 xd8 35 d3 d1! or 33 e1 d8 34 xd8 xd8 35 d3 g6.

White preferred 32 d1 h5+ 33 c1 g8 34 d3 h3 but eventually lost.

Aside from examining late opening positions – which are easily found in books, magazines and databases or on the Internet – there is another good method for enriching your sense of what matters. It’s your own games. Unfortunately for your ego, it’s usually your losses.

The reason is that by the time you’ve been playing tournament chess for several years, you’ve developed an appreciation of what matters in some positions. But you’re also hampered by blind spots in other kinds of positions. The best way to find out what you don’t understand is by examining positions you didn’t understand when you played them. Here’s a personal example.

I had sought this pawn structure and thought I had cleverly found a way to swap some minor pieces, 1 … d4 (2 xd4? exd4 3 xd4 xe4) so that I wouldn’t be constricted.

Play continued 2 e3 xf3+ 3 xf3 and now I figured I should get rid of my bad bishop and did so with 3 … d7 4 a4 f6 5 a5 g5 6 xg5 xg5. I was making progress.

It was only after 7 a4! that I began to realize that I had badly misevaluated. If I move my knight – and there’s no really good square for it – I allow a strong b6. And if I don’t move the knight, how do I develop my queenside?

I went ahead with the attack-the-base-of-the-pawn chain plan of 7 … f5. After all, wasn’t that what all the textbooks said you did with this kind of pawn structure? There followed 8 a3! f6 9 exf5 gxf5 10 ac1.

It was already too late. White will penetrate with c7 (since 10 … d8 allow 11 xd6).

I tried to complicate with 10 … e4 11 f4 d4+ 12 h2 e3 but had to resign shortly after 13 c4! d2 14 c3 f2 15 e2 e4!? 15 xc8+.

Only in the post-mortem did I realize that what mattered most wasn’t my having the better bishop or getting in the thematic … f5. The hole on b6, the open c-file and other factors were much more important. The positions I had sought while choosing moves were simply ones I should have avoided.

Quiz