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Fathom the Unfathomable
Chess is a game of endless proportion. We love this ancient game, because it goes on, and on, and it never bores us. The possibilities on the chess board are positively endless. Why, after just four moves into the game, the combination of possible moves are as numerous as 71,852! Clearly it is a deep and marvelous game, to compel curiosity within all of us. It has been said, ?life is too short for chess?, perhaps this is what draws us to the board over and over. Something that can only be fathomed, in a lifetime, we can only scratch the surface. We can only gaze for a short way into the deep waters that make up the mathematical, mysterious, incomprehensible end to the chess spectrum. If we could live on, mastering our chess skills, one wonders how artful we could become at the board. Possibly if not probably, ranging our ratings into the many thousands. Chess seems to me, as limitless, and never ending as the entire universe itself. Spanning as far as the human being can imagine, and then further deepening with every step. Can we fathom our own thoughts? What about the art of chess? Maybe not. . . But while we are here, we can try. . .
Thematic Sacrifice
Here is a game from the 16th Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament, GM Timman - GM Hillarp Persson with full annotations and commentary. In this game we saw black play the very common and thematic exchange sacrifice in the Sicilian with 13...Rxc3. This can be a very strong and dangerous plan for white to face. Black will weaken the position around the white king and have a long lasting initiative against the white king all for only the cost of an exchange (rook for knight). In the game we saw GM Jan Timman playing white, a well experienced Grandmaster who was unable to defend against this common place sacrifice in the Sicilian game.
Life and Chess
When you play chess do you ever think about how this ancient and great game so mirrors one's life?
You being with an opening, that would be your birth of course, and every move you make is a decision in that life of yours. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to gain a better position, sometimes a certain move is a failure or sometimes that move actually leads you to new position you never thought existed.
Sometimes, life wins the game and set you back (decline in your rating) but you get back up and keep playing. You never quit. You face the traps (the obstacles and the barriers) and you try new ways to beat the game of life. There are even times when you have a brilliant move or two.
Eventually the end game comes, but your endgame is just like the rest of the game. Is it masterful? Is it strong? Is it an endgame you can be proud of? If the answer is yes, then indeed, you have played the game the best you could, and in the end, only you can determine if the game was a victory or a loss.
Life is indeed like Chess. Easy to learn, hard to master.
Setting Goals for Your Game (and Yourself!)
Chess is a frustrating game. You think that you're starting to get the hang of it until you come up against a new opponent. They play an opening you've never seen before. You start sweating. You hadn?t prepared for this! You lose the game miserably, and decide that you are the world?s worst chess player, doomed to a life of agonising defeats and oh-so-close victories.
But this is not so. One loss does not mean the end of your hostile (yet loving) relationship with chess. You need to take a step back and look at the big picture. As a famous grandmaster once said, you need to re-assess your chess! But before you start studying tactics and cramming openings into your already crowded repertoire, you need to ask yourself a few questions (nothing too personal!), and set yourself a few goals.
By setting yourself goals, you are benefiting yourself (and your chess game) in two ways. Firstly, by setting goals, you have something solid and defined to work towards. You know that you want your rating to be 100 points higher in a given time period, or that you want to win the world championship (hey, I didn?t say they had to be realistic goals!!). Having something to work towards helps greatly with overall motivation to study your game, and stops you from giving up to early.
Secondly, goals are a great way to measure your progress. Imagine them as little road markers on your highway to success. Let?s say you?re overall goal is to have a FIDE rating of 1900 in a few years time. That is your finishing post, and from there it?s easy to work backwards. You can set mini goals for yourself along the way, like improving your rating by 100 points every couple of months (easier said than done, this is just an example). Every time you reach one of your mini-goals, you can tick it off your list. Eventually the only goal left will be the ultimate one, and it will seem a lot easier to reach your ultimate goal using this method than by going all out and finding that you never achieve it. By taking baby steps, you can separate the most complex and challenging goals into manageable phases.
Goals don?t have to be all about rating. Your ultimate goal could be to join a chess club, or to play in your local tournament. Your goal has to reflect YOUR ambitions, and not everybody wants to win the world championship. Some of us are happy just to play for fun. But even if you are a player who enjoys the game as just that, a game, I recommend you take some time out to work some goals out for yourself. You?ll be surprised how much more enjoyable playing chess becomes.
A Hungarian Legend
Julius Breyer (1893-1921) was a Hungarian Chess player. He was a leading member of the Hypermodern school of chess theory, which favored controlling the center with pieces on the wings. In 1912 Breyer won the Hungarian Championship in Temesvar, ahead of Asztalos, Von Balla, Havasi and Reti.
In 1920 he won a big tournament in Berlin, ahead of chess legends such as Bogoljubov, Tartakover, Maroczy, Mieses, Tarrasch and Spielmann. He also had a plus score against Max Euwe in 1921. This brilliant player would have undoubtedly gone further had a heart attack not cut his chess career short at the age of twenty-eight.
Breyer's dynamic style and championship caliber are admirably exemplified in the game below, which features an extraordinarily beautiful Mate.
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