BtM 34A: Excelling at Chess (Real Chess Players)

 September 1989, Position E

Black to play

Neurohr - Niedermaier, Bundesliga 1988/89

Contributions to the comments box are welcome. I’ll reply with what the Masters have to say about their choice to anybody who suggests a move.

Scroll down to see some commentary from me and the Masters’ feedback.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Part of my Immersion schedule this month is to re-read Jacob Aagaard’s Excelling at Chess. It’s an enjoyable and thought provoking book. One that I found very motivating when I read it before and also one, I knew, that would give me a lot of food for thought with respect to how to play and work on chess.

Hence wanting to take another look at it.

In the second Chapter, Aagaard writes of "Real" chess playersand how they different to calculating machines like Shirov.  Real Players, Aagaard says, know where the pieces belong. Their strength is not calculation, per se, but knowing which lines to look at. Knowing at a glance which moves can be dismissed allows them to to look much deeper at the variations they do explore.

Or, to put it another way, Real Chess Players will typically only have a very small number of candidate moves in any given position because they don’t need any more.

In today’s Beat the Masters I needed ...

… Nxe3, … bxc3, … b3, … Na3, … Nd4, … Bf5, … Bxa2.

... seven.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

POINTS

10: … bxc3

9:  … Na3

5:  … Nd4

3:  … g4, … Bxh3, … Rxd1

2:  … Nxe3, … b3, … Bxc3 

MASTERS

… bxc3: Suba, Levitt, Davies, Plaskett, P. Littlewood, Lane, Pein, Botterill, Fidelity Mach3

… Na3: Adams, Norwood, Horner

SOURCE

Neurohr - Niedermaier, Bundesliga 1988-89 17 … bxc3