70 CHESS FOR ZEBRAS Me: Yes, somewhat similar. It comes about by studying lots of GM games and trying to emulate. Another analogy would be trying to speak a language and knowing some very so- phisticated phrases but not really having a firm grasp of the language more generally... Student: Without knowing “Where’s the toilet?” Me: Yes! That sort of thing ... OK — let me give you a fairly difficult puzzle — it might help tease out some of your thinking processes. onl oe Estrin — Ivashin Correspondence 1947 White to play and win. Me: White to play and win. I'll be back in five minutes. It’s not easy, so don’t expect to solve it in that time. (Five minutes later) OK, any ideas? Student: Still struggling ... but I see that White is clearly better ... must sac at some stage in order to get his king active ... | was looking at an immediate b4 ... or Me: OK — not bad. Student: Or 2bS first ... but Me: You are right that the king must be acti- vated... Student: I can’t work out how the king gets into business... Me: ... but it’s too early to assume a sac must be necessary ... in any case getting the king in is the heart of the puzzle ... OK, Iam guessing you looked at b4 more or less immediately and &b5 immediately Student: Yeah I know that ... glanced at 2.xg6 at some point. Me: Good, Sxg6 is part of the equation. Any idea, more precisely, when it might be rel- evant? Student: When I’ve managed to activate my king on the queenside? (At this point I edited the position and put the black king from g8 to b8 and the bishop from e8 to c6(D)) yes ~ I also ata” se Me: White to play and win (He played &xg6!) Good (I return to the initial position) OK, so the point of S&xg6 is that the black king can’t ever come past ... which square? Student: Er d8 Me: Yes - or d7. OK, that’s where &xg6 comes in ... but that’s miles away! First of all, we need to do something Student: my thoughts exactly Now he moved the pieces about on the board a bit ~ trying ‘ea2, then taking it back and try- ing &b5, which he met with ...f8, then he tried b4, Black replied ...b6, before taking it back and playing b3 on the first move, put it back and then tried 1 &bS and rested. I took on b5, he took back, and I played ...b6 (D) and said: Me: Keep moving. Whenever you play b4, let me know and Ill take it, or if I’m feeling cheeky Pll play ...24. It's a fortress in either case. Student: OK!!! Me: So, no joy there, but you are getting somewhere, although at this stage the king isn’t getting through...CONCENTRATE! CONCENTRATE? CONCENTRATE. a Student: That's what I saw Me: Good, so eliminate the move | 2b5 — but here’s the thing: don’t eliminate the idea. The move and the idea are not the same thing. It doesn’t work now because Black can take. But can you imagine a scenario when Black might not be able to take? Student: when the white king is covering a4? Me: Not exactly, but keep thinking... (Now, from the initial position I removed the b-pawns from the board) Now what happens? He played 25, I replied ...;2f8, he played 62 (D) and I said: Me: And... ? Student: He’s in zuggie? A Z oo Me: indeed ... but! (And now I played ...g8, allowing him to take the bishop on e8, before moving back to f8. This leaves White a clear bishop up but...) Z "te Z Tell me a winning plan Student: There ain't! Me: Not so fast! You have to sac the bishop for one of the pawns, but which one gives your king a chance? He found this part easy, and saw the winning idea of bringing the king to f4, taking on d5 (from c6, so that the king can’t get out) and playing e6 followed by &e5, very quickly. Me: Good, so that is winning (I go back to the initial position but with the b-pawns removed) Which means he is in Zuggie here (after 2b5). So what does that suggest? (Lreturn the b-pawns and go back to the ini- tial position) Student: OK, try to exchange the b-pawns? Me: Yes. (I play 1 b4) Now we know that 1...06 is not working — right? (This wasn't as clear to him as I had hoped it would be now, but then he realized that White would take on a5 and play &D5, so then we re- turned to the initial position.) 1...axb4 (D) ‘mam a a s “6 @ ick 2 e Me: OK, now it gets difficult. (Now he played 2 £65?) Me: No!! He took the move back, but this was discour- aging because after taking on bS and playing .b6 we are back at the same drawn king and pawn ending. However, I suppose the first im- pression is that by taking on b4 White somehow has mote chance of getting the king in, and it was only his first thought.72 CHESS FOR ZEBRAS So then he tried 2 a5!?. Me: Good, or at least better. This is the right kind of idea. We don’t have to go into details now, but it turns out that 2 £.c2 wins while this only draws. I will show you why, but the main thing was the first position and to see how you approached it. (Here I should add that this is a difficult de- tail, even for GMs, most of whom think of 2 a5 first because it seems positionally correct.) Now I show the drawing line leading to a king and pawn ending: 2 a5 Sa4! 3 $b2 3 2.027! BbS and ...8.04) 3...218 4 Rc2 Lxc2 5 kxc2 Le8 6 Sb3 Ld7 7 exb4 deeb 8 kat S47 9 Sb5 ¥c7 (D). oe “2 @ one Me: This position looks promising for White (even to GMs) but it turns out that it’s drawn. The position (after the exchange of a- and b- pawns) with £d6 vs $48 is a reciprocal zug- zwang but White can’t force that position and give Black the move. In order to win, White needs to keep the bishops in order to have xg6 available. (I go back to the position after 1...axb4 and Play...) 2 Bcd! Me: this is winning now because the black bishop quickly runs out of squares. {I took this example from Glenn Flear’s book Mastering the Endgame and here is the analysis: “2...c6 3 &b2 b6 4 Lb3 &f8 5 s&xb4 e8 6 a5 and Black resigned in view of 6...bxa5+ 7 dxa5 Bd8 8 Hb6 Ke8 9 kcS Sc7 10 £43 (D).” 2 “Black is in zugzwang; e.g., 10...c6 11 Saxg6! or 10...82d8 11 46.” Glenn doesn’t mention 10...9d7 but then White has 11 &b5+ cbd8 12 &xe8 dxe8 13 sec6! and the king and pawn ending is now winning.) Me: But the point is not so much the intrica- cies of the ending but how you approached the problem. Now, I have shown this to a few of my students and most of them struggle with it a lot, in fact all of them do. So why am I showing it to you? Any idea? Student: to show my shortcomings Me: Almost... Student: technique? Me: No. You were sort of right about short- comings. You see this position is about prob- lem-solving, as most chess is. You have to be really persistent if you want to get somewhere. I imagine that most club players on getting this position would look around, and then play 2b5 on the off-chance that the opponent would take it and then not take back on b4 a few moves later, or they would begin with 1 b3 and hope that when they later played b4, their opponent would take it. The solution here requires some vision —butit’s not beyond you (or anyone else) because there are not so many pieces. The prob- Jem is the monkey mind that won't sit still, and jumps from one thing to another. If you know it is winning (1 told you as much) and you know that the white king has to get involved, you can already eliminate a lot. So. what sort of question should you ask yourself? How can I get the king in?CONCENTRATE! CONCENTRATE? CONCENTRATE. 73 Student: I take the point, but that’s what I kept asking! also saw b4 but didn’t under- stand the idea about the b-pawns being off for me to win Me: Yes, that’s the difficult bit, but it’s not so difficult step by step. So the real question i how can I get the king in, and what’s stopping it at the moment? ‘Student: a5 and d5 Me: yes, good. What can you do about 45? Student: nothing Me: good, a5? Student: b4 Me: OK, but in most cases he'll play ...b6, and keep the pawn there. Is there anything else we might conceivably do to get at the a5-pawn? Student: And that’s when I’ve got to under- stand the bit about the pawns being off and ex- changing bishops Me: Not really, you see that’s too grand a conception. You cannot understand that a pri- ori — you just look at the position and see what, he is likely to do... Student: a priori ... do you go to that restau- rant too? Me: :-) It seems that there are two main ideas in the position: b4 and S2bS, and you need to get them in the right order before the hidden idea — zugzwang — reveals itself. Once you see the zugzwang, you are halfway there, but you can- not get there immediately. Student: So I think like a baby one little step ata time Me: Yes — in this sort of position, not all of them. The reason I chose this one is that it should speak to the issue of focusing on one idea ... because to get it right you have to see more than one idea (which you did) — and then organize them. Student: And I'll get there ... surely it helps to have some appreciation of the position? Me: Well, to be honest, I think you have that. You can see that White has more space, the better bishop, etc. And you can see that you need to get the king in ... thus far you are up there with the best. You also notice that £xg6 is an issue. Student: But it’s how to do it! Me: Well that’s what we are on about here. What stops you, I think, is a combination of not, really believing you'll get it and not really car- ing. Is that too harsh — or is it somewhere close to the truth? Student: I think I care ... [don’t have a belief ... I just can’t find it ... I think this is one of the reasons for my time-trouble. Me: Well - OK it’s probably a bit harsh, but I think these things — desire and belief — are there, even when they are not at the forefront of your thoughts Student: I think I can be lazy Me: So you see now, there are two ideas: b4 and b5 ~ and another, &xg6 — but maybe the key thing is the fourth idea, zugzwang — that’s probably what you didn’t get Student: I saw the zuggie too ... but I didn’t see the b-pawns point. Me: Well the b-pawns point and the zuggie are effectively the same. In any case, laziness is a form of not caring; you want the result but not the process... OK, so you saw that after 1 &bS he had to take, sort of. Student: I saw that ... but then what? I strug- gled with that. Me: OK — but this “then what?” should all be focused around the king. If he takes after &b5, you win — if and only if when you play b4 he lets you take on a5. But he won’t, so what can I do? Well you can play b4 first - but what’s the point? He just goes ...b6 — nothing changes? But it does.. Student: I think I don’t see chess as prob- lem-solving ... and I’ve got to start doing that... Me: Yes! Because the idea that it is ‘about ideas’ is only partially true. Student: I see it as a battle with rules and op- portunities. Me: Well it is many things, but for me, at its most abstract, chess is about using ideas to solve problems. Student: I’ve got to be better at implementa- tion. Me: Yes, absolutely! That is the crux of the issue. So here, you have the ideas — all of them ~ and that is usually what separates stronger players from weaker ones. Stronger ones know which ideas are relevant, but here the problem was different: you had the ideas but you didn’t use them to solve the problem... it’s74 (CHESS FOR ZEBRAS a question of what is driving your thoughts forward ... that’s what I mean by caring ... here the driving thought should be getting your king in — and everything is built around that ... rather than wanting to get your king in ... stop- ping ... looking for ideas ... other ideas £.x26, D5, b4 ... and then losing track of what you are trying to do. Student: Exactly ... I recognized that ... my big thought was how do I get the king going ... but I couldn’t work it out... Me: But I fee! that your big thought was not connected up to the ideas. They were discon- nected because your big thought was not a real question but a desire ~ it was in a different di- mension of thought from the ideas. If you start with the big thought, you should come to the a5-pawn. Student: All my thinking stopped with that pawn on a, ... I couldn’t figure how to dislodge. it Me: Right: that’s a block, and the key is that you can’t actually dislodge it if that’s the only idea, if that’s your only weapon — and that means that either you are missing something, or there is something wrong with the problem ... To dislodge it you need two other ideas: &b5 and zugzwang. Student: It was the only one I had ... I was sort of fixated on it Me: yes! And that’s the whole point of show- ing this position because it shows the limita- tions of having one idea. To make progress with thinking you may only think of one idea at a time, but you have to juggle with the other ideas too — know that they are there. Look at it this way: ideas are social creatures — they like to get out and mingle with other ideas... Student: I saw &bS as important in the zuggie situation, but you're right I didn’t link it with b4. Me: OK, so to play chess well that’s what you need to do. To see lots of ideas is not enough. You have to find out how they relate to each other. Student: So how do I do that? Me: slowly Student: Jol! time-trouble that’s my problem Me: But I don’t mean slowly during the game, but the process of learning to do this is slow. One thing at a time ... more positions like this should help. At the moment you are look- ing for ideas but you are not using these ideas to solve problems. So in future, start the position by asking “what seems to be the problem?” Sometimes you'll get it wrong, but at least there will be some order to your thoughts. Student: OK, I like that. Tenjoyed that lesson, partly because I had to concentrate hard to follow my student’s line of reasoning and to imagine where it was going wrong. I suspect we only scratched the surface in this case, but I hope the conversation reveals that that the ‘laziness’ of the lazy detective is sometimes more than just a lack of effort. In this case, it was not an unwillingness to think but an inability to get the thinking going, be- cause it proved too difficult to find how all the ideas related to each other. The student under- stood each idea on its own terms, but couldn’t hold them all in mind and see how they linked up. I believe this is a problem of ‘cognitive load’ and one of the reasons chess is so hard. We return to this issue in Chapter 6. Can You Make any Useful Moves before Your First Move? The will to win is not as important as the will to prepare to win Bossy KNIGHT (US basketball coach) Getting yourself into the right frame of mind before the game is crucial to optimizing your results. Many players come to the board feeling a bit edgy, a bit distracted, or a bit lethargic, if not all of these things. They play a few moves in this state and then later blame their loss on a blunder or, worse still, on time-trouble, when in fact the problems began before the very first move. Before I present my suggestions on what to do about this, I concede that some days are