Chess Teaching

Bird – Steinitz (1866)

Chess Teacher — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:45:32 +0000

This position occurred in the game Bird -Steinitz (1866) and Steinitz played the winning move 66…b5+.
Bird reacted with 67.Kc3 and now we get an even more interesting position.

Should you also have played 66…b5+ or would you have tried something like 66…a3?
Are you able to win this won game? What is Black’s next move?

Be careful. There is only one winning move and all other moves will result in a draw.

Black to move and wins.

ChessX 0.6

Chess Teacher — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 09:09:52 +0000

A couple of months ago and two years after the previous version ChessX has released a new version. This is version 0.6, which can be downloaded for Windows and Mac on the download section of the ChessX site.
I decided to try this version and I started by saving the games of the IJ105 database as a PGN file, which is currently the format that is needed for ChessX, but a Native Database Format is planned for the next release. I also made a PGN file that contained the first 1000 games of this Database.

As you can see the PGN file uses a lot of memory when compared to the SCID or ChessDB database files.

I was unable to use the large database. It started to load the games, but after waiting for more than an hour it was still busy loading.
Loading the file with the first 1000 games went raher smooth and I like the way it looks and how you can position everyting as you wish.

If you only need something like this for your own games (with a rather small database) than this may be a very interesting multi platform alternative, but for large databases it will probably not be usable. However, the next release promises to add a Native Database Format, which may solve these problems.

Mortimer Trap

Chess Teacher — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 11:40:52 +0000

In this lesson I will show you the Mortimer trap, also known as the Mortimer Variation of the Berlin Defense.

Mortimer_Trap

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.d3

( Today 4.O-O is played far more frequently )

4… Ne7?!

This is the Mortimer Variation of the Berlin Defense. It’s not a good move, but it sets a trap and the capture of the black pawn on e5 may be very tempting for White.

( 4… d6 5.c3 is a more normal continuation )

5.Nxe5?

( Even after 5.O-O Ng6 6.d4 c6 7.dxe5 Nxe4 Black is not without chances. )

5… c6! 6.Nc4

( 6.Ba4 Qa5+ 7.Nc3 Qxe5 )

( 6.Nxc6 dxc6 7.Bc4 Ng6 )

( 6.Nxf7 Probably White’s best move 6...Kxf7 7.Ba4 )

( 6.Bc4 Qa5+ 7.Nc3 Qxe5 )

6… d6! 7.Ba4 b5 This move forks the white bishop and knight and wins a piece

WordPress 2.8.4

Chess Teacher — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:05:49 +0000

I have upgraded to WordPress 2.8.4, because yesterday a vulnerability was discovered by the WordPress team: a specially crafted URL could be requested that would allow an attacker to bypass a security check to verify a user requested a password reset. As a result, the first account without a key in the database (usually the admin account) would have its password reset and a new password would be emailed to the account owner. This doesn’t allow remote access, but it is very annoying.

Version 2.8.4 seems to fix all known problems and is highly recommended for all users of WordPress.

Chess playing by Malkolm – Bust it Away Photography

The bad bishop

Chess Teacher — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 09:52:58 +0000

Let’s have a look at the diagram below. White is two pawns ahead, but it is Black’s turn to move. Is he able to get a draw?

White’s bishop is a bad bishop. It has the wrong color and will not be able to drive away Black’s king from the promotion square of the rook pawn. Knowing this Black only has to capture the b-pawn to get the draw.

Bad_Bishop

32… Nb8!! 33.Kc4

( The alternative 33.b5 doesn’t help either ... Nc6+ 34.bxc6 Kxc6 35.Bd8 Kb7 )

( And 33.Bd8 even gives away the bishop, but it doesn’t matter anymore. ... Nc6+ 34.Kc4 Nxb4 ( 34… Nxd8 doesn’t fit within this lesson, but will also result in a draw ) 35.Kxb4 Kc6 36.Ka5 Kb7 )

33… Nc6 and White is unable to save the b-pawn

34.Kb5 Nxb4 35.Bxb4+ resulting in an endgame with a rook pawn and a Bishop of the wrong color. This will result in a draw, because the defending king is able to reach the corner.

35… Kc7 36.a5 Nothing helps. Black may try something like 36...Kb7 but if White pays attention the result remains a draw 37.Bc5 Kb8 38.Bd6+ Ka7 39.a6 Ka8 40.Bf8 Kb8 41.Bd6+ Ka8 42.Bc5 Kb8 43.a7+ Ka8 1/2 – 1/2

Beautiful chess (2)

Chess Teacher — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:52:43 +0000

As a kind of follow-up on the previous post I’ll have to show you this picture from Cindy Seigle. This is one of the many beautiful chess sets set up in the atrium at the West Baden Springs Hotel in Orange County, Indiana.

Chess set at the West Baden Springs Hotel by cindy47452

Beautiful chess

Chess Teacher — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:30:08 +0000

Chess is often played with beautiful pieces. This is one of the reasons to start playing chess. We like the pieces and we like the game. The picture below illustrates some of this beauty.

Chess by frankblacknoir

WordPress 2.8.2

Chess Teacher — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:14:56 +0000

I upgraded to WordPress 2.8.2 which fixes an XSS vulnerability. Comment author URLs were not fully sanitized when displayed in the admin. This could be exploited to redirect from the admin to another site.

WordPress 2.8.1

Chess Teacher — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:19:48 +0000

I’ve upgraded this chess tutorials site to WordPress 2.8.1.
So far I didn’t experience problems, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
WordPress 2.8.1 fixes many bugs and tightens security for plugin administration pages. The admin pages added by certain plugins could be viewed by unprivileged users, resulting in information being leaked. Not all plugins are vulnerable to this problem, but I upgraded to 2.8.1 to be safe.

Oops!!!

Chess Teacher — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 15:16:56 +0000

I have upgraded to WordPress 2.8, but it seems that this resulted in some problems with the chess diagrams and replayable games.
I’m trying to solve this.

Update: The problem has been solved.
I had to adapt the Show-FEN plugin. A new version of the Show-FEN plugin v1.4 can be downloaded here.