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Maybe you have heard of light and dark-square strategy. It is associated with exploiting weak squares of a certain color in the opponents camp.
The main reason why squares can become weak is lack of control over them by pawns. If, additionally, the opponents pawns control them, the squares are even weaker. Your own bishop of the required color can be useful in terms of protecting the squares, while the opponents bishop of that color is dangerous since it can easily sneak into your fortress.
How does one take advantage of the weak squares? Here is a plan. The order of the first three points depends on the situation.
1. Transfer your pieces to the weakened squares.
2. Fix the opponents pawns to make sure the weaknesses dont disappear. For example, play h5 for White while Blacks pawns are on h6-g7-f6.
3. Trade pieces that act as guardians of the weak squares. Especially the bishop. Try to keep your own pieces that can burst into the opponents camp via the cracks.
4. Once your opponents position becomes constrained, its time for the final assault. For example, a breakthrough on one of the flanks. Or an attack aimed at the king.
How does one create a weakness in the opponents position?
Make him move his pawns in an unbeneficial way. Weak players often forget that pawns cant move backwards, and tend to push them every time there is a chance to attack the opponents piece. Therefore, it is not difficult to provoke them. Then take control of the squares using your own pawns. The latter is not a must, but is often a good idea. Remember: to exploit weaknesses, you need pieces that can take advantage of them.
A typical example of creating dark-square weaknesses is losing the g7-bishop in the Dragon. Black usually tries to avoid it at all costs, and prefers to sacrifice an exchange instead.
Vlastimil Hort, at one point ranked #6 in the world, has a great chess experience. For example, against Boris Spassky alone he has played at least 42 offical games!
Photo by Martin Chrz
In my game against Czech legend Vlastimil Hort both sides had weak squares. In Whites case it was the dark squares that became weak after 13.c4. The intrusion squares were d4-c3-b4. One of the plans was to play Bc5 and Nd4, potentially targeting a2. Meanwhile, some of Blacks light squares became weak. White could have forced Black to stick to the h6-g7-f6-e5 setup, and exploit the light squares by Nh4-Qh5-Be4. However, my opponent didnt find that plan and ended up in a passive position. It was hard for him to cover his own weaknesses, so he should have concentrated on creating counter-play in Blacks camp via the light squares.
White didnt do well in the opening; Black got a comfortable position. After e4 the weakness of Whites queenside pawns became obvious. However, by making a few careless moves, I failed to win a very promising endgame. The mini-match was a tie: two draws.
A husband and wife have an argument which the wife wins. Can you remove four letters, at least one from each side of the V, and draw one straight line to underline the fact that only the woman remains, victorious?
Pogonina.com offers you a list of some of the best tweets from last week:
Quote of the week
New super tournament in Norway - good luck!
More exciting than Anand-Gelfand, isn't it?
Does anyone still watch TV at all?
FIDE Vice-President expressing his dissatisfaction
Ilya Levitov: Unlike traditionally, this time the Tal Memorial will be held from June 7th to 19th. The Candidate Matches will be taking place in October-November...Why disrespect the Russian and Chinese organizers so much? Two super tournaments are usually held at that time...They could have chosen March, when there are no big tournaments, to stage the Candidates, but alas...
Worth keeping in mind!
The evergreen debate revisited
Will Quang Liem clinch his third Aeroflot title in a row?
Happy birthday, chess legend!
Rapid and blitz rating lists coming up
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The king is the main piece in chess, and the central object in any players thoughts. How do I protect my own king and checkmate the opponents monarch? While being quite valuable, the king cant boast being mobile enough to fight efficiently in the middlegame, so most of the time its power can be seen only in the endgame.
As you probably know, one of the best ways of securing your king is castling. This allows the protection of the king by a group of valiant pawns and improves the coordination of other pieces, connecting the rooks. In the center the king is very vulnerable and subject to all types of attacks by pieces from both sides of the board, so in most cases it makes sense to castle early. Of course, chess is a very complicated game, so there are many exceptions to this rule.
While castling the natural way or artificially (walking with the king on foot) is a standard maneuver, some positions require the opposite behavior. Sometimes the king is an important actor even in the middlegame. Here is an example of a fresh game where the Black king decided to stay in the center and take care of itself:
In other situations the king is not satisfied with the passive role of remaining in the centre, and it bursts into the action! In 2010 the fantastic game Gashimov-Grischuk was played (game of the year according to ChessPro). The Black king walked half of the board to help Black win the point. Such travels require good coordination of the other pieces, as they should be accompanying His Majesty and protecting it whenever necessary.
Here is another absolutely classical example of a kings walk:
Photo by Martin Chrz
In a game against renowned GM Rafael Vaganian at the Snowdrops-Oldhands match I also got to meet a brave king. On move 21, instead of a standard castling, Rafael decided to leave his king in the centre. This was possible due to the knight on d5, who turned out to be a powerful defender. The king was quite safe on d7, and just waiting for the right moment to grab the pawn on d6.
Here is the game:
The first interesting option was 16. Qe2, but I have missed it. On move 19 I misevaluated the position and didnt play f4, although it was more promising than 19. Qe2. Black wasnt forced to play Kd7, but the idea looked both strong and beautiful. Mutual mistakes happened on move 28. At some point I decided to settle for a draw and played somewhat inaccurately.
In this exclusive article for Pogonina.com English GM Danny Gormally addresses a few controversial and highly popular topics:
- How would Capablanca or Fischer fare against the modern grandmasters?
- Who was the greatest player of all time?
- What is Carlsen's secret?
- How is Carlsen different from Kasparov?
He also offers a detailed and instructive analysis of the game between Carlsen and Topalov played at the recent Tata Steel Chess-2012 super tournament.
The archaeologist Doug Wither-Trowel was excavating a site in France one pleasant afternoon when he came upon an unusual stone with a four letter English word engraved upon it. In his notebook, he wrote that no two letters were identical and that if one replaced each letter in the word with a number giving its alphabetic position (A=1, B=2, etc), the total of the letters is 20. Not only that, but the sum of any three of the numbers is exactly divisible by the fourth number. When his French assistant read the entry in the notebook he came to the conclusion that the word was French. What was the English word on the stone?
Pogonina.com offers you a list of some of the best tweets from last week:
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A thriller
You read them like a book, they read you like an IPad
Ukraine-Spain-Turkey
Acknowledgement from a great predecessor
Short - Hou Yifan 1.5-0.5
Polgar-Korchnoi, epic games since 1989
An author's delight
Aronian making a warning that he won't be playing the Candidates if they take place in Azerbaijan
