Chess Lessons: Solving Problems & Avoiding Mistakes

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About Chess Lessons: Solving Problems & Avoiding Mistakes

Product Description “Success is a collection of problems solved.” – I.M. Pei, Architect In this, his penultimate work, legendary chess instructor Mark Dvoretsky (1947-2016) explores identifying and dealing with problems on the chessboard. “While working on the games that I have included in this book, I have sought to uncover their core ideas which are important for a chessplayer’s improvement and demonstrate them as vividly as possible. Those may include both approaches to playing out certain typical situations and mastering various positional and tactical ideas, as well as improving technical skills and training an ability to search for decisions and to make them on the basis of the precise calculation of variations. “The last two parts of the book are devoted to the specific forms of training that I routinely use during my lessons: analysis of games in the form of solving a string of consecutive tasks and playing out of certain specially selected positions. “I hope that this book will be of help not only to high-ranking players at whom it is primarily aimed, but also to every reader who is serious about self-improvement and wishes to understand problems that grandmasters and masters face over the board and the ways they solve them; what are the reasons for errors they sometimes commit and how to avoid those mistakes.” – Mark Dvoretsky, from his Foreword Review “Success is a collection of problems solved.” – I.M. Pei, Architect About the Author (1947-2016) is widely regarded as one of the best chess instructors ever. His books are routinely best sellers. He is probably best known for his "Endgame Manual" which many consider the best single-volume work on the endgame. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. A Stumbling Block Ashot Nadanian is a multi-talented man, and I have read his book Moyi Shakhmaty (My Chess) with great pleasure. He is an interesting player, an informative and objective commentator, and his writing style is “savory.” While demonstrating his best games and unexpected and spectacular ideas he has carried out over the board, Nadanian never tries to convince us that all his novelties are impeccably correct and supplies his readers with the results of an objective analysis. Nowadays, when everything gets checked with help of the all-powerful “iron friend,” it is only rarely that you manage to cast doubt on the picture of a struggle painted by a conscientious annotator, to discover ideas that change the perception of an examined game (I do not speak here about picking on the details or different approach to controversial moments). Still, I did manage to do this in one of the games quoted in Nadanian’s book, and the results turned out to be so interesting that I would like to introduce them here for your consideration. 1.e2-e4 c7-c5 2.Ng1-f3 e7-e6 3.d2-d4 c5xd4 4.Nf3xd4 Bf8-c5!? [Diagram] An extremely rare continuation that is nevertheless connected with quite a concrete plan. Having developed his bishop on the g1-a7 diagonal, Black is going to advance to e7 with his knight and, after castling, carry out f7-f5. In his comments, Nadanian tells about the origin of this move. he Basman-Sale Variation. I have included it in my opening repertoire after having read an article by the Croatian master Srdjan Sale in one of the issues of New in Chess. It is thought that the strongest continuation is, as Kiril Georgiev played against me in the 2000 European Championship. He had also seen the article in New in Chess and knew Sale’s recommendation. As usual, after a while, certain theoretical evaluations got corrected. Ashot’s reaction in the above-mentioned game was not successful: 7...d5?, and after 8.N2b3, his position became difficult. He should have answered 7...Nxd4, for example, 8.Nc4 Qc6 9.Bxd4 Qxe4+ 10.Be2 Be7! 11.0- 0 Nf6 12.Bf3 Qf4 with unclear play (Spasov-Sale, Zagreb 2012). 5.Nd4-b3 Bc5-b