Wednesday, November 10, 2010

A Better Chess Player...FINALLY! - Part 1

Just a quick and short post from me...

It's been a while since I really tried to improve at chess. My busy personal and business schedule prevented me from sitting and playing chess.

After a week or so HOWEVER of consistently following one of Igor Smirnov's GOLDEN advice on his course - Grandmaster Secrets, (which is to study instructive chess games by covering the moves of the winner and trying to guess it to hone one's thinking process), I was able to grab some nice wins against players that are 100 points higher rated than me at ChessCube.com.


Now, I'm NOT so sure how the strength of players at ChessCube.com compare to, say to the Playchess server. BUT then, a win is still a win.

While we should study our loses and work on minimizing our mistakes, taking a look at our strong points by reviewing winning games and strengthening it further can't be bad!

Anyway, here are the winning games...produced thanks to the chess improvement lessons and tips from GM Igor Smirnov's Grandmaster Secrets



Game 1
Here, I was playing White. As you can see, right from the very beginning, I'm trying to sac small bits of material to gain some dynamic compensation (7. O-O). When that didn't quite cut it, I imbalanced the position by pushing pawns and keeping his pieces at bay...even to the point of weakening my Kingside - something that a beginning chess would NOT even think of doing.

Anyway, long story short, after 31...Qxf4+, I don't have anything BUT an equal position. But a miracle happened (or rather a tragedy for Black). 32...Rxf4? - the losing blunder, which is followed by an even more terrible mistake 33...Rf8??

One mistake and the hammer came!

Now, I'm NOT really proud of my play in the previous moves and phases of the game. I believe there are chances when I could have ditched a pawn to gain greater activity for my pieces - opportunities that I turned down because I don't have the guts...at least, not yet.

Nevertheless, my efforts to create complications and chances for tactics bear fruit. Just when he thought nothing could go wrong, he erred. And, at least, I was good enough to take advantage of the opportunity. 

grpbhatnagar - sld_jabe
ChessCube Server
25 Mins. +10 Seconds
1. e4  e6 2. d4  d5 3. e5  c5 4. Nf3  Nc6 5. c3  Qb6 6. Be2  cxd4 7. O-O  Bc5 8. b4  d3 9. Bxd3  Be7 10. b5  Na5 11. Qa4  Bd7 12. Qg4  g6 13. a4  Nb3 14. Ra2  Nxc1 15. Rxc1  Nh6 16. Qf4  Nf5 17. g4  Ng7 18. Ng5  Bxg5 19. Qxg5  O-O 20. Kh1  a6 21. a5  Qc7 22. b6  Qc5 23. f4  Bc6 24. h4  Qe3 25. Rd1  d4+ 26. Kh2  dxc3 27. Nxc3  Rad8 28. Re2  Qd4 29. Rc2  f6 30. Qh6  fxe5 31. Bxg6  Qxf4+ 32. Qxf4  Rxf4 33. Rxd8+  Rf8 34. Bxh7+  Kf7 35. Rf2+   1-0

It won't take an experienced tournament chess player to see that I made a lot of errors. And that's what I will uncover on the next installment of this series.

For those of you who are looking for a rock-solid chess improvement course - one that is filled with practical advice (NOT just heaps of theory), I strongly suggest that you check out Grandmaster's Secrets by GM Igor Smirnov. 

A world renowned chess coach and Grandmaster, he shows his class in this video course - showing you how you can take your game to the next level by tweaking your thought process and focusing on things that matter.

You won't get myriads of variations. No, we all know that doesn't work too well for the beginning chess warrior. Instead, you get training techniques that he teaches his students coupled with beefy exercises to keep you busy for the months to come.

Click RIGHT here and check out Grandmaster's Secrets By GM Igor Smirnov

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