Logical Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev

I have finally completed reading Logical Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev.

This little project of mine has been going on years and it finally came to an end on the evening of Friday October 21, 2011.  I can't recall when I received my copy of the book ... it must have been around 2003 as a Christmas present.  I wanted it, because, back then, it was the book to have if you were aspiring to improve your chess.

At about this same time, I heard about the Polgar Brick and the subsequently how a few old Chessville denizens worked on that "project".  I missed out on the project and therefore was reduced to scouring the Internet for that .pgn file.

So to tie these two thoughts together - when I received my copy of Logical Chess, I decided to make a "project" out of it.  I would work on it game by game - page by page.  Sometimes I would spend a lot of time on one game, other times I would blow through a game fairly quickly.  Then there came a time when I abandoned it altogether ... only to just pick up the book and read over the games, but not work on the project.

Then the desire came back ... I just had to finish it.  Granted, it may not be perfect, but in my opinion this book is one of those timeless books and it felt better to have it all in one file.

My future plans for this book include additional review.  I've done some of the variations, but not all of them.  As I have more time to really dive into the games, I'll add the variations.  But for now, it is in a form I've always wanted it in.

Enjoy.

LCMBM Game 28 Tactic

This is a neat little tactic from Game 28 in Logical Chess Move by Move.

It reminded me of the last tactic I worked on last night at ChessTempo. I must have spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out how to mate or capture the queen. I kept going over the same three 'trees' over and over again thinking I was overlooking something.

It failed to occur to me to consider the tactic was directed at the rook instead of the queen or king. The lesson learned (or 'learnt' for you Brits) was keep moving down the totem pole of targets (king, queen, rook, etc.) until you find the proper tactic.

In the tactic presented here, it is fairly obvious checkmate isn't on the horizon and the queen is off the board. The one little guy sticking out is that pawn on a7. I would have considered taking the pawn, but probably would have been at a loss as to how to extract my knight after said capture. And therein lies the neatness of this tactic.

Rules for Rooks

Tactics

I worked on a few the last couple of nights. Tonight I didn't have time to get to ChessTempo.

Logical Chess

I finished the Queen's Pawn Opening section of the book tonight by going over game 23. The rooks proved to be extremely valuable in this game. White failed to develop his rooks while Black followed these rules and won:

"In the opening, shift the rooks toward the centre, on files likely to be opened."

"In the middlegame, seize the open files and command them with your rooks."

"In the ending, post your rooks on the seventh rank. Doubled rooks on the seventh rank are almost irresistible in mating attacks. If there is little material left on the board, the seventh rank is a convenient means of manoeuvring a rook behind enemy pawns."

The next section is entitled "The Chess Master Explains his Ideas." According to Chernev, these next games demonstrate "the three great principles that Capablanca advocated and himself utilized so successfully:

1) in the opening, rapid and efficient development;
2) in the middlegame, coordination of pieces;
3) in the ending, accurate and time-saving play."

When I read that, I thought of chessloser's recent post about how if you just play chess as it was meant to be played, you're going be in a good position to win.

Play

I've been playing blitz. I played 3 last night. We need to get a 15 30 time control tournament going again. That will force me to start playing slower games more often. Any takers?

Good Tactical Day

Tactics

Trying to forget about last night's ordeal on ChessTempo, I picked up the broken pieces tonight rather well. When I started, I was at 1809. I nailed several in a row, including one 2000+ tactic and my rating shot up to 1855. Then I missed five in a row before I was able to redeem myself a bit. I finished the night after 30 tactics with a rating of 1848.

Logical Chess

I went over games 15 & 16 and finished off the section "The Kingside Attack." There wasn't anything particularly new that I learned. Both those games were pretty amazing. Chernev just reinforced previously stated ideas. In one game, Black moved his knight five times in the opening! Therefore his pieces weren't developed very well.

The only other bit of advice that was memorable was to those who are in cramped positions. Chernev says when you are in cramped postion, exchange pieces. That seemed pretty intuitive to me.

Play

I played one 15 30 game tonight on FICS. The player was a newbie to the server. I won handily. I might log on later tonight and play some blitz games.

Accumulate Small Advantages

Well, I'll see how long this lasts. Don't they say you need to do something for 21 days to make it a habit? So I'm going to try to keep this up for 21 days ... even if I have nothing to post.

Tactics

I did 20 today. I went on quite a roll and rattled off 9 in a row and moved above 1800 for the first time in a LONG time. The minimum goal is 20 blitz tactics a day at ChessTempo. I was up over 2000 (blitz rating) quite a while ago, but dropped dramatically after the admin updated the algorithm for rating adjustments. So getting to 1800 after being in the 1750's-1780's for the last several weeks is a good sign.

Logical Chess

When I started reading this book, I was updating a .pgn file with all the commentary Chernev wrote so that I could have the whole book in .pgn format. My reason for doing this is so that I can go back and read the book over and over again, but have it in .pgn file for easier reading. The downside to this is that it is so tedious. I'm up to game 9. But since I've been in this book for so long, I just want to get through it without putting pressure on myself to put it in .pgn format. So I'm just going to read the book and follow along in the .pgn file without worrying about typing it up.

Today I went over game 9. I would regularly ask myself what move I would make before looking at the next move. I've heard this is a great way to study GM games. I felt the cogs turning in my head and was much more into the book than if I had just read it.

I learned a couple of concepts from game 9.

Get the rooks out of their corners.

The other one is one particular paragraph. It says,

"Note that White has not embarked on dubious long-range combinations. His plan,
in most cases aimed at increasing his positional superiority, is made for a few moves only. Don't believe all those stories you hear of chess masters analysing intricate combinations with dozens of variations for thirty moves ahead. They don't do this because they don't have to! It is far easier and more to the point to look only a few moves ahead and try to maintain at least an equal game at every stage. Winning by accumulating small advantages is more consistent with a common-sense approach than to seek to overwhelm the opponent with bewildering combinations and venturesome sacrificial attacks. Strengthening one's own position gradually while undermining that of the opponent is more important than indulging in fruitless speculative fancies."

This is what the whole book is about ... how you go about identifying weaknesses in your opponent's game and how you can accumulate those small advantages.

That's all for today.