Friday 27 April 2012

Congrats to Jamie Kearney

Reading the Lawrence Sheriff newsletter (as I do) I have noticed that Jamie has now not only qualified for the England Juniors Squad, but also been called to play for them in Prague over the next half term. Well done Jamie!

You can read more about his acheivements on the English Chess Federation site, in the ECF forum and even on the Northants Junior Chess blog. Looking at these he not only qualified but did very well within a large group of U-12s. Perhaps the proud Dad would like to tell us more?

Tuesday 10 April 2012

How to Counter-Attack!!

I'm putting up this game because I hope it is very instructive, short, has a nice finish and because Bob told me to do so!

This was played very recently and shows how to counter against premature attacks. I have added in a lot of comments to show my thinking process through the game. I always say if you have the right plan, then the right moves are easy to find.

Please press the 'flip' button twice as I am playing black and it puts the names the wrong way round.

Also at the end of some comments, I ask you the reader to guess the next move to see what you would do in that particular situation. Think of it as a practical puzzle and take just a minute on them. Enjoy.



So a nice game with a win in 21 moves as black. This was only possible because white played some poor moves. White also had conflicting strategies such as not developing and trying to attack. Therefore his overall plan was not coherent.

Please note that the black attack worked because all of blacks pieces were contributing. Also, white had problems developing meaning he couldn't get his pieces out to defend. Just look at the rook on a1 that never moved for example compared to black's.

White resigns because of 22 Rxg2 Rxf4 (the queen can't capture the rook because of checkmate on g2) 23 Qg3 Rf3 24 Qg4 (24 Rxc2 Rf1 checkmate with double check) 24...Rff2 25 Rg1 Rxg2 26 Rxg2 Rc1+ followed by checkmate.

I hope you enjoyed this read and if you want me to do more of this or found this instructional then i will do more more regularly.

Nalin.