I also spent some of the weekend doing "Chess Training". Surprisingly I found that there wasn't a big difference between the two activities. In both I tried to perform simple drills, and then gauged my success. Just as in brain training I was good at some things and bad at others.
The tool I used for my chess training activities was Chessmaster 10. I've mentioned this before but having used it for training (as opposed to practice/analysis) I've even more convinced that it is worth adding to your software library. At the moment it is available for $20 in most computer shops (Dick Smith, EB Games etc), so if you see it, grab it.
One of the drills I worked through was the dreaded Bishop & Knight Checkmate. Now
most of us have a vague idea of what to do, but until you actually try it, you probably don't realise how difficult it is. It took me about 10 tries before I got it right, and only then was I able to do it by following some instructions in Bruce Pandolfini's "The ABC's of Chess". Having done it once, it then took me another 5 tries before I could do it again. Eventually I managed to grasp some essential patterns before being fully confident that I could do it again.One of the most interesting patterns is shown in the diagram. The arrangement of Bishop and Knight actually imprisons the Black King in the corner, regardless of where the White King is. Then it is a matter of squeezing the king into the corner and mating.
So my recommendation for those who want to improve is to take a leaf out of any sports coaching manual and drill, drill, drill!
(For those that are interested the game might finish 1.Kc2 Kf1 2.Kd2 Kg1 3.Ke2 Kg2 4.Ke1 Kg1 5.Bh3! Kh2 6.Bf1 Kg1 7.Ke2 Kh2 8.Kf2 Kh1 9.Nf6 Kh2 10.Ng4+ Kh1 11.Bg2#)
4 comments:
Thanks for the post, this reminds me I've got Chessmaster installed but have used little of the training material.
re NBK v K mate: In squeezing the K to the right corner the N moves in a 'W' pattern and the K travels in a straight line. The B moves seem to take care of themselves.
Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals gives an excellent demonstration of the correct technique. One thing I noticed was that at various moments both B and N can manouver a fair distance from the enemy and then swoop back. When I'd tried it in the past I think I had the army bunched up too much.
Yes, that was the trouble I initially had. My pieces kept tripping over each other, letting the king escape. And while the "w" method is known to most players, the method described by Pandlofini is actually easier to make work (at least for me).
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