NEW ARTICLE: The Golden Question You Should Ask Before Resigning

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Helpful article, as usual. Thank you!

I ask a similar question.

I put in the shoes of my opponent and ask/ Is winning this position for me just a matter of technique

If the answer is yes, I resign

one of the best articles that i have ever read for sure , thanks GM Avetik

Awesome Article!

In general I agree with this article as usual but here I feel like it misses one aspect of not resigning. Being a warrior is important and can help you save dozens of points. The same goes for resigning though. By playing a lost position you spend a lot of time and effort which can be physically and emotionally tiring potentially resulting in losing the next game maybe saving 1/2 from the first game but losing a game you expected to win. 

With resigning there are two sides to the coin considering practical play.

My long time rule on this comes in four stages (I am roughly 1950 USCF [pre-covid, I have learned stuff since then] which translates to roughly 1850 FIDE) :

1) At the beginning of the game, regardless of what color I have, I play for the win.

2) As the game goes on and playing for a win becomes too far fetched, then I play to save a draw.

3) When I can no longer find a way to save a draw, I look for a way for my opponent to blow the win and keep playing, keeping in mind time left and opponent's strength.

4) When I can no longer find a way for my opponent to blow the win (same caveats as part 3), then I resign, and I do my best to do so gracefully and not ruin my opponent's joy at winning.

The only real exception to this is when the end is near, and my opponent can mate me in a nice way (i.e. not a mundane checkmate), and then I won't resign and will instead let the mate play out. I take pains to let my opponent know afterwards why I didn't resign so s(he) won't be insulted at my forcing the game to be played to checkmate.

P.S. I have played against some pretty strong youngsters who refused to resign in dead lost positions, and I simply tell myself that a coach somewhere along the line probably told them to "never resign" so instead of getting mad I simply take enough time to make sure I don't move too fast and blunder away my win out of frustration.

f4 Grand Prix variations

Variations (all played by strong players) not covered, and all very likely over the board.

1. e4 c5 2. f4 d5 3. Nc3 - the so called 'toilet variation' - evidently where it was thought up.
 d4 or dxe4 here?

3. Bb5+ - Bd7 is the main move but then maybe Nd7 here to try to transpose to 4. Bb5+ ?

3. d3  - looks dumb after dxe4 dxe4 Qxd1 Kxd1, but Sokolov has been on the White side of this, so is it as bad as it seems?

Even 3. Nf3 has been played, after dxe4 4. Ng5 Nf6 5. Bc4 e6 6. Nc3 White gets the pawn back - but why is Black better after Be7 7. Ncxe4 Nxe4 (unclear if this is right) 8. Nxe4 Nc6 9.c3 and Bc8 might be going to b7, but if it's going to be watching TV the knight has to go to a5 which seems out of play.

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After 3.Nc3 I play... dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Nf3 Ngf6

After 3.Bb5+ I play... Bd7 4.Bxd7 Qxd7

After 3.d3 I play your line

After 3.Nf3 I play... dxe4 4.Ng5 Bf5

Today's puzzle

I'm just in love with today's puzzle! I always wanted to separate which one is the best of all time, and just today I've understood it!

Isn't it the coolest?  

Have you already got your 500 moodcoins? 

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Indeed quite cool puzzle. 

I saw this before, that's why I didn't get much exited, but I remember I was so impressed when I saw it for the first time :D

I got 500 miodcoins starting with Qd5+

Chess originated in ...?

India?

What is your version?

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India or Iran. Each claim to be the origin land and have their evidences... 

I think Europe(Note I am an Indian)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeB-1F-UKO0 -Source

but there are 3 places we should consider 

1st India

2nd Persia

3rd Europe

 The Idea Of the Game Came From The Game of  Chaturanga Which has its origin in *India*

then 

When This Game Reach *Persia*

it Had Very Important Changes/Addition

Like Of Word      šāh māt (the king is dead) As know as CheckMate

And When It Reach *Europe*

It Took the Modern Form As We Know Now

finally, it doesn't matter where or who invented this game 

the thing that matters is to ENJOY This Beautiful Game!

Question in Queen vs Pawns course

In section 5,

38. Dero's puzzle, at 2:34, the move Qc3+ is given and the following maneuver is nice, but it seems  Qb5 is much simpler. What do you guys think?

By the way, great course! The puzzles are no joke ;)

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Is it something that can be checked with a tablebase? You can get Lomonsov 7 piece tablebase app for Android for free.

A Fact

What do you think?

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yes 

there are 10^120 possible games in chess whereas number of atoms are 10^82 if I am right

Wow, that's crazy.

Visualization in Chess

Dear Pro Members,

While working on the courses I am facing a different situation when I have to put some arrows on the board and tell about things happening on the board. I got curious how many moves can you calculate and after how many moves are you still able to clearly visualize the positions?

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If the line is forced I can usually go as deep as necessary, my problem comes when they are too many branches and deciding how deep to go in each branch and how to manage my time efficiently. Also when to stop calculating and start evaluating and how to decide between equally tempting options. I  passed through a phase where I tried to consciously use Kotov's method of calculation as laid out in his book 'Play Like a Grandmaster,' but it cost me many points and I concluded his method was flawed and much too rigid to be effective in practical play.

Edit: The book could have been Think like a Grandmaster instead of Play Like a Grandmaster now that I reflect on it. Thanks Jamie.

I think visualization depends strongly on player strength. So if  the courses are meant for a broad range of players it could be worth to include some arrows or even show the variation on the board in the most critical variations. As for myself I can usually visualize 8 plys right. From 8 plys on I may begin to mess it up, depending of the complexity of the position

Can we have an article about visualization and how to improve it? :) 

After 6-8 plies it start to get foggy - forget pieces far from my focus point.  The horse start to get problematic even in my focus point. Difficulty in perceiving especially diagonals. 

2021 I will work on visualization. But for now it is usually at most 6-8 plies. Independent of complexity.

Would be nice with a course or an article.

To know the colour of the squares could be one part of training visualisation.

On https://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-visualizer-square-colors.php you may train just that. On that site you will also find two other ways of training visualization.

Concentration

Hi ChessMood family,

I think concentration is one of the important factors in life and in chess as well.

I want to know what methods do you use to distract yourself from unpleasant things and focus on what you really need.

Are there methods to train the brain for better concentration?

Thanks in advance.

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chessmood has an article about it. Have you read it?

Maybe... Physical Training....
1. Yoga
2. Mediation
3. Brain Gym
4. Improve Endurance & VO Max

Chess Diet Nutrition....
1. Fruit for Brain
2. Food for Brain
3. Pills for Brain Nutrition
4. Caffein  

Internal and external conflicts are the source of energy dissipation and prevent Natural flow of energy. You do not need any pills, self hypnosis, self suggestions, alcohol, delusion, etc. (they are limited and cause long term dullness and self destruction). Just listen to Cello! Know Thyself; seeing the truth (not according to any system or anybody else) will end conflicts, and brings peace.

@WIM_Siranush_Ghukasyan, @Krystof_Mikulas_Travnicek, @Heri_Darmanto, @Kourosh_A 

Thank you all for your help and helpful advices. :)

I was hoping you would have some advice for us. :)

Why is it dangerous to play bullet?

Dear Pro members,

Was thinking about bullet game issues. I am sure many of you like to play bullet and probably very often are playing. But from a learning perspective, I think it's gonna be not so good and I will explain my opinion, but firstly I would like to figure out what do you think about it? Do you also find bullet games dangerous and why?

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If you play Bullet you think less... And thats not good for classical games... 
The second reason is that even if you play TOOO much of Bullet AND get a rating of 2900 online, Bullet doesnt make a GM... Classical games do.

I can't play fast enough for bullet. It can be good training for low clock time and spotting important things quickly. The problem is too much can encourage play on autopilot (and its nature encourages either long sessions or using it as a break from something else). The other thing is bullet would be good for practising openings if it wasn't also about playing awful but tricky moves to waste the openents's time. The latter point is perhaps the most significant problem.

I could argue too much blitz is also bad for your chess as well (perhaps not to the same degree). It's great for practising openings and working on tactics and feel for positions, but deep calculation is out. It also sometimes gives the illusion that dubious or tricky openings are sound when they'd get taken apart in long games, something I worry about some liens in the opening repertoire here given most/almost all of the demonstrations and model games are blitz.

I recall an article years ago about different time controls.

It argued bullet was terrible for improvement and essentially does nothing for you.

Blitz is OK especially if you are using it for opening training etc.

Rapid it argued is also very bad in that its too long really for volume of games regarding openings and too short to really calculate properly.

I think it was Dan heisman who wrote the article and he essentially said that only something like 30+30 was worthwhile.

I dont really know the validity of his statement or if he had anything to back it up and alot of what he says is a bit old school and outdated. I actually had a lesson from him many years ago and it was the single worst coaching experience of my life actually. From someone who had likely had hundreds of hours of coaching (for poker not chess). That said he may well have a good point here.

As for myself I am terrible at bullet and hate it because I get in this almost drug addicted state where I play tons of games in a row just getting a hit and not really playing chess just moving pieces.

my opinion in one picture :D

I think bullet is dangerous for <2200 players for all the reason mentioned before. Players >2200 know openings much better and calculate much faster, and have a much more developed intuition, so it could be useful for them to some extent 

In my case, I never played bullet until joining Chessmood, I was very slow in Blitz and I tried to get some speed, playing bullet helped me to be faster. That's it, now I am faster at Blitz. The other thing I did is practice openings very fast with bullet, but without caring not even for one second for the result. I am playing bullet when I am tired and have some spare time to test my recently acquired openings, and I even analyze the openings many times to see where I went wrong. But for sure is not good to develop a proper thinking process since you do not have time. What it can be good for is for implementing a plan that you know in the opening and following it through. When you are tired your mind kind of goes on autopilot mode - if you know your opening and have the plan well learned-, it's a good way to test it. That is how I use bullet mode.

I feel bullet is at least worth experiencing (hey, Chess.com is even hosting official Bullet Championships, with cash on the line). For some, I reckon it can even be used for training. After all, it's just a quicker version of blitz.

But moving instantly doesn't seem to be a great habit, especially as Classical is the 'real chess', just as slow food is the 'real food'.

I like playing bullet so much, and I think sometimes I play well, but anyway playing bullet is not a good idea to improve chess skills. Bullet is only for fun and nothing more.

So guys will share now my opinion as well.

I guess many of us are enjoying bullet, but from learning perspective it's spoiling our chess as we are playing with a huge feeling of adrenaline (because of low time) and it doesn't allow us to think properly and test our just learned variations.

If you are very experienced player with high elo you can try time to time play bullet to have a fun, but players who are just learning on working on chess level it's gonna a  trigger for negative outcomes in classical games.

Crush the Sicilian with 2.Nc3 (lecture by IM Rosen)

I enjoyed this lecture by IM Rosen. The lines he shows are very much in the spirit of (but not always identical to) our Anti-Sicilian repertoire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnm7yXtx6yw

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I am gonna watch this, thank you.

Philidor 3... f6

How to play against this move which I faced in blitz and has almost 200 games in the database. I'm guessing the idea is to strong-point e5 and later decide on d5 or f5 depending on how White plays. It wasn't so easy to break it down in blitz, though it scores very poorly (probably because the Black player is usually weaker to play such an offbeat move). The cost of course is a bad bishop on f8.

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3…f6 is a weak move, as it makes Bf8 bad, takes away the best square for Ng8 and really weakens the black King, therefore, White should continue with 4.Bc4, strongly pointing into the black King position!

Hey David!

Definitely its not a move to be worried about!

This is killing bishop on f8, but as well weakening a2-g8 diagonal where white bishop will be placed very well! I think whites games os very easy, bishop will stay strong on c4, you can 0-0 play nc3 while black will have problems playing 0-0 as it's unclear how to develop the kingside!

"The Power of the Bishop Pair" course

This course https://chessmood.com/course/Bishop-Pair-power reminded me of a very painful game played by me, if you don't know yet, I will say that I am a big fan of the two bishop advantage and usually I play well when I get it. Once a disaster happened to me. I felt that this was my worst lose. My opponent's rating was 300 less and I got this position for White. I could manage to lose this game :D I was completely tilted and so disappointed that day. The problem was that I was too sure that I will win the game anyway, I lost my concentration, I didn’t think at all, I was sure that my opponent would make a mistake and I will win very easily. Now I look at the position again and still can't believe how did I lose it :D Btw I didn't blunder, I lost slowly slowly :D

A small advice,

Never think like Susik :D

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Of course, we can all relate to losing ;) It doesn't feel good, although I guess we do learn from them. Almost all positions have a risk of losing I think.

I can see why you think that is was painful to lose this one.  When it was not due to a fork, how to lose it? But these things happen...

Was it played in Turkey? You could lose this only in that tournament :D

1+0 Bullet chess

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Don't make me feel bad every time when I want to play bullet lol

Benko Gambit Endgames

For those of you with Chessbase premium account, there is an interesting video on endgames resulting from the Benko structures:

Benkogambit (chessbase.com)

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Thanks for the information. 

Scandinavian 5... Qh5? gambit

Might be worth having a section on dealing with this, or at least in Abracadabra Gambits.

1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nf3 Bg4 4. Be2 Nc6 5. h3 Qh5?

6. O-O Nf6 7. hxg4 Nxg4 and now I played 8. d4 (d3 better?) and got into a mess after the dubious e5 and 9. d5?? rather than 9. exd5 where Ncxe5 10. Bf4 covers h2. and if 9... Rd8 10. Bd3. If instead 8... e6 intending Bd6 then 9. Bf4 Bd6 10 Qd2 O-O-O 11. Bxd6 Rxd6 12. c3

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Wow, I see this gambit for the first time :)

Instead of 12.c3 you have a better move 12.Qg5!

Did you check it with the engine? seems this sacrifice doesn't work

Nb6 or Nf4?

Which one would you take? :D

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If it was 3 minute blitz I would take Nf4. But as it is I would take Nb6 :)

Now already Nb6 :D

Webinar tournament coverage on the 25th

Just checking this event is definitely going ahead given it is set on Christmas Day and whether it would be sensible to postpone it? I think, 'Honey, I know you've been slaving over Christmas dinner all morning, but do you mind if I take it upstairs to watch chess?' might not be a highlight of my marriage, so if it is going ahead, I would more than likely be watching it later. I suspect others may have other commitments as well.

Since it's 3pm here and that's usually the time of the Queen's Speech, will there be an alternative speech given by GM Gabuzyan? Queen's accent optional :)

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Ps. My wife said it wouldn't be the highlight, it would be the end :)

Question about Grandmasters

How do you think, what country has the most number of Grandmasters?

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I would say Russia overall. If we take into account GM/inhabitant, I believe Armenia would be in the top 5 of the list

Russia for sure.

Chess Opening for my Style

Hi I am Colden. I am rated around 1600. My style is turning attacks from my opponent around on them. I am currently playing the Caro-Kann. Is this the right opening choice, or are there better ones for this style?

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If you like to counterattack, then I think the Sicilian is the best weapon. Do you know the Gran Prix attack? Have you checked the chessmood courses? The openings can fit such a repertoire like yours until you become an IM. 

https://chessmood.com/blog/5-reasons-to-play-sicilian-defense-for-black Did you read this article? 

1.e4 e5  and 1.d4 d5 ( queen's gambit declined) are my suggestion for 1600 ELO.

They are the best for learning and practicing chess basics, (center etc.), and you can play them up to GM level, because they are rich and give you variety of options as Black.

Caro-Kann and Slav are very solid and reliable as well, but 1.e4 e5 and 1.d4 d5 are better for learning chess and getting better; You will improve faster.

I dont know of you have looked at it but the queens gambit accepted is very underrated

It can lead to quite dynamic play especially in some of the nf3 variations if you choose bg4 as a response.

It's also pretty sound as well, plus you avoid lots of move order stuff and pretty much always get into it outside of random queens pawn openings

Slav is also very solid and QGA often leads to a lot of slav type positions due to the structure.

Yes! Sicilian will be the best choice for you. Myself I play Sveshnikov, but I am gonna learn this 

Accelerated Dragon course from ChessMood.

Alcohol and Chess

Let's see how many of us drinks alcohol? :D

Do you like it or not? Have you ever played a serious game when you were drunk? 

This happened to me several times, especially before the important games, I didn't drink a lot, just a little to make me feel a little less nervous lol.

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first of all, I am 10 :D second of all, I never plan to Drink as its bad for health....

I do not think alcohol is the best thing for not being nervous before the game, but I do not want to sound like a father ;-)

I am sure other relaxation technniques like meditation, or simply listening to your favourite quiet music on headphones before the game is much better.

I have never drunk alcohol before a game. It is much better have a beer or a glass of wine after the game, with your team mates or even the opponents (if you are over 18 and with moderation)

I once had some drinks the night before a serious morning game. It wasn't best, as I had a slight headache. 

When I reached my first wgm title in the last game I was drunk deadly the day before and I slept 2 hours in the night and the game was 11 am :D 

I avoid drinking before any match game. I think a small amount might help occasionally, but it's easy to go beyond that and your ability to concentrate and your reflexes generally decrease unless you've build up enough tolerance by drinking regularly. Afterward in a social situation drinking a little is fine (I get ill if I drink too much despite being able to).

I would echo the point about not using alcohol to steady nerves (same thing is why some people smoke). It can become a crutch and a dependence and there are other ways. One of the things I was getting at in my post about The Queen's Gambit was whether there was widespread doping in chess, particularly in the East, to either calm nerves, to relax or concentrate/focus better and whether it actually worked. Not advisable and perhaps having that as a plot point isn't a good idea as it might encourage a few to take tranquillisers to try to copy what they see (lots of stories of careers and lives ruined in the US, e.g. Hollywood).

I have several chess friends who have a bad relationship with alcohol including GMs which undoubtedly affects their health (some obviously in weight problems as beer has lots of calories). When you're away for days at a tournament, in the evenings there can be little to do but to eat, drink socialise. Also Alekhine was another who had a problem with drink, perhaps (although not known if)  it contributed to his death. So for me alcohol in moderation, and you controlling it, not it controlling you.

Some world champions suffered from  alcoholism: Alekhine and Tal!

Sometimes Tal had been carried away from the game because he was so drunk and Alekhine lost his world title to Euwe in 1935. How can it be good?

In our days we have many alcoholic GMs as well, I cannot mention their names here. Their brain gradually lost its sharpness and became old very fast.

Brain cells can rejuvenate in a "Natural" way if we put an end to any internal and external conflict. No need for anything artificial.