The Star E-dition

MARK RUBERY CHESS

Jacob Aagaard is a Danish/Scottish grandmaster who is the only writer to win four major book of the year awards. He is the co-owner of the chess publishing house ‘Quality Chess’ and the standard of his books approaches that of the legendary author and trainer, Mark Dvoretsky.

His Grandmaster Preparation series consists of six volumes: Calculation; Positional Play; Strategic Play; Attack and Defence; Endgame Play and Thinking Inside the Box.

The author writes ‘The ultimate goal for this series is to show a path towards playing chess at grandmaster level for those who do not have access to a good trainer. I have worked with some grandmasters who had the kinds of holes in their chess understanding that would baffle the average man on the street. Obviously they excelled in other aspects of the game simultaneously, but over time their weaknesses became obvious to their opponents and their results duly suffered. This series is meant to help those players as well’.

The following position is taken from his book on Calculation, under the heading- Imagination. Here Aagaard points out a missed opportunity where our own Watu Kobese could have turned a difficult position into a draw against a strong GM from Azerbaijan.

Kobese,W (2370) - Mamedov,Rau (2660) [B38]

39th Olympiad Men Khanty-Mansiysk RUS 2010

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.c4 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Nc3 0–0 8.Be2 d6 9.0–0 Bd7 10.Qd2 Nxd4 11.Bxd4 Bc6 12.Bd3 a5 13.Rae1 a4 14.f4 e5 15.fxe5 Ng4 16.Nd5 Bxd5 17.cxd5 Nxe5 18.Be2 Qh4 19.Bb5 a3 20.b3 Rac8 21.Re2 Ng4 22.h3 Bxd4+ 23.Qxd4 Ne5 24.Bd3 Qg5 25.Bb1 Rc5 26.Qd2 Qe7 27.Qb4 Ra8 28.Rc2 Rxc2 29.Bxc2 Qc7 30.Bb1 Kg7 31.Kh2 b6 32.Qd2 Rc8 33.Qg5 b5 34.Rf2 Qb6 35.Qf6+ Kg8 36.Bd3 h5 37.Bf1 Rc3 38.Qf4 b4 39.Bc4 Qc5 40.Bf1 Re3 41.Qf6 Re1

Here White played 42 Bc4 and lost on move 55. Kobese missed a lovely way to hold this position with 42 g4!! Rb1 (42…hxg4 43 Qd8+ with a perpetual) 43 gxh5 Rb2 44 Be2! Qe3 45 hxg6 hxg6 46 Qd8+ Kh7 47 Qh4+ Qh6 48 Qe7+ again with a perpetual check.

In some books you can read that the process of evaluating a position consists in isolating and weighing up all the positional factors that play a part in it. Nonsense! In actual fact, most of this task is performed subconsciously. The art of evaluation lies in understanding the essence of a position - identifying the crucial problem (either positional or tactical) that needs solving - sensing the right direction for our investigations and detecting the desirability or otherwise of a particular operation. – Mark Dvoretsky

THE XFILES

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2021-10-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://thestar.pressreader.com/article/282394107649607

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