Jeffrey Ashton's Blog

2011-05-28T19:47:00.001-07:00

2011-05-28T19:20:00.001-07:00

2011-05-28T19:18:00.001-07:00

Great Moments

2011-05-18T12:11:00.001-07:00

2009-11-11T13:02:00.000-08:00

It's been about 1.5 years since the Panda Chess Academy opened and we are doing well! I would just like to remind everyone to point your bookmarks to: www.chesspanda.com

2008-08-15T10:07:00.000-07:00

For those who don't know, I opened a full time chess club for scholastic players (12th grade and younger).

Visit www.chesspanda.com for more information.

2008-06-03T12:32:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. I made a small blog:
http://throgerschesscamp.blogspot.com

Chess Panda is up! Visit it often!

2008-03-14T02:38:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. Most of my "web" time will be spent working on www.chesspanda.com.
Please bookmark it and visit it regularly. I will still update this website with news and articles so check back here as well!

Coming soon...

2008-03-12T10:32:00.003-07:00

ChessPanda.com!
Stay tuned for more information...

Puzzle Video

2008-03-11T23:55:00.000-07:00

A new chess video. Visit www.chesspanda.com!

Another Video: Queen's Gambit Marshall

2008-03-10T21:03:00.001-07:00

Available at www.chesspanda.com

Queen's Gambit Video

2008-03-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. This is a little video I made on how to play the Queen's Gambit. It is kind of silly!

You might need to download a plug-in.

Go to www.chesspanda.com

Testing

2008-01-03T12:39:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone. Happy New Year. This is just a test to see if I can upload to my blog using Microsoft Word.

Victoria and Vincent

2007-12-17T21:10:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of me with the 6th grade Zhang twins; Victoria and Vincent. I'm the one in the middle :) They both had outstanding results at the National Championship here in Houston a week ago. Victoria got 5 out of 7 and won the 21st place trophy after tiebreaks and Vincent Zhang won 1st place and is the National Champion. They are very strong and improving rapidly.

Updates: Nationals and State

2007-12-10T07:07:00.000-08:00

I have not posted in a while. I am happy to say that several schools and individuals that I work with did very well at the State and National Champioships. Yesterday Alex Liu (2nd Grade) and Vincent Zhang (6th grade) became National Champions of their grade. This is very exciting news. Congratulations to Bellaire High School, Katy Chess Club, Pershing Middle School, T.H. Rogers, and Village School for their great successes at both the Nationals and the State Championship. Also congratulations to all of the other individuals that I work with who did so well.

New Video: Blackburne's Mate

2007-10-31T07:01:00.000-07:00

A new record: two blog posts in one month. Thanks to the three people out there who have actually been checking up on my blog regularly to see if I made any new posts!

I made a video with a very simple checkmate. This is Blackburne's mate. The technology is new to me, so look forward to more videos with improvements.

Back!

2007-10-23T16:01:00.000-07:00

I am back on the internet, so I will be posting on this blog more often.
Congratulations to all of my students who played in the U.S. Class Championship last weekend. I believe you all gained rating points!

Come back to this site regularly in the new future. I plan on adding some interesting new things..

Chess Camp Pictures

2007-07-26T22:33:00.000-07:00

Sometime recently realized the following: I have been teaching chess for about ten years and I have never taken any pictures! So for the Honor Roll and T.H. Rogers Chess camps I took a few pictures. If you would like to see them online, visit the thumbnail below. I warn you; I am a horrible photographer!

7-23-2007

Puzzles for 7-26-07

2007-07-26T09:36:00.001-07:00

Puzzle #1
In this puzzle Black just played
..Be5
Can you find the winning move for White?

If you solved the first puzzle look at the following diagram; I changed the puzzle slightly. Can you find the difference between the two puzzles?
Does the winning answer to puzzle #1 work in puzzle #2?

Puzzle #2

For the answers to the puzzles, visit
http://chessanswers.blogspot.com/

Victoria's Chess Puzzles

2007-07-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

Here are some puzzles that one of my students wanted to share.
They are all White to move (I believe). I haven't solved all of them yet.. but I will post them now and solve them later! Enjoy.

Shirov-King

2007-06-30T14:22:00.000-07:00

I'm going to experiment with a new way of posting games.. so here is a link to one of my favorite games!

Shirov-King

The Traffic Light Game

2007-06-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! This game is from Kasparov-Kengis, played when Kasparov was only a teenager.
In the position it is White to move. Kasparov played one of the 3 moves, and then Black resigned.

Green: e4
Red: Re1
Yellow: Ng5

Bonus question:
Can anyone figure out how I came up with the clever name of this game?
Check the "comments" for the answer.

More pictures

2007-05-18T11:15:00.001-07:00

Some pictures from the Nationals and Interview Day

2007-05-18T10:57:00.001-07:00

Picture of the National Champions

2007-05-17T21:44:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday ABC News and the Houston Independent School District News station interviewed the champions and myself. Here is a picture of us.

From left to right :
Front: Tristan Lim, Victoria Zhang, Vincent Zhang, Thomas Williamson, and Michael Huang.
Back: Martha Jenkinson (Founder and organizer of the T.H. Rogers Chess Program) and Coach Jeffrey Ashton

Blog Update

2007-05-15T11:51:00.000-07:00

As the school year is coming to an end I have a bit more free time. Hopefully I will be posting to my blog more regularly.

I am going to gear this blog to help my personal students and friends so the puzzles you will see will be a bit more difficult than they were previously.

When I post a puzzle, my students e-mail me the answers personally as additional homework to what I assign them in class.

If you are not my student but are curious about the answer, feel free to e-mail me personally as well. I will try to get back to you.

2007-05-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

Zalatz vs. Kharashuta
5-7-2007

Find white's best move. After he played it, Black resigned.

Houston Chronicle Article

2007-05-14T16:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4801864.html

T.H. Rogers' chess team wins top prize in Nashville
By JENNIFER RADCLIFFE

It's another crown for T.H. Rogers' chess team.

Just a few months after having its eighth-grade team declared national
champs at the U.S. Chess Federation's tournament, T.H. Rogers' fifth
graders snagged the title this weekend at the National Chess
Championship in Nashville.

The team — made up of five fifth-graders — took first place in the K-5
category. Sponsored by the U.S. Chess Federation, the 2,100-player
tournament is the largest chess championship in the country for
elementary students.

"They're all giddy," said parent Martha Jenkinson, who runs the
program.

T.H. Rogers' powerhouse chess program has won nearly 10 national
championships since the program was introduced at the school in
2001.Every kindergartener- through third-grader at the school receives
chess instruction during the school day.

The schools also offers after-school lessons and a club.

jennifer.radcliffe@chron.com

Brought to you by the HoustonChronicle.com

Congratulations to the National Champions

2007-05-13T21:03:00.000-07:00

I was informed a few minutes ago that the T.H. Rogers 5th grade team just won the National Elementary Championship held in Nashville Tennessee. Congratulations to

* Michael Huang
* Tristan Lim
* Tommy Williamson
* Victoria Zhang
* Vincent Zhang

I am very proud to be associated with this team!

Hidden King Game

2007-04-18T11:37:00.001-07:00

I invented a new game (someone else might have come up with a similar game that I do not know of).

One side "hides" their king on a square by writing it.

The other player uses his King, Queen, two rooks, two bishops, and two knights to try to find the king.

The game is played similar to the game "Battleship".

When one person puts a queen on e4, the other player will say "hit" or "miss", based on whether or not the king is put in check.

There are a few other details to the game, but basically whoever gets more points after 3 rounds is the winner.

I was surprised that my students like to play this game so much. I definitely think this game helps players become stronger. I also showed this game to three very strong adult players and they enjoyed it as well.

If you are really interested in learning more about the game, email me.

Dallas

2007-03-19T10:19:00.000-07:00

This last weekend I was in Dallas. I have never seen such great results from all of my students in one single tournament. It seems that almost everyone I know had 5 out of 7 or better. Also we won several 1st place team trophies. I am very happy about this. Hopefully I will have more details in the future and maybe some pictures.

Absent

2007-02-07T12:38:00.000-08:00

Sorry I have been away. I was sick for the first time in years. I feel about 99% now, and hopefully I will be posting more in the near future.

Cracking The Kingside

2007-01-28T08:47:00.000-08:00

Shown above is an example of White destroying Black's Kingside. It is White to play and win. Difficulty: 1100

Chigorin's Checkmate

2007-01-25T10:42:00.000-08:00

Enjoy this checkmate!

Lasker Vs. Thomas

2007-01-22T10:24:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite games to show students of all levels. In this game White executes a beautiful attack on Black's King. Notice how Black's king is weakened because he traded off one of his defensive f-pawns. Also notice that White enjoys a major lead in development throughout the game. Because of Black's weaknesses and White's active pieces, White is able to use a beautiful combination to win the game. Here are the moves that lead to the diagrammed position.

1. d4 f5 2. e4 fxe4 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 e6 5. Nxe4 Be7 6. Bxf6 Bxf6 7. Nf3 O-O
8. Bd3 b6 9. Ne5 Bb7 10. Qh5 Qe7

It is White to play and win.
Difficulty 1400

For the video solution, click below.

New www.jeffreyashton.com

2007-01-22T10:23:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone. Visit www.jeffreyashton.com to see the new web design. It should look a little bit nicer than before.

Video Lesson: Opening Trap against the Smith Morra Gambit

2007-01-20T13:13:00.000-08:00

I hope you readers enjoy the new videos added to this blog. I am still learning how to make and edit videos, so please be patient with me during this learning process! Hopefully they will improve in quality and in entertainment value!

Here is a nice opening trap that I have used a few times as Black. It is against the Smith Morra Gambit. The position comes from the following moves:
1. e4 c5
2. d4 cxd4
3. c3 dxc3
4. Nxc3 e6
5. Bc4 Nc6
6. Nf3 Qc7
7. Qe2 Nf6
8. O-O Ng4
9. h3

If you like to play the Sicilian defense, you should consider memorizing and playing this variation.

Anyway, here is the puzzle. It is Black to play and win.

Difficulty Level: 1300+

Click on the video solution below.

New Video Lesson! White to Play

2007-01-18T09:21:00.000-08:00

In the following position it is White to move. Black just played his queen from e4 to capture the pawn on g2. Black is now attacking the rook on h1.

Can you find the best move for White? This is a tricky move to find.
So far none of my 1600 through 1800 rated students were able to find the solution by themselves.

Difficulty Level: 2000
Don't forget to watch the video below for the solution!

For the solution, watch the video below.

A few updates

2007-01-17T08:54:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. I will be posting to my blog more in the near future. You will soon see some changes and surprises as I am engaging in some interesting chess projecsts. Stay tuned.

I would also like to welcome two new great chess coaches to Houston Texas. John Hendrick and Justin Gardner. I have known them both for almost ten years, and I am excited to see them both in the great city of Houston. If you are interested in chess lessons I highly recommend them both. Send email to chess@jeffreyashton.com if you would like their contact info.

Back from Brownsville

2006-11-08T12:09:00.000-08:00

I just got back from Brownsville on Sunday. I was there coaching The Village School. Every single person on the team had a plus score or even score. They became the 3rd Grade State Champions. Congratulations to them. A lot of my private students and friends were there, and they all did very well

My next tournament will be the National Championship in Orlando Florida, from December 8-10. I will be coaching the Village School there again. I will probably get there a few days early or stay a few days late to see Orlando (although I've already been there several times as a kid).

In March I will be coaching in the State Championships again with Annunciation Orthodox Academy in Plano Texas.

I am considering playing in the following tournaments. I won't play in all of them, but maybe two.
2006 Motor City Open in Michigan (Detroit I think?)
2007 Chicago Open
2007 World Open (Philadelphia)
2007 US Open

Anyway that's all for now and sorry that I haven't been posting lately.

2006-10-25T08:03:00.000-07:00

White to Play: Forced Mate in 4
Level: Rating 800

Hi everyone. I've been very busy lately. Sorry for not blogging. Even though my car is only one year old I've been having a lot of bad luck with it lately. I had my fourth flate tire in one year and now I have water damage from driving through flooded waters. This happened to me when I first moved to Houston and it totaled the car I had before this.

Aside from the bad news I also have good news. I'll be at the State Championship in Brownsville next week as well as the Nationals in Orlando. I will be coaching The Village School at these events, but I will be supporting all of my students and friends.
I hope to see my readers at those tournaments.

Chess Life Article

2006-10-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

Dr. Alexey Root wrote a very nice article about me and my former chess teacher Fred Lindsay for Chess Life magazine. You can read it http://beta.uschess.org/frontend/magazine_124_130.php

I would like to thank Alexy Root for writing this article. I hope you enjoy it.

2006-10-13T08:57:00.000-07:00

The World Championship was decided over a blunder today!

The Kramnik-Topalov match went to playoffs after being tied at 6 games a piece.

In the 4th and final game of the playoffs, Topalov with the black pieces makes a horrible blunder..44.. Rxc5??

Before making this move, Black had drawing chances and the World Championship title could go to either player.

How did Kramnik win after black played 44..Rxc5??

Click here for the solution and the whole game.

2006-10-11T23:27:00.000-07:00

White to Play, Mate in 2
Alekhine,A - Asgeirsson,A 1931.

To view the whole game with the solution to the puzzle, either click on the diagram to the left or click here.

Hi everyone. I haven't really been updating as much as I should. I've been busy with a lot of chess related stuff.

I would like to congratulate all of my students and friends who played in the T.H. Rogers tournament. So many people I know did well. Martha Jenkinson did a wonderful job running the event as always. The people of Houston appreciate all of her great volunteer work.

I would also like to thank my good friend Justin Gardner for making the trip from Dallas to help analyze games at the tournament. He will be moving to the Houston area in January to teach chess professionally. Houston is very lucky to have a strong player and great coach such as himself.

Enjoy the puzzle and the game!

2006-10-06T02:44:00.000-07:00

Click here to see an interesting forced checkmate.

2006-10-02T18:58:00.000-07:00

It looks like the World Championship will continue (until Topalov finds some new way to be a baby). In my opinion Kramnik is being very honorable seeing how he is continuing the match even after he lost a game on forfeit. The score is 3.5-2.5 in Kramnik's favor, although it would be 3.5-1.5 if they erased Kramnik's round 5 forfeit.
It seems that most of the followers of the World Championship are overall siding with Kramnik, although many feel that both sides behaved poorly.

I personally feel that Topalov (or his manager) was completely in the wrong, and Kramnik handled the situation like a normal human being would. Topalov was clearly trying to attack Kramnik, not only by insisting on the rule change, but publicly declaring that he refuses to shake Kramnik's hand. Kramnik retaliated by forfeiting a match, and this only hurt himself. He is now honorably continuing the match after he handicapped himself with a forfeit.
My prediction is that there will be a lot more draws in this match, and then the final games will be more interesting once Topalov will start having to take risks to make a comeback. I hope and predict that Kramnik will win the match.
I have to admit that my opinion about the match is very biased. Kramnik is one of my favorite players. I honestly don't find his games to be very exciting, but I just think of him as the ultimate chess machine that is impossible to beat. He can just play for hours without making any serious mistakes, and this just grinds his opponents down. All of the people that I know that know Kramnik personally say that he is a very good character, and one of the most humble top level chess players. There are probably better sites for getting more "objective" opinions about the match than this one.

Here are two sites that I recommend for following the World Championship match: http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com
http://www.chessninja.com

2006-10-02T10:08:00.000-07:00

This is a game I played on the ICC against International Master Miodrag Perunovic.

I played 28. Qh5 to threaten mate in 2. To my surprise, he played 28.. Ne3?? allowing 29. Qxf7+, followed by Qxg7 mate.

28. Qh5 was a bad move. Black can simply defend the checkmate with Rf8, and the game is complicated.

From the diagrammed position, can you find the winning continuition that I missed? The answer is on http://chessanswers.blogspot.com

2006-09-28T08:57:00.000-07:00

White to play and mate in 4. Look up the answer at http://chessanswers.blogspot.com

Due to complaints that I never put up answers to my puzzles, I created. http://chessanswers.blogspot.com
I hope this helps!

Budapest Gambit Declined Miniature

2006-09-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

I have "Chessbase" working again so I can post games online again.

Click on the board to the left to see a new short game.

Mate in 6

2006-09-19T12:38:00.000-07:00

This is White to play and mate in 6. It is a forced mate, and very tricky!

Mate in 6

2006-09-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

This is a forced mate in 6. White to play. Good luck! Look for the hint in the "comments" area.

www.jeffreyashton.com

2006-09-18T09:26:00.000-07:00

Now you can go to www.jeffreyashton.com to reach my home page. There is not much on there as of yet, but I do have an archive of some of the articles I have on this blog. I plan on adding a list of "frequently asked questions" from parents that are curious about helping their children improve. Also I will list all of the books and software that I recommend any student should have. This probably won't be done until after September 30 (my LSAT day).

2006-09-18T09:05:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. My blog is back again. Thanks to all of those who have been bugging me about it!

This puzzle is White to play and Mate in 5. I will put a hint under the "comments" area.

I tore my left bicep while I was in Michigan about a month ago, and I never let it heal properly. I kept on playing basketball. So my arm just got worse. I told myself that I would try not to use my left arm too much while playing basketball, but that didn't work at all. So for the last few days I have been wearing a sling on my left arm to let it properly rest. I think I am almost back to 100%. The moral of the story is that when you tear a muscle, rest it right away instead of playing sports!

Other than that I have been studying for the LSAT several hours a day, and I am becoming somewhat of an LSAT expert. I took a few practice tests and I am getting top scores, so I am happy with that.

September 30 is the LSAT

2006-09-07T00:29:00.000-07:00

I am officially registered for the September 30 LSAT. I will be taking it at Texas Southern University, at 8:30 am. I've been studying for this test for almost a year now and I plan on doing well. I doubt that many people study for the LSAT for a whole year. Just to make sure that I give myself a chance to ace it (I haven't aced any of the practice tests yet..), I will study no less than 2 hours a day for the next 23 days. Some days I will have to study for 5 hours, as I will be taking the full length practice test. Once I finish this test, I will have a lot more free time and I will be quite relieved. Starting in January, I will start studying for the GRE test. I am not 100% sure I will go to Law school, and I am expanding my options by taking the GRE also. Wish me luck!

Sports Psychology and "The Mental Edge"

2006-09-01T22:50:00.000-07:00

Lately I've taken an interest in sports psychology. I believe that this is a subject that is overlooked by too many chess players. I feel that several of my students could instantly become a few hundred rating points stronger if they change some psychological weaknesses, such as their confidence level. Many chess players might ignore sports psychology with the attitude that it only relates to baseball, tennis, and golf. Others might think that sports psychology is not a serious field at all and it deserves respect from no one. I believe that methods used by sports psychologists are very useful, and completely related to chess. Any serious chess player and coach should become familiar with sports psychology and try to read as much material about it as possible.

To begin my self-education in the field, I read the book "The Mental Edge" by Kenneth Baum. According to the reviews on Amazon.com, this book seems to be one of the most popular. I found it so interesting that I read it in less than a day. The author discusses many techniques that world class athletes use to improve their performance. I am very impressed by how many sports teams and athletes use these methods. It seems that any credible sports team or organization invests a lot of time and money into sports psychology. I also find it interesting that so much neuroscience research supports the techniques that sports psychologists use. Credible universities such as Harvard have conducted significant amounts of research in this field.

This book teaches the reader several specific methods to improve their athletic performance. One of the methods is visualization. I learned from this book that by visualizing yourself participating in an activity, you are creating physical activity in the nerves involved in that activity. So if you visualize yourself serving a tennis ball, there will be physical activity in the muscles of your serving arm. This might not apply to chess 100%, but I still find it to be very interesting. This book also lists many methods to develop confidence in one's own ability (this is probably the most useful area to chess players). One very good method that I like is what the author describes as a "History Search". This involves recalling a specfic successful memory in the sport you are performing in, and visualizing it in great detail to build confidence. A chess player can employ this method by visualizing in detail a time where he beat someone much higher rated to win a prize. It is key that the the visualization be done in great detail. You must recall as many details as possible. Things such as what the tournament hall looked like, smelled like, how cold it was, how you felt after you won, who congratulated you, and anything else that makes the memory as real as possible is very important for this excercise to work.I like the idea of using this method, and also quickly reviewing the game before you play your tournament round. If you have a laptop, you can play through this game very quickly with a program like Chessbase or Chessmaster.

I am writing this blog entry mainly to encourage the readers to have an open-mind and give sports psychology a chance. I know that many readers might think of sports psychology as a "quasi-science" that is not worth paying attention to. I at one point had a similar attitude.
By reading books like "The Mental Edge", I think chess players will develop techniques to play to their full potential, and I think this should be the goal of any serious chess player. Almost all of the techniques used by athletes can somehow be applied to chess.

From studying sports psychology I am getting ideas that will make me a more versatile coach, but I also look forward to using the methods to improve my own chess playing. After reading this book I plan on reading a few more sports psychology books. I will be a very unique chess master in that I will be more knowledgable in this field than most other chess players. I think studying these books will help many chess players, including myself, a lot more than learning more openings, endgames, and tactics. Sports psychology is the factor that could take many chess players to the next level.

2006-08-27T22:41:00.000-07:00

White to play and force checkmate.

Unfortunately I will have to decline my invitation to play in the "Clearlake Invitational Tournament" in October. It is too bad as this is a tournament with all Masters, and tournaments this strong almost never come to the Houston area.
I will also be skipping the Southwest Open in Dallas.

Being realistic, I think for the next couple of years I will only be able to play one or two tournaments a year as I do not have much free time on the weekends. I plan on continuing to study so when I have more free time in the future, I will not be too rusty.

Right now I am continuing to study for my LSAT. I will be taking the test in September. I have been studying for the test for almost a year now, and I feel pretty confident that I can get a top score. After I take the LSAT I will also take the GRE so I can keep my options open. Wish me good luck on these tests!

White to play and force mate

2006-08-26T06:06:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. It is about 8:00 am right now and I am about to teach some lessons. Here is one puzzle for the day! Good luck to all of those playing in the Houston Chess Club this weekend.

2006-08-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

Here is another chess puzzle. White to play and force mate.

Since I don't have too much interesting to say, I will share a chess quote.

“I give 98 percent of my mental energy to Chess.Others give only 2 percent”-Bobby Fischer

I like this quote because I believe it explains a very important "secret" of playing chess well.

Often the difference between a Master and an Expert is that the Master consistently plays his best. I know many Experts who sometimes play like Masters. I know many 1300 players who sometimes play like 1800 players. The key word is "sometimes". It is very important to consistently play your best. One time when I was at the World Open when I was a young expert, I asked Aviv Friedman, an internationally renowned chess coach for some advice on how to win my next game. He told me to play the game like it is the last game I will ever play in life.

Whether it is round 5 in a tournament where you have no chance to win a trophy, or it is a game against a Grandmaster where you blundered pawn on move 10. You must always concentrate to your fullest, and use all of your capabilities to win the game.

Puzzle

2006-08-24T10:16:00.000-07:00

White to play and win.

Hey everyone! This is two days in a row that I posted a blog. I don't have too much to say, but enjoy the puzzle! In the next few days I'm going to post some thoughts about what I think it takes to become a Master.

Puzzle and Trip Report

2006-08-23T09:23:00.000-07:00

In the puzzle here, it is White to play and force mate. There are two main variations.

Hi everyone. I'm back from my traveling. I had a very relaxing vacation in Michigan. When I spoke to some of my blog readers a while ago, I had possible plans to visit my family in South Korea, but that fell through. Hopefully I'll go there next summer.

I spent the last few weeks in Michigan. While there, most of my family from around the U.S. were in town for a family reunion. We rented a big cabin on the lake. We spent time kayaking, playing board games, playing pool, frisbee, horseshoes, eating good food, and reading (my family's #1 passion).

We also made a trip to Mackinac Island located on Lake Huron. It is an amazing place and I have never been there before. I found it very nice that absolutely no cars are allowed on the island, so you must ride a bike or a horse for transportation. My family rented bikes, and we went for a nice 5 mile bike ride.

When I returned to Houston, Ben Finegold (my childhood chess coach), his wife Kelly, and their two children were in town visiting. I took them to a fewrestaraunts and ice cream shops. Everything was great until Ben somehow managed to destroy his rental car backing out of my parking garage. He hit one of the pillars, and he was going very slowly. It seemed physically impossible, but it managed to dent his car in a way that pushed metal into his tire, making his car undrivable. It was very bad luck! We waited all night for the tow truck to take away his car and bring him a new rental car. One thing that was very admirable about Ben and Kelly was the fact that they didn't seem stressed out at all during these unfortunate circumstances. I knew and they knew that this would cause them a lot of hassle, as well as a lot of money. Maybe part of being a great chess player is to have a very relaxed and care-free attitude when it comes to trivial things like totaled rental cars. For many other people, the accident might have ruined the visit, but not them.

Right now I'm looking forward to a great semester. I know all of you chess players are eager to improve and I am sure this year will be the year many of you make huge rating jumps.

I will try to post to my blog more often. If you don't see me post in a while, just keep bugging me about it and I will.

Going to Michigan

2006-07-31T11:35:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, and thank you for faithfully reading my blog even though I haven't been updating it as much as I used to. I will be going to Michigan until August 20 to visit family. If you have any questions while I'm gone, I insist that you email me. I always love discussing chess. I encourage all students to do as many tactical excercises as possible, and just study chess until the school year begins. Before you know it, there will be tournaments every few weeks.

Here is one for you to enjoy. It is White to play and win.

Quick update

2006-07-13T09:58:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not posting in a long time. Right now I'm getting ready for the Houston Open this weekend. I am not as prepared as I would like to be, but I'll spend a lot of time today and tomorrow doing some tactical training and also review my openings. I encourage my students and friends to do the same!

My new "Best Game" from the National Open.

2006-06-21T21:57:00.000-07:00

This is from my round 6 game against the German player Axel Stephan, who is rated 2320. This game was important because if I wanted a chance to win the U2300 prize, I had to win.

This is one of my favorite games that I ever played, and very close to perfectly played. I think it's very instructional how I played against the Stonewall formation. I then did a nice switch from the queenside attack to the kingside attack. View the whole game by clicking
here.

Las Vegas National Open Mini-Report

2006-06-21T15:59:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. I just got back from Las Vegas after playing in the National Open. This is a brief update and I will add more details within the next few weeks.

I did well in the tournament gaining rating points. I finished with 3.5 out of 6 tying for 1st place Under 2300. I got a cash prize, plus a gift certificate from the bookstore.

I believe I played very well in all of my games, even in the ones I lost.

Round 1: Drew International Master Odondoo (when I was completely winning, but messed up in time pressure)
Round 2: Lost to a Master after playing well, and then it got messy in time pressure and I made some mistakes.
Round 3: Beat 2004 U.S. Woman's Champion Tatov Abrahamyan (Womens Fide Master) in a game where it was pretty even until she made a mistake in time pressure.
Round 4: Lost a hard fought game to International Master Kong Deng. He played very well and ground me down in a very long game.
Round 5: Beat a 2080 in a position where I was defending from the opening. I defended really well, and then caught him with a few tactical surprises to achieve a winning position.
Round 6: Beat Axel Stephen, a 2320 rated German player. I believe this might be one of the best games I ever played in my life, and I will post it shortly. It was a very instructional game that many of my students will learn from.

My crazy chess teaching lifestyle!

2006-06-09T20:42:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. My schedule has been extremely hectic.

During this last week, I've been teaching at the Klein Chess camp during the day, then teaching in the evening as well. I've been spending this week waking up at 6am and going to bed around 10pm, with hardly any free time at all (I spend this time making lesson plans). I'll also be teaching about 8 hours a day this weekend, and I also have to attend my law school admission test class on Sunday for about 4 hours. Monday I have another camp week (T.H. Rogers), where I will be busy from 6am until 10pm again. At the end of the week on Friday evening (after finishing the camp) I fly to Vegas. Saturday and Sunday I will play in the two day schedule (playing chess for about 8 hours a day). I have no idea how I will play in Vegas. Sunday night (after round 6) I fly back to Houston, so I can make it in time for my 3rd camp starting the next day on Monday! It is a good thing that I love chess or I would probably be going insane from all of this work! When I moved to Houston I didn't think that I would be teaching chess for 60 hours a week.

The Klein Chess camp was a great success as usual. Congratulations to Mr. Liptrap for running another great camp. Hopefully when I get some free time (at this rate, it will be sometime in August) I will update my blog with more chess stuff and post my games.

Texas State Championship Part 1

2006-05-29T22:26:00.000-07:00

I played in the Texas State Championship this Memorial Day weekend. I actually finished it a few hours ago, and I am completely exhausted (physically and mentally). I am struggling to stay awake as I type this. I heard that playing a game of chess is as physically exhausting as 3 rounds of boxing. Karpov lost 30 pounds or so when he played in the World Championship one year. I have always been a little skeptical of these "facts" but I personally feel like I can sleep for a whole day. Luckily I am taking a little trip to Dallas for a couple days so I can get some rest.

These are my overall results with a brief summary of the game (the ratings are rounded).

Round 1: White - Win against Chris Toolin (2150)
I was winning, he was winning, then I won.
I played the opening and middle game extremely well. I won a piece, but he got compensation. In time pressure I made a few errors and he stood better. For a few moves he was completely winning (if he played the winning move I could have resigned at one point). He made some horrible mistakes towards the end and I came back to win. The strangest thing about this game was that for a very long time, I had less than 30 seconds. On some moves I made I had less than 5 seconds. There was a 30 second increment, so it was hard for me to lose on time, but I really had to think fast for a few moves. He always had over an hour on his clock. He did something that was very bad though: He moved very fast because he saw that I was low on time, and he wanted me to lose on time. If he used his time to find the best move, I probably would have lost. At one point soon before he lost, I attacked his Bishop with a knight in a position where he stood better. I had about 30 seconds at this point and he had over an hour. He just ignored it and let me take his Bishop for free. With all due respect to him, I've never seen an expert do this before. I think he was really thinking too much about trying to beat me on time. He is a young talented player that plays chess for UTD (my school) and I think he will avoid making this mistake with a little bit more experience. I know he must feel absolutely horrible for losing the game, and I feel bad for him.

Round 2: Win against Adam Coveney (2150)

I was winning, he was winning, then I won.

I played very well in the beginning. In time pressure I won material, but I let him get a nice counter-attack. If I converted the win when I should have without messing up, this would have been one of the best games I ever played. At one point in time pressure my king was running around the board to avoid checkmate. He was completely winning at this point but he was low on time also. I played some perfect moves in extremely complicated situations where I had only a few seconds on my clock. It was almost as if I had to "guess" the best moves a few time, but I kept on "guessing" right. I had to find the best move to avoid being checkmated, and it seems that I dodged checkmate perfectly each time. Because of this I was able to avoid being checkmated. Then I came back and won.

Round 3: Draw against GM Magesh (2550)

I was winning then we drew.

He played into an opening that I have been preparing carefully. The game started equal, then I got a huge advantage, but I took a draw. More info is below.

Round4: Loss against GM Alejandro Ramirez (2550)
He played like a very strong GM. I played well too, but he lost. He stood better the whole game and won. I learned a lot from this game. This is by far my most instructive game of the tournament.

Round 5: Draw against Selby Anderson (2250)
I was better for most of the game, then he equalized and we drew.

Round 6: Draw against Warren Harper (2200)

I used experience from the Ramirez game to get an excellent position against Warren. I stood better for a lot of the game, then he stood slightly better for a few moves, then we took a draw in an equal position (I was low on time when I accepted his draw offer. Otherwise I would have played on). Earlier in the game he offered a draw and I declined. Then later I offered a draw and he declined. Then a few moves later he offered a draw and I accepted when I had 2 minutes on my clock.

Round7: Draw against Chris K. Land (2200)

Equal game where I thought I had a winning tactic, but instead I had to go into a very boring drawish position. We drew early.

Total: 4 out of 7 (gained 10 rating points)

I did ok in the tournament, but nothing great. This post is a general summary of the tournament... I will soon post my annotated games and write some more about the tournament in the future. I plan on doing this after every tournament I play in. This will be useful for me as a player, and I think it will be very useful for the readers who want to learn how a Master approaches serious competition. I like to write a lot about a lot of the mental facets involved in tournaments, as well as describing my games in detail, so stay tuned for that. Also I am sorry that I did not post anything new in almost a month. I have just been very busy.

I finished with 4 points out of 7, and I gained about 10 rating points. Considering that this is my first tournament in almost a year, I was happy with my plus score. I also got to play two GMs (drawing one, and playing a well against the other). I always prefer to lose to a GM than to beat a Master as I learn much more this way.

It was pretty obvious that I am rusty, based on the time pressure I was getting into. I would say that I played about 30 moves (between two games) in this tournament where I had less than 30 seconds on my clock! The fact that there is a 30 second increment made it so I never lost on time (I won both of these games). Spectators told me that there were many times when I had less than 5 seconds (apparently I got down to 2 seconds a few times). In 6 games I got into time pressure. This is not good! Every morning before I drove to the tournament, I did about 10 pretty simple tactical puzzles to "warm up". It's weird, but there were many times where I was in time pressure and I had to find the best move very quickly. I felt that my tactical "eye" was very sharp, and maybe these morning warmup puzzles helped me out. Mark Dvoretsky (possibly the world's most famous chess trainer) and GM Yuri Shulman both recommend doing puzzles before a tournament game. Yuri told me it's a "blunder check". Mark Dvoretsky writes that it is similar to a musician playing scales before a recital. This is something that I will always do for now on.

In the games where I played the best I only got draws. In two other games I played superbly in the beginning but then I made some errors in time pressure and I was completely losing. However in both of these games where I was losing, I defended very well and came back to win. One of my favorite things in chess is to win a game where I am "hopelessly" losing. One of my biggest strengths as a player is that I am very good at defending positions where I am losing.

In my first day I played 3 games, and got 2.5 out of 3 (drawing a GM). So I guess I was not too rusty. I felt that I was getting stronger after each game, and I played my best in day 2 and 3 (although my results were best on day 1).

I did two things in this tournament that I thought were very weak of me. Against Grandmaster Magesh, I took a draw in a much better position. Fritz thought I was clearly better, with a decisive advantage. I knew I was better when he offered the draw, although I spent all of my energy trying to calculate a forced win (I had a variation that comes very close to winning by force, but it just leaves me with a clear advantage). However if I just play simple moves in the position where I took the draw, I am winning also. I felt nervous having about 18 minutes on my clock when he offered the draw, and I didn't have confidence in my ability to convert the win against the GM. I know that if an IM or weaker offered me a draw I would not even consider accepting, but I just have so much respect for Magesh's play. Either way, that was weak of me, and I will not repeat that mistake again. Twice before, GMs offered me draws in a position where I was much better and I declined (and then went on to lose). Maybe I had those memories in the back of my head.

Another very weak thing I did was in the final round. I played an opening that I played several times. I thought my opponent made a blunder that allowed me to trade off my queen for two rooks (giving me a material advantage). I played the first move of my combination which was a simple pawn trade that is normally not good in this opening. After he recaptured the pawn, I realized that it was not good for me to trade off my queen for two rooks. My calculation of the tactic was correct, I just misevaluated the position after I win the material. I decided that if I go into the variation I will be worse, so I had to go with a different plan . The problem is I already worsened my position by making the preliminary pawn trade. Either way, the main thing that I did wrong was not spend enough time on this move. This was a very critical decision, and I should have spent maybe 20 minutes or so before making the move. I probably spent less than 10 minutes. After I made this mistake, I had a completely even position where we soon agreed to a draw.

In my game against Grandmaster Ramirez I thought I played very well, and he played brilliantly. I made a few slight errors in the opening. I then reviewed the game carefully after playing it. I found about three improvements in my opening. The next day I played Warren Harper and he repeated the exact same opening. I was able to play my three improvements and I got an excellent position against him (much better than the one I got against Ramirez). It goes to show you that opening preparation and reviewing your games carefully will help you improve immediately. Too bad I could only draw the game against Warren (he played incredibly well).

I went to this tournaement with a few simple goals. I consider myself to be a very "realistic" person when it comes to making goals. I know some people try to psyche themself up by "thinking big". I don't think being over-confident helps me play any better, and my moves are still to the best of my ability when I have realistic expectations of myself. It might seem that I have low expectations of myself, but keep in mind that I have not played in almost a year. Once I play a few more tournaments I will set higher goals.

1) To not lose a significant amount of rating points.

I was successful in this goal. I actually gained 10 rating points. When a Master is rusty, sometimes we can lose a lot of rating points by losing to a lower rated player who is "in shape".

2) Play all 7 games equally hard no matter how well I am doing in the tournament. To not "fade" at all and play worse at the end of the tournament. I want a person to be able to look at all 7 games, and not be able to tell which game I played early in the tournament when I was "fresh" and which games I played at the end of the tournament where I am "tired".

I did a good job with this. I am actually quite proud of how mentally tough I was this tournament, although I was slightly weak in my last game where I misevaluated a variation. But I think that could have happened to me in any round.

3) Not "fade" at all throughout my game due to fatigue or psychological reasonings (such as giving up on a worse position). Basically to play the endgame as well as the middle game, and middle game as well as the opening.

Again I did very well in this. I know I played worse when I was in time pressure, but I never "faded" for any reasons other than having to move fast.

4) Not to withdraw (play all 7 games with no byes) no matter how poor I am doing in the tournament.

I played all games, and I never considered withdrawing. But then again, I was always doing pretty well in the tournaemnt. In the past I often don't play my last round if I have to play a weaker opponent (and when I am not in contention for a prize).

5) Get a lot of sleep each night.

I could have done better with this. I got about 6.5 to 7 hours each night (mainly because I was doing opening preparation each night on my computer). For me I think it's much better to get more sleep than this, but I never felt tired during my games.

I feel that the training I have been doing in the past few months have really paid off. Although I am rusty as a player, I still have a lot of skill from all of the hard work I've been putting in. If I just played in this tournament without doing the work I put into it, I probably would have done poorly. Once I play more often, and study as I have been, I expect to become much stronger and hopefully improve my rating to the next level.

In the next post I will show my games with notes about by play. Thanks for reading!

1100 Level Puzzle: Game against former coach Rade Milovanovic.

2006-05-03T08:09:00.000-07:00

Black to play and eventually checkmate white (or force white to sacrifice his queen to defend).

This puzzle is probably good for about the 1100 rated player, although anyone can solve it. Look for the answer in the "comments" area.

This is a game where I am White. I am playing against my coach at the time, International Master Rade Milovanovic. He is the first coach of the University of Texas at Dallas chess team and has been there ever since. I was a freshman in college when he joined the team. During that year our team was a lot different than it is now. For one thing, we only had about six masters total. We only had the man-power to send one team to tournaments. Now University of Texas at Dallas often sends three strong teams to tournaments and could send five if they wanted to.

Rade helped our team win several National and Pan-American chess championships. I not only thought of him as my coach, but also a close friend. He would often invite members of the team over to his house for wonderful dinners cooked by his wife. We used to have long discussions about things such as his career as a chess player in war-torn Yugoslavia, or simpler things such as "World Wrestling Entertainment". He was always laughing and joking, so he put the chess team at ease during critical times in tournaments.

He is also a very strong chess player. Recently he won a very large prize in the "HB Global Chess Challenge tournament" in Minneapolis. This is the biggest open tournament in America and it had a $500,000 prize fund. I saw Rade at the State Championship held in Houston a few months ago. He was coaching University of Texas at Dallas players in the collegiate section. I was telling him about how I plan on playing chess very seriously again, but I am concerned that I might not do well because I am rusty. He encouraged me by telling me how he played almost no chess in the year before he won his prize in Minneapolis.

I like his playing style very much, and it is somewhat similar to mine. He plays in a very simple, solid manner but with a very keen eye for tactics. This is kind of like how the former World Champion Tigran Petrosian plays (he is possibly my favorite world champion). Rade has a very good understanding of positional chess, and he can play many different openings because of it. I would never know what opening to prepare for when I played him. He is a very good blitz player because of his great positional understanding. This goes to show you that you do not need to play complicated tactical chess like Gary Kasparov to be a strong chess player. If you just have a very good positional understanding then you can do well.

In the "puzzle" position, I am playing White. Out of the opening I achieved a small advantage in a variation of the Queens Gambit Declined. I held this advantage for much of the middle game, but he very calmly defended. I used to have a serious weakness that is common among many players strong and weak. If we let an advantage slip away, we then start to play worse. Alex Yermolinsky addresses this psychological issue very carefully in his "trends and turning points" chapter in Road to Chess Improvement. Let me give you a hypothetical example of this happening:

You are up a pawn for most of the game. You now blunder two pawns back. You become very discouraged. Instead of being ahead one pawn you are now down one pawn. You now start to make more blunders, and you defend the endgame lazily. You then go on to lose the game very fast, even though there was still a lot of fight left in the position.

Yermolinsky uses graphs to demonstrate that more mistakes happen right after a player makes an error that changes the nature of the game. This chapter in his book has helped me improve a lot. In my opinion, the best way to solve this problem is to simply understand that the problem exists (I believe Yermoinsky says this too). If you are playing a game where you just made an error that gives your opponent an advantage (or you simply lose your advantage), take a little break. Get up and walk around if you have to. Remind yourself that you might (and probably will) start playing worse because you are shaken up psychologically. Once you admit that this might happen, remind yourself that you do not have to play worse. Make a very conscious effort to play the rest of the game to the best of your ability. Go back to your game and forget the past, and play it as if it were a brand new game.

Simple puzzle

2006-05-02T11:07:00.000-07:00

This is a game where I am White (I am playing a blitz game). Black played Ng4, and I carelessly responded with Nc2? (the losing move).
How can Black force the win of a pawn, and also gain a winning attack at the same time? Hint: The Ng4 move had a very simple threat.

After losing this game, I studied the opening pretty carefully and I learned quite a bit about this Ng4 move. It turns out that when Black plays Ng4, white should immediately play h3! (I was worried about Qb6 after h3, but that is the main line). This is a good example of why blitz can be incredibly helpful in learning openings.

Intermediate Level Puzzle (USCF 600+) and a quick update

2006-05-01T07:56:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. Just a little update: I've been studying a lot lately, mainly the opening. I've also looked at many games over the past few weeks and I am learning quite a bit. For me the best way to learn an opening is to find a strong player who plays it regularly, and look at every single game he plays in it. In chess, like many areas of academia it is easiest to "stand on the shoulder of giants". It is unbelievable how useful chessbase is for me. I've also been using "Bookup" a little bit, and it is somewhat useful also.

I re-read most of "Road to Chess Improvement" by Grandmaster Alex Yermolinsky. This is one of my favorite books for the advanced player. I recommend it to mainly adult players, or very advanced junior players (with a high reading level). I just ordered three more chess books from Amazon.Com:
Chess for Zebras by Jonathan Rowson
Seven Deadly Chess Sins by Jonathan Rowson
Chess Explained: The Classical Sicilian by Alex Yermolinsky

The first two books are supposedly very good. They have a lot to do with the psychology in chess from what I understand.

The Yermolinsky book is an opening book, and I normally hate to buy opening books because I do not believe they help someone of my level too much (being proficient with chessbase and fritz). Apparently this is a different style of opening book. The author uses a rare approach to teaching the opening, in that he does not focus on variations. He shows games in the opening, and really tries to explain the middle game that result from the opening. Most opening books just concentrate on feeding the reader with the "best" theoretical moves, and how to achieve an advantage or equality once you reach the middle game. This is not a bad thing, but I can do this on my own with chessbase. For a lower rated player, this can be quite useful. These types of opening books help lower rated players (around 1400-2000). I must also point out that I really like Yermolinsky's writing style, as he is absolutely hillarious! In his Road to Chess Improvement book I was laughing out loud many times, and chess books very rarely make people do that. I also had the pleasure of playing Yermolinsky once in the North American Open in Las Vegas a few years. It was a very interesting game (it can be found in most databases, including www.chessgames.com).

I plan on playing in the Texas State Championship and the National Open for sure, and I'm most likely going to play in the World Open. Over the summer I will be in Houston for the majority of the time, but I do plan on going home to Ann Arbor Michigan and also to Dallas.

This is White to play and force mate in 5 moves. Mate in 5 might sound difficult, but this one isn't too hard. Hint: Every move is check.

2 Intermediate Level Puzzles

2006-04-25T07:10:00.000-07:00

These puzzles are from recent games that I played. I will try to add more puzzles to this website for my students and chess enthusiasts to enjoy. Feel free to submit the answer in the comments area.

Puzzle #1: Black to play and force checkmate.

Puzzle 2: White to play and win Black's queen.

Update

2006-04-14T00:12:00.000-07:00

Just an update. I've still been studying a lot of chess, almost 2 hours a day. That is a lot better than my 2 hours a week goal. I am now making plans to play in the World Open as well as the National Open. I am playing a training match (Game in 55 minutes) against another strong player. In the first game, I felt pretty rusty. I played well, got in time pressure, then blundered all of my pieces when I had a few minutes left. Getting in time pressure is something that shouldn't happen to me too often once I get back in shape. In the 2nd game I played very well and I felt like I'm back to form. I won the game on time in a better position, and I didn't make any mistakes the whole game. Fritz basically thought I played perfectly (which is very rare in my games). I'll post the games on this blog eventually. I feel very confident with my playing ability at the moment, and think that I might have a very good performance this summer if I get a chance to play in a few tournaments. Also I achieved an all-time high five-minute rating on ICC of 2306 (62nd best overall).

Outside of chess I have been studying a lot for the LSAT. I plan on taking it at the end of this summer.

Great chess book on education

2006-04-06T20:22:00.000-07:00

There is a great new book about chess and education. It is titled "Children and Chess: A Guide for Educators". It is written by Womens International Master Dr. Alexey Root. She teaches a course on chess and education at the University of Texas at Dallas. She also writes regularly for many chess magazines, including Chess Life. This book will be beneficial to anyone who is curious about learning chess, or helping someone else improve.

Go to http://lu.com/showbook.cfm?isbn=1591583586 for more information.

If you use the special discount code "F238" the price will be $20 instead of $25.

Training Update 4-7-06

2006-04-06T12:36:00.000-07:00

Today I studied for about an hour and a half. I decided that I can probably study about 1-1.5 hours a day on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in the morning before I teach chess. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays I'm normally too busy to get any real work in. I will raise my official goal to 3 hours a week of studying, since the 2 hours a week is too easy.

Today I completed one of two homework assignments Ben Finegold gave me to work on. It is a position that he asked me to spend 40 minutes analyzing. It was Black to play, with two candidate moves, and I had to analyze which one is better.

The other assignment I started working on, but didn't finish yet. To annotate the following game:

(1539) Bologan,V (2661) - Zvjaginsev,V (2664) [B35]
7th Karpov Poikovsky RUS (3), 20.03.2006
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Bc4 0–0 8.Bb3 e6 9.f4 d6 10.h3 Na5 11.0–0 b6 12.f5 exf5 13.exf5 Nxb3 14.axb3 Bb7 15.Qd2 Nh5 16.Bh6 Bxh6 17.Qxh6 Qh4 18.Nf3 Bxf3 19.Rxf3 Qd4+ 20.Kh1 Rae8 21.Rd1 Qh4 22.Kh2 Re1 23.g4 Rxd1 24.gxh5 Qxh5 25.Qf4 Re1 26.Rg3 Rfe8 27.Rg5 Rf1 0–1

Progress report and Internet Game

2006-04-06T00:11:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been way ahead of my 2 hours a week goal of studying. I've been studying for close to 1 hour a day.

I worked with Ben Finegold today over the phone. He showed me some of his games and tried to give me some general advice on how to play better in tournaments so I can beat players stronger than myself. I hope to win my section in the National Open, and qualify for the U.S. Championship. I think I have good chances of winning my section, but the odds are against me of qualifying for the U.S. Championship. Who knows, maybe I will get lucky.

I played an internet game later where I played very well. I checked the game with Fritz after the game was over, and I played pretty much perfectly, which is rare for a such a short time control (especially when I am playing). My performance rating is very high with the English opening, and I think I will try to learn it better.

The position on the diagram is White to move and get a winning advantage. For the whole game, click here.

Right now my Internet Chess Club "5-Minute" rating is 2281. That does not sound very high, but that actually ranks me as the current 102nd best 5-minute player on ICC, which I am kind of proud of because there are over 30,000 members.

National Open June 16-18.

2006-04-04T23:56:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I do things on a whim. Earlier tonight I was thinking that I need to play some chess over the summer. An hour later I finished purchasing airline tickets and reserving two nights for my trip to Las Vegas. I will be playing in the National Open Championship section on June 17 and June 18 (I am playing in the two day section). It will be a hectic week. On the week of June 12, I am teaching at the TH Rogers chess camp, after finishing the Klein chess camp the week before. On Friday, after teaching all day, I will immediately pack some things, go to the airport, and fly out at 9:15 pm. I will arrive in Vegas around 10:30 pm Vegas time. Saturday morning I will play 4 games (although I might take a half point bye). Sunday, I will play two more games. At 1:15 am Monday morning, I will then fly back home to Vegas. If my last game on Sunday goes for the full 6 hours, I will have to rush to avoid missing my flight. So I hope I crush my opponent quickly. It will be a quick, tiring, and exciting trip. I plan on studying chess VERY hard until then. I will continue to post a study report (I have met my goal of studying 2 hours for week 1), and I will also post a trip report.

For more information about the tournament, go to: http://www.lvchessfestival.com/natlopen/index.php

Closed Sicilian Puzzle/Annotated Game

2006-04-02T00:22:00.000-08:00

This is from my game. I played it on the Internet Chess Club against a 2088 player. I am Black. Find the winning move.

When I play blitz (5 minute or faster) on the internet, I try to take my openings very seriously. I then review my openings in "Chess Base" pretty thoroughly. If I learn one thing from every blitz game I play, I will learn thousands of new things a year.

For the whole game with annotations,

Click Here

Xu Yuhua wins the Women's World Championship

2006-03-31T16:43:00.000-08:00

This is from the Internet Chess Club e-mail newsletter:

Xu Yuhua Wins The Women's World Champion Chinese player, Xu Yuhua, defeated Alisa Galliamova of Russia in the best-of-four finals at the Women's World Chess Championship in Ekaterinburg, Russia. Yuhua defeated Galliamova two times with the black pieces making this an amazing victory for her. The final score of the final match up was 2.5:0.5. At the concluding press conference Yuhua announced that she is four months pregnant with expected due date in September! Yuhua said "I think my baby was the one to help me". Xu Yuhua was also the Women's World Cup Champion in 2000 and 2002. An impressive career so far! Visit the official site of the Women's World Champion or you can also visit the ICC tournament page. Download all the games from the finals.

Question + Answer: Becoming weak through lack of study

2006-03-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

Someone emailed me a question. If you have any questions that you think are suitable for everyone to view, please post it in the "comments" area, and I will respond in the same way. I will dedicate a post to answering the question though:

The person wrote:
Thanks for the "inside" information! You wrote that your goal is to spend 2 hours/week and that you did practically no studying last year. May I ask if you became weaker without training or are many things so "hardwired" in your brain that you do not need much studying to keep playing at a given level?

I definitely became a little bit weaker, but not by much. The main thing that happens when I am not studying is I might forget a few opening variations, but this shouldn't weaken a player significantly. In my opinion, once you learn something in chess it becomes somewhat hardwired (generally speaking) into your brain. Chess masters rely on intuition and experience for most of their playing strength, and it's hard to lose that. I think the main reason I got weaker is my lack of playing in tournaments. When I made my journey from 1100 to Master, I was playing in one or two challenging tournaments a month. Now I am lucky to play one tournament a year. To avoid getting weaker it is important to "stay in shape" by competing in tournaments regularly. It is also important to stay in tactical shape. For less experienced players it is best to do this by solving puzzles. For stronger players I think solving puzzles and playing internet chess (even blitz) is a good way to stay in tactical shape.

Again feel free to post appropriate questions in the "Comments" area and I will gladly respond in the same way.

Passed Pawn Tactics

2006-03-29T21:25:00.000-08:00

Ok, I just created a new file full of interesting "passed pawn" tactics. I was going to show this to a school I teach at this week. This file is unique in that the answers are given right away and you can play through them. So if you really want to try to solve them yourself, you will have to cover the answers below.

Click Here

2006-03-29T10:44:00.000-08:00

This is a game played between Alekhine and Tarrasch. I just looked at for the first time. This is a game played between two great players in a famous tournament. I have to admit that it bored me, and I did not find it educational at all! The opening Alekhine plays is very played nowadays because it isn't considered very strong. Alekhine is one of my favorite players, but I don't like his writing very much as I do not find it very objective.

(7) Alekhine,A - Tarrasch,S [D15]Hastings Hastings (2), 1922[Ashton,Jeff]
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.e3 b5 6.a4 b4 7.Na2 e6 [ 7...a5 8.Bxc4 e6 9.0-0 Be7 10.Bd2 0-0 11.Nc1 Nbd7 12.Nb3 Bb7 13.Qe2 c5 14.Rfd1 Qb6 15.Be1 Rfd8 16.Bb5] 8.Bxc4 Be7 9.0-0 0-0 10.Qe2 Bb7 11.Rd1 Nbd7 12.e4 [ 12.b3] 12...a5 [ 12...c5 13.dxc5 Bxc5 ( 13...Nxe4 14.Ne5 Nexc5 15.Bb5 Bd5 16.Bxd7 Nxd7 17.Rxd5 exd5 18.Nc6 Qb6 19.Nxe7+ Kh8 20.Nxd5) ] 13.Bg5 Re8 [ 13...h6 14.Bxf6 Nxf6 15.Nc1 Qb6 16.Nb3 c5 17.dxc5 Bxc5] 14.Nc1 Qb6 15.Nb3 h6 16.Be3 Ba6 17.Nfd2 Bxc4 18.Nxc4 Qc7 19.Qf3 c5 20.Bf4 Qb7 21.d5 exd5 22.exd5 Qa6 23.Rac1 Bf8 24.Nbxa5 Ne4 25.Nc6 g5 26.Be5 Nxe5 27.N6xe5 f6 28.Qxe4 fxe5 29.d6 Bg7 30.Qd5+ Kh8 31.Qxc5 1-0

Studied two more endings..

2006-03-29T10:23:00.000-08:00

"The strength of having a rook behind a passed pawn, is that it can also defend from the side" Beliavsky".

This quote was illustrated nicely in the Goldin ending. For those who do not know: It is best to have a rook behind a passed pawn. The second best spot for the rook is to the side of it. If you can not achieve the first two, a rook should be put in front of a passed pawn.

Puzzle

2006-03-28T18:31:00.000-08:00

Hey, I'm just experimenting with the Picasa program to put up new blogs with pictures.

Mate in 2, Black to Move.

Simple Problem

2006-03-28T12:38:00.000-08:00

Ok, this is from a game I just studied. Find White's easiest win.

More study and recognizing Burn Out!

2006-03-28T12:13:00.000-08:00

Ok, what I am doing normally turns out horrible for most people. You see this pattern with many people. It is like I'm trying to run a marathon, but sprinting the first mile. This leads to burnout, and this happens in many types of training. For example, when people make new years resolutions to join a gym and excercise. You see the gyms are packed in January with people excercising 3 hours a day. Come February, the gym is empty again.

The point is, to not get burned out. So when studying.. try to stay with your reasonable goal. I am already over-training. But I should be mindful of this, and not get discouraged when my training slows down a bit. I should make sure to stay with my small 2 hour a week goal.

Anyway, I just studied a nice game between Alekhine and Euwe. Here it is:

Click Here

What I studied today.

2006-03-28T11:31:00.000-08:00

Today I studied for about 30 minutes so far. I examined two rook endings. I will not go into too much detail, but here is a link to the games.

Click Here

My training begins..

2006-03-28T11:15:00.000-08:00

I'm going to put myself on a small chess training program. I will try to post updates here. It might be interesting to some inexperienced players to see how a Chess Master trains.

One thing that I have learned is that it is a good idea to set a reasonable goal when it comes to the time spent on studying. In my opinion it is always best to start with a small study/time goal. I will try to study 2 hours a week (this is a very lazy regime) and if it is too easy I will add more time. Considering that I haven't really done any studying at all in the last year, this is a big improvement over studying zero hours a week.

When I say study, I do not include playing. I play a lot on the internet. This is good practice, but it will only help someone of my level to a certain point. I do count analysis of games that I play as study though. For example, I will play my favorite openings in a blitz game. If someone plays an unusual move I will review it in Chessbase to find what the best response is for future reference.
I plan on studying mainly endgames. Most players find endgame the most difficult thing to study. Hoever, most GMs and IMs will suggest that study in this area is the most important for long term results. Chess players enjoy studying the openings. The reason why is because they can see immediate results. They can learn an opening, then go out and play it the same day. If they memorized a series of moves and play it correctly in a game, this is very satisfying! People also like to study tactics, because it is somewhat enjoyable to search for the answer then solve it correctly. Tactical puzzle solving brings the same enjoyment found in Sudoku puzzles, crosswords, wordsearches, and other logic games. Endgames, in my personal opinion, are the most boring thing to study in chess. There is no immediate gratification. If I master a certain rook ending, it is possible that I will never see it during a game in my whole life. But nonetheless, endgame study will help the player understand chess better, and that is the goal of studying.

I plan to work with one of my old coaches that helped me when I was a junior, International Master Ben Finegold. It is not only important to find a strong coach, but someone that you work well with. I have known Ben since I was a little kid, so I have a good student/coach relationship with him. He is very honest when it comes to telling me my weaknesses. Many coaches try to feed their student's ego too much. Also the fact that he is willing and able to work with me over the phone and internet is a big plus.

New Advanced Puzzles

2006-03-25T20:24:00.000-08:00

Here are a few problems I've been giving my advanced students lately. Keep in mind that some who are rated above 1800 are having trouble solving some of these! I got these problems from Lev Alburt's Pocket Training Book.

Click Here

Useful resources on the internet

2006-03-18T01:06:00.000-08:00

I found this great site for doing puzzles online.
http://chess.emrald.net/index.php

Basically you create a free account, and then the server keeps on giving you puzzles. It times you to see how fast you can finish them, and they give you a rating. I highly recommend this site for practice! There are a lot of people logged on at once, so you can see how well you solve puzzles compared to them.

Also today I created an account on www.chesshere.com which is a "turn based" chess server. It's basically correspondence chess. Right now I am playing 13 games at once on it. I think for most of the readers out there, www.chessclub.com is probably the best site for you, but if you like to play a slower correspondence game, I suggest www.chesshere.com.

Black to Play and Win

2006-03-11T21:14:00.000-08:00

I haven't been putting up too many puzzles lately. Sorry about that. I will try to get more stuff on here. Here is a position from a game that I played against International Master David Strauss. Black is already winning, but this final move got him to resign. Try to find it!

For the complete game, click here.

US Championship, and new bike!

2006-03-03T20:54:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. I haven't had access to "Chessbase", which is the program I use to create the puzzles and games for this website. Sorry about that. I will put up a lot of good stuff starting around Tuesday. So for now, I will just write about a few things that are interesting to me. The U.S. Championship and my new bike!

The U.S. Championship is going on right now in San Diego California. My friend and former coach Ben Finegold is doing very well, with 1.5 out of 2 points. He just beat Grandmaster Kudrin with the Black pieces today. This is a very impressive result! I really hope he wins the whole thing. Another interesting thing is that the the 18 year old fan favorite and America's top player, Hikaru Nakamura, only has .5 out of 2 points. He lost a very complicated game in round 1 against a much weaker opponent, and then could only draw his 2nd round game against another underdog. The U.S. Championship is a very exciting event as there are players of widely different rating levels competing in it. The lowest rated player is rated around 1700 and the highest rated player is close to 2700. With this large rating variance, the games tend to be very exciting and there are a lot of upsets. Very few countries have such an exciting National Championship to watch. For me it is very instructive to observe the way 2700 rated Grandmasters beat players of my level. I find this to be more instructive than watching Grandmasters beat other Grandmasters. It is also entertaining to watch the weaker players score surprise victories against the stronger Grandmasters!

For more information about the U.S. Championship go to: http://www.uschesschampionship.com/ or read Ben Finegold's blog at http://www.benfinegold.com.

In other news, I just bought a brand new bike today. I am very excited. This is my first bike purchase since I was in elementary school! It is a "hybrid" Trek 7300 FX, kind of in between a mountain bike and a road bike. For those who don't know, I have always been physically active playing sports, working out, practicing martial arts, and I just love physical activity. I think this is true with many other strong chess players. When I moved to Houston about a year ago, I started taking an indoor cycling class (on a stationary bike). I was the only person in the class who doesn't ride a bike outdoors. After a year of engaging in indoor cycling, I decided that I will try to get into outdoor cycling. Who knows, maybe you'll see me riding in the M.S. 150 in a few months, but before that I have to learn some things.. such as changing gears, using the brakes, and a few other basics.

That's it for now.

Klein Chess Camp 2006

2006-02-26T21:13:00.000-08:00

The 2006 Klein Chess Camp will be held June 5-9.

I highly recommend the Klein Chess Camp. This will be my fifth time teaching there. I have to say that this is one of the most well run chess camps that I have taught at, and I am honored to be a part of it. Jim Liptrap puts countless hours volunteering with Texas scholastic chess and he organizes this wonderful camp.

For more information, please visit http://chess.jliptrap.us/camp06.htm

Solitaire Chess

2006-02-21T23:21:00.000-08:00

I found the previous article when I was doing research on "Solitaire Chess". It showed up when I did a Google search for "Solitaire Chess". For those who don't know what Solitaire Chess is (I assume this applies to most of the readers), it is simply a method of training where you play over an instructional game, and guess the moves of the winning player. So if Bobby Fischer was White in a game where he won, you try to guess only the White moves.

I recently became so fascinated by Solitaire Chess because I heard that at a recent training camp held for America's top junior players, Grandmaster Kaidanov was stressing the importance of the game. Nationally renowned chess trainer Bruce Pandolfini has a monthly "Solitaire Chess" column in Chess Life magazine, but I always ignored it. He also wrote a book with the same name (I think it is a collection of his articles). I decided to contact two friends of mine (a Grandmaster and an International Master) who are both stronger players than I am. I asked them what their opinions about this training method are. They both highly recommend it! I know a lot of great chess teachers and players are reading my blog, so I will appreciate any feedback you have related to this game.

I decided to be the guinea pig in my own experiment and play the game. After trying it out, I decided that it is a very fun way of improving. When I am playing Solitaire Chess, I find myselfing thinking the same way I do when I play a serious game. When I study using traditional methods, this does not occur. Grandmaster Kaidanov was recommending this training method to people with ratings over 2500 at the recent training camp, and he uses it himself (he is one of the top players in the country). Bruce Pandolfini uses it with his young and inexperienced students. I must warn you that it is important to use a good game to play Solitaire Chess with. If you are a beginner, you must find a simple game! I suggest you use something from a "Game Collection" book, or ask a strong player to recommend some games to use. It is also good to have an annotated copy of the game, so you can review the game in detail after you play Solitaire Chess. I used my book "The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played" written by Irving Chernv, and I used the very nice positional game Smyslov - Rudakovsky. From what I read online, some players play Solitaire Chess with a clock running, to really simulate the chess playing environment.

I created a special Solitaire Chess score-sheet that I highly recommend you use if you play this game. If you would like a copy of it, email me and I will send you the excel file. Fritz and Chessbase have a very nice "training" feature that will allow you to play this game easily. Basically when you load a game in Fritz or Chessbase, you can view the chess moves in "training mode" where it does not display any future moves unless you ask for it, and it will only show you one at a time. If you do not have Fritz or Chessbase, you can play Solitaire chess by simply covering the upcoming moves in a chess book or magazine, or better yet, have another person to help you play this game.

That is enough about Solitaire Chess for now. I am excited because I can use it to improve my own skills, and I will definitely introduce it to my students in the near future.

A "must read" article for those interested in improving or helping someone else improve

2006-02-21T16:34:00.000-08:00

I agree with almost everything in this article and I highly suggest you read it!

http://www.chessville.com/instruction/instr_gen_path_to_improve.htm

Dallas: March 17 through March 20

2006-02-19T23:54:00.000-08:00

I just finalized my plans to go to Dallas on Friday March 17 and return to Houston late on Monday March 20. To the parents of my students, I will be missing classes for those days. I will remind you again closer to the date. After that, I don't plan on taking any out of town trips until the summer. Thanks!

Easy puzzes (Checkmate in 1 move)

2006-02-17T00:37:00.000-08:00

I made another page of puzzles that are a lot simpler than most of the stuff I put on this webpage. The puzzles are all checkmate in 1 move. They are very good practice for less experienced players. If you are an advanced player, I suggest that you try to solve these all correctly as fast as possible.

Click here

Finally more puzzles!

2006-02-17T00:17:00.000-08:00

Sorry I was away from posting for a while. I am back now and ready to share some more interesting chess positions.

Try solving these puzzles. Rating: 800-1100.

Bonus question: What do all of these puzzles have in common?

Click here

Funny Stalemates

2006-02-10T00:22:00.000-08:00

A Stalemate is type of draw that occurs when the person to move has no legal moves and is not in check. You often see this happen in games between inexperienced players due to one side being a bit careless. Sometimes at more advanced levels of chess you see tactics executed by the losing side that result in a draw by stalemate. One time former World Champion Anatoly Karpov carelessly stalemated Judith Polgar when he was ahead a queen and bishop (he was very low on time).

In the following three games you will see some of the most unique stalemates in chess history. These games are "compositions". Both players first memorized these clever moves, then played them out in a game to result in a friendly draw.

Click here for the stalemate "compositions". (I also included the game where Karpov stalemated Polgar).

New exciting game

2006-02-10T00:09:00.000-08:00

I've shown this game to many of my classes. White plays a somewhat simple game with a very nice attack on Black's king. I hope you enjoy! For the less experienced players: when viewing the games on this website, do not get caught up too much in the "side variations". Concentrate on the main lines (the moves in bold print).

Click here for the game!

Jeffrey Ashton's Blog

Great Moments

Chess Panda is up! Visit it often!

Coming soon...

Puzzle Video

Another Video: Queen's Gambit Marshall

Queen's Gambit Video

Testing

Victoria and Vincent

Updates: Nationals and State

New Video: Blackburne's Mate

Back!

Chess Camp Pictures

Puzzles for 7-26-07

Victoria's Chess Puzzles

Shirov-King

The Traffic Light Game

More pictures

Some pictures from the Nationals and Interview Day

Picture of the National Champions

Blog Update

Houston Chronicle Article

Congratulations to the National Champions

Hidden King Game

Dallas

Absent

Cracking The Kingside

Chigorin's Checkmate

Lasker Vs. Thomas

New www.jeffreyashton.com

Video Lesson: Opening Trap against the Smith Morra Gambit

New Video Lesson! White to Play

A few updates

Recommended reading.

Back from Brownsville

Chess Life Article

Budapest Gambit Declined Miniature

Mate in 6

Mate in 6

www.jeffreyashton.com

September 30 is the LSAT

Sports Psychology and "The Mental Edge"

White to play and force mate

Puzzle

Puzzle and Trip Report

Going to Michigan

Quick update

My new "Best Game" from the National Open.

Las Vegas National Open Mini-Report

My crazy chess teaching lifestyle!

Texas State Championship Part 1

1100 Level Puzzle: Game against former coach Rade Milovanovic.

Simple puzzle

Intermediate Level Puzzle (USCF 600+) and a quick update

2 Intermediate Level Puzzles

Update

Great chess book on education

Training Update 4-7-06

Progress report and Internet Game

National Open June 16-18.

Closed Sicilian Puzzle/Annotated Game

Xu Yuhua wins the Women's World Championship

Question + Answer: Becoming weak through lack of study

Passed Pawn Tactics

Studied two more endings..

Puzzle

Simple Problem

More study and recognizing Burn Out!

What I studied today.

My training begins..

New Advanced Puzzles

Useful resources on the internet

Black to Play and Win

US Championship, and new bike!

Klein Chess Camp 2006

Solitaire Chess

A "must read" article for those interested in improving or helping someone else improve

Dallas: March 17 through March 20

Easy puzzes (Checkmate in 1 move)

Finally more puzzles!