Like other sports, chess has its own code of conduct and its own idea of what constitutes sporting and unsporting behaviour. Some types of bad behaviour are expressely forbidden. For example you are not allowed to move a piece with one hand and press the clock with the other (Article 6.2.3 of the FIDE Laws of Chess), because this is an artificial attempt to shorten one’s own clock time and lengthen the opponent’s clock time. It is also forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any way during the game (Article 11.5).
One might argue that chess etiquette simply reflects the more general obligation to treat other human beings with respect and consideration. So, although not required by the rules of the game, it is the done thing to shake your opponent’s hand at the start and end of the game, and to say something polite like “Good luck” at the start and “Well played” or “Thanks for the game” at the end.
Not everyone behaves correctly, or course. Some of my opponents have remarked at the end of the game, “You were lucky to win that,” or “This was not one of your better games,” or “Tonight you did not play to your grade” (say that last one in a Russian accent and you’ll know who I mean).
Similar considerations apply in online correspondence chess, although notions of etiquette may seem more remote when you cannot see or hear your opponent. “Distracting your opponent” doesn’t have the same force when you have days rather than minutes to make a move, and you don’t have to sit at the computer or stay in the same room the whole time.
Even so, I was told at the start of my correspondence career that it is good practice at the start of a game to send a greeting or best wishes to your opponent. And I can see the point of ending the game on a gracious note as well. I regard this sort of thing as a virtual handshake.
What happens if your opponent does something during the game to which you object, but which is not serious enough to engage the ICCF code of conduct? For example if your opponent turns down a draw offer in a position which is objectively drawn, simply because he is higher-rated. This is, in my view, a sign of disrespect. I am often tempted to make some cutting remark in a message with my next move. Maybe “You must be either arrogant or stupid.” Or “I can recommend a basic guide to rook and pawn endings.” Or just “Seriously?”
However, I have so far managed to restrain myself. I know that it would be unacceptable to say these things over the board and I am trying to apply the same standards online. It’s better to remain silent and just keep on making moves.
Even so, I don’t think players should be able to get away with it, so I do allow myself a little licence. In respect of abortive draw offers, when the game comes to an end I don’t make the usual pleasant remark. Instead I say nothing at all. This is the virtual equivalent of refusing to shake hands. It doesn’t have the same effect if your opponent cannot see you ignoring his outstretched hand, but I feel that I am making a point, at least virtually.
Another, more concrete, way of expressing disapproval is if your opponent unreasonably declines your draw offer and the position later simplifies to one with 7 or fewer pieces on the board and so is amenable to a tablebase claim. In these situations I will (obviously) check that the tablebase verdict is going to be a draw, then I will simply claim the draw without making a further offer. Similarly if my opponent plays on in a losing position and we reduce to 7 pieces, I will simply claim a tablebase win.
By extension, if a position is drawn, and there are 7 or fewer pieces on the board, and neither side has made a draw offer, I regard it as bad practice to claim the tablebase draw without first offering the draw to your opponent.
Over the board chess is strictly time-limited and you do have to get on with things. In blitz you have to move so fast there is hardly time to calculate – you have to rely on knowledge and intuition to get you through. Even in the longest time controls at standardplay, you need a sense of purpose. You can’t just sit there wool-gathering.
By contrast, in correspondence chess you have so much time. The standard is 10 moves in 50 days (sometimes 40 or 30 days but it makes no real difference). When you have played 10 moves, another 50 days are added to your clock. If you used all your time then a really long game of 100 moves would take an elapsed period of nearly 18 months out of your life. Who needs that much time to play a game of chess? How long do you need to find the best move and play it?
My own approach is to use up only as much time as it takes and no more. I have the best commercially-available computer with the fastest processor running the strongest chess engines. It takes anything from a few minutes to an hour or two; and then I’m satisfied that waiting any longer is not going to improve the quality of the move, so I make the move. As a result, I always have the maximum time available although I never need it.
Some of my opponents seem to have a similar approach. Our games are played at a fast tempo with several moves being exchanged each day. The record for my completed games is vs the Italian player Mario Palladino where we each made 34 moves in less than one day. In just under 10% of my completed games, each player made at least 10 moves a day. Sometimes I get a message from my opponent at the end of the game thanking me for playing at a fast pace (the unspoken point is that many players slow the game down).
I wouldn’t want people to conclude that I and my opponents in these games think too fast and don’t play the best moves. We take as much time as we need and often that isn’t long at all.
But this post is going to be a rant, so now I’m going to focus on players who take much more time than they need. These seem to fall into two main categories.
First, players who realise they are losing and play as slowly as possible. Either they want to delay their final hours as long as they can, or they simply lose interest and the game becomes their lowest priority in life.
Second, players who take the maximum time available even if they don’t need it. This approach is diametrically-opposed to mine and I am still trying to understand the reasoning. It may be psychological.
Let’s start with an extreme example of the first category. This is my game against Player C. He is from Latvia, he has been playing correspondence chess for over 30 years, and his rating is currently similar to mine, although it was over 2500 at one point. The game is so short that I’m simply going to give all the moves.
Player C v Rodney Barking 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 0-0 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3?! Very unusual. 6.Qxc3 is almost always played, preserving the purity of the pawn structure. Otherwise why take a move putting the queen on c2 in the first place? 6…c5 7.e4 c5 8.e5 Ne4 9.Bd3 Nc6 10.Ne2 cxd4 All this has been played before. There are 11 games in my database. White normally recaptures with 11.cxd4. But in this game… 11.Kf1?? I do not understand this move. It leaves White a pawn down with misplaced pieces and no compensation. The evaluation goes from about 0.00 to –2.5. Maybe it was a mouse-slip and he meant to play 11.0-0 although even that loses a pawn and White doesn’t have enough for it. 11…dxc3 12.Bxe4 dxe4
Now White can’t take the pawn on e4 because it’s mate next move on d1. Taking the pawn on c3 with the queen leaves Black two pawns up: 13.Qxc3 Qd1+ 14.Qe1 Qxe1+ 15.Kxe1 Nxe5. So does taking on c3 with the knight: 13.Nxc3 Qd4 and the c4 pawn drops. Developing moves like 13.Be3 allow 13…Qd3 with an overwhelming position.
So far my opponent had taken 4 days for his 12 moves, not lighting-fast but still a reasonable pace. But now he stopped. I waited. And I waited. Maybe it was the horror show in front of him but he did not make any more moves at all. 41 calendar days later, the server automatically terminated the game with a loss on time for White. The relevant provision in the 2023 ICCF Rules is section 2.6.2:
If a player does not move or otherwise indicate the player’s intention to continue during 40 full calendar days (plus 24 hours’ buffer time, not including any leave time) for the same move, the game will be scored as an ETL (exceed time limit) loss.
And there’s a further penalty beyond losing on time. Section 2.4.4 provides:
A player who has exceeded the time allowed shall forfeit the game. If the player is not under any ICCF suspension when this occurs, the player will be restricted from registering for any event on the server for a period of 30 days.
So Player C will not be able to sign up for any new events for a whole month. But it does not affect his participation in any existing events. As it happens, Player C is part of the lineup for an event which has already been organised but has not yet started, in which I am also playing. That’s going to be interesting.
I did wonder whether his failure to move in this game might reflect some traumatic event in his life which had taken him away from the chess board and for which he had not taken the period of leave which the server allows. But that is not the case. During the 45 days in which the event has been running, Player C has completed 7 of his allotted 16 games as well as losing this one on time. So it was just a one-off personal tragedy of a game.
That was a case of a player delaying the game through loss of interest. Here’s a more common case where a player realises he is losing but continues to play, although at a much slower rate. I was White against Player D, who is from Poland. At the start of the game he outrated me by about 130 points.
Earlier in the game (by move 18) I had won the exchange through a tactic which my opponent did not see. I guess he was playing without engine assistance at that point. This is the position after White’s move 37. My opponent had already started to slow the game down. His moves 1 to 28 took only 11 days. Moves 29 to 36 took a further 60 days. And now he is clearly losing. My immediate plan is to push the c-pawn to c7, then play Rc4 forcing him to move his knight, then capture his advanced pawn on a2. After this the game is trivial.
My opponent must have worked out this was going to happen because he slowed the game down even further. The game continued 37…Qc6 38.Qxc6 Nxc6 39.Rxa2 after which queens are off the board, I’ve rounded up the a2 pawn, and I have the exchange and two pawns with a completely won position. His moves 37 to 38 took a further 40 days.
The ICCF recognises that players may slow the game down considerably in an attempt to postpone the inevitable. This strategy is known as the “Dead Man’s Defence.” Section 2.15 of the 2023 ICCF Rules concerns the Code of Conduct for players and has this to say:
Extremely slow play in a clearly lost position is not proper behaviour in correspondence chess play, and is subject to a warning from the TD, and will result in disciplinary action if it continues or is repeated in other games. This type of extremely slow play has been nicknamed the dead man’s defense (DMD). The defining characteristics are (a) being in a position that appears clearly lost presuming reasonable play AND (b) dramatically slowing play in that specific game.
The provision is activated when the opponent of the slow player makes a claim. I waited a further 10 days after my move 39 and then contacted the tournament director. He then followed the notification procedure set out in this part of the Rules, requiring my opponent to speed up and start playing at a normal rate again. There are severe penalties for a breach of the Code of Conduct, mainly taking the form of a ban from ICCF events for a certain period. At this point my opponent decided he’d had enough and he promptly resigned the game.
The ICCF does try to hurry players up if they take a long time over their moves. When a player is considering his next move, Rule 2.4.2 provides that real time applies for the first 20 days but after that double time applies (this is known as “duplication”) so that every extra day taken counts as two days on the player’s clock. The rule gives the example of a player taking 23 days over a move, which uses up 26 days on his clock. In other words, 20 days of normal time and 3 days of double time counting as 6 days on the clock.
The penalty for losing on time is based on calendar days (real time) rather than clock days. In the first example I gave, the game against Player C, the penalty was applied after 41 calendar days, but he had actually used up 62 days on his clock. He still had 38 days of clock time left in the game, but his inactivity for 41 calendar days amounted to a loss on time under the rules.
My view – others may not share this view – is that the initial period of 20 days reflection time is too generous. I think the ICCF should reduce this to 15 days or even 10 days. This raises the prospect of players running out of clock time (the clock reaches zero) before the period of 41 calendar days is used up. It would certainly focus the mind. I don’t know whether the ICCF has considered this idea.
But I now realise that this provision is the wrong target and the real problem lies elsewhere in the Rules. This brings me to the case of Player E. I am not going to give any details of his identity or the particular games in question since these are still live. Player E behaves in an extraordinary way. Whatever the standard period of time allowed for a set of 10 moves, he does nothing until almost all the time is used up and then makes a move at the last minute. So for example he might have only one day left for his next 10 moves and then he would finally make a move. You might think he would have to make 10 moves in one day to avoid his clock running out of time. But no. This is what Rule 2.4.2 provides:
Time is counted in days, not in hours, minutes, or seconds. If the first 24 hours has not yet been fully consumed, the reflection time used is counted as zero days. For the next days, a similar method of accounting time consumed will apply. Playing time is accounted for in whole days (24-hour periods). A player will have 24 hours of reflection time to respond to a move before one day of time is charged against the player’s clock by the ICCF webserver.
This means that if you have only 10 minutes remaining on your clock, and you then move, the clock resets itself to 24 hours and that is the time you have remaining for your next move. In effect you can make one move a day indefinitely and you will never lose on time. It’s similar to the incremental time control in OTB chess. You may be down to increment time on the clock (“living on the increment”), but as long as you continue to move within the increment period of, say, 30 seconds, you will never lose on time. The game will continue until it reaches its natural end. This is what happened in the infamous game T.Foster–P.Lalic (Guildford 2023) which ran to 214 moves after 7 hours of play before the final blunder and resignation.
This is being remedied in OTB chess for the next Guildford congress with a stricter time control. Should something similar be done for online correspondence chess? The obvious solution would be to remove the increment so that the clock does not reset itself to 24 hours every time you make a move. This already happens in the alternative timing arrangement known as “Triple Block” used for some ICCF events. Rule 2.4.2 sets out the relevant provision:
Time is counted in days, hours, and minutes. All time while “on-move” used counts and is never given back by rounding to the last full day.
I do not know how long Triple Block has been in use. Maybe this kind of provision is the future. It still leaves me with the problem of how to understand players who deliberately use up almost all of their time rather than only taking the time they need. I don’t think such players are simply disorganised. You have to be organised in order to make one move a day every day until you reach the next time control. I do wonder if the reason is psychological. The player is indulging in mind games by creating an expectation in his opponent’s mind of an imminent win on time, only to dash that hope at the last moment, so as to provoke the opponent into moving too quickly (“blitzing”) and making an error. Who knows? Only Player E can tell us and he’s not saying anything.
I do have one further idea to encourage quicker play. This could be implemented without any changes to the time control arrangements. The server knows how much time has elapsed in every game played by each player in an event. If there is a tie between two or more players and none of the tie-breaks can separate them, for example they have exactly the same number of points, the same number of victories, no advantage in direct encounter, and the same sum of opponents’ scores, then an additional tie-break could be implemented to favour the player who has used the least amount of elapsed time.
In what circumstances do you offer or accept a draw in online correspondence chess? I apply a number of tests.
First, I look at the position from the point of view of an experienced OTB player. Is the position simple or complicated? Is it likely to be drawn with correct play? What is my technical knowledge about this particular kind of ending?
Then I check the engine evaluation. If all the lines on all my engines point to 0.00 or close to that, I know the engines don’t think either side is winning. These engines outrate me by over 1000 points. I have to respect that.
Also I take into account my opponent’s play so far. Has he played sensible moves of the kind that a strong human or an engine would play? Does it look as though he is playing with engine support?
If all these boxes are ticked, then I will offer or accept a draw. Notice one test that’s missing – the difference between my rating and my opponent’s rating. I will gain a few points if my opponent is higher-rated and I will lose a few points if my opponent is lower-rated. That’s just how it goes. I am trying to be objective about the position.
In an ideal world, my opponents would take the same approach as me. Many of them do. Unfortunately some of them do not. Let me illustrate that with some examples.
This is from the game Rodney Barking – Player A.
Player A (not his real name) is from England. He has been playing correspondence chess for many years. He is a prominent figure in the world of English correspondence chess but as far as I can tell has never played rated OTB games. At the start of our game, he outrated me by about 150 points.
In this position, I have just played 31.Rbe1. It seemed to me that neither side could make progress. The engine evaluation was 0.00 or slightly better for me across all lines going nearly 50 moves deep. So I offered a draw… which he declined. In correspondence chess you are limited to one draw offer every 10 moves. So I had no choice but to play on.
This is the position after I played 41.Rf4. The position is even more drawish than before. The pawn structure is symmetrical. Neither side has any threats. The engine evaluation is even more firmly 0.00 at over 50 moves ahead. Again I offered a draw, and again my opponent declined.
A few moves later, queens came off leaving a rook and pawn ending that not even Magnus Carlsen could win:
At this point, after his move 49…Rd7, he offered a draw which I accepted.
I have been trying to understand why he turned down the first two draw offers. One possible explanation is that he does not understand the basic principles of chess endings and simply plays whatever move his computer recommends. Maybe he does not know that this type of position is drawn. I think this is unlikely given his high rating and his many years of experience.
A second possible explanation is that he is using a different chess engine that tells him, contrary to the range of engines that I use, that Black is winning these positions and therefore he should play on. Again I think this is unlikely. From what I know of chess engines and how they evaluate positions, none of them would regard this as a winning position. Unless maybe it had become corrupted and had accepted a bribe from Player A in the form of a promise of a processor upgrade.
The only other explanation is that Player A thought his rating advantage of 150 points was sufficient for him to outplay me from a drawn position or that I would make a mistake. In order to think this he would have to set aside the progress of the game so far, in which I (in fact both of us) have played error-free chess. He would also have had to close his mind to the possibility that I might have engine assistance, so that he is not playing a 2200-rated player but a 2200-rated player with the backup of a range of 3500-rated computers.
In short, I think he turned down the draw offers, not because an objective evaluation of the position led him to think he could win, but simply because his rating was higher than mine. That’s rating snobbery and it does him no credit.
Here’s a different example of the same thing.
This is from the game Rodney Barking – Player B (also not his real name). He is an American player who has been playing correspondence chess for less than five years. At the start of this game, he outrated me by over 350 points.
The position is quite different from the other game. It’s unbalanced and tactical in nature. Black has a dangerous advanced b-pawn. I was the exchange up, but have just offered it back by capturing his bishop on e6 (31.Rxe6). He has only one good move (recapturing the rook) – everything else loses – and then my queen and rook combine against his exposed king to force perpetual check resulting in a draw by repetition within a few moves. The engines see this instantly. The lines are forcing, and at all critical points Black’s only choice is between perpetual check or an immediate loss. So I offered a draw… which he declined.
The game continued 31…Rxe6 32.Rc8+ Kf7 (forced since 32…Kh7 33.Qd3+ wins for White) 33.Rc7+ Re7 34.Qd5+ Kg6 (the only other legal move, 34…Kf8, also results in a quick draw after 35.Qd8+ or 35.Rc8+) 35.Qd3+ Kf7 (all other moves allow a forced mate in at most 9 moves) 36.Qd5+ Kg6 and at this point he offered a draw which I accepted.
What made him refuse the initial draw offer? Any engine would have told him that the best he could hope for was a draw by repetition. Was he not using engines and relying on his own natural ability to outplay me in a tactical position?
Or was he simply making the point that chess etiquette requires the draw offer to come from the stronger player? I understand that point, but in online correspondence chess with computer backing, the concept of the “stronger player” no longer means anything. Nor does “higher-rated.” Come on guys, it’s time to join the 21st century.
We remember Fischer as the unbalanced genius who became World Champion in 1972 at the age of 29 in one of the most famous title matches ever played. The mature Fischer is both attractive – in the beauty of his play – and also disturbing in his personality. Was he always like this? What did observers make of him at the start of his chess career?
I recently came across this report of the Interzonal Tournament at Portoroz in the October 1958 edition of Chess magazine. It was closely-contested: only 2 points separated the top 11 players. Tal won the event on 13½ points, ahead of Gligoric, Benko, Petrosian, Fischer and Olafsson. The top six qualified for the 1959 Candidates’ Tournament. See the table below, from the News section of the magazine.
This section includes a long report on the event, unattributed but presumably written by Baruch Wood, the founder and editor. Here is the assessment of the young Fischer, in the kind of breathless prose that you simply don’t see these days.
Nothing short of amazing is the success of America’s Bobby Fischer. As qualifying for a Candidates’ Tournament earns the title automatically, he is already a Grand Master of Chess at fifteen – an achievement unlikely to be matched in our lifetimes, if ever.
We give later in this issue, several of his Portoroz games which all our readers will be eager to see. Cool, deep in calculation, equal to any emergency, he exhibits a power and skill almost beyond belief for his age.
Politiken recently published an article by its New York correspondent who had interviewed Bobby Fischer: “The tufts of brown, cropped hair, which cover the edges of his ears, make him look more childish and neglected than he really is. Regardless of that, however, he looks like anything rather than a chess, or, for that matter, any other sort of genius. Long fingers on his disproportionately long arms are his only prominent features. Sentimental people might think it is a pity that his poor mother, who is a divorced nurse from Brooklyn, was unable to send him to a school of music. His shoulders have already become slightly drooped, his face is yellowish pale in colour and he has a high forehead. He wore a colourful wool pullover that evening and, every now and then, he would pull into it almost the whole of his thin neck. It is only after observing him for some time that one convinces oneself that the fifteen-year-old champion is no ordinary Brooklyn teenager. He finds it more difficult to control his youthful instincts when his position is good. He is then, in his own way, more natural and likeable. His small, deeply-set eyes sparkle with confidence and joy; he can hardly keep still in his chair, he gesticulates proudly and, assuming the pose of an experienced magician, he entertains the bystanders with witty remarks at the expense of his speechless opponent. At such times, he is happy, restless, aggressive. If the luck is against him, he suddenly becomes more quiet, more serious, and turns all his attention to the chessboard, as if there were a vital decision to be made. He falls silent, bites his nails. He now looks older than his age and more like a chess player. It is easier to spot his true qualities: exceptionally quick reflexes, ability to concentrate, complete self-control, ambitious imagination and enthusiasm for the beauty of chess.”
Bobby Fischer was six when his sister taught him chess. He is fond of sports and competitive pastimes of all kinds. He is keen on learning Spanish but shelved this language for some months in preference for Russian (for obvious reasons).
He is not in the U.S. team for Munich [the 13th Chess Olympiad held in October 1958, won by the Soviet Union]. It is said he demanded a big appearance fee.
There is a sense of wonder and potential in this positive and illuminating account of this young genius. But already there are negative signs: his contempt for his opponents and his large ego.
Fischer’s games are of course very widely available. It’s interesting to compare three sources.
(1) This October 1958 edition of Chess magazine contains six of the 20 games played in the Interzonal. All given without analysis at the end of the magazine – presumably they came in too close to the copy deadline.
(2) Fischer’s own collection in “My 60 Memorable Games”, first published in 1969. This contains two of his games from the Interzonal, his draw with Black against Petrosian in a King’s Indian, and his win with White against Larsen in a Sicilian Dragon. His annotations to this game contain his famous summary of the right way to play against the Dragon: “I’d won dozens of skittles games in analogous positions and had it down to a science: pry open the h-file, sac, sac … mate!” In general his annotations are concise and clear, with analysis of the key variations.
(3) The largest part of Volume 4 of “My Great Predecessors” by Kasparov, published in 2004, is devoted to the life and games of Fischer. Kasparov covers the famous win against Larsen in nine pages of analysis and comment, which are also a commentary on Fischer’s own annotations. Kasparov finds a remarkable defence, for Larsen to offer an exchange sacrifice on move 24 in a very complicated position, which would have resulted in equality. Both Fischer and Larsen missed this.
I was interested to see this and so I played through the game and analysed it with the latest version of Stockfish (15.1). This confirms the soundness of Kasparov’s analysis of the resource 24…Rc4!, which does indeed seem to hold for Black. Kasparov goes on to say:
It is psychologically understandable why Fischer missed this possible defence in his analysis: it casts doubts on the entire conception of his commentary, beginning with ‘the losing move’ 15 … Rac8.
Kasparov may have rehabilitated the line for Black, but the original game and Fischer’s commentary have cast a long shadow. Larsen’s move 15…Rac8 has not been repeated in any recorded game since 1958, according to the very large 2023 database that I’m using.
For ease of reference, the game is available on Lichess here.
The Guildford FIDE Congress took place this weekend at the University of Surrey. A total of 136 players entered the 3 sections (Open 46, Major 56, Minor 34). This included 53 juniors, which was very encouraging. The youngest competitor was 6 years old and the oldest was 92. The entry was much larger than expected. Probably there were two reasons for this:
the venue came free of charge, so we were able to offer a generous prize fund;
there are currently no other opportunities to play a weekend tournament in the Guildford area.
The event ran very smoothly, not least through the efforts of our team of three FIDE arbiters who each ran one of the sections. The time control of G90 + 30s worked well in most cases, but there were two very long games in the Open. Tim Foster v Peter Lalic in round 1 lasted 7 hours and did not finish until 1.30am on Saturday morning. Graeme Buckley v James Merriman in round 2 lasted over 5 hours and was still continuing when round 3 started for the Major and Minor (with a silent start). When people say they don’t like increments, I suppose this is what they mean. We could have limited the damage with a different FIDE-approved time control such as G110 +10s, but then players would not have had to record the moves with less than 5 minutes remaining. So it’s a trade-off.
All the sections were closely-contested. The Open was quite exciting with several players in contention in the final round. Eventually the clear winner on 4.5/5 was the top seed, IM Gediminas Sarakauskas (FIDE 2387). Four players tied for 2nd place on 4/5: Graeme Buckley, Steven Jones, Susan Lalic and John Merriman.
As well as the section prizes, we awarded prizes for the top junior, the top female player, and the top U2000 player in the Open. The SCCA awarded the title of U18 Surrey Junior Champion to Magnus Borrissow (highest-placed eligible junior in the Open on 3.5/5) and gave him the Michell Memorial Trophy, the first time for several years this has been presented.
There were several family relationships during the event requiring forbidden pairings. Not least the Lalic dynasty (three family members in the Open plus Lucy Buckley in the Major).
Full details of the event are on Chess Results and there will be a report and photographs on British Chess News within a week.
The feedback we received during the event was very positive and we hope to run it again next year.
I wanted to share with you an exciting new development in English league chess.
Our game has emerged from Covid stronger than ever, with renewed interest from a wider public following the great success of The Queen’s Gambit and the notoriety of the Niemann cheating scandal. In fact it has come to the attention of British entrepreneurs looking to extend their influence in fashionable sectors of our national life. None more so than Sir Jim Ratcliffe, a sports-loving businessman who is currently trying to buy Manchester United and who is a lifelong chess fan.
Sir Jim has decided to enter English league chess by bankrolling a team of professionals. He knows that top chess players, unlike top footballers or cyclists, can maintain their performance until relatively late in life. He himself is 70 years old. He has assembled a team of senior citizens (aged 60+) from the pool of English GMs. His squad of 10 comprises (in alphabetical order) GMs Arkell, Davies, Flear, Hebden, Keene, Mestel, Nunn, Plaskett, Speelman and Stean. This is a joint venture with a well-known online chess training company and the new outfit will be known as Team Chessable Silver Fox.
For next season, Sir Jim is seeking entry into Division 1 of the 4NCL and Division 1 of the London League. He believes that this assembly of talent could attain the level of dominance in English league chess that was enjoyed by Team Sky in British cycling in the decade from 2010.
You may be wondering what is my interest in this development. I do actually rate myself over the board. I once won an online blitz game against someone called DoccyDoc, although I have not been able to establish whether this was the Good Doctor himself. However, I have not yet attained the GM title and I am therefore not eligible to play for this team.
In fact Sir Jim has personally approached me to act as Team Manager. My organisational skills in the chess field have not gone unnoticed. I have been offered a retainer of £1,000 a match. There is no win bonus attached to this. Sir Jim expects Team Chessable Silver Fox to win all its matches and so there is no point creating any additional incentives for victory.
Naturally this commitment will affect my involvement in other areas of chess activity. I have to go where the money goes. So I have had to tell my colleagues at Streatham that I will not be available to play league chess for them more than twice a week from next season.
Sir Jim’s plans do not stop there. Over time he would like to fuse his twin passions of chess and cycling by developing the new sport of ChessCycling. In this, contestants will alternate standardplay games of chess at the senior-citizen-friendly time control of G90 + 30s with circuits of Box Hill on a team bike (Box Hill is the iconic Surrey climb that featured in the 2012 Olympic Road Race). A contest will consist of 9 standardplay games and 9 circuits of Box Hill. My role will not be to join them on the bike (which is a shame as I am a keen cyclist) but rather to drive the team car behind them on the course carrying spare bikes and essential nutritional drinks.
I am sure we all wish Sir Jim well in this new venture. Some people believe that the continued dominance of one team in any particular sport removes the excitement, since everyone else is competing for second, and this is as true in chess as in any other sporting discipline. However, the presence of so much talent in one team can help to drive up standards generally and so this should be good for English chess as a whole.
We continue this short series on useful pieces of chess advice that could help to improve your results over the board. Today, DAUT, which stands for Don’t Analyse Unnecessary Tactics. Also known as DCUA, or Don’t Create Unnecessary Acronyms. However, who am I to second-guess one of England’s leading players, GM John Nunn, who invented this concept in another excellent strategy book, Secrets of Practical Chess (Gambit 2007).
This is what Nunn says:
“Tactical analysis is an error-prone activity. Overlooking one important finesse can completely change the result of the analysis. If it is possible to decide your move on purely positional considerations then you should do so; it is quicker and more reliable.”
I would add that this applies particularly if you already have a winning position, or you are much stronger than your opponent and want to win in as risk-free a manner as possible. In other words, Keep It Simple. This echoes the advice in yet another chess classic, Chess for Tigers by Simon Webb (Batsford 2005), on how Tigers should get the better of Rabbits.
Nunn follows up the advice with an example from his own games. I think nothing brings the point home better than drawing on your own experience, so here are some examples from games played by Barking. The first of these is from way back when. I was playing for Hackney in an away match against Hampstead.
I was pleased with the game so far. White is clearly winning. There are any number of good continuations here, for example 27.Qe5 / Qf4 / Qd4, winning the rook on a8, or else 27.Bxg2 Nxf6 28.Bxf8, also winning the rook. However, I analysed a variation which I thought resulted in a quick mate. 27.Bxh7+ Nothing wrong with this, it also wins if followed up correctly. 27…Kxh7 28.Qxf7+Kh6 And now the simple 29.Qxd7 is good enough. White is only a pawn up, but Black’s king is completely exposed and he will have to give up queen for rook to avoid being mated. However, I carried on with the line I had previously analysed and immediately played… 29.Qf6+?? The idea is that both king moves (to h7 and h5) allow a rook check on e7 or e5 and mate follows very quickly. I had also previously seen that interposing the queen with 29…Qg6 allowed 30.Rh1+ and mate next move. So imagine my surprise when my opponent played… 29…Qg6+! …and said “CHECK!” in a very loud voice. I had completely overlooked that this interposition came with a check, and dealing with the check took priority over delivering mate in two. I had no choice but to exchange queens, resulting in a lost endgame which I resigned immediately. The strong Hackney player Tim Kett published an analysis of the game later on, commenting that this was “…a sad end to an otherwise fine game.”
The second example is much more recent. I was positionally better and should not have chosen a tactical continuation.
White: Elliot Macneil (1905), Black: Rodney Barking (2052), London League Summer Tournament 2022 D78: QP Neo-Grünfeld
The opening had gone well for me. My pieces are actively placed, and White’s two bishops in particular are ineffective. I should now have continued with a sensible move such as 17…Nf6, strengthening my control over the important e4 square. Instead I was beguiled by his dark-squared bishop having no escape squares (he had just played 17.e3, blocking it in), so I played the aggressive… 17…g5 However, this doesn’t win a piece since White can bring out his queen with a counter-attack on my knight on f5 which is now undefended. I had seen this idea but didn’t take it seriously. 18.Qg4 gxf4 19.Qxf5 fxe3 20.fxe3 …when objectively I am still OK but the position is much more random. White can prepare e4, or bring his knight into the attack on e5 or g5, or play down the half-open f-file. By this stage I was no longer feeling good about the game and this psychological factor may have influenced my later moves. My opponent didn’t always find the best continuation, but I still managed to lose the game.
Finally, a game from this year, where Barking finally makes the right decision. Maybe the current model Barking is a sadder and wiser version.
White: Alan Palmer (1712), Black: Rodney Barking (2055), Battersea Internal 2023 A03: Bird’s Opening Alan opened 1.f4 and I made the first correct decision of the game by avoiding my favourite From’s Gambit (the tactical 1…e5), which Alan later said he had been hoping for, instead choosing the more positional and objectively best move 1…d5. As the game developed, I put my pieces on active squares and he put his on passive squares, with the large rating differential no doubt influencing his decision to park the bus. We eventually reached this position:
White is completely tied down to the defence of his weak queenside structure. I had just played my queen from c4 to b3, attacking the undefended knight on b1. Now, knight moves would allow me to capture the pawn on c3, as would shifting the rook on c2 to the kingside, and bishop moves would allow me to capture the pawn on d4, so he had continued by moving the rook leftwards from c2 to b2, a move which was so ugly that I had not even considered it.
Although this seems to defend everything, I now saw the possibility of sacrificing my queen to achieve a breakthrough on the queenside. I spent a long time looking at 27…Nxc3 28.Rxb3 Nxd1 when White has a number of continuations: A: 29.Bd2 axb3 30.Qxb3 Bxd4+ 31.Kf1 Rc2 B: 29.Bb2 axb3 30.Qxd1 Rc2 31.Bc3 R8xc3 32.Nxcd3 Rxc3 C: 29.Qxd1 Rxc1 D: 29.Be3 axb3 30.Qxd1 Rc2.
Lines A to C are winning for Black. Line D is White’s best when Black still has a very strong position but there is no immediate win. I saw all that in the analysis and concluded that the outcome was not clear enough to justify entering the complications. So I made like Captain Sensible and played… 27…Qc4 …going back where I had come from. I knew that White had nothing positive to do, so I decided to continue increasing the positional pressure in the hope of achieving a breakthrough in another part of the board. 28.Rc2 Bf6 29.Kg2 Qxd3 30.Rxd3 Rc4 31.Be3 g5 White has defended against the queenside tactics, but has no response to the plan of taking on f4 and invading with the rooks down the g-file. And in fact the game ended a few moves later when he blundered and lost a piece.
So the Good Doctor was right all along. If you want to improve your results, don’t indulge in unnecessary grandstanding.
If you play for an active chess club in the London area, fixture congestion is a fact of life. So last night, two of my teams were in action. Streatham EC in the revived London League Eastman Competition, 4 boards, away v The Hung Pawns (yes really) in Hammersmith at 6.45pm. Also Streatham 2 in London League Division 2, that’s 8 boards, away v Metropolitan 1 some miles further east at Aldgate, at 6.30pm.
I captain the Eastman team. It’s not difficult finding 4 players from our 12-man squad to play in this team, so I set that up and left them to it, with the very capable Graham K as acting captain. As it happened our opponents gave us advance notice of a default on board 4, so I was able to stand down one of our team.
For myself, I turned out for Streatham 2, who have had a challenging season in a division full of other clubs’ 1st teams. We’re in the relegation zone but have matches in hand on the teams above us. Our captain Martin S assembled a decent team and I was down to play on board 3.
I arrived in London early, around 5.45pm, to pick up a message on my phone from one of our Eastman players who had just had a domestic emergency and needed to withdraw. With only one hour before the match was due to start, I asked a couple of players who I thought might be available, but they couldn’t make it.
I hate defaulting boards more than most things in life. I think I hold the club record for the highest number of players approached to fill a team. That’s 34 players asked, for an 8-board team, and yes we did turn out a full team on that occasion. So I hatched a cunning plan to rescue the Eastman team. I texted the Hung Pawns captain to say we were trying to find someone. I was the first to arrive at the Metropolitan venue. In the absence of our captain, I exchanged team lists and tossed for colours (I lost. We were black on odd boards).
I then explained the problem to their captain and my proposed solution. I would be happy to agree an early draw with their board 3 (in the trade we call this a Grandmaster Draw), leaving me free to dash across London and join the Eastman team before the default time of 7.45pm. Their captain quite rightly said I would have to discuss it with my potential opponent. So I did. But as it happens, this was his first game for Metropolitan, and he wanted to play a proper game. I understood that and I don’t blame him for insisting.
My next idea was to swap positions in our team so that I would move up to board 2 and my colleague Robin H down to board 3. There’s only a small difference in rating points, so that would have been acceptable. Facing an old stager on the Metropolitan board 2, I thought I had a good chance of agreeing an early draw. But here their captain stepped in and said he was unhappy with the idea of changing the board order once team lists had been exchanged. Nothing in the league rules prevents it, and I should know because I wrote them, but there was no point arguing about it so I let it drop. Unsporting or what?
At this point I resigned myself to the inevitable. I texted the Hung Pawns captain again to say that we would default board 3. I then turned my whole attention to the match in hand against Metropolitan, determined to make them pay for thwarting my attempt to be Captain Marvel. Here’s the game against my Swedish opponent.
White: Lars Astrom (FIDE 2098), Black: Rodney Barking (2070). London League 2023. B22: Sicilian 2.c3 Online game: https://lichess.org/SWoQsZyK 1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5 These days I usually play the other move, 2…Nf6, but I know the 2…d5 line well (years of practice against my SW Surrey sparring partner) and my results have been good. 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.Be2 e6 7.Be3 cxd4 8.cxd4 Nc6 9.O-O Be7 10.h3 Bh5 11.Nc3 Qd6 12.a3 O-O All theory so far – although my opponent had taken quite a long time over his moves. I like this position for Black. The isolated d-pawn is going nowhere, my pieces are actively-placed, and I have a clear plan of exchanging pieces to emphasise the structural weakness.
13.Qd2?! The first sign that my opponent didn’t really know what he was doing. In this line the queen belongs on the white squares, rather than further restricting the passive bishop on e3. So 13.Qb3 with an eye on d5 and b7 was the way to go. 13…Rfd8 14.Rad1 Rac8 15.b4 Nd5 Stockfish slightly prefers 15…Qb8 followed by …Bd6 and …Ne7, gradually improving my pieces. It’s not as if White can do anything here. 16.Ne4 Qc7 17.Rc1 Qb6 To escape the pin and nullify the threat of b5. Possibly better was …Bg6 and …a6, since the queen is slightly better-placed on c7 than b6. 18.Nc5 a6 19.Rfd1 Bf6 20.g4 Bg6 21.h4 My opponent decided to get active with his kingside pawns. But this just creates weaknesses. He’d be better off concentrating on piece play and trying to arrange Ne5 under favourable circumstances. The problem is the weak d-pawn, as he always has to work out if I can take it. 21…h5 22.g5 Be7 23.Bc4 Again not good. I thought he probably wanted to sac on e6 in some lines. So I took time out to strengthen my kingside defences. 23…Bf5 24.Re1 g6 25.Bf4 Nxf4 I was happy to exchange off the bishop now that he couldn’t recapture with a pawn. 26.Qxf4 Bd6 27.Qe3 Qc7! With the awkward threat of …Bf4 winning the exchange. At this point the engine evaluates the position as –1.20 in Black’s favour. But now my opponent blunders – again trying to be too active when his pieces aren’t ready for it.
28.Nxa6?? bxa6 29.Bxa6 Hoping to recoup the sacrificed material through the dual threat of Bxc8 and b5. 29…Bf4 30.Qc3 Bxc1 31.Rxc1 Nxd4! My opponent clearly hadn’t seen this thematic tactical counterblow, which wins a piece and the game. Stockfish actually prefers 31…Qf4, also winning material and maintaining the tension in the position, but I think the move played is clearer and simpler. 32.Qxc7 He has no choice since 32.Nxd4 Qxc3 and 32.Qxd4 Qxc1+ both lose immediately. 32…Nxf3+ 33.Kg2 Rxc7 34.Rxc7 Be4 Now I’m a piece up in the ending. White has connected passed a- and b-pawns but they’re not dangerous. 35.Kg3 Ra8 36.Kf4?! I was expecting 36.Rc8+ Rxc8 37.Bxc8, but I just transfer the king to the queenside and it’s an easy win. 36…Rxa6 37.Kxe4 Rxa3 38.b5 Nxh4 39.b6 Rb3 40.b7 Kg7 41.Kd4 Nf5+ 42.Kc4 One last mistake, but it’s all over anyway. 42…Rxb70–1 He resigned since 43.Rxb7 allows the fork with 43…Nd6+. I was pleased with the way I had played the game, even more so when the later engine analysis put my centipawn loss (as they call it) at just 0.07 with no blunders or mistakes and only four inaccuracies. That’s as close to perfection as I’ve ever come at the chess board.
So I made them pay for turning down the Grandmaster Draw offer. What was happening elsewhere? Our captain lost on time on board 7 in a complicated middlegame position. On other boards, it was draw after draw, reflecting the evenly-matched ratings. Most satisfying was Jagdip’s draw on board 5. He couldn’t find the venue and arrived almost 60 minutes late, leaving him just 15 minutes plus the increment for the entire game. He played quickly and eventually reached a rook, knight and pawn ending. He actually missed a couple of wins in time trouble, but had no difficulty notching up the half-point. So we drew the match 4–4, a good result against a team still hoping for promotion to Division 1.
In the Eastman match, the Hung Pawns fielded a very strong player on top board. We lost that one but won on board 2, also drawing the match with the final score 2–2.
What would have happened if I’d succeeded in getting an early draw in the Division 2 match, and travelled to Hammersmith where I would have faced a much lower-rated player on board 3? We would probably have won the Eastman match and narrowly lost the Division 2 match. But the Division 2 match actually mattered in terms of league position, whereas the Eastman match didn’t – we were always going to finish second in the Eastman, behind one very strong team and ahead of five others who don’t seem to be taking this competition seriously. It’s rather like the chess equivalent of the old League Cup in football. No one really cares. In the end it was right for me to stay in East London and do my best for the 2nds.
The Surrey League are carrying out a survey of affiliated clubs, seeking views from players and club representatives. The two issues are the method for deciding games (time controls) and the starting time of matches.
The first of these is quite distinctive. In the Surrey League, all three methods of finishing a game are available. The away player must offer two options out of adjudication, adjournment, and finish on the night. The home player must choose one of those two. The rationale is that players can avoid a method they particularly don’t want, and can’t be forced into one option. The same system used to operate in the Croydon & District League, but they moved to a mandatory finish on the night this season.
The Surrey League retains a preference for adjudication in that this is the default option if the system breaks down, and also the clocks are required to be set for the adjudication option at the start until the players decide.
With adjudication, the time control is 35 moves in 75 minutes, then 7 moves in 15 minutes repeating as needed to the end of the session. With adjournment, it’s 35 moves in 75 minutes, then 28 moves in 60 minutes, then 7 moves in 15 minutes repeating. With finish on the night, there’s a further division: either quickplay, which is 30 moves in 60 minutes then all remaining moves in a further 20 minutes, or Fischer, which is all moves in 75 minutes plus 10 seconds a move.
In practice, I have always played finish on the night, and in almost all cases, with the incremental time control, although one of my opponents insisted on the quickplay finish instead. This is the default option if the players do not agree.
I have not seen any stats on the frequency of the different options chosen, although in the matches when I have been present, most players have chosen a finish on the night with the incremental time control.
Matches in the Surrey League start at 7.40pm. The playing session is a minimum of 2 hours and 40 minutes.
This is what the Surrey League authorities are saying about their survey:
As the 22/23 season draws towards a conclusion, now is a good time to review the playing conditions for our inter-club standardplay matches. We would like to collect feedback from as many players as possible and then bring a proposal to the next AGM at the end of June to reflect any changes that this process identifies as being needed.
We are keen that the chess competitions we offer are attractive and recognise that we are to some extent competing with other local leagues for players’ time. There are 2 aspects of particular interest which may be linked, but you may have other suggestions:
Firstly the start time of matches, which is set at a default 7:40pm, and a playing session of 2 hours 40 minutes. Other leagues (Thames Valley, Surrey Border League, Mid-Sussex) tend to start earlier and play longer.
Secondly, finishing of games. We have had the “Away player offers 2 from 3 options & Home player chooses” for many years and this has been an effective way to avoid the least favourite of the 3 options. However, neighbouring leagues are increasingly play to a finish. These two factors should be considered together, because a longer playing session may make playing to a finish more achievable.
There have been some changes to the background working/commuting environment over recent years, digital clocks are now ubiquitous and captains’ match cards in the Surrey League show there is a clear trend away from adjournments and adjudications towards playing to a finish.
Before considering any changes we need to hear your views. The link below takes you to a very brief survey we are running. Please take a few minutes to complete this for us. Just as important as your preferences are the reasons behind them. The current basic version of SurveyMonkey does not allow us to capture text responses, such as “Why do you say this?”, so we would also like you to send your comments to a dedicated e-mail address. These comments can include the reasons behind your preferences, other important factors we should consider or even new ideas/suggestions for the league.
You can only take the survey once, and you have to indicate which is your club and whether you are responding as a player or club representative. The survey window is quite short: I only saw it on 20 March and the deadline is 6 April which is less than three weeks away. I suppose they must want to reach an internal decision in time for their AGM before the end of June.
I have completed the survey and also given a textual explanation of my views as below:
I would prefer the following set-up, which is consistent with a number of other leagues in the south east.
Playing session minimum 3 hours (maximum 3 hours 30 minutes)
Mandatory Fischer time control G75 + 15
No adjudication or adjournment provision.
This reflects my personal views that
the game should finish on the night
the need to use post-session computer analysis or third-party adjudication procedures should be minimised
the playing session should be long enough to allow the participants to play quality chess
extending the increment (say from 10 seconds to 15 seconds) is more valuable to players, particularly later in the game, than reducing the basic game time (say from 80 minutes to 75 minutes).
One of my colleagues, responding separately, made the following observations, with which I completely agree:
For clubs that play in several leagues which all use club home venues (such as SCCA) the use of digital clocks (DGT 2010s are ubiquitous) poses particular challenges in the current arrangements. One is accommodating those who arrive late after the clocks have been started (there is always someone!). To cater for all eventualities clocks must be available in four possible settings (quickplay [guillotine and incremental]; adjournment and adjudication), or else a bespoke time setting must be made on the spot for the game in question, according to the finish adopted. If the captain has their own game to play this can be especially distracting. Life would be so much simpler for hosts/managers if there was a single mandatory game finish. It would also obviate the wearisome business of explaining to players all the game finish options before the match can get underway.
Life would be even simpler for clubs playing in several local leagues (Streatham for example also plays in the Croydon and District Chess League), if there were harmonisation of game finishes across all leagues. Probably a pipe dream, but it would obviate the requirement to reset clocks for different control regimes between matches. CDCL, by the way, has moved to a default incremental of 75mins + 10spm. Even if the parameters varied between leagues, having a common incremental finish-on-the night regime would be a step in the right direction.
An additional practical problem is that not everyone is familiar with setting a digital clock and switching between options. I have had to help out with this on a number of occasions.
If all leagues moved to the same mandatory incremental time control, which I would regard as ideal, what should it be? It’s well-known that I regard G75 + 15 as superior to G80 + 10. But since the second of these is the most common incremental time control in use in English league chess, it would make more sense for everyone to move to that.
I hope the Surrey League will publish a summary of the responses to the survey and I look forward to seeing what’s proposed for the AGM.
This is not some new or obscure chess opening variation. Instead the Janus Variation is the generic term I have invented for a certain category of variation which will differ from one player to another and which may take a different form over time for each individual player. This kind of variation is hardly ever discussed in chess openings books – in fact I have only seen it mentioned once, long ago, and I can’t remember which book that was.
Confused? You won’t be. Read on. But first, an explanation of the name of this variation, for those of you without a classical education. In the religion and mythology of Ancient Rome, Janus was the god of beginnings and endings among other things. The month January is named after him (one year ends and another one starts). He is usually depicted as having two faces, each of which looks in the opposite direction.
When you think about the opening in chess, what naturally comes to mind are your chosen openings for either colour. For example I currently play the English Opening as White. My main Black defences are the Sicilian Sveshnikov vs 1.e4, and the QP Slav vs 1.d4. Actually I play a wide range of openings and these are just my current favourites.
It is a fact of chess that there is always one opening you have to play as both White and Black. This will be obvious if you ask yourself, What do I do if my opponent plays my favourite opening against me? Suppose you play 1.d4 as White and the King’s Indian Defence as Black. When you face the King’s Indian Defence as White, you play the Classical Variation with Nf3 and Be2. What do you do as Black if someone plays the King’s Indian Classical Variation against you? It doesn’t matter exactly what you play. At some point, you have to play the same line with either colour. This is what I mean by the Janus Variation. You have to look both ways.
I said that the content of the Janus Variation may differ for each individual player over time. Until recently I was playing 1.e4 as White and the Sicilian Najdorf as Black. Against the Najdorf I would play the highly-theoretical 6.Bg5 main line. So I had to be prepared to play that line as Black as well. Nowadays the Janus Variation has changed for me and I have to know the positions arising from 1.c4 c6 for both sides.
What should be the characteristics of the Janus Variation? Obviously it has to be playable for both sides. It should result in middlegame positions which offer chances to both players and which you would be happy to play as either side. Learning an opening for both sides is a good way to improve because you have to understand the typical plans and positions for both sides. This leads you towards a consideration of the best moves. It’s no good playing a trappy but inferior continuation for one side if you know how to refute it from the other side.
In my case, from my 1.e4 and Najdorf days, I have a copy of every recent and important opening work on the Najdorf for both sides, and I also have the relevant Chessable courses for both sides. I’d like to think that my understanding of this opening, and my ability to play it properly, has improved as a result.
The trend in openings books does not lend itself to this kind of study. Many years ago, openings books tended to examine the opening objectively and recommend the best play for both sides with comprehensive coverage of all lines. Sometimes these were reduced to tables of opening variations with analysis of each line and an evaluation at the end of it. Think Modern Chess Openings (MCO), 15th edition by Nick de Firmian, published 2009, or Nunn’s Chess Openings (NCO), published 1999, with the Good Doctor leading a team of openings experts.
Over time, repertoire books have become much more common. These present an opening from the point of view of either White or Black. It must be what players want these days. So for example The Iron English by Simon Williams analyses the Botvinnik Variation of the English for White (the setup with c4, Nc3, d3, e4, g3, Bg2, Nge2, 0-0) and considers everything Black might play against it. If you’re looking for something Black might play against the English, and in particular against non-Botvinnik lines, this is not the book for you. I’m not saying anything against this very popular repertoire book, which is as engaging and thorough as the man himself. I’m just making the point that it’s written from one point of view.
Where it gets interesting is when the same author produces a book on the same opening for first one colour and then the other. For example take the Keep It Simple series by IM Christof Sielicki. In Keep It Simple for Black, originally a Chessable course then published in book form by New In Chess in 2022, he recommends the Caro-Kann as Black’s main defence to 1.e4. Against the Exchange Variation he analyses a setup with …Nc6, …Nf6 and …e5, often resulting in positions where Black has an isolated d-pawn. He also has some useful things to say about the “Carlsbad” pawn structure arising from the Exchange, typically where Black doesn’t play …e5 but keeps the position closed, where White has the half-open e-file and Black has the half-open c-file, and he outlines the main plans for both sides.
Then, around the end of 2022, Sielicki publishes the Chessable course Keep It Simple for White 2.0, an update on the original course published a few years previously. In the original course, Sielicki recommends the Two Knights’ Variation against the Caro-Kann (1.e4 c6 2.Nc3 d5 3.Nf3). For version 2.0, he changes course and recommends… the Exchange Variation! So here he has to present the same opening from White’s point of view that he recently presented from Black’s point of view. Sielicki is honest enough to recognise the difficulty and points out that the positions are playable for both sides. Let’s take the position arising after 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Bd3 Nc6 5.c3 Nf6 6.h3 (6.Nf3 prevents …e5 but allows …Bg4 pinning the knight) 6…e5 7.dxe5 Nxe5 8.Nf3 Nxd3+ 9.Qxd3 Bd6 10.0-0 0-0.
Sielicki goes on to say: “The move 11.Be3, now my suggestion for White, is not mentioned in KIS Black, as I focused more on the direct attempts to pressure Black. Our strategy with White is a slow grind, trying to keep Black’s pieces passive and making slight progress. I think that chances are equal, but White’s job is quite easy, and it is not every Caro player’s forte to defend IQP positions.”
I’m not sure where that leaves Black supporters of the Caro-Kann. What are they supposed to play against the Exchange Variation? I guess we’ll have to wait for Keep It Simple for Black 2.0 to find out.
