Improve your Chess via Active Learning

ACTIVE LEARNING is any strategy that involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing (*)

Skip the test and going directly to the lecture, or start by attempting to figure out on your own what is going on in each of the positions I will be talking about and then proceed to the lecture. If you chose the latter, spend 5-15 minutes on each diagram and record your evaluation and move / plan for the side whose turn it is and sample variations. Then compare your ideas with mine. Let me know how you like the test and the lecture

Test yourself:

Level - intermediate through advanced.

1. Check whose move it is / Read the question.

2. Evaluate position (i.e. White is Better, or Black is Winning, or Equal...) 

3. Find the Best move and, if necessary, support it with variations. <<CALCULATE thoroughly!!>>

4. Answer the question (if there is a specific one)

#1.  After 36...Kg8-h8 Assess the position? Did Black just blunder?	#2.   After 41...Rh4-h3 Assess the position? Should, White play 42.Pf5?

STOP - the lecture begins below.

Creating Material Imbalance to Change the Dynamics of the Game.

How well do you play in the situations when you have advantage vs. when position is balanced vs. when you are worse? One way to improve your game is by finding an answer to this question and working on addressing the situation where you perform the worst. In my new book in the chess exam series that should come out later in the year, I will help you in answering this question by showing how your overall rating is allocated between the three sub-ratings (advantage, balanced, and worse). You can combine my assessment with your own to see if they pointing to the same weak area. I also offer a handful of quick tips on how to improve.

One specific issue is a subject of this article: when you dislike your position and want to change the situation, consider a small material sacrifice to create an unusual material imbalance and thereby alter the dynamics of the game. Among the most popular sacrifice are:  a Piece for 2 Pawns, an exchange, and the Queen for a R and a Piece. Overall, this sacrifice are fairly minor (resulting in approximately one Pawn deficit), but the effect on the situation could be dramatic. This is due to both - the specifics of the position and the psychological effect on both players.

In this article I show your two examples from the same game – Alekhine – Euwe, Amsterdam 1926, match, game 5,  (this example wasn’t included in my new book).

Summary:

I wanted use these examples to show how the flow of the game can be changed by a small material sacrifice. It not only has an effect on the position, but also psychological effect on both players. However, a proper assessment (which Euwe did in the diagram 1) and an accurate calculation (which Alekhine failed to do in the diagram 2) is required before you execute your sacrifice. Otherwise, a solid, but passive position could collapse. Still, even if this should happen, all is not lost. When the chess factors are against your, psychological factors could possibly rescue you, just like it happened to Alekhine in the end.

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Copyrighted @ 2009 Igor Khmelnitsky

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(*Bonwell, C., & Eison, J. (1991). Active learning: Creating excitement in the classroom (ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 1). Washington, DC: George Washington University, p. 2)