Author: Michel Hoetmer

#1 What is the threat?

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Usually you win games by playing good moves. Or playing one really bad move less than your opponent. But a chess game revolves not only about our own moves. We have to consider what our opponent is trying to achieve.

Mature chess players possess important qualities such as recognizing and meeting threats in their chess games.

Of course this is something different than what is asked from us in for instance the usual chess puzzles. These puzzles train us to see things from our own perspective. The emphasize is on ‘our own’ possibilities.

Although it is great training to solve chess puzzles, they don’t help us to exercise more caution. On the contrary. At some moment you might start to look for a combination in any position! I hope the new series ‘what is the threat’ on this chess blog will be helpful. It certainly made me more aware of my opponents plans and threats.

I have to thank Dan Heisman for giving me the idea for this series. His fine book ‘Looking for trouble’ is very instructive and contains lots of good examples. Which I will not, for obvious reasons, repeat here.

The diagram position arose after black played 13. … Qa5 in the game between Etienne Bacrot and Alexander Morozevich (Oykovsky Karpov 2014).

Question:

What is black’s threat and how can white prevent any trouble?

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#1 What is wrong with this move? Even the chess stars err

Michel Hoetmer1 Comment

At amateur level most chess games are decided by big tactical mistakes. The average game on the popular chess.com lasts only about 25 moves. If I look to my own games the picture is quite similar.

I also noticed that when you do not make big mistakes, you will always be in with a chance to get a good result out of a game. Just don’t blunder!

But that is of course easier said than done. Even my article blunder check didn’t help me. Simply because I did not live up to my own advice. The chess game is very complicated and we tend to oversee stuff in the heat of the battle. Not only us ordinary mortals, but also the big chess stars have their weak moments.Read More »

Mutual blindness

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Is there something like luck in chess? Some people might say ‘in other sports yes, but of course not in chess!’ In football for instance a ball can change direction due to an uneven football pitch.

Or, what happened years ago in a football match in Utrecht: a sea gull collided with the ball. There is no such thing as an uneven chess board. And sea gulls are not likely to be found indoors. At least: not that I have seen.

But of course in chess there is also something called luck. For instance your opponent blunders in a won position. In my opinion that’s luck.

What do you think about this position? It is from my game against A. Broddevalk played in the Västerås Open 2014. See the first diagram.

With his last move black attacked the pawn on b2. White defended the pawn a bit careless with 12. b3. Better would have been 12. Qb3 or 12. Nbd2.

Let’s look at the position from black’s perspective. I was not at all happy with my position. It is a sort of Tarrasch defense but with one major difference: the dark colored bishops are exchanged. For my feeling I was worse because I am weak on the dark squares.Read More »

The tale of two blunders in one move

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Can a chess player set himself up to lose in more than one way in one move? Of course he can! No problem at all.

It was the last round of the Västerås Open 2014. Things hadn’t gone very smoothly up till now. The result off the rapid session on Friday evening was a bit iffy. But losing to the seven times Swedish champion Axel Ornstein was not a shame. I managed to make a decent fight out of it.

The other rapid games were somewhat more questionable. Two out of four. At least the score, but not the quality of my games, kept some hope alive.

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