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Skeeter back at 2400.

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Originally posted by robbie carrobie
yes i have the book although i lent it to a friend, his other book, The Amateurs mind is a little annoying. The problem with it is, is that he spends more time looking at faulty plans than actually discussing good plans, you need to wade through the text to find the bits that you want. He has a tendency to make things more complicated than they actu ...[text shortened]... space advantage' three times, and still have no idea how to make use of a 'space advantage'.
Study Tarrasch, he was obsessed with space. He won some nice games due to space and lost some for the same reason!

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Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Dovertsky should be arrested for making chess books so intimidating and not to mention dull!
I like Dvoretsky's books, but I wouldn't recc. them for anyone who wasn't either already very strong or massively ambitious.

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Originally posted by nimzo5
I like Dvoretsky's books, but I wouldn't recc. them for anyone who wasn't either already very strong or massively ambitious.
or anyone who didn't want to turn to dust while reading them, man, one of those books
is enough to take ten years off yer life! I blame skeety for Dovertsky writing such dry
tomes.

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Originally posted by Diophantus
Study Tarrasch, he was obsessed with space. He won some nice games due to space and lost some for the same reason!
I always get the feeling if that i study Tarrasch ill grow a handle bar moustache of epic
proportions, dont know why, obsessed you say, sounds like an interesting guy,
obviously skeetys to blame for his failure to control his annexed space.

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Originally posted by robbie carrobie
I always get the feeling if that i study Tarrasch ill grow a handle bar moustache of epic
proportions, dont know why, obsessed you say, sounds like an interesting guy,
obviously skeetys to blame for his failure to control his annexed space.
I don't think you can blame Skeeter for this one. Lasker did punish Tarrasch for unwarranted space grabbing on at least one occasion. Have a look at this:

http://www.chesscafe.com/motifs/motifs.htm

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"I still think someone should write a positional problem chess book,
how hard can it be?"

How hard can it be?

They don't (yet) have a computer that can give you a 100% accurate
so called positional move. When they do then the market will be flooded
with such books.

There are books out there filled with examples of plans in action and
strategic ideas being carried through to a tactical winning finale.
Tactics, hand to hand fighting, lay underneath all these games.

White to play. Choose a strategic plan, what is his next move.
A few try it, see if we get differing ideas.

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*Spoiler*

deleted.

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This looks suspiciously like a position where all the pieces have changed colour! I don't recognise the position though.

As for a plan...

I like either Rce1 or Rhe1. They are both possible because Black's queen is lost after 1. Rhe1 Qxh2 2. Bf4. Usually in that situation I would see if there are any other files which the other rook would be happy on. In this case the f-file looks half decent, so Rce1 and then Rhf1 sometime later.

However - another plan for White is to throw his c-pawn forward (and hopefully the d-pawn as well once his knight isn't en prise). If White wants to go for that then perhaps he should leave his c1 rook where it is and play Rhe1.

The reason for wanting a rook on e1 is firstly it is an open file and, as we all know, rooks belong on open files. Secondly it makes Black uneasy about having a discovered attack on his queen. Black's queen is very well placed at the moment and so White will be happy if it moves to a less active square.

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Rhe1 has some positives-

hitting the queen
clears the long diagonal for an eventual advance of the minority pawns.
open file etc.

the problem is White can just play Qf5 and trade off Queens making your minority pawn attack a bit more problematic.

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I must admit I didn't even consider that White might advance his kingside pawns. Why would White do that? It's not what I think of as a "minority attack" because there is no pawn chain to undermine. I think I would prefer to leave those pawns alone and perhaps think about attacking the black h-pawn if Black tries to move his h8 rook.

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i like Be3. it is just binding the knight, instead of chasing the queen, but that makes the bishop on d7 attackable (say by nc5).

but i agree to the rook ideas, too. they belong on open files. but i am also tempted to consider the c-file as being opened soon anyway...the pawn is already looking expectantly at the knight...

i would first bind the knight, then advance the pawn or the knight to confuse black and then see what happens with black...

i like to prohibit blacks flexibility a lot, plus gaining flexibility for white...

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i like the rook idea. not sure if i prefer rhe1 or rce1. in either case, there's not only a discovered attack on the queen there's also the possibility of throwing central pawns forward very quickly (c4,d4) now the knight on e4 is defended by a rook on e1.

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Originally posted by watchyourbackrank
i like the rook idea. not sure if i prefer rhe1 or rce1. in either case, there's not only a discovered attack on the queen there's also the possibility of throwing central pawns forward very quickly (c4,d4) now the knight on e4 is defended by a rook on e1.
mmm, ok some general observations, both appear to me to be equal in the centre,
white has a beautiful out post for his knight , but it can be kicked with ...f5. The black
queen looks a bit suspect in the centre even though it has escape squares. My plan, is
to play against the black pawns trying to tie black down to their defence and trying to
prevent ...f5, therefore i might try , Bc3 kicking the queen, Rooks on the f and g files
and try to play for minority attack beginning with with g3. I dont believe the open file
is worth the trouble as there are no real ways to exploit it as there is no penetration
points.

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Originally posted by greenpawn34

White to play. Choose a strategic plan, what is his next move.
A few try it, see if we get differing ideas.
this actually is fun. can't you start a second blog or the "weekly position guessing thread"? and at some point you show 'the' conclusion, which all of us then will happily agree 😉

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