Chess Moves Seminars

Eastern Caribbean • January 14th to 21st, 2006

 
   
 

Our Grandmaster Faculty will deliver two concurrent tracks while our cruise ship is sailing between ports. Attendees may move freely, at any time, from one track to another. Our itinerary has two and one-half (2.5) "sea days" allowing for 20 hours of daytime lectures! In addition to classes, Chess Moves offers over nine (9) hours of early-evening activities. We'll have an informal Blitz competition and everyone will have a chance to either play chess or have a private consultation with a Master or Grandmaster.

    OPENINGS
Practical Opening Tips for White (90 minutes)
Practical Opening Tips for Black (90 minutes)
Opening Disasters (90 minutes)
Hypermodern Opening Strategy in Action
(90 minutes)
     
    TACTICS/STRATEGY
Winning Won Games (90 minutes)
Traps and Counter Traps (90 minutes)
Ideas to Save a Hopeless-Looking Game
(90 minutes)
The Art of Attack (90 minutes)
Bishop v. Knight (90 minutes)
Gaining the Initiative -- When Time Is of the Essence (90 minutes)
Creating and Solving Problems (90 minutes)
The Art of the Exchange Sacrifice
(90 minutes)
Strategy: Center Control and Space
(90 minutes)
Practical Hints for Tournament Players
(90 minutes)
     
    ENDGAMES
Don't Forget to Use Your King
in the Endgame
(90 minutes)
Rook Endgame Essentials (90 minutes)
Exploiting Endgame Advantages (3 hours)
 
     
   
     
     
 
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    OPENINGS
   
Practical Opening Tips for White (90 minutes)
Speaker: GM Larry Christiansen
Audience: Player Rating 1200—1500
   

Opening theory in chess is a science unto itself. For professional players, often the opening analyses ends at move — or even move 30 at times. That's a very difficult task for anyone! Even constant study of openings is no guarantee that you will get an advantage out of an opening.

If Black plays accurately, Black and White will equalize. On the other hand, there are numerous solid openings which lead to interesting games without the need to memorize a multitude of variations. In this course, we will cover:

• Opening principles

• The most popular club-level openings

• Tricky, tactical-based openings

   
Practical Opening Tips for Black (90 minutes)
Speaker: GM Larry Christiansen

Audience: Player Rating 1200-1500
   

A Black opening is one move behind, giving you less leeway in your approach. While White can almost get away with purely following the basic opening principles, when you play Black you've got to know exactly what you are doing. You'll learn how to choose your opening based on your personality and style:

• Choices against the King Pawn start

• Choices against the Queen Pawn start

   
Opening Disasters (90 minutes)
Speaker: GM Joel Benjamin
Audience: Player Rating 1400-1600
   

You don't have to put in long hours studying opening theory, but you must develop a sense of sound, principled opening play. Examples of openings gone horribly wrong will illustrate the deadly sins that cause such calamities. The culprits will include:

• Running around with the queen

• Failure to castle promptly

• Inattention to threats

• Improper or slow development

   
Hypermodern Opening Strategy in Action
(90 minutes)
Speaker: GM Joel Benjamin

Audience: Player Rating 1700-1900
    See the development of a modern opening system through a visit to a grandmaster's opening laboratory. This course will detail the birth of an original opening idea inspired by established variations followed by subsequent practical trials. The logic behind the restrained central approach will be revealed along the way.
     
     
    TACTICS/STRATEGY
   
Winning Won Games (90 minutes)
Speaker: GM Larry Christiansen

Audience: Player Rating 1200-1700
   

Gaining a winning position is just half the battle. Actually overcoming your opponent's stubborn resistance and forcing resignation is an essential skill for the complete chess player. This class is designed to improve this vital skill or “technique” by:

• Understanding how to evaluate positions so that you know when, and when not, to take risks to close out the “won” games

• Comparing your options: finishing the “won” games in style versus taking the sure bet

   
Traps and Counter Traps (90 minutes)
Speaker: GM Susan Polgar

Audience: Player Rating of 1300-1600
    The average club player is able to set up basic one- or two-move traps. One of the differences between these players and the Masters is that the more advanced player often sets up a counter trap. In this session, we shall see examples where one side makes a cute-looking trick but stops the calculation a move or two short. This incorrect evaluation of the
position causes the loss of the game.
   
Ideas to Save a Hopeless-Looking Game
(90 minutes)
Speaker: GM Susan Polgar

Audience: Player Rating 1300-1700
   

One of my coaches used to say: "Nobody ever saved a game that he resigned!" and "It's never too late to resign!" In this session, we shall discuss ways to save games that seems to be lost. Winning is the goal, but drawing a lost game is another reasonable goal. We shall see
numerous examples of Stalemates, Perpetual Checks, Theoretical Draws, and examples where we turn the results completely around -- by setting up traps to even win lost games.

   
The Art of Attack (90 minutes)
Speaker: GM Larry Christiansen

Audience: Player Rating 1300-1900
   

This course is geared toward intermediate players who wish to hone their chess attacking skills and increase their understanding of tactics.

In this class, we will go over two different approaches to attacking chess:

• More-structured attacks
(examples from Botvinnik and Kasparov)

• Personal intuition
(examples from Shirov, Topalov, and Tal)

   
Bishop v. Knight (90 minutes)
Speaker: GM Joel Benjamin

Audience: Player Rating 1500-1800
    When is one better than the other? This course will examine positions that favor each minor piece and good moments to swap one for the other. Grandmaster Benjamin will share insight on piece values gained from his experiences working on the Deep Blue project.

 

 
     
    S
   
Gaining the Initiative -- When Time Is of the Essence (90 minutes)
Speaker: GM Susan Polgar

Audience: Player Rating 1500-1800
    In some positions timing is everything. An opportunity knocks only once, and will not occur again. See how with some energetic moves you can suddenly gain the initiative and an advantage. We’ll study games by two masters of timing and momentum, Kasparov and Tal.
   
Creating and Solving Problems (90 minutes)
Speaker: GM Larry Christiansen

Audience: Player Rating 1500-1900
   

Chess players have often been divided between “problem solvers” and “problem creators”. This class is designed to help students develop planning skills and increase their ability to detect and solve problems on the chess board by:

• Working to improve your crucial tactical skills through solving problems -- keep in mind that chess is 99% tactics

• Analyzing numerous examples of tactical chess problems from one to five moves

• Discussing pattern-recognition techniques

• Creating fun puzzles

   
The Art of the Exchange Sacrifice (90 minutes)
Speaker: GM Joel Benjamin

Audience: Player Rating 1600-1800
   

Effective use of the Exchange Sacrifice is a skill that often divides masters from lower-rated players. Combinations that lead to checkmate or material gain may be easily understood, but purely positional sacrifices do not have to be mysterious. This course will use classic examples to explain these and other key elements of such sacrifices:

• Transformation of pawn structure

• Central control

• Piece activity

• Pawn compensation

   
Strategy: Center Control and Space
(90 minutes)
Speaker: GM Susan Polgar

Audience: Player Rating 1600-1800
   

The center is the most important part of the chess board. Control most of the center and you gain space advantage. We’ll learn how to increase space advantage and eventually transform it to other type of advantages. In our focus:

• An outpost in the center — the Knight

• Activity and passivity

   
Practical Hints for Tournament Players
(90 minutes)
Speaker: GM Susan Polgar

Audience: Player Rating 1600-1800
   

Knowledge is a powerful factor in chess. Psychol-ogy is also a vital part of the game. Some players are afraid of being attacked. Other players may be “greedy”, grabbing Pawns even in risky situations. The speaker will share experiences when she won games through deft psychological decisions. In this special session you can ask the Grandmaster questions and gain insights into how GMs think during a game. Among the psychological factors in a match, we’ll look for advantages through:

• Managing the clock

• Custom-tailored unpleasant moves for your opponent

     
     
    ENDGAMES
   
Don't Forget to Use Your King
in the Endgame (90 minutes)
Speaker: GM Susan Polgar

Audience: Player Rating 1200-1600
   

Unlike the opening and middle game, in the endgame the King is a vital part of the game. We’ll cover:

• Examples of when and how to get the
King involved

• Exceptions when despite having only a few pieces left on the board the King can still get in trouble

• King Marches

• Checkmate traps in the endgame

   
Rook Endgame Essentials (90 minutes)
Speaker: GM Larry Christiansen

Audience: Player Rating 1300-1700
   

In practical play, about 50% of all endgames are Rook endgames so we’ll devote time to learning important and common Rook endgames. In this course you will learn:

• To win a “won” Rook endgame

• To save a difficult-looking Rook endgame
to a draw

• Why it is usually best to keep behind the passed Pawn vs. in front or on the side

• To work with the Philidor position

• To work with the Lucena position, and how to build bridges

• How to approach positions with one extra passed Pawn on one side and a couple of Pawns each on the other side

• How to handle the exceptions — for instance, even when two extra Pawns will not win

   
Exploiting Endgame Advantages (3 hours)
Speaker: GM Joel Benjamin

Audience: Player Rating 1600-1800
   

Prosecuting endgame advantages often requires an adjustment of style to appreciate the special demands of proper endgame play. This two-part course will provide the skills for assessing planning, and playing both technical (Part I) and tactical (Part II) endings. Practical examples will investigate these and other issues:

• Effective transitions via liquidation

• When material matters

• Zugzwang, temporizing, triangulation

• Piece activity