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hat is the analytic method in chess?The analytic method is a question and answer process to elicit information that will help you select your next move . You silently ask yourself exploratory questions about the position . The informa
tion generated helps you decide how to respond to enemy threats and to pursue your own aims, enabling you to evaluate the position and settle on a move that meets all your needs.
After you've grown accustomed to this self-questioning, you will automatically look for answers without having to be cued. But this won't happen overnight . You'll need a lot of deliberate practice actually thinking and formulating these questions before the process becomes automatic.
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hat must I do before forming a plan of action?Before forming a plan, you must evaluate the position. By enumerat
ing each side's pluses and minuses, considering static features first and then dynamic ones, you 'll determine who stands better and why.
Then you can attempt to conceive a plan that capitalizes on your strengths while minimizing your weaknesses .
Begin by making a mental list of your strong suits . Note the well
posted pieces, the key lines of attack you control , and any effective pawn majorities you possess, and see if any pawn advances seem inviting, for example .
Then make a similar list of your weaknesses. Do you have defensi
ble squares and pawns? Is your king's position endangered? Are your pieces constricted or ineffective? And so on.
After evaluating your side, run the same analysis on the enemy's position (if time permits). When you have finished comparing assets and liabilities, you'll be ready to plot a rational course of action .
If a position is relatively balanced, both sides will have offsetting advantages and disadvantages. Steinitz, the first world champion, initially espoused the theory that to gain one kind of advantage you had to surrender another kind of comparable worth . Plainly, you don't get something for nothing-the principal principle of positional chess.
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hat ore the main objectives of a plan?A reasonable plan attempts to do one or more of the fallowing : ( I ) exploit enemy weaknesses; (2) remove or lessen enemy strengths; (3) eliminate or ameliorate your own weaknesses; (4) build and capital
ize on your own strengths. (Sounds like an ethic for the " me genera
tion," doesn't it?)
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hat questions should I ask myself about my opponent's lost move?When reviewing your opponent's last move, ask yourself simple, direct questions . For example: ( l ) Does my opponent's last move threaten anything? (2) Does it respond adequately to my previous move? (3) Does it give me new opportunities? (4) Does it pose any future problems? (5) Can it be ignored? If you ask these and other related questions, at least your thinking will be germane.
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f my response seems necessary or forced, should I waste time asking myself a series of questions?If you're quite sure about the move being forced, and if you 're playing with a clock, there's no need for an elaborate Q & A process . But before responding, make one last check to see if you've missed something obvious. In chess, it doesn't hurt to think, it hurts to lose .
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ow does on open game differ from a closed game?In open games, the center is not blocked by pawns and events tend to happen quickly. They feature rapid development, play in the center, and coordinated attacks with many pieces. King safety is paramount.
Since closed games usually have blocked centers, they proceed at a much slower pace . Not much can happen in or through the center, and expeditious piece development is slightly less important. Also, king safety isn't usually a factor early on, so quick castling may not be necessary . In fact, you might not castle at all.
Many principles that apply to open games are modified in closed games. For example, in open games you worry about placing knights on the edge of the board or bringing out the queen too early. In closed games, however, there may be many opportunities to violate
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these principles to good effect, depending on the situation . Be oppor
tunistic.
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hat does it mean to accumulate small advantages?This is a modern theory of positional play . Without incurring risk, you try to gain many small advantages, step by step, until they add up to a very great advantage that leads to a mating attack or forces the opponent to surrender material . Rather than playing for a win or a draw, a positional player plays not to lose. The theory of positional play was put forth by Wilhelm Steinitz ( 1 836-1 900), the first official world champion , who held the title from 1 886 to 1 894.
Some leading players didn't understand or appreciate Steinitz's ideas . Describing Steinitz's play, the English master Henry Bird ( 1 830-1 908) once said: "Place the contents of the chessbox in your hat, shake them up vigorously, pour them on the board at a height of two feet, and you get the style of Steinitz."
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hat are small advantages?Generally, small advantages are intangible strengths that are hard to measure and evaluate, compared with, say, being up a piece, which is a concrete advantage having a definite value . Control of an open file or diagonal, slightly better piece placement, slightly more space, a good minor piece opposing a bad one, fewer pawn weaknesses, a slightly safer king's position-all are typical small advantages .
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hy should I bother to add protection to something that's already guarded?How well have you analyzed? Perhaps something you think is already protected isn 't, so overzealousness is a kind of insurance . The protec
tion you already have can suddenly be undermined by exchanges, checks, and other threats. Or you might want to relieve certain protectors for other duty, which means they must be replaced first (adding a single extra protector can free up any of the others).
Additional protectors also give you a choice of ways to take back when an enemy captures. Most important, t
p
is gives you the option in some positions of recapturing with a particular unit or type of unit. For example, you may want to recapture with a piece on a particular square so that you can continue using that square by126 PA N D 0 L F I N I ' S C H E S S C 0 M P L E T E
replacing the captured piece with another piece . If you take back with a pawn instead , the square becomes relatively unusable because it's much harder to get a friendly pawn out of the way . It has no real mobility.
Finally, you might overprotect a particular square so that the enemy can 't use it to clear space, especially by a sudden pawn advance. If you guard that square a number of times, an enemy pawn advance to it will probably result in loss of that pawn.
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s a weakness really so bad if I can adequately guard it?To sufficiently protect or safeguard a weakness, you may have to make concessions that lead to other problems. For example, in defending it, your pieces could become passive and lack scope . Furthermore, defending a weakness ties down your overall game plan to some extent, for you have to wait for your opponent's strategy to materialize before you can follow through more fully on your own .
But the most serious drawback i s that whenever you are con
strained to defend one place, you almost necessarily weaken another.
Fresh weaknesses such as this often prove to be the defender's downfall, especially with defending forces out of position and tied to the first trouble spot .
This explains the endgame principle of " two weaknesses": before proceeding with the final attack, first induce your opponent into incurring a second weakness, after which defense becomes difficult .
The message is clear: avoid unnecessary weaknesses.
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hat is the difference between a permanent advantage and a temporary one?Permanent advantages are concrete and tangible . If you have such advantages at an early point in the game, you 'll probably have them later on as well. They are clear and can be counted or seen.
Two examples of these lasting advantages are a material plus and a superior pawn structure . If you're ahead by a knight, you are likely to remain a knight ahead unless something radical happens to over
turn the position . Material doesn't disappear by itself. And if your pawn structure is fluid, with no weaknesses, it's likely to remain so unless debilitating exchanges or advances take place, which don 't happen by magic.
Temporary advantages are fleeting and intangible. You can't quite put your finger on them . If you don 't immediately exploit them ,
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you'll lose them. Time is an example of a temporary advantage.
When you're ahead in development, if you don 't utilize it soon your opponent will catch up. If you have the initiative, you must capitalize on it before the attack passes to your opponent .
In determining the overall superiority in a chess position , consider both tangible and intangible factors, how they interact and influence each other, and their contribution to a position's equilibrium .