Obvious

I don't manage to keep in touch with all blogs that I follow as often as I'd like, but equally, with a blog as thought-provoking as Temposchlucker's, sometimes I am glad that he doesn't post every day : it would be just too much to cope with !

Catching up yesterday, I saw his post from a few weeks ago entitled "Precision" with an example of a problem from Chess Tactics of a 'crushing attack by White'.  ( see also the examples in the comments to his post).

I can't disagree with him, it was an example of a crushing attack and I did see it eventually, and didn't see it quickly for exactly the reasons he gives !

Coincidently, something similar, but much simpler, happened in a blitz game yesterday afternoon...

In the diagram below, White has just played Rf3 disconnecting his back-rank rooks. I felt I had the had the advantage, but it still took me too much time to see the move.

Black to play : a crushing attack

Sometimes, we try to look for the complex, when the simple and obvious is what we need.

Guardian Chess Column

I mentioned here that the Guardian's chess column had gone.

Well, its both true and false !

The Bennett/King column has ended, but the Guardian does have regular chess coverage here.

Apart from the occasional ( and usual ) reports on events such as Wijk-aan-zee from a stalwart of English chess. Leonard Barden ( he and Harry Golombek probably wrote most of the early chess books I borrowed from the library !) , they also have reportage on chess topics.

The latest  is a mention of how chess in schools has been launched in countries like Armenia, India and Norway, and the efforts by people such as Malcom Pein ( London Chess Classic organiser ) to encourage this in English schools. The comments on the article are varied and interesting.

I have to say that I played in my own school chess club, although I don't recall anything other than internal competitions ( for the "House Cup"  as Harry Potter would say ), and I carried on at my Sixth Form college ( pre-university ) when I was tutored by the County Champion.

Mind you the group there was so small, that we did lots of fun chess, especially Kriegspiel ( well spotted..a lot of the time there were only 3 of us ! ).  It was very enjoyable.

I have none of the games from that time, but I do have a few from when I took it up again as an adult, and played for the local town club, even competing in the County league !

Amusing to look through now, as I evidently didn't put much into ' study'. Club nights were held in a pub, so the social part was as important as the chess !

I should really look through them again and publish my youthful efforts !

Chess Carnival 2012

Get yourselves over to Robert Pearson's blog, where a new phase of the year-old Chess Carnival has emerged.

This is the first of a number of posts , featuring the " Best of" chess blogging.

First one is about openings.

I'm working my way through them now...

Enjoy.