31 December, 2012

DIY Blunders and Tactics

I was looking at the Chess Cafe Books of the year nominations, and saw a new nomination, namely Tactics Time! 1001 Chess Tactics from the Games of Everyday Chess Players by Tim Brennan.

A quick search tells me that, probably, this is a book of tactics( er, technically, a Kindle )  taken from games of us amateurs, although its probably beefed-up/fleshed-out as well. [ I can't check it as I am not a kindle owner, so if anyone has it and can comment ? ]

This reminded me of what I started a couple of years ago, namely using Chess Assistant to find errors in my games and possible tactics.

So I did it again, and its quite fun !  I'd have to refine it, and spend some time looking at the results, but the initial run was interesting.

Here was an example of what I found,.  Its a typical sort of blunder that us patzers make, and similarly the type of simple tactic that we should be spotting !

White has chased the Black Queen, and has played b5. Black has just re-captured with the c-pawn.

In the game, White replied with Rxb5. Is this a good move ? If not, what should he play ?

White to play


Solution [ Rxb5 is losing !  There followed Qxb5, Nxb5, Rxc2 and White resigned. Better was Qb2 ]

2 comments:

BRF Fågelsången said...

The kindle product is a good buy. It delivers exactly what it promises. I have been reading it using the free Kindle app on my smartphone.

You might that the problems on average is a bit easier than expected but the positions looks very much like positions created by chess enthusiasts

Signalman said...

Thanks, Patrick... I guess "chess enthusiasts" is another phrase for us amateurs :)