Book Review: Liquidation on the Chess Board: Mastering the Transition into the Pawn Endgame

Posted by ChessMaven in Book Reviews on Aug 30th, 2015 | Comments Off on Book Review: Liquidation on the Chess Board: Mastering the Transition into the Pawn Endgame

Benjamin, Joel Liquidation on the Chess Board: Mastering the Transition into the Pawn Endgame. New in Chess, 2015. 253 p.

 

 

 

 

About the Author

Joel Benjamin is a well-known Grandmaster who has won numerous championships. He is a prolific author for chess publications, and is known to many as the long-time presenter of the ICC’s Game of the Week videos. This is Benjamin’s first book publication since American Grandmaster: Four Decades of Chess Adventures in 2008. Liquidation has won the CJA 2015 Best Chess Book Award.

Summary

With his latest work, Benjamin intends to cover a gap in chess literature, which is the transition from endings and middlegames into pawn endings. In his own words, “Pawn endings do not arise out of nowhere; we know of course that every pawn ending started out as an endgame with more pieces on the board… studying the transition will help us see the pawn endings evolve and enable us to appreciate and understand them so much better”. This particular aspect of chess hasn’t been the subject of any book – the closest match may be Exchanging to Win in the Endgame by Gennady Nesis (1991).

I can recommend this book to students of the endgame, and coaches looking for good teaching material. Because of its unique focus on endgame decision-making rather than theoretical positions, beginners are advised to supplement or precede this book with a work covering the basic theory of pawn endings. Meanwhile, more experienced players will be able to use Liquidation to strengthen decision making and ‘feel’, while using the fresh examples to brush up on theoretical knowledge.

Mastering the Transition

The book is subtitled ‘Mastering the Transition into the Pawn Endgame’, and it indeed provides what someone would need to improve greatly in this special area. There is plenty of material covering the major aspects of judging pawn endings. While your average treatise on positional assessment in the middlegame would teach the elements that make up the worth of a position, this book is about the complicated art of juggling the relative worth of completely different types of endings, which each must be judged by their own rules.

Pawn endings are usually viewed as nothing more than the final phase of converting some advantage that was gained earlier in the game. But, as this book focuses on, both the winning chances of the stronger side and drawing chances of the weaker can be enhanced or reduced by a going into a pawn ending. For example, in a Queen ending, a passed pawn advanced far up the board is a big advantage, while after a queen trade, the same pawn might be picked off easily. King activity and outside passed pawns, which are important factors in most endings, become the decisive factors in pawn endings. Furthermore, because many pawn endings are especially sharp, they can be used as a final try to bamboozle the opponent.

The role of judgement is somewhat under-emphasized in chess literature. Recently on a live broadcast of a chess event, GM Yasser Seirewan was asked what the biggest differentiator is between players of varying strength. He named judgement as the key factor. I had for a long time thought it is calculation and tactical ability. But it is common chess wisdom that strong players will seek out quieter positions against weaker opponents, and that one is advised to sharpen the game against stronger opponents. This points to the judging of subtle differences between different positions as something less readily accessible than tactics. Liquidation not only covers endgames from a new perspective, but trains the reader on a set of thinking skills that is under-emphasized.

Structure of the Book

Liquidation features the well-chosen dimensions, typeface, diagram and notation style, and player photos that come standard with New in Chess publications. The quality of the writing is high, and the variations are all computer-checked. The depth and clarity that Benjamin brings to his Game of the Week comes through in his writing as well. Someone who is going through the book carefully will have questions about positions that they need to answer themselves, but the major points are generally brought to light. The tournament games are recent, many of them from 2014, and refreshingly, many of the games are from the US chess circuit.

Most of the book is divided into chapters by ending type: queen, rook, bishop, knight, bishop vs. knight, rook and minor piece, two minor piece, major piece (double rook or rooks vs. queen), queen and minor piece, three or more piece, and unbalanced material endings. Each chapter is made up of excerpts from tournament games, organized by the following pawn ending themes:

• Technical Liquidations
• Tempo Games
• King Activity
• Passed Pawn Dynamics
• The Race
• Breakthrough
• Sacrifices and Countersacrifices

At the end of each chapter are a healthy number of exercises, and they are one of the strongest features of the book. The exercises have hints (listed on a separate page) in the form of cryptic phrases. I really enjoyed these hints! Not only was it interesting to try and guess their meaning, often-times they would be just enough of a help to let you know whether you really saw everything in the position, or need to have a deeper look. Many of the exercises are of the form ‘should White/Black go for the pawn ending from here?’, and after going through many of these, I can’t help but think that I’ll be better prepared to face similar decision points during a game.

After the main part of the book is a chapter ‘Thematic Positions’ with diagrams of typical pawn ending situations, along with brief explanations. Some of them are well-known theoretical positions, while others are motifs that occurred in a few places in the book. There are not assessments or variations in this section, rather the games in which they occur are listed. This short chapter is more of an afterthought and could have easily been left out.

What to Get Out of the Book

After working through Liquidation, the reader stands to gain:

• A better ability to weigh advantages and disadvantages of various endings
• A better feel for typical pawn ending motifs
• An alertness to possible pawn ending transitions and their consequences during practical play

I think the reader will get the most out of this book having already studied basic endgame theory. On the other hand, some new to the endgame may prefer something like this as a more interesting way to get into the subject. The book is recommended for players of Elo 1800 and up. The examples chosen are instructive and rich in content, so this book will be a great resource for coaches.

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Book Review: The Extreme Caro-Kann Attacking Black with 3.f3

Posted by ChessMaven in Book Reviews on Nov 26th, 2014 | 2 comments

Bezgodov, Alexey The Extreme Caro-Kann Attacking Black with 3.f3. New in Chess, 2014. 280 p.

The Extreme Caro-Kann is a recent publication from New in Chess, written by Alexey Bezgodov, who is a grandmaster and former Russian champion. This book is meant to be a complete repertoire for White in the variation.

 

 

Revival of an Opening

The Fantasy Variation of the Caro-Kann has gained in popularity in the last few years at the highest levels. It’s likely that this was sparked by super-GM Ian Nepomniachtchi playing it as White several times around 2010. This caught my attention as well, and after having tried several different systems against the Caro-Kann, I added it to my repertoire and had surprisingly good results in tournaments, with a record of 4-0-0.

After these initial experiences, I have the impression that many Caro-Kann players have one “antidote” line against the Fantasy Variation that hasn’t been worked out very deeply. Given that, the timing of this book is excellent. 1.e4 players can adopt it while it still has surprise value, and as we’ll see, Caro-Kann players can find good material for their own preparation.

Classical Fantasies

The Fantasy Variation begins with 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.f3. At first glance, the name is fitting. White invests a critical tempo to maintain the classical central pawn duo. White would also like to develop aggressively, similarly to the English Attack, the 150 Attack, or the Yugoslav Attack. The drawbacks of 3.f3 are well-known. It is a bit slow, it weakens the dark squares around the king, and it deprives the Ng1 of its best developing square. However, the practical advantage of this opening choice at the club level is significant. It will lead to fundamentally different middlegame structures than other more popular choices, thus putting Caro-Kann specialists out of their comfort zone if they have devoted all of their preparation to, for example, 3.Nc3 and 3.e5.

Structure of the Book

The Extreme Caro-Kann is a good-sized book at 280 pages. The text is large and easy to read, each page has between 2 and 4 diagrams, and it’s in a wide format that is easy to lay open. There are player, variation, and games indices, and a section ‘Three Important New Games’ covering recent theoretically significant games that were played just before publication. A bit unusually for an opening book, included is a section of 50 tactical exercises in positions arising from the Fantasy Variation.

The main part of the book is divided into 6 sections –
Chapter 1 – Rare Continuations
Chapter 2 – 3…g6 The Fianchetto Variation
Chapter 3 – 3…e6: The Semi-French Variation
Chapter 4 – 3…Qb6: The Restless Queen Variation
Chapter 5 – 3…e5: The Abordage Variation
Chapter 6 – 3…dxe4: Surrendering the Centre

Rare Continuations

The first chapter covers rare but logical third moves such as 3…c5, 3…b6, and 3…Nf6. Regarding the move …Nf6 in general – Bezgodov recommends that White reply with e4-e5, going into a Classical French structure after a subsequent f3-f4. In fact, it can transpose to the French exactly, so the opening really suits White players who already have that in their repertoire.

3…g6

I was initially surprised by the amount of material on 3…g6 (23 pages). But it is the second most popular move after 3…e6 and poses some problems that should be studied. It’s worth noting that in a Modern Defense move order with 1.e4 g6 2.d4 c6 3.Nc3 d5, it’s not clear that 4.f3 is the most challenging move. Bezgodov gives multiple alternatives for White at several junctures. For example, after 3…g6 4.Nc3 Bg7 5.Be3 Qb6, he shows that sacrificing the pawn with 6.Qd2 is promising, and that the less common 6.Rb1 is also interesting.

3…e6

3…e6, is by far the most popular reply to 3.f3. Usually it leads to more positional play, but here Bezgodov analyzes an old but still interesting gambit after 4.Be3, in addition to the main move 4.Nc3. He offers no less than three flavors of the gambit, one of them being a novelty. Given that 3…e6 may be aiming for quieter positions, 4.Be3 is a good practical choice. After 4.Nc3 Bb4, again two options are given. One is a pawn sacrifice with 5.a3 Bxc3 6.bxc3 dxe4, which has been reinvigorated by Zviagintsev with 7.Qe2!?, and the other is 5.Bf4. Before reading this book, I had thought that 6…b6 instead of 6…dxe4 is sufficient for Black in the line above, but Bezgodov covers 6…b6 in one of the illustrative games and offers an interesting improvement for White. 3…e6 4.Nc3 Bb4 is arguably the main line of the Fantasy Variation right now, however Bezgodov goes into less detail on it than with other lines. He acknowledges this, and his reasoning is that it’s a slower position with a lot of playable move orders and plans for both sides. As a testimony to the thoroughness of the book, even here there are 3 illustrative games covering 4.Nc3 Bb4.

3…Qb6, 3…e5

3…Qb6 and 3…e5 are two ‘antidote’ lines that players often choose against the Fantasy Variation. Several ways to play as White are covered, varying from gambit lines to quieter tries. White is doing well here theoretically, and the first player can choose how ambitiously to play while retaining some advantage. Perhaps the biggest challenge for White is the variety of different positions that can arise depending on how Black proceeds – sometimes complicated middlegames, and other times a slightly better endgame, for example.

3…dxe4

The positions after 3…dxe4 4.fxe4 e5 5.Nf3 are some of the most complicated and violent in the book. After 5…exd4, White is forced to sacrifice a pawn with 6.Bc4 to retain any advantage. I think that White often has enough of a development lead that natural moves will lead to good positions, but the analysis in this chapter shows that some tempting combinational ideas by White are not as good as they seem. 5…Be6 is the more solid option, and White could find himself getting outplayed if he isn’t familiar with this sub-line. 5…Be6 6.Nc3 and 6.c3 are covered in depth, and there is also some analysis on the pawn grab 6.dxe5!?, which may be an underrated option with surprise value. The coverage in this chapter is really quite complete.

Summary

Overall, the Extreme Caro-Kann is a very detailed work that will serve as a complete repertoire for White in the Fantasy Variation. In fact, I felt prepared as White in this opening until investigating this book, and now I can see how many interesting options there are for Black that I hadn’t considered!

It’s clear that the author has a personal like for the opening, and that a lot of thought and effort has gone into choosing the recommended routes. Importantly, although computer-analysis was used, it seems to me that the author’s own understanding had the final say. Several of the moves that Bezgodov gives as the top option were not the top computer recommendations, at least using my own engine. This means that we’re getting his honest opinion, and furthermore, such moves may be overlooked in home preparation by the opponent.

Recommendations on how to use this book

This is not a book that can be skimmed through to get the benefits. You’ll have to go over each line in detail and there is definitely memorization required, since Black can sharpen the game early in a several different ways. There are usually two or three alternatives given for White for a given tabiya, which range from quiet to more ambitious or exotic. Bezgodov generally names one of them as the best move and backs this up with analysis, but often the final difference between them is slight, so the reader is best advised to look at all alternatives and make his or her own choice.

The reader should be prepared to gambit a pawn early (for very real compensation). It might be possible to choose lines from the book that always avoid this, but it would be very limiting. It’s recommended for White to mesh this repertoire with the Classical French (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4) since the Fantasy Variation should transpose into this when Black plays …Nf6.

For Caro-Kann players, this book can be used to find challenging ways to play against the Fantasy Variation. I wouldn’t recommend either 3…Qb6 or 3…e5 – the book convincingly shows that White is better in those lines. 3…dxe4 4.fxe4 e5 6.Nf3 Be6 requires White to play energetically and accurately to avoid being equal or worse. With 3…e6 4.Nc3 Bb4, Black can move the struggle to the middlegame, although gambit lines after 3…e6 4.Be3 should be studied. 3…g6 is a good alternative way to test White, especially by trying to take the ‘poisoned pawn’ on b2 with a later …Qb6. This book is recommended for players rated 1800 and up.

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