Jon Speelman: Analysis and the Oracle

by Jonathan Speelman
8/4/2024 – As we try to improve our chess, much of the work involves considerable analysis, which is hugely expedited by talking to our silicon masters. The important thing, however, is not merely to sit at the Oracle's feet and genuflect, but to ask sufficient questions so as to develop our own understanding and, on a very good day, to do some of the work ourselves. | Pictured: Ray Robson | Photo: Lennart Ootes / Saint Louis Chess Club
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Doing some of the work ourselves

[Note that Jon Speelman also looks at the content of the article in video format, here embedded at the end of the article.]

Together with Christmas/New Year, the summer is of course the busiest period in the chess calendar and with everything now online there is a vast amount to watch.

What with the Olympics, I've only been doing so episodically, but I have been looking at the British Championship last week, and earlier in the month enjoyed Biel.

In recent years, Biel has experimented with various formats, and they now have a "triathlon" (or should that be a quadrathlon or tetrathlon) with chess960 and all three time limits: classical, rapid and blitz. As an ancient codger, I'm not quite sure how I feel about this, but the classical tournament in particular had some very interesting games, a couple of which I'm going to look at two today. Both involve considerable analysis, which is hugely expedited by talking to our silicon masters. But in order to improve results over the board, the important thing is not merely to sit at the Oracle's feet and genuflect, but to ask sufficient questions so as to develop our own understanding and, on a very good day, to do some of the work ourselves.

What I tend to do, when I'm feeling sufficiently virtuous, is to ask for assessment(s) which will almost always be correct and then try to understand myself why they are. This led to an absolutely gorgeous variation in an ending, and happily the guy I was analysing with stiffened my resolve so that we were able to analyse to the end ourselves without taking the easy option.

Also from Biel there's an immensely complicated middlegame with archetypical sacrifice of a piece for two pawns. It's so complicated that really you just have to ask the engine and follow the lines and then understand why a move which looks completely plausible is actually something of a mistake.

This is the critical position, and I've got two main questions.

a) is 69.h6+ a good idea and, if not, why not

b) In the line 69.Rd7+ Kf8 70.h6 Kg8 see how much you can analyse and ideally whether you can get to the rather fabulous finish. Black will have to arrange a check before the white king can settle on g6 or h6. But the tempi just favour White...

Here engines like Qd7 but dismiss the move that was played - Qc8. Can you imagine why the queen is better on the second rank? (If so, then you're a better man or woman than I am - I think that this is one of those positions which are outside the ambit of normal human analysis).

Of the many very interesting positions in the British Championship, this is perhaps one of the best to try to analyse. Shreyas agreed a draw here after Gawain had just played 28...b7-b6. The pressure of top-class chess is immense, and I was certainly sometimes prone to agreeing draws when I should have played on. But this is a slightly surprising instance because I think that it's reasonably easy to convince yourself that after a couple of natural moves you at least won't be losing and can always bail out. In fact, exact analysis (with an engine working but mainly human-led) proves that it is a winning position.

See you next on Sunday, September 1st.

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In this video course, experts including Dorian Rogozenco, Mihail Marin, Karsten Müller and Oliver Reeh, examine the games of Boris Spassky. Let them show you which openings Spassky chose to play, where his strength in middlegames were and much more.

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Jonathan Speelman, born in 1956, studied mathematics but became a professional chess player in 1977. He was a member of the English Olympic team from 1980–2006 and three times British Champion. He played twice in Candidates Tournaments, reaching the semi-final in 1989. He twice seconded a World Championship challenger: Nigel Short and then Viswanathan Anand against Garry Kasparov in London 1993 and New York 1995.