Jon Speelman: Beauty in London and Budapest

Discussing chess at a pub in central London

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

I'm starting today with a position which arose when I was looking at how to stop connected passed pawns. Of course, in principle, you want your rook to be behind the passed pawns as is the case whether they are yours or the enemy's. But sometimes this is impossible, and after fiddling around I got to this position.

It's Black to play (I didn't bother to turn it round and make it into a "study" - there really isn't that much content) and the question is which one of the two pawns he should advance. You'll probably have an instinctive view on this, and it will take a little analysis to verify this as right or wrong. The answer is in the PGN.

Every month or so, I have lunch with some chess players in central London. We normally go to a pub and this time I had a decent pint and a reasonable veggie burger which was punctuated by some gossip and some chess, of which the above diagram was my rather modest contribution. David Norwood very kindly sent us several other positions by text, and here are some of them. I don't actually have the provenance, so please send it if you know.

This one took us something between five and ten minutes, and I failed to solve it myself. I've shown it to several people I've been teaching and at least one was appreciably quicker than this - for which, bravo! Please have a look and see if you can do better than me. The solution is short and beautiful and when you get it you will very much know that you have!

I redeemed myself by solving this one pretty quickly. Like the predecessor, it's something that either hits you or you could spend quite a while looking for.

The very first position we looked at was this. I think I've seen it before, though I didn't find it in my study database. White can't stop the black a-pawn from queening, but there's something he can do in the meantime...

Gems from Budapest

Attack like a Super Grandmaster

In this Fritztrainer: “Attack like a Super GM” with Gukesh we touch upon all aspects of his play, with special emphasis on how you can become a better attacking player.

Coverage of the Olympiad has been extensive on ChessBase and elsewhere that there were more than four thousand games in the open section alone, and here are a couple which you may not have seen.

The first two games are mismatches from the first round. I'm in no way trying to show up the weaker players who had almost no chance given the massive rating differences, but both are quite aesthetic.

My last game today is a very pretty win by Hungary's bottom board Benjamin Gledura. Back on November 3^rd.

Baadur Jobava at the 2022 Chess Olympiad in Chennai | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Select an entry from the list to switch between games

Master Class Vol.17 - Boris Spassky

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.

Links

• Previous column: Pushing the limits of greed and analysis
• All Speelman's Agony columns