Jon Speelman: Calculation without excessive genuflection

by Jonathan Speelman
11/19/2023 – This week, I’m looking at calculation and what’s reasonable for a mere human being without excessive genuflection to our silicon lords and masters. One thing that the silicon brings us is a totally unprejudiced “eye”, but seeing far enough in difficult positions over the board is something any competitive player needs to develop properly. | Pictured: Vidit Gujrathi | Photo: FIDE / Stev Bonhage
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Decision making

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

This week, I’m looking at calculation and what’s reasonable for a mere human being without excessive genuflection to our silicon lords and masters.

To this end, I’ve got a couple of examples which require some thought, an example position which occurred to me apropos — in a pretty distant way — a sharp line of the Caro-Kann and my very tough game last Saturday.

This was against the top board for Wood Green second team Jonah Willow (both teams are in the top division of the 4NCL, so we had to play in round 1). This involved a lot of decision-making by both of us, and we both did pretty well, while after I got the advantage he put up a splendid resistance and there were moments when my advantage had dwindled.

We start with four diagrams which are covered in the pgn.

This position from the 4NCL Division 2 was very kindly shown to me by somebody I teach. Black to play could simply reply 36...e5 but chose to accept the bait with 36...Nf3+ 37.Kg3 fxe4 which was met by 38.Bf6+ Has he allowed a swindle or is there still a way to win?

This appears in one of Mark Dvoretysky’s books. He’d like to play 54...Rb5, and the question is whether this is possible if White exchanges and goes into the knight ending where he will lose his knight for the c-pawn but get connected passed pawns.

One thing that the silicon brings us is a totally unprejudiced “eye”. Can you find the short but very unobvious (to us) way in which the engines neutralise White’s initiative?

Select an entry from the list to switch between games

Let us learn together how to find the best spot for the queen in the early middlegame, how to navigate this piece around the board, how to time the queen attack, how to decide whether to exchange it or not, and much more!

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Topics: Jon Speelman's Agony Column
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.