Welcome to Coach Leopold's

American Chess Coaching Company

01/01/08 Welcome to the American Chess Coaching pages for 2008. Its incredible how fast 2007 went by, like it was yesterday. Anyways, its a new year, one in which I look forward to traveling through with I hope as much success if not more as I had in the past and I wish the same for you. Meanwhile, take a stroll through these pages as I try and bring you interesting articles, lessons and facts about chess. While you're here, sign my guest book and drop me a line when you can. Leopold Lacrimosa

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New at American Chess Coaching Company

Monday  072108:  I've gotten a lot of nice positive responses to the study I put up on my website. Thank you.

Started my SuperGroup training on Saturday from 9-11am. The kids had a lot of fun and are looking forward to next weeks games. There are still several seats open if you want to jump in with a half point bye for the first round.

Here's a cool picture one of my chess dads took:

You can see more pictures of kids at the tournaments on his website here:

http://www.casakrause.com/chess/

Added to my chess book collection "Ideas Behind Modern Chess Openings: Black" by Gary Lane. What I like about this book is that half of the book is devoted to the Chigorin Defense: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nc6 which I employ as a defense when playing Black.

071608 Here's a really cool study I came across yesterday:

White to play and win

Theme is Skewers

Solution

 

Summer SuperGroup starts this Saturday 9-11am July 19-Aug 23. There's still room for students who want to get a jump start on there Fall chess schedule.

Added How to Get More Out of Chess by Fred Reindfeld to my growing collection of his books. If you happen to have any of the titles on my list that I do not have, please contact me if you are interested in giving them up.

071308 How old is your brain?

This is a great little test for chess players.

Give it a try by:

 

Procedure of  Flash Fabrica Game:

1. Touch 'start'

2. Wait for 3, 2, 1.

3. Memorize the number's position on the screen, then click the circle from the smallest number to the biggest number.

4. At the end of game, the computer will tell you the age of your brain.

Good luck!!

 

http://flashfabrica.com/f_learning/brain/brain.html

 

By the way, My best score is 20

 

071008 Fixed the links to the other cool chess blogs on the right so that you go to their updated page when you click on them.

070708 time Dortmund winner, Vladimir Kramnik has stumbled. Losing his last round to Vassily Ivanchuk he allowed Peter Leko to finish in first place while he finished 7th. games and report can be found on the Chessbase website here.

Meanwhile the amateur player GM Alexander Morozevich (he says, he's no longer a professional chess player) has become the second strongest chess player in the world on the FIDE list with a rating of 2788, ten points behind World Champion Vishy Anand.

"Chess is not my calling, but only a temporary occupation, one of the methods to develop my intellect," -A.Morozevich

070408 Happy Independence Day America! Here's a nice little problem for you to solve from my data base of 300 Positions:

White to move!

Solution

063008 I've been fooling around with blogging on another site and have enjoyed it, but in doing so I haven't maintained this site at all. I used to have a blog on this site, but didn't enjoy it as much as the newer one. After some thought I have decided to return the chess blog to this site and instead of having it on a separate page, I have decided to post my blog right here in the center. It it one of the many changes I have coming to help improve this website. I hope you and enjoy it and I'd love to hear back from you as I continue to make improvements. Meanwhile, here are two nice wins I've recently have had in the Nimzowitsch Defense. I'm Black in both games.

Coach Leopold

danbunting (1658) - KingLeopold (1763)

Online Chess Chess.com (1), 29.06.2008

1.e4 Nc6 {The Nimzowitsch Defense}

2.Nf3 f5 {The Colorado variation}

3.exf5 d5 4.d4 Bxf5 {At the end of 4 moves I have two pieces developed to White's one. In this position, White has lost a tempo}

5.Bf4 e6 6.c3! Nf6 7.Bb5 Bd6 8.Ne5?! {What about development?}

8...0–0 9.Bxc6 bxc6 10.Nxc6?! {White rather go snipping rather then develop pieces. For the cost of a pawn, my pieces will develop an attack against the uncastled White king. See Capablanca vs Marshall, New York 1918, Ruy Lopez Marshall Attack for the importance of development over attack.}

10...Qe8 11.Bxd6 cxd6 12.Nb4 Qg6 13.g3 Bh3 {Black halts any castling ideas by White}

14.Nd2 Ne4 15.Nxe4? {15.f3 had to be played here}

15...Qxe4+ 16.Kd2 Rxf2+ 0–1

 

baibars (1906) - KingLeopold (1763)

Online Chess Chess.com (1), 04.06.2008

1. e4 Nc6 {The Nimzowitsch Defense}

2. d4 d5 3. e5 {Black has succeeded in luring White's pawn forward over extending his established line}

3... f6 {Black attacks the weaken e-pawn}

4. Bd3 {Played to prevent 4...Bf5 and to set a trap}

4.g6 (4... Nxd4? 5. Qh5+ g6 6.Bxg6+ hxg6 7. Qxh8)

5. f4 ?! {Allows Black to snatch a pawn} 5.Nxd4 6. Bxg6+ ?! {White gets his pawn back at the expense of trading his bishop for the knight}

6.hxg6 7. Qxd4 Bf5!= {Black has achieved equality}

8. c3 Bg7 9. Nf3 e6 10. Nbd2 Nh6 11. Nb3 Be4 12. Be3 Nf5 13. Qd2 Ng3?!
(13... fxe5 14. fxe5 Bxf3 15. gxf3 Bxe5 -/+ {Wins a pawn})

14. Rg1 Nf5 15. O-O-O Qe7 16. Rdf1 O-O-O 17. Bc5 Qd7 18. g4 Nh4 !? 19. Nxh4
Rxh4 20. Qf2 Rdh8 {Black has succeeded in opening the h-file and doubling his rooks on it}

21. Bxa7 Rxh2 22. Qc5 Rc2+ 23. Kd1 Rhh2 24. exf6 Bxf6 25. Qf8+ Bd8 26. Qa3
{White is threatening to move his bishop and play Qa8+}

26.Qb5 {But he is one tempo to slow as Black now threatens mate on both d3
and e2}

27. Nc1 Rcd2+ 28. Ke1 Qe2+ 29. Nxe2 Rhxe2# 0-1

 

Here is my Chess.com stats for June:

Rating
Current: 1763
Highest: 1869 (10 May 2008)
Avg. Opp.: 1664
Best Win: 2047 (cesrex)
Today's Rank: #1974 of 24,083 (91.8%)
Games
Total: 365
Won: 194 (53%)
Lost: 136 (37%)
Drawn: 35 (10%)
Unrated: 7
In Progress: 17
Moves
Timeouts: 1 (0%)
Avg./game: 30
Time/move: 2 hrs 11 mins

 

041708 I've been writing a series on the BDG for chess.com and have added parts 3 & 4 last night and today. You can read all four parts starting with the first one here.

041508 A First, Second, Third and Fourth place finishes by my teams at the Typhoon Chess tournament last Saturday by my students as they all get ready to head for the Governor's Cup State Championship. See their results here.

032308 Today I have duel cause to celebrate. Not only is it my 7th wedding anniversary, but I have honor of releasing my coach, GM Rashid Ziatdinov's new e-book; Concentration in Chess. It is the companion volume to his 1999 book GM-Ram. If you have any ambitions of becoming a chess master, then this e-book is for you. Order it today!

032308 "Concentration in Chess", the NEW e-book by GM Rashid Ziatdinov goes on sale tomorrow, Monday 24 March 08  at 12 noon GMT

030808 Finally, I gotten some time to work on my web site. I've annotated a nice game between Janowski-Alapin in the QGD. You can find this on my Annotated games page. Also on the same page you can find a new addition to How to Annotate your games by Vladimir Zak, a top Soviet Union chess trainer.

For those of you that haven't noticed, I've also changed my blog page. Check it out here.

I've also added Paul Motwani's annotations to How to play the Chigorin Defense to the QGD on Chess Lessons page.

012308 Add yourself to my buddymap at http://www.buddymapping.com/maps/AmChessCoaching. If you get the error "Bad Gateway" just refresh your browser.

012008 The American Chess Coaching Company wants to create an award for the best game played by an American player for the year 2008, to be given out at the end of next January. I will present a plaque and some kind of cash prize I hope if I can find a sponsor or two. If anyone is interested in sponsoring or donating to the award, please contact me. Also, I'm interested in a name for the award, so please send in your ideas!

011908 He may not have been the greatest person in history of the world, but he was certainly the greatest chess player of his time. I'm talking about Robert James "Bobby" Fischer (1943-2008). He did what no chess player has ever done before or since...become World Champion and then walk away from chess while he was king. Here is my small tribute to him including a downloadable zip file of over 800 of his games. Bobby

011608 Set up a new tactical page which I will try and up date often. Let me know what you think by either e-mail or by signing my guest book.

010708 Do you have trouble learning chess openings? Do you find the work tedious and boring? What if I told you I can teach you to learn a chess opening as easy as a fifth grader? Well its true and I can. I have written Coach Leopold's Easy Guide to Learning a Chess Opening for you to use in becoming a grandmaster of the openings. Yes, that's right friends, for a whopping $3. You too can learn to master the openings. And wait, there's more! Included in the guide is my 5 step method to annotating your games. So order now and begin your journey to becoming the master of your openings.

My Other Blogs:

The Sweltering Arizona Patriot

La Cucina Lacrimosa

 

Other Cool Chess Blogs

Robert Pearson

IM Hikaru Nakamura

Seventh Rank Associates

The Kenilworthian

USCL News & Gossip

Jim West

Chess Training

The Chess Mind

Let Me Tell You About My Best Friend

The Closet Grandmaster

Confessions of a Chess Novice

 

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Coach Leopold's General Chess Store

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Concentration in Chess

The New e-Book by GM Rashid Ziatdinov

Coach Leopold's Opening Chess Traps CD

A collection of  over 1200  traps for both major openings and obscure openings

 

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