Reaching the Top?!: A Practical Guide to Playing Master-Level Chess

2015

Introduction

I could not resist attaching the dubious punctuation to my big achievement. Once you reach the top; once you achieve the long-term goal of becoming a chess master, you find that you have actually come to a new starting point. You now know just how much you are not capable of doing yet. You realize just how poor a player you are, and how much further you need to go in order to be able to hold your head up in the community of international masters and grandmasters.

This was my big revelation after earning a master rating; I was not the strong player I wanted to be, but rather had a background and knowledge and skill at the game that I had built up over the years. This was wonderful, but it did not prevent me from being beatable in almost every game I played. There was a whole lot of room for improvement. I learned what my many weaknesses are, and I also had some tools with which to work on them. And I discovered something else: chess masters such as I are not the only ones who suffer from the malady of being beatable.

Welcome to the wonderful world of dysfunctional chess! The royal game, as played by well over 99% of all those who indulge throughout the Earth, is filled with mistakes, blunders, misconceptions, faulty ideas, and a general disregard for the needs of the pieces in many of the positions the adversaries encounter. This 99% includes national masters of all countries and even international grandmasters. In fact, the chess ability-challenged among us includes everyone who plays! If you do not believe this, check out the many grandmaster games, including those of the very best – the world champions – where one of the contestants was absolutely crushed; chess literature is filled with them.

So how does one rise through the ranks and become one of the very few elite who can play reasonably well on a consistent basis? I have no answers there, being one of the 99%. But I show my attempts in that direction, including my successes along with some of my many failures. This practical guide shows what it takes to play at the master level. It is filled with lower-level master chess as it was played in my day and as is no doubt still played today. These encounters are every-day, blue-color battles that do not involve the cutting edge of theory or top professional combatants.

These struggles may well serve as an eye-opener in several directions. On the one hand, your play needs to be purposeful much of the time; the ability to navigate through many different types of positions needs to be yours; your ability to calculate variations and find candidate moves needs to be present in at least an embryonic stage. On the other hand, it will be heart-warming and perhaps inspiring to realize that you do not have to give up blunders or misconceptions or a poor memory or sloppy calculating habits; that you do not need to know all the latest opening variations, or even know what they are called. You do not have to memorize hundreds of endgame positions or instantly recognize the proper procedure in a variety of pawn structures.

To play at any level consistently, you have to be able to defeat and lose to others of the same level in approximately equal doses. Once you know what the strengths and weaknesses of a chess master are, you can make them your own by winning against and succumbing to the masters you encounter. This is not an easy task, to be sure (though losing games to masters is admittedly easier than winning them), but it is a possible one. Use this as your guide, go out and play, and you will be well on your way.

What is a chess master?

First, just to be crystal clear, a chess master is not one who understands the game completely or even one who has actually mastered the game. That became obvious already when I was a class player and started defeating masters occasionally. Those who have essentially solved the game are known as world-class international grandmasters competing for the world championship or top-flight chess programs that do not know how to make most of the more egregious errors the rest of us contemplate and execute so often (though even they encounter bumps in the road occasionally).

With all my knowledge and experience, I am a very long way from being able to claim that I play the royal game like it should be played. I do know something about many aspects of chess; I can get a pretty good feel for when a move is likely to fail or when a position is favorable for one side or the other. But for chess games to be played at the highest levels, those feelings have to be backed up by very intricate, detailed, tactical analysis, which in turn needs to be based on a fine-tuned understanding of subtle positional intricacies. These are areas where I am sorely lacking the needed discipline and perhaps the needed imagination as well.

By definition, a US Chess Federation National Master is a competitor who has earned a rating of 2200 or higher on the USCF over-the-board rating list. Other countries have their own rating systems, and most of them correspond approximately with the American system. Such a master possesses a certain amount of knowledge and understanding and the ability to calculate a number of variations more or less accurately.

But that knowledge and playing strength varies from game to game, sometimes even from move to move, and also varies over time. My own play has fluctuated anywhere between a lower B Class level of about 1600 all the way up to perhaps 2600-plus. However, most of my games usually fell somewhere between the smaller extremes of expert (2000) to senior master (2400). This is not particularly unusual. Humans are like that; we reach a certain level of expertise and understanding, but we do not always perform at our standard, occasionally producing work above our heads or not worthy of our ability.

A national chess master is not the same everywhere, though. I specified a US Chess Federation National Master in my definition because if I were to travel to Moscow and play in competitions there, I would be considered a candidate master. The standards in Russia and the old Soviet Union are and were higher. Only those who play consistently at or above a USCF 2400 or senior master level are awarded a national chess master title there. For the FIDE Master title, your play must be equivalent to a USCF 2350-plus level, something I never quite achieved in any consistent way. Or at least that was so in my day.

The simplest definition I can think of is that a national master is an enthusiastic amateur who has reached a certain level of playing strength.

How does one earn a master’s rating?

This one I can answer from experience. No doubt different paths are available and possible for different people. There are those with much more talent than I possess, and those who instinctively understand board games. I have read that people with talent in music and math generally do well at chess. Well, I do have a talent for music, but am probably below average at math. So I started with what I possessed, which was fair intelligence and a burning passion for the game.

With those tools to begin with, I devoured chess books by the dozens and later the hundreds. I started off by attempting to memorize a few opening variations. I actually hand-copied many of the ones I was attracted to, even though I had nothing much to go on in choosing these variations. I learned of the various positional concepts such as the importance of pawn structure in forming a plan, the special qualities and elusive relative strength of each piece, and the importance of coordinating all my pieces and pawns. I learned specific opening structures and variations and move orders and middlegame position types and what to look for in intricate endgames from the most basic to the extremely complicated. I learned the importance of developing my pieces, the concept of zugzwang, and what checkmate looks like.

But when I began to play, all this book learning did not immediately translate into wins or a high rating. Something was missing. I needed the experience of playing. So I played a lot. And still something was missing. I played the strongest competition I could find and analyzed the games with my opponents and by myself afterwards. And still something was missing. I was not getting it.

I had trouble calculating reliable variations over the board, so began playing correspondence games where I could look at each position I analyzed on a chessboard and so see it clearer. This did strengthen my play, but it was not enough. I played blindfold games so I could learn to see these positions in my head during a tournament game. I played through and analyzed the games of the grandmasters from game collections and magazines and books. And still something was missing.

This sort of thing happened over and over. I would read, study, play, analyze my own games, and try to improve, but my play seemed to be stuck at a certain level. First it was impossible to rise above the C-level. But then, about a year later, all of a sudden I was B-class strength. And I could not go beyond it. Another year or two later I was an A-player. Once again I reached a wall. This time it lasted a little longer, but another breakthrough took place and I was an expert. One more time I came to a plateau.

Of course, each time I reached a new level, my competition also became stronger. That was because I always sought out the toughest opponents I could. In Swiss tournaments, you get whomever you are paired with, but in general your competition will be stronger if you win more in the early rounds. And you can often play matches with players a class above you. You can also play in open events rather than the class side events that were so popular in my day. That is what I invariably did. After I began regularly playing at the expert level, things got tougher yet since I began getting invited to participate in expert/master-only tournaments.

Finally, I learned about the importance of noticing each and every tactical and positional threat in each and every position, and the necessity of using these threats in my games. It was long-time master Harry Lyman who provided the inspiration for this last jump through his incessant (at first annoying) question What’s the threat? at every turn during any analysis session, with me or anyone else. This took place at the Boylston chess club in Boston, where I was playing at the time, and it had a great influence on me.

The great importance of fighting for the initiative was what I had been missing. By continuing to do all the other things I had been doing with this new mindset to back it up, I finally got over the hump and earned the mater rating, 11 years after playing in my first rated tournament and earning my first rating (1360). I soared all the way to 2300 before leveling out again.

So let’s put together a list of what a chess master does not need to know or do and another list of what a chess master needs to know and do, and see what we come up with.

What a chess master does not need to know.

(1) All the basic endgames. Look through Chapter 4 and you will get a good idea of how sloppy your endgame play can be.

(2) The latest opening theory. Some of the openings I played were theoretical and quite a few were not. Some were sound and some were not. Some were well played, while others were not. I am by no means an opening expert, yet I held a 2200-2300 rating for almost 20 years of rather continual competition.

(3) How to calculate accurately any number of moves and keep all the lines clearly in mind. Take a good look at all the games throughout this book. Miscalculations and outright blunders are all over the place. These come from class players, experts, masters, senior masters, and even grandmasters.

(4) How to assess each position and potential position flawlessly. Misjudgments of the position and mistaken assessments are ubiquitous in master play.

(5) Understand all the positional ideas in depth. Notice that the many misunderstandings come form my opponents, including higher-rated opponents, as well as from me.

(6) Know all the famous games. I know a few of them, but have no clue what really happened in many and have never even seen many more than that.

What a chess master does not need to do.

(1) Master the game. Just check out all the goofs throughout this book and this becomes painfully obvious.

(2) Never blunder or make mistakes. Ditto.

(3) Be completely sure of yourself. Confidence is a great trait, and it is probably necessary to have a certain amount of it, but lacking absolute sureness does not stop people from achieving great things. Sometimes, too much confidence translates to poor results, because you do not respect your opponent enough and do not look for holes in your analysis; that last is a sure way of making sure you do not find them.

(4) Win most of your games. You can probably do a better job of this by picking weak opponents. To become a master you need to lose and lose often. How else can you learn how to win against strong players?

(5) Outplay all inferior opponents. This simply does not happen. Looking through the games I won against weaker competition as well as those I lost against superior competition shows that the winner only rarely outplayed the loser. Tartakower had a great way of expressing this truth: The winner is the one who makes the next-to-last mistake.

(6) Read chess books and magazines without the use of a physical board and pieces and absorb everything perfectly. It is probably a good idea to try to follow games in your head (this helps to bolster visualization skills). But I usually did not do it because I wanted to understand what was going on in the positions I was reading about, and that is easier to do by looking at diagrams and physically moving the pieces.

(7) Solve all chess problems each time one is encountered. This is probably a good discipline to develop, but I rarely did it. That is not to say that you should not solve problems, just that it is not a necessary prerequisite to gaining the skills of a chess master. Nevertheless, as in most of the items in this list, this is probably a necessity if you want to move on to greater accomplishments than playing at the master level.

(8) Have an excellent memory and great visualization skills. I had a horribly hard time trying to remember many opening lines, and several times had to give up openings because I just could not keep the ideas straight. In addition, I cannot for the life of me actually visualize a chessboard. Despite that, I was once able to play three simultaneous blindfold games all the way through to the end (I read somewhere that any master worth his salt can do this, so I kept at it until I succeeded). I kept pretty good track of where the pieces were and did know which squares were light and which were dark regardless of my inability to visualize.

(9) Have a healthy attitude at the board, always thinking in terms of the needs of the position rather than what you feel entitled to, no matter the strength of you opponent or the position before you. This is an excellent thing to do, and something to always strive for, but I got away with terrible thinking habits in my years as a chess master, so that cannot be a necessary skill.

(10) Avoid all distractions, concentrating on each move of each game with intense discipline. I have not done that consistently throughout my playing days, but probably was a bit better at it after I achieved the master level.

What a chess master needs to know.

(1) A reasonable understanding of opening theory. Actually, it is more important to know why moves are played rather than which move should be played. With such knowledge, you can hone your skills much better than memorizing long sets of moves with little understanding of why they are made.

(2) What each move in a game is trying to accomplish. Notice that this says nothing about which move is actually better. With this mindset, each move becomes vitally important. You probably have a better chance to understand the positions you contemplate, and therefore improve your choosing process.

(3) How to pick and choose which moves to look at. For this you need some rudimentary strategic and tactical know-how. It does not have to be extremely deep, but knowing what to look for in various pawn structures is a great help in this direction.

(4) How to calculate a few moves ahead in tactical positions. If you have trouble with this skill, read Winning Chess: How to See Three Moves Ahead by Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld. Look at every check, capture, pawn promotion, and every threat to check, capture, or promote a pawn. That reduces the number of moves greatly and allows you to look further with confidence because all the moves you are looking at are forcing to a certain degree.

(5) How to decide what the strengths and weaknesses in each position are. This is not to say that you need to be correct in you evaluation of the relative strengths and weaknesses, which is a part I always struggled with. Rather, you need to understand what the pieces are capable of and in which types of positions they are at their best. For example, knights are best in closed positions or invading holes in enemy territory that are supported by your pawns, while bishops are great on an open board with pawns on both sides and especially work well together. Rooks also need open spaces, either on open files or ranks and are best placed behind passed pawns of either color, while a queen and knight work well together, and a king can be a strong attacking force when most of the pieces are gone, etc.

(6) Be familiar with a number of classic games and positions. This may not be absolutely essential, but the benefit is that you can be confident when you strive for something you know has worked before. Why reinvent the wheel each time?

What a chess master needs to do.

(1) Have a burning passion and desire for the game. This may be the real key to your success. With it, anything is possible; without it, I doubt you will get very far, unless you are particularly talented. But I am no authority on chess talent, having been blessed with very little.

(2) Possess a reasonable competitive streak. If it is not important for you to win, there will be little motivation to improve.

(3) Travel a lot. Have your weekends and evenings free for competition, because that is when most of them happen. You can probably get by without as much travel if you live in a particularly bustling metropolitan area where a lot of chess activity is going on. But for those of us who live in small towns or in the country, travel is essential. How else can you get the needed competition? Chess masters are not going to come to you; you must seek them out.

(4) Play a lot. Play correspondence, computer programs, on the Internet, simuls (either side), club games, rated tournaments, rated or unrated matches, off-hand, friendly games, speed chess, blindfold – anything.

(5) Play strong competition. The reason is simple: we tend to play to the strength of our opponents. In other words, if you constantly play C-class players, you will probably play at that level also. Why would you do anything else? You can make mistakes all over the place and usually will not get punished for them.

(6) Lose a lot. Here is a great key to playing at any desired level. If you play masters all the time, you are going to work at improving your game simply because you will get sick and tired of losing all the time. So you will subject your games to analysis and find out where you went wrong so you will not do it again. You will find out how they win, and will incorporate those ideas into your own play so that you can win. This is how you make progress.

(7) Make an effort to learn from your games, particularly your losses, by analyzing your own games solo and with strong players, trainers, opponents, computer programs, friends – anyone. This is a key ingredient to improving. Be able to subject your own games, particularly your losses, to deep analysis. Avoid the mistakes you have been making, incorporate the winning ideas your opponents have been using on you, and before you know it, you will begin winning some of these games.

(8) Be able to transfer what you learn from these sessions to your future games. Without this step, the losses will do you no good. Therefore, do not throw them out or forget them. Rather, use them as the great learning tools they are.

(9) Read a lot. The famous scientist Isaac Newton once said of his tremendous accomplishments: If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. The same thing happens in chess. Today’s great players are better then the great players of a hundred years ago, and those greats were better than their predecessors, etc. If you want to be a strong chess player, you have to know how strong competitors play. Therefore, knowing the games of the masters is only going to help. Also, many great chess teachers and authors have gone to a lot of trouble to get knowledge of this great game out to you. Take advantage of this tremendous resource.

(10) Absorb and make use of the reading material, transferring it to your games. Without this step, the last one is useless. You have to be able to use what you have read in your own practice. You will find numerous examples of this trait throughout this work, because I often mention which book or other source I got an idea from, at least when I can remember them.

The Seven Main, Basic Principles

My last book, The Tao of Chess, detailed 200 principles to transform your game and your life. There can be more if you think about them. But I have boiled expertise at chess, at least enough to play at the master level, down to seven principles that pretty much cover them all:

(1) Have a burning desire and passion for the game (none of the other principles matter without this one).

(2) Think in terms of the needs of the position and the pieces rather than any other considerations.

(3) At all times be aware of king safety.

(4) Notice every threat to check, capture, or promote a pawn (other principles are useless without this tactical awareness).

(5) Coordinate, develop, and engage all your pieces throughout the game.

(6) Control the central squares and you control the game.

(7) Do as much as possible with each move. (The basic idea of double attack is necessary if you want to defeat a strong opponent who will find and counter all your threats; make them hard to deal with).

These are the most important ones that I tried to apply in my quest for the magical master rating.

To illustrate these principles, here are a famous endgame study and a famous game.

Position (1)

Endgame Study by Richard Réti

White to move and draw

The task may seem impossible at first glance, since the white king cannot catch the h-pawn in a race, while the black king can easily get the f-pawn. So how does White draw?

1.Kg7

By moving closer to the center, the white monarch inches closer to both pawns. The threat is to continue doing so with 2.Kf6 and 3.Ke5.

1…h4

Alternatives lead to the same result: 1…Kb6 2.Kf6 h4 3.Ke5 h3 (or 3…Kxc6 4.Kf4) 4.Kd6.

2.Kf6 h3

On 2…Kb6 White continues his plan with 3.Ke5 when the threats of 4.Kf4, catching the h-pawn, and 4.Kd6, defending the f-pawn, assure the draw.

3.Ke7

Both players will promote their pawns without offering any realistic winning chances.

Réti was passionate enough to compose this study; thought only of what the kings and pawns could do on the chessboard; uses the principles of center control and double attack, making threats by all his forces (king and pawn) to do so. These are six of the seven principles, since in this reduced type of endgame neither king is in any immediate danger.

(1) Morphy – The Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard

(Consultation game)

Philidor’s Defense [C41]

Paris 1858

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Bg4 4.dxe5 Bxf3 5.Qxf3 dxe5 6.Bc4 Nf6 7.Qb3 Qe7 8.Nc3 c6 9.Bg5 b5 10.Nxb5 cxb5 11.Bxb5+ Nbd7 12.0-0-0 Rd8 13.Rxd7 Rxd7 14.Rd1 Qe6 15.Bxd7+ Nxd7 16.Qb8+ Nxb8 17.Rd8#

There is no need to analyze the moves in this game; it is too well known, appearing in great numbers of books throughout chess literature, and is probably in all the mega databases as well. The key ingredients for Morphy’s win are that he traveled to Europe to test his ability against the strongest players of the day; thought only of what his pieces wanted to do during the game; engaged all his pieces very economically (his last two pieces deliver checkmate); controlled the central squares from the very beginning; exposed and attacked his opponents’ king while getting his own into safety quickly; and made as many threats as possible with each move in order to bring about that successful mating attack. Thus all seven of my must-use principles are on conspicuous display.

Applying this Knowledge

So how does a mere mortal chess master use this kind of thing in his own games? Like this:

(2) Kurzdorfer – Travers

Queen’s Gambit Accepted [D21]

Buffalo 1985

1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 c5 3.c4 dxc4 4.e3 a6 5.Bxc4 b5 6.Bxf7+ Kxf7 7.Ne5+ Ke6 8.Qg4+ Kd6 9.Nf7+ Kc7 10.Qg3+ Kd7 11.Nxd8 Kxd8 12.Qf3 Ra7 13.Qxf8+ 1-0

Although this game is not famous, it is pretty obvious that I played it with verve; I made the pieces happy by doing their bidding; controlled the center; coordinated my forces; made use of threats, including double threats; and harassed my opponent’s king while my own was in no danger. Of course both games are miniatures because the opponents did not offer much of a struggle. Lee Travers was actually an expert who gave me some tough competition on other occasions, but This time he fell for an opening trap by ignoring the principles of getting his pieces into coordinated action, king safety, and center control, all with that horrid 5…b5??.

Know some of the classic positions.

Can this sort of thing be carried off against strong opposition? It usually cannot; at least not so fast. But the next example takes us to a much later stage of a game, and a wonderful combination I knew of. You might know it as well. (D)

24.Bf7+! Kh8 25.Be8!! 1-0

White’s 24th move drove away the defending king for this lovely interference move with a discovered attack, which opens the checkmate square on f8 to the f-file battery. This combination made a big impression on me when I first saw it, and I have not forgotten it.

Position (2)

Réti – Bogoljubow

New York 1924 (D)

Position after Black’s 23rd move

I made good use of that knowledge in a postal encounter:

Position (3)

Kurzdorfer – Raymond

Correspondence 1980 (D)

Position after Black’s 26th move

Do you see the similarity? I began to see it after calculating a series of captures, and became eagerly expectant at the prospect.

27.Qg5! Qxg5??

My opponent is not aware of what I am trying to do. Although his game is difficult, he can still put up resistance with 27…h6 28.Qf4 Qxf4 29.Bxf4 Bxd4 30.Nb5 Bf6 31.Nxc7 Rc8 32.Kg2 when White has a nice space advantage with that dangerous e-pawn, but no forced win.

28.Bxg5 Bxd4 29.Bxe7 Bxc3

Do you see it now?

30.Bd8!!

This move, clearing the e-pawn’s path while interfering with the defending rook, is actually a little more involved than the famous one since there are more variations. Nevertheless, they are all pretty easy to find and all lead to an overwhelming win for White.

30…Bf6

30…Rxd8 31.e7 Rg8 32.Rf8 or 31…Re8 32.Rf8+ or 30…Kg8 31.e7 and White promotes the pawn or checkmates Black or both.

31.Rxf6! 1-0

Again, White checkmates or gets a new queen or both after 31…Rxd8 32.e7 or 31…gxf6 32.e7 or 31…Kg8 32.e7.

Anticipating a Masterpiece

Another case that came up happened in reverse. I played a nice game and only later found out how high-level it actually was. The game with Artur De La Garza was a clash of two experts at the US Class Championships.

(3) Kurzdorfer – De La Garza

Ruy Lopez [C69]

Hartford 1980

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.0-0 f6 6.d4 exd4 7.Nxd4 c5 8.Nb3 Qxd1 9.Rxd1 Be6 10.Be3 b6 11.Nc3 Bd6 12.a4 0-0-0 13.a5 Kb7 14.axb6 cxb6 15.e5

I liked this move a lot; it opens the e4-square for my knight, thus preparing a temporary piece sacrifice on c5. But a little calculating shows that the combination is available immediately with 15.Bxc5! bxc5 16.Nxc5+ Bxc5 17.Rxd8 Be7 18.Rd3 Nh6 and White’s pieces are working well together with good center control. Black has two bishops for rook and two pawns as counterplay, but White’s d5-outpost looks very inviting.

15…Bc7 16.Rxd8 Bxd8 17.Ne4 (D)

17…Be7

This move does not stop the combination. Better therefore is 17…Bxb3! 18.Nd6+ Kc6 19.cxb3 Ne7 20.Rxa6 Nd5 21.Ra8 Rf8 22.Nc4 Nxe3 23.fxe3 Kb7 24.Ra1 Bc7 25.exf6 Rxf6 when Black has defended all the threats and coordinated his forces at the cost of a pawn. White cannot have much of an advantage, if any, because of his inferior pawn structure.

18.Bxc5! Bxb3 19.Bxe7 Bd5??

This inattentive move loses material. Black should coordinate his pieces by bringing them into the game with 19…Nxe7 20.cxb3 fxe5 21.Nd6+ Ka7 22.Nf7 Rc8 23.Nxe5 Rc2. This offers him some much-needed counterplay.

20.Nd6+

This safe move is all right as far as it goes, but more brutal is to capture the offered material with 20.Bf8! Nh6 (or 20…Bxe4 21.Bxg7 fxe5 22.Bxh8 Ne7 23.Bxe5) 21.Bxg7 Rg8 22.Nxf6! Rxg7 23.Nxd5 when it is not too hard to figure out that White should win.

20…Kc6 21.Bf8 Nh6 22.Bxg7 Rg8

Black is looking for counterplay against g2. Therefore, my next move is probably best, since it addresses that concern.

23.c4! Bxg2 24.exf6

This passed pawn is likely too much for Black to handle.

24…Bh3 25.Ne4 Nf5 26.Ra3 Nxg7 27.Rxh3!

This is another strong move, not fearing the coming discovered attack. My idea is to win with the monster passed pawn; therefore, capturing the knight with 27.fxg7?? Rxg7+ 28.Rg3 Rg6, when Black has just about equalized, makes no sense.

27…Nh5+ 28.Kf1 Nf4 29.Rxh7 Rd8

It is rather important to notice the checkmate threat.

30.f3 Rd3 31.Kf2 Rb3 32.f7 Rxb2+ 33.Kg3 Ne6 34.Rh6! 1-0

This was an excellent game, which I played at the master level at least. 12 years later I came upon this encounter:

(4) Fischer – Spassky

Ruy Lopez [C69]

m(9), Bosnia-Herzegovina 1992

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.0-0 f6 6.d4 exd4 7.Nxd4 c5 8.Nb3 Qxd1 9.Rxd1 Bg4

This is the first difference. Artur played 9…Be6, not forcing me to strengthen my center and weaken my king with 10.f3, as Spassky forced Fischer to do.

10.f3 Be6 11.Nc3 Bd6 12.Be3 b6 13.a4 0-0-0 14.a5 Kb7

Do you recognize this position? It is the same one I reached against De La Garza with the sole exception of the white f-pawn. This is where I chose to exchange pawns on b6. Fischer delays the exchange and immediately goes for the combination I played. His concept was highly praised in the world chess press, calling it innovative and powerful. Incidentally, the combination I missed, the one beginning 15. Bxc5!, simply loses here because of the devastating check when the bishop captures on c5.

15.e5 Be7 16.Rxd8 Bxd8 17.Ne4 (D)

I was particularly interested in this position, since my opponent missed a chance to drum up counterplay with 17…Bxb3!. Did Spassky miss the same thing? He did, even though the line is not quite as effective as in my game. After 18.cxb3 Ne7 19.exf6 gxf6 20.Rd1 f5 21.Ng3 Rg8 22.Bd2 Black is close to equalizing.

So what is the substantive difference with no exchange on b6 and the white pawn on f3? Not much, other than the earlier sac on c5 being unavailable here. However, both Fischer and Spassky must have understood what was going on at a much deeper level than Artur and me; they were, after all, much stronger players, despite being past their prime at the time this match was played.

17…Kc6?? 18.axb6 cxb6 19.Nbxc5 Bc8 20.Nxa6 fxe5 21.Nb4+ 1-0

Ordinary masters and experts like me will sometimes stumble onto some high level conceptions and execute them well. But this kind of thing is only an occasional guest at our games. Nevertheless, it felt good to have played almost the same game Fischer played against Spassky 12 years later!

Three Breakthrough Games

Before getting to the main body of this work, I present three breakthrough games that you will have to duplicate in some fashion if you ever wish to gain that coveted rating. These are my first rated wins against an expert, a master, and a senior master. These games were not great masterpieces by any means, involving as they did helpful mistakes from my opponents as well as unpunished mistakes by me. But this is how every-day competitive chess is played at the master level; it is not always so nice and cozy as the games and positions you have seen so far may make it seem.

I told you that giving up mistakes and miscalculations and poor assessments is not a necessary ingredient. But having a passion for the game and trying to make use of everything you know to win games is indeed a necessary ingredient, and I possessed those in abundance during these encounters.

Castle Early and Often

Long ago I met Expert Ron Kensek in a rated tournament game and gave him all I had.

(5) Kensek – Kurzdorfer

Vienna game [C27]

Buffalo 1976

1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Bb4 4.Nge2 Nxe4 5.Nxe4 d5 6.c3 Be7 7.Bd3 dxe4 8.Bxe4 Nd7

This shows my safety first mentality in my B-class days. More enterprising is 8…f5!?, but the move never would have occurred to me in those days since it opens the a2-g8 diagonal. The point is that White has to retreat his bishop before he can take advantage of that diagonal, and that means either interfering with his queen or with his rook. These ideas are maybe a little too sophisticated for a B-player, though.

9.d4 exd4

I develop the expert’s pieces for him. No doubt better are 9…0-0 and 9…Nf6.

10.Qxd4 Bf6 11.Qb4 a5 12.Qc4 0-0 13.Bf4 Ne5

This is a good move, meeting the threat to the c-pawn in an active way. But I did not notice that it involves a pawn sac.

14.Bxe5 Bxe5 15.Bxh7+?!

I was surprised when Ron played his combination, since I had not foreseen it. I should have, though, since it is a simple matter of four captures, including two checks, in a relatively simple position without alternatives. The whole combination consists of just one variation. Nevertheless, it winds up doing more damage to White’s position than it does to Black’s; White wins a pawn at the cost of getting his king stuck in the center. However, after 15.Rd1 Qh4 16.g3 Qh3 17.Ng1 Qh5 18.Nf3 Bg4 Black has grabbed the initiative anyway.

This is an instance of a player knowing a little too much for his own good. Had Ron not spotted the combination, he would never have come under such a strong attack. More importantly, he needed to supplement his combinational vision with a better feel for king safety. That saying I used as a header to this game may sound silly, but it has a lot of truth to it; kings are notoriously vulnerable when uncastled in open positions.

15…Kxh7 16.Qe4+ Kg8 17.Qxe5 Re8 (D)

I was very excited at being presented with a wonderful opportunity after getting over the shock of losing a pawn that fast: I was about to defeat an expert for the first time, if only I could prosecute the attack correctly. But the real interest in this game is the most stubborn defensive try White has after raking in his ill-gotten gain. The resources White has at his disposal turn out to be quite daunting, and I can probably count myself very lucky that he did not put up stiffer resistance once he found himself in trouble.

18.Qb5??

This move is not very strong. The expert needs to look for ways to survive, giving back a pawn or two if necessary. A good way to do that is to challenge the queen, even though after 18.Qd4! Qg5 19.h4 Qg6 20.h5 Qe6 21.Qe3 Qc6 22.Qd2 Bg4 23.f3 Rad8 24.Qc2 Re5! 25.Rd1 Rde8 26.Rd2 Bxh5 27.Kf2 Qh6 28.Rh3 Qe3+ 29.Kf1 Bg6, Black’s forces are well coordinated, he controls the center, and his king is safer. But White is still alive.

18…b6 19.Rd1 Qe7 20.Qd3 Ba6 21.c4 Qb4+ 22.Qc3 Bxc4 23.Rd2 Qb5 24.a4 Qxa4 25.Qc2 Qb5 0-1

Overwhelmed by Complications

This was the big one: my first master scalp. It mattered not that NM Leslie Braun’s rating was only 2201at the time nor what my rating was (somewhere around 1900) – it counted. We played at the World Open, a tournament I made as often as I could. Since my strength was increasing, I was playing masters more and more, and was not always getting outplayed and did not always lose, so I knew it would happen eventually.

I won the game only because he shied away from the complications I introduced, rather than embracing them and probably winding up with a draw. There’s a lesson here about using whatever resources are available, regardless of how complicated they may look, even though it was the master who needed it.

(6) Kurzdorfer – Braun

Sicilian Defense [B20]

Philadelphia 1978

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d3 g6 4.g3 Bg7 5.Bg2 Nc6 6.0-0 e5 7.c3 Nge7 8.a3 0-0 9.b4 h6

This is a little timid. 9…Bg4 10.h3 Be6 is stronger.

10.b5 Nb8 11.d4

This is the second time I played this line, which was not to be found in any opening literature I had come across. That was reason enough for me to use it. The idea of taking the center by storm appealed to me, and I wanted to see what a strong player would do about it. That my pawns look a little loose did not bother me much back then.

11…a6

Black does not get any particular advantage by trying to exploit the long dark diagonal with 11…exd4 after 12.cxd4 Bg4 13.Be3 Nd7 14.h3 Bxf3 15.Bxf3 Rc8 16.Ra2.

12.bxa6 b6 13.Ra2 Bxa6 14.Re1 Ra7 15.Rd2 Rd7?

Copying my idea of the rook lift to the center is not the greatest idea for Black; his position is too cramped. Getting out of the pin with 15…Qe8 16.Qb3 exd4 17.cxd4 Nd7, however, maintains equal chances.

16.Bh3 f5 17.dxe5 dxe5 18.exf5 Rxd2?

White has a significant advantage thanks to his extra pawn and bishop pair after 18…Nxf5 19.Nxe5 Bxe5 20.Rxe5 Bd3. Yet that is preferable to the text move, which makes Leslie’s position worse yet through some lurking tactical shots in view of his exposed king.

19.Nbxd2 e4 (D)

I knew my position was good. But calculating tactical lines was still a mystery to me, and I missed a rather transparent aspect of the position after a mere three captures.

20.Nxe4?

The strongest line goes 20.Rxe4! gxf5 21.Re1 Bxc3 22.Rxe7! Bxd2 23.Re6 Bxc1 24.Qxc1 Rf6 25.Bxf5! Rxe6 (but not 25…Rxf5??, when 26.Qxh6 wins) 26.Bxe6+ Kg7 27.Nh4 with a nice attack on the exposed black monarch to go along with the extra pawn. But finding that line was difficult for me; I thought the text move was every bit as good with a lot less complications because of my giant blind spot.

20…Qxd1 21.Rxd1 Be2

This is what I had not foreseen; a simple fork on two undefended pieces. At this point I was in a near panic because my first victory against a master was about to go down the tubes. So I took some time and began calculating to find a saving idea. It never occurred to me that my position might still be better, or that his devastating fork might not be his best move. Yet both are true.

First, his best reply appears to be 21…Nxf5 22.Re1 g5 23.Kg2 Nc6 24.Bg4 when his pieces are all working and my only advantage is the extra, isolated pawn.

Second, my best move, and the only way to maintain my advantage, is 22.Re1! Bxf3 23.Nd2 with a discovered attack on the knight, which