I'm probably just compensating for personal inadequacy. I've tried several times to learn the B+N mate. All that stuff about making Ws and forcing the king into the corner that the bishop controls. But I've never been able to make it stick.

I can imagine, but your posts are probably the most influential in the POTD pages and that opinion could be misleading for less expert kibitzers.

<I'm probably just compensating for personal inadequacy. I've tried several times to learn the B+N mate. All that stuff about making Ws and forcing the king into the corner that the bishop controls. But I've never been able to make it stick.

Then I read "Grandmaster secrets: Endings" by Soltis who argued that you don't need to know it because it happens so rarely. That seemed the perfect excuse for my own lack of ability/ aptitude/ skill/ whatever...>

This reminds me why chess is important to me (if I remember correctly, John Spouge has a similar opinion). It may be viewed as a small laboratory where one can test many skills: from decision making to winner attitude, from concentration to memory, from logic to raw calculation, from patience to resilience, from ...

In particular, there is one skill I really love to train with the help of chess and it is the ability of constructing mental battering rams (I can't find a better description) to overcome difficult problems.

As a consultant on engineering/statistical computation I often meet problems I can't say at first sight whether I'll be able to solve in a reasonable amount of time, so my interest in solving attitudes & strategies is not a mere hobby. Not surprisingly, difficult real life problems don't look so tough when one gets used to solve hard problems in chess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWZ7...

It might not be the only "method," but it seems to me fairly easy to remember.

I've had the ending in <two> OTB games. In both cases, I steered a losing ending into it, knowing how difficult B+N vs K can be for amateurs. I drew one of them, and it was a decisive result for a match in a team tournament.

Last month, <Domdaniel> saw someone at a tournament unable to win it OTB, so while rare, it <does> occur.

Even rarer, I had this position arise in an OTB game many years ago:

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There are only so many hours in the day. And only so many days in the week.

First there's the day job. That's the one that pays the mortgage. I'm lucky enough to get a bigger than average salary, but that means that they expect more than just the 9 to 5.

Then there's the writing. The one book I have written that I need to find a publisher for, and the one that's 75% written. And the chess book that I'll get round to writing one of these days.

There's my family - the Mem and the undisputed best boy in the world. The most precious things in this world to me.

There's the little british racing green sportscar sitting in the garage. And I really do need to sort out the intermittent electrical fault and figure out why the windows don't go up and down any more.

Not to mention learning a decent response to the caro kann.

So while I know I <should> learn the B+N mate, I am struggling to place it very high up my to-do list. Yes it happens occasionally. But does it happen often enough to warrant investing the time it would take to learn it?

So I tend to default to my old faithful standby - the Kings Indian Attack. It is just about playable against all of the semi-open defences, but only really effective against the french and some lines of the sicilian (mostly those where black plays e6).

The typical setup starts with 1. e4. 2. d3, 3. g3 and eventually you get something that looks like this:

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Of course, black gets to play some moves as well! But generally the two armies don't come into contact until the middlegame. White just develops smoothly then looks for an attack - either pushing in the centre or attacking on the kingside.

You can combine this opening with the closed sicilian (1. e5 c5 2. Nc3 followed by a kingside fianchetto) to create a fairly harmonious opening repertoire.

Have a look at my one and only game collection for some sample games with these openings.

I just thought i'd nip in and thank you for your answer and of course help, to a question i posed yesterday on the POTD..

I would have posted there, but my post may have been buried amongst others, and you could have missed my reply..

It was actually an extremely helpful answer, but just one question for you.. What does the acronym GOOT stand for? I've seen other user's use it before, but i can't remember what it means!

And i enjoy your chess tales on the POTD very much, some are very very clever and funny :).

It stands for "Get out of that". It's when you make a non-forcing move that creates a threat that the opponent cannot get out of. Your opponent can play lots of different moves, but none can parry the threat.

Most attacks are based on forcing moves - checks and captures - which gradually restrict the opponent's choices to fewer and fewer moves. But a GOOT is different because you allow your opponent lots of choices - none of which work.

In the game in question, white starts with a non-GOOT 42. Rh8+

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This is a typical attacking move. Black has only one legal reply ... 42...Kxh8. Now 43. Kg6 is the GOOT move.

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Black has no fewer than 14 legal moves in this position, but not one can defend against the K+R mate.

<May 1, 2012, 8:00 AM
‘Once’ Leads the 2012 Tony Awards Nominations>

Iv'e come across some real beauties with no kibitzing at all recently, and they're between 2500+ rated players..

The reason I ask you Is because of your daily presence on those pages..

I think the best place to ask is here:

chessgames.com chessforum

You can bring a game to CG's attention by inventing a pun for it...

Pun Submission Page

You can email the admins on:

chess@Chessgames.com.

Or the other thing to do is just to start commenting on a game, even if you are a lone voice in the silence. The game will then feature in the "recent kibitzing" column on the home page. There is a chance that someone will get curious and look at the game to see what people are saying.

I've sometimes clicked on a game in the "recent kibitzing" box. Sometimes I wished I hadn't because it took me to an argument in progress. But more often than not you find nuggets that way.

Only me and then one other have commented thus far, but I think you'll agree that not only is it a classic, where someone thrashes a guy 250 points above him, but It has everything a chess game should have!

Here is a simple chess puzzle (2-mate by White)that illustrates a complex theme. But the complexity is only for us. To a layman or a chess beginner it simply translates into eliciting the piece characteristics, (B, Q and R); how they move and what they can or cannot accomplish, in a live position.

Of course you'll have to explain to him the 'why and wherefore' of it.

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The fascinating thing for me is that chess knowledge has been so much a part of my life that I can't remember what it was like not to be able to do it.

Spielmann v Nimzowitsch, Monachium 1905.

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So then we looked at the Monday and Tuesday positions from last week, and he worked those out too.

Then we grabbed John Nunn's 1001 Deadly Checkmates from the bookshelf. And over the past few nights he has been solving mate in 1s and mate in 2s instead of having his traditional bed-time story.

He still doesn't know a sicilian from a sausage. But he's enjoying the mate puzzles. Who knows? He might yet get into this game.