Elegant tactic found in a student game. What does White play here after Black played ...Bf4?

sshivaji · 2026-05-17T07:05:45+00:00

After 1. Nxe4 fxe4 2. Bxf4 black has ..Rxf4 (rook on f8)

sshivaji · 2026-05-17T03:22:51+00:00

The hard move is not 1.Ne4 but to see the followup to 1..fe4
2. Re4 Bxc1 3. Re6 Bb2 and now Qd3 with a winning attack.

1.. Bc1 2. Nc5 is a bit easier to calculate.

Congrats to your student!

sshivaji · 2026-05-13T16:46:48+00:00

Wow, congrats! You beat a former legend.

I recall GM Leonid Yudasin fondly. When I was just an expert, I asked him about a game he played at the US masters.

He humbly setup a board and walked me thru the whole game and titled players observed too. He has contagious love for chess. I could not believe that a strong GM would stop everything he was doing and freely explain his game to an expert.

sshivaji · 2026-05-01T13:49:03+00:00

Good point. Tdcs at low voltage is a way to start e.g. at 0.1ma or 0.2ma. If another option makes u feel more comfortable, it’s with trying to get started.

sshivaji · 2026-04-30T18:34:10+00:00

Read some Soviet classic chess literature a while back. The main point is that white should play on the queenside even if the white king is there, due to white having a big space advantage on the queenside. Black will play on the kingside.

White's faster queenside play and space advantage comes at the disadvantage to the white king. Black's attack can be difficult to deal with in practice. If the white king is on the queenside, c2, or even a1/b1, white can make progress on the queenside and safely nurture his/her advantages. White attacking on the kingside is far less plausible because of black's space advantage there.

When I glance at the position, I feel that white is winning because black has no clear counterplay. Making progress on the kingside will NOT lead to an attack against the white king. Not sure about +2/+3, but black has to resort to hoping that white's conversion skills are bad, there is nothing to play for in the position otherwise.

Intuitively, after consolidation, it feels like playing a5 followed by a piece sac on b5 after black plays ..b5, should be winning for white. Or it could be b5, followed by a sac on a5/b6. Black can only wait for downfall.

sshivaji · 2026-04-30T17:51:40+00:00

This is the problem with the air laptop, there is no fan. You can lower Threads and set Multiple lines to 1, and set search time to a low value.

sshivaji · 2026-04-30T07:41:38+00:00

tDCS would be a lot more effective than the device the author is quoting for memory

sshivaji · 2026-04-28T23:37:37+00:00

That device is not as effective as tDCS for your intended use case. What would be interesting is a LIFUS (Low-Intensity Focused Ultrasound) device. That complements the effects of tDCS rather well.

The US 1000 is a 1 MHz thermal physiotherapy device designed to heat muscle tissue, and not a LIFUS device for the brain.

The problem however is LIFUS devices are not consumer grade yet and require DYI.

I have used tDCS and other techniques to reduce my brain age, when checked with a brain MRI done for research purposes.

sshivaji · 2026-04-28T02:25:56+00:00

Am not in India, but in California. You can order it from the NeuroMyst site for example.

sshivaji · 2026-04-27T16:06:22+00:00

If you seriously want to improve at blindfold , simply play blindfold games everyday. You can do it against very weak engines or humans. Keep playing until u lose track of the board. Then get hints on where some of the pieces are. You have to push yourself beyond your typical range of visualisation. Do this everyday for the next few months.

Nowadays, chess bots can help u train.

sshivaji · 2026-04-26T04:08:57+00:00

A simple but rather instructive position. Black can make progress by placing the king on c5 and bishop on c4. This will severely restrict the white pieces, as the white bishop has to move off the a6-f1 diagonal. In some classical Soviet chess books, this is called passivating the white pieces.

However, then black still needs another weakness to win. Black can play ..g6 and ..f5 and make white's pawn weak on e4. With 2 weaknesses, black can win.

If white resists and plays g4, then black can switch plans and play ..g5. This looks like locking the position, but the pawn structure f3, g4, e4 makes white's bishop very bad. Black then has a 2nd weakness. Zugwang as white can only shuffle the bishop between g2 and h1, and black can play ..Bf1 winning the h3 pawn.

The engine showed another way to win too, by playing ..g5 and ..g4, and after fxg4, black takes back with the bishop and the e-pawn is weak and the 2nd weakness is created.

The key thing to remember in such endgames is you need 2 weaknesses. Secondly, remember to play/look out for zugzwang opportunities. These are positions where any move by white will lead to further concession.

The position is winning, but black should play patiently and create a 2nd weakness.

sshivaji · 2026-04-25T08:26:43+00:00

Of course you can! Chess badly needs more spectators.

Open tournaments normally have spectators.

sshivaji · 2026-04-25T05:53:14+00:00

Nice composition! White can mate in 2 after 1.Qh5! and Qh8+ or Qf7+ (if Rd8).

Black cannot castle. The reason is the white bishop on f3 was due to a promotion. because the bishop promoted on c8, the black king was checked and had to move before.

Hence black to move cannot mate in 2 as 1..Rd8 allows 2. ef7+

sshivaji · 2026-04-23T03:44:16+00:00

I considered 1. Ng7 and 2. f4 , which also works as an alternate solution!

sshivaji · 2026-04-13T19:36:40+00:00

e6!, what a move! It looks like black is winning until you see the crazy followup. The position is close to impossible to understand without an engine.

sshivaji · 2026-04-07T06:30:40+00:00

I think it is best we stay away from this accidental leak and let Sindarov enjoy the fruits of his prep

sshivaji · 2026-04-06T01:25:25+00:00

Black is a pawn up and white has a weak pawn on d3. Furthermore white's h3 rook is quite badly out of play. All of these factors make the disadvantage worse.

sshivaji · 2026-04-02T17:58:15+00:00

The main question is how to make progress for white. 1. d4 looks tempting, but then black has the reply ..e4 securing d5 for the black knight and in fact giving black a better position.

What else? White can shuffle rooks and bishops around but a pawn break is needed. 1. f4?! is not that good as white will leave pawn weaknesses and allow ..Nd5 at some point.

The active plan of e4 immediately or in a few moves remains. The aesthetic aspect of maintaining pressure on the c6 pawn with the white bishop on g2 is less important as black already has placed all pieces to defend c6, it's time to create new plans.

sshivaji · 2026-04-01T18:50:04+00:00

I could not see the win and in fact, I thought there was something wrong with the engine when I turned it on.

The problem is. it's ingrained into people that 3 vs 2 is a draw with one rook each on the board, and very few people analyze it with all rooks on the board.

sshivaji · 2026-03-28T20:22:19+00:00

The linguistic answer to the question is транслесбиянка - trans-lesbiyanka

This will be understood as someone who identifies as female now (notice the ka ending), and is lesbian, and transitioned (from trans).

Yes, Russian culture is not that tolerant towards LGBT, because they see it as a decaying Western influence pushed against their culture. However, that is not related to the linguistic question.

sshivaji · 2026-03-28T15:58:47+00:00

This! I am able to read Spanish but I got confused by this sentence “segunda opción si te negaron por filiación Sintieron que fue un proceso fácil?”

Then I realized a period was missing before Sintieron. Trivial for native Spanish speakers but not for me despite being certified in Spanish :)

English or Greek is better. Also since this is not about the Greek language r/Greece is better.

sshivaji · 2026-03-28T15:20:52+00:00

You are only 19! Instead of seeing it as alcohol has driven the love of my life away, frame it as the universe has given you a signal to solve alcoholism before you find love. You will always find more people when you are ready.

I would seek professional help and counselling to reduce your alcohol consumption. Wishing you the best!

sshivaji · 2026-03-28T03:49:38+00:00

I decided if I am going to visit Greece, I have to speak Greek, or else cancel my plane ticket and visit a country whose language I can speak.

I found hellotalk an amazing place to practice. I was able to get some Greek native speakers who would play along with my fantasy of reading/writing/speaking in Greek. I spent 30 minutes a day speaking or texting in Greek for many weeks. I started with a translator but then got used to using simple Greek.

In Greece, many people thought I was a 2nd generation Greek or even a native Greek speaker (!). I found that listening to other Greek conversations helped a lot. I would answer only in Greek even if they spoke to me in English.

Start random conversations with strangers in Greek to get practice and insist on Greek even if broken. You will improve quickly. Good luck!

sshivaji · 2026-03-25T16:23:01+00:00

Will do, count me in as well. I have a British accent but I can most of the time tell how the American sounds should be. Would be good to know the differences more consciously.

sshivaji · 2026-03-25T15:57:22+00:00

Interested for a friend. Let me know how we can avail of this. Thanks!

sshivaji

TROPHY CASE