november 24 2015

It was a great pleasure to find the core of the course with Pierre live from Nicaragua in good condition (modern technology is great!).

No problems during this session except for the 3 hour lecture limit which seems to be a constant on Team Viewer.

Below is the report of the Master, always in good shape.

The next meeting will be a fairytale one and will be held on December 12th but will be dated Tuesday 15th

Master's words

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Whatever the courage of the Hungarians currently resisting the programmed invasion of Europe, it must be acknowledged that Hungarian books on the endgames are no better than English, German and other books. Here is an excerpt from Pintér József's analysis (published in 2009) of the classic Vidmar-Alekhine, where he recommends, out of 3 candidate moves, the only one that does not win! This strong grandmaster, very sympathetic, is however known (and appreciated) in France for his 1993 game of the last round in Auxerre against Kasparov, where he tortured endlessly the 13th world champion, disgusting him definitively of the French intercircles and... delaying the distribution of the prizes to the general hilarity.

A verified intuition: one of our strongholds holds because of the absence of an "i" column. The same one column further left (Kg2, Ne2, Pf3 / Kg5, Rf7, Pg6) captures water (1...Kh4!) if one has forgotten the precaution 1 Kg3!

A recent game by unknown players where, in the virtual game, this klutz of a White King manages to hinder his Rook and then, as this is not enough, to hinder his Queen. This example appeared on a fashionable site, but without references and with only half its content. Well, for these people, it is not so bad...

An "infernal" Rook neutralizes a Queen after a walk of health of the Black King. From the same author, an exercise for the start of the 2016 school year.

Two small tactical exercises for the middle game: after all, there is not only the endgame in life...

Our two games of the day are a kind of Allumwandlung. This term, barbaric for non-German speakers, designates the 4 promotions. Here, it is a question of 4 sacrifices spread over two games, Rook and Knight in one, Bishop and Queen in the other. The icing on the cake is that both games feature the same two players, including the most sympathetic of all French grandmasters. The second one is even more exciting, the good defence could have believed more and pointed out the rare weaknesses of the attack.

Training problems: two 2#, one of which is very light, two amusing 3#: the first seems easier but may not be. An helpmate 4# with 2 solutions having the particularity that Fritz's problem engine... dries on one. Another one with set play (White to move). A series whose theme is familiar to you, finally a superb selfmate, which makes you think but not too much.

Only for those who are mad: the fairy course will end the year in style on 15 December. Godspeed.

Master's diagrams