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The Boring System

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When you go out to play a game of chess, what do you hope for? A win would be nice, naturally, and I don't suppose many of us would keep playing unless we won a few. But there's little satisfaction in beating much weaker opponents, so we must want more than that. Being made to think, seeing ideas that we haven't seen before, taking the other guy on in a real struggle... isn't that what it's about? How, then, to explain a game like this? White plays the dullest opening he can think of; Black goes along with it. White offers a draw at move 15. Move 15! The position more than justifies the offer, and if we were two grandmasters playing for prize money, well, maybe it would all be understandable. But this is two club players trying to spend their evening doing something they enjoy. I played on a while in the hope that something would happen, but it never looked likely. Can either of us enjoyed this game? I know that I didn't. Well, people will play the Lo...
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Endgame Tactics

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I'm currently reading (and enjoying) Van Perlo's Endgame Tactics . Recently I reached position 341 The game continuation was 1... e3 2. Rd6+ Kc3 3. Re6 Kd4 4. Rd6+ Ke5 5. Rd8 e2 6. Re8+ Kf4 7. Rf8+ Ke3 8. Re8+ Kf2 9. a7 Rh1+ 10. Kg5 Ra1 11. Rf8+ Kg3 12. Re8 Ra5+ 13. Kg6 Kf3 14. g5, at which point van Perlo says "Checks no longer help as after 14. Rf8+ Ke4 15. Re8+ the rook can be interposed". This is, of course, a disastrous suggestion: after 15. Re8+ we reach this position: when there can hardly be enough question marks for 15. ... Re5, allowing 16. a8=Q+. (Black does in fact win after 14. Rf8+ by 14. ... Kxg4, so the game at least is not spoiled.) I wonder how this error slipped through? I'm reading the book's second edition, so it has presumably survived unnoticed (by the publishers at least) for quite some time. The preface talks at length about how the positions have been computer checked; but apparently not completely thoroughly. My guess would be t...
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Endgame tactics (part two)

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In this post I pointed out an error in van Perlo's Endgame Tactics . Shortly afterwards I sent an email to New In Chess, figuring that telling the publishers about the mistake was probably more useful than just shouting into the great void of the internet. I'm happy to say that I got a perfectly polite reply, which I see no reason not to report: "Thank you very much for your contribution. You are absolutely right, of course. It's very strange that we haven't noticed this with our checks! Unfortunately, by the time you sent us this mail, the third edition was already at the printer's. So your correction will have to wait until a possible 4th edition." Maybe one day the book will be considered an all time classic, and I'll be able to tell the grandchildren about the time I helped to fix it up... (In the unlikely event that anyone at New In Chess does feel that I've broken a confidence here, let me know and I'll happily delete this post).
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