Remote Chess Academy student wins Millionaire Chess!

The third edition of Millionaire Chess took place from 6-10 October 2016 at Atlantic City.

What is Millionaire Chess?

Millionaire Chess is committed to revolutionizing the conventional models of chess tournaments globally. By holding high-stake tournaments in destination capitals, it is intended to encourage players of all ages and skill levels to play, study and enjoy the game they love. Its mission is to run the best chess tournaments the world has ever seen and to help raise the bar for chess tournaments worldwide.

The RCA team is very proud to say that one of our students from Nellore (India), V. Prudhvi Kumar, rated 1699, has had a fantastic event – he won the U-1800 section and laughed all the way to the bank with $12,000 (approx. Rs. 8 lakhs).

V. Prudhvi Kumar

Prudhvi hails from Nellore in Andhra Pradesh and is trained by Riyaz Ahamad SK. He enjoyed playing the games and scored impressive and crucial victories. Prudhvi scored 5.5/7, qualifying for the Millionaire Monday event in the U-1800 section.

In the grand finale, he was pitted against Artem Verdiya, who had not even dropped half-a-point in the entire event. The first two games, held in 25-minute time control, ended in draws. A two-game match with 15-minute time control became necessary to break the tie.

Prudhvi was Black and has lost a pawn. But his opponent has just blundered with 17.Bb5?

Black to play

Can you find the winning trick that Prudhvi found to take the lead? 

In the next game, Prudhvi was White. His opponent just played 49…Rxf5, grabbing a pawn. Both players have their pawns on the two extremities of the chessboard.

White to play

How would you play here as White? Can you find the best continuation for White?

White to play

In the above game, Prudhvi has lost his queen with the compensation of a rook, knight and a pawn. It’s White’s turn now. Black’s king doesn’t look safe. Can you find a quick way to finish the game?

After calculating all possible variations, you can check all the games played by Prudhvi here.

Now let me share some interesting photos that you should not miss! 

A young Prudhvi Kumar

 

Prudhvi with his coach Riyaz Ahamad SK

I know this student personally and his coach. Here is a photo of Prudhvi’s coach, Riyaz, along with me and my wife. 

Of course, the local newspapers did not miss this great news!

Finally, it’s really an amazing news story for RCA – our students keep making progress after studying our courses. This proves that our chess courses are of HIGH QUALITY and that they work, as you can see from the ‘success stories’ of several other of our students here.

And, most importantly, if you have had such an experience, or won crucial games in a tournament, please do share them with us – we’ll be very happy to know that and glad to publish your ‘success story’ on the RCA site for you. 

P.S. We’re planning to create a new opening chess course. Please take part in a short survey designed to help us create a course tailored to your needs, one that can give you the best results. Find more and take part now here.

How to beat a weaker opponent?

People often ask me psychological questions related to chess (not surprising since I’m also a psychologist  ). One of the more popular questions is about the CORRECT attitude (or mental approach) when facing a WEAKER opponent over the board. That’s what we will discuss primarily along with some practical tips and recommendations regarding it.

Anyway, we are talking about a situation when you are about 200 rating higher than your opponent. Let’s say you are 2200, and your opponent has a rating of 2000.
Naturally, you expect to win this game, and moreover, you want to make it easy and smooth. You would prefer not to risk, but to win slowly but surely. You start playing “normal” moves (as opposed to the best and the most vigorous moves). You think that it’ll be enough for a win (because your opponent is weaker) and you’ll avoid unnecessary risk and complications.

I’ve just described a very common scenario between 2 players who have quite a significant gap between their ratings.

Now let’s look at this situation from another angle. What does it mean to have a rating of 2200? It shows that performing like a 2200 is your BEST performance, your PEAK performance (otherwise your rating would be higher).

Do you ALWAYS use your full mental powers over the board? Most probably, no! For instance, if you are tired today, you will play weaker, maybe on 2100 level. There’s a teasing proverb amongst professional players: “Marriage will cost you -100 rating points”. Of course, your knowledge will remain the same, but it can be really hard to focus on chess. 

All in all, your rating shows your best power. Sometimes, however, you may be using not your full potential. That happens when you start playing those “normal” moves against a weaker opponent.

Let’s say you use 90% of your full power. 90% out of 2200 will be 1980, which is close to the power of your “weak” 2000 opponent. 

That explains why after some play, you’ll appear in an equal (drawish) position. Then you start getting worried – you expect to win this game! Now you’ll face an unpleasant choice:

• Either to accept a draw
• Or to bite the bullet and do something risky

The second choice can lead to an annoying loss, yet another typical scenario in David – Goliath match ups like this!

Let’s sum-up the things regarding to playing against a weaker opponent. Don’t fall into psychological illusion of your superiority “by default” (because of your higher rating). That’ll become true only if you perform at your BEST, and use your FULL potential.

So you’ve got to take risk and play the most vigorous moves even against a relatively weak opponent.

P.S. Do you have your own “strategy” to beat weaker opponents? Feel free to write in the comments below and discuss, I’d appreciate it! 

Recommended

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Note: this article was published a few years ago. But I doubt if you will remember this article and what you have learnt from this lesson. That’s why, we’re helping you by re-publishing the material – even if you have not studied this article in past, that’s fine because you will find it interesting and learn something new. 

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Basic Chess Rules for Beginners Part-2

A few months ago, we published an article called “Basic Chess Rules for Beginners”. If you missed it, you can find it here. If you are a newbie/beginner, I’d definitely recommend you to go through the first part of the article and then continue reading below.

Basic Chess Rules for Beginners Part-2

Nature and objectives of the game

The game of chess is played between two opponents who move their pieces alternately on a square board called a chessboard. The player with the White pieces commences the game. A player is said to ‘have the move’ when his opponent’s move has been completed.
The object of the game is to trap the opponent’s king so that its escape is not possible (checkmate). If a player’s king is threatened with capture, it is said to be in check, and the player must remove the threat of capture on the next move. If this cannot be done, the king is said to be in checkmate.

The objective of each player is to put the opponent’s king under attack in such a way that the opponent has no legal move. The player who achieves this goal is said to have checkmated the opponent’s king and to have won the game.

Leaving one’s king under attack, exposing one’s king to attack and also ’capturing’ the opponent’s king is not allowed – the opponent whose king has been checkmated has lost the game. If the position is such that neither player can possibly achieve a checkmate, the game is drawn.

Although the king is the most important piece, it is usually the weakest piece in the game until a later phase, the endgame.

Naming of squares

Keeping a record of chess moves will be very useful in improving your standard of chess. It is mandatory in all recognized tournaments, in order to settle disputes about illegal positions, overstepping time control and making claims for a draw by the fifty-move rule or repetition of position.

Each square of the chessboard is identified with a unique pair comprising a letter and a number. The vertical files are labelled in small letters “a” to “h”, from White’s left to White’s right. Similarly, the horizontal ranks are numbered from 1 to 8.

Each square of the board, then, is uniquely identified by its file and rank (letter and number). The White queen, for example, starts the game on the square d1 and the Black queen on d8. 
The following are the letters used in capitals to represent various pieces.

King – K

Queen – Q

Rook – R

Bishop – B

Knight – N

A pawn does not have any specific symbol but is represented by the name of the square it occupies, i.e. it is not indicated by its first letter but recognized by the absence of such a letter. Example: the moves are written e5, d4, a5 – not pe5, pd4, pa5

Colour classification

There are 64 squares on a chessboard – 32 White squares and 32 Black squares.

• In the horizontal ranks, odd numbers are Black squares (1, 3, 5, 7)
• In the horizontal ranks, even numbers are White squares (2, 4, 6, 8)
• In the vertical files, odd letters are Black squares (a, c, e, g)
• In the vertical files, even letters are White squares (b, d, f, h)

Hence, the rule for colour classification is:

i) Odd letter x odd number is a Black square – e.g. a1, c3

ii) Even letter x even number is a Black square – e.g. b2, d4

iii) Odd letter x even number is a White square – e.g. a2, c4

iv) Even letter x odd number is a White square – e.g. b1, d3

Movement of the pieces

• The king moves exactly one square horizontally, vertically or diagonally

• The rook moves horizontally or vertically, through any number of unoccupied squares

• A bishop moves any number of vacant squares in any diagonal direction.

• The queen moves any number of vacant squares in a horizontal, vertical or diagonal direction.

When making these moves, the bishop, rook or queen may not move over any intervening pieces.

• A knight moves to the nearest square not on the same rank, file or diagonal. (This can be thought of as moving two squares horizontally then one square vertically, or moving one square horizontally then two squares vertically—i.e. in an “L” pattern.) The knight is not blocked by other pieces: it jumps to the new location.

• Pawns have the most complex rules of movement:

A pawn moves straight forward one square, if that square is vacant. If it has not yet made its first move, a pawn also has the option of moving two squares straight forward, provided both squares are vacant. Pawns cannot move backwards.

When a player moves a pawn to the rank furthest from its starting position, he must exchange that pawn (as part of the same move) for a new queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour on the intended square of arrival.

This is called the square of ‘promotion’. The player’s choice is not restricted to pieces that have been captured previously. This exchange of a pawn for another piece is called promotion, and the effect of the new piece is immediate.

Special moves

• en passant capture

A pawn attacking a square crossed by an opponent’s pawn which has advanced two squares in one move from its original square may capture this opponent’s pawn as though the latter had been moved only one square. This capture is only legal in the following move:

This advance is called an ‘en passant ‘capture.

• Castling

There are two different ways of moving the king: by moving to any adjoining square not attacked by one or more of the opponent’s pieces or by castling. The latter is a move made by the king and either rook of the same colour along the player’s first rank, counting as a single move of the king and executed as follows: the king is transferred from its original square two squares towards the rook on its original square, then that rook is transferred to the square the king has just crossed.

Note: For castling to be legal, the king or rook must not have been moved previously.
 
TO BE CONTINUED..

P.S. Even if you are not a beginner, please share this article with any friend who is a beginner – this would be very helpful for them. 

Recommended

 
Now that you know the very basics of chess, you may study our FREE training course “Quick Success in Chess”, which contains powerful practical tips. These will help you to find the best moves and to do so quickly! You’ll optimise your chess training and speed up your progress.

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New Book:

<<Get the book now>>

<<Get the course “Bogo-Indian Defense” here>>

<<Get “Your Winning Plan” now>>

<<Get the “Grandmaster’s Secrets” now>>

PREMIUM WEBINAR:

Quick Links for other products:

NEW: Opening Laboratory 2
The Grandmaster's Secret
The Grandmaster's Openings Laboratory
How to Beat Titled Players
Your Winning Plan
An  Endgame Expert
Self-taught Grandmaster
The Grandmaster's Positional Understanding
Calculate Till Mate 

WHOLE PACKAGE : 177 USD DISCOUNTS!