Chess Beat: The Way I Learnt Chess...

Rank	Name	Rating	Change	Games
01	Carlsen	2813,6	+11,6	17
02	Anand	2809,9	+5,9	17
03	Aronian	2805,1	+4,1	59
04	Kramnik	2784,1	-6,9	16
05	Karjakin	2777,5	+17,5	17
06	Grischuk	2776,1	+5,1	17
07	Topalov	2774,8	-11,2	10
08	Mamedyarov	2772,2	+9,2	9
09	Ivanchuk	2764,0	0	0
10	Nakamura	2751,4	+10,4	16

It was just an accident that I developed an interest in chess. It was the end of summer 2001 and my Bachelor of Science classes have just begun, a young guy who was studying in 11^th Std (Pre University) came to stay with us for studying. His dad was of the opinion that if he is away from home then he concentrates better on study. But he had more interest in games than study, and he had brought a chess set with his belongings. And as natural as it can be, he invited me to play chess. I didn’t have any exposure to chess as there was no one in our friend circle or relatives who played chess. Cricket was the major interest with most of the people. I was a good cricketer. I had my small contact with Chess when I was 13 years old. I had read a small article in a regional magazine on chess and tried to play chess but the information given in that article wasn’t enough to grasp the exact method of playing chess. So after some time, the enthusiasm diminished. To add to that, my younger brother was such that he could never accept a defeat. He used to argue “the knight was in that square”, “the Rook was here only” etc., and change the moves.

My full concentration went to cricket and I became a very good cricketer. Now, after so many years I sat down to play a game of chess and I admit I didn’t know all the rules of chess moves (like enpassant etc). So when the game began, this young chap started laughing, looking at my moves! I lost the game, obviously. I told him, “In cricket, I can defeat anyone in the world! But I don’t know much about chess.” But I couldn’t take my mind off the way he laughed at my moves. Something made me to determine to learn chess.

The next morning in the news paper I saw moves of a game between Anand Vs Zvulon Gofshtein. I didn’t know how the moves are recorded in chess so I went for trial and error method and tried to play out the game through the moves. I couldn’t understand the notation “0-0” and “0-0-0“ and I thought maybe it indicates “no move!” But as I progressed with the moves I come to know that “the king and the rook have changed the places. “ I thought “0-0” must be some special move.

After two days, I read a chess book and come to know about “Castling” and so on I went on to learn about chess. Then accidentally, I found that a news paper named “Deccan Herald” publishes an article on chess every week. The writer was “Manisha Mohite” a reputed Chess journalist and writer in India. That helped me a lot, and within a few weeks I was strong enough to play some good chess! Then I started defeating that young chap consistently. One night, he just cried when I defeated him without giving away even a single pawn. I didn’t stop there, I went to play with local champions and chess enthusiasts. Needless to say, I got defeated repeatedly. I come to realize that winning a game of chess is very difficult than winning a game of cricket. In chess, u make one single mistake and you are gone. But I was of the opinion that, if I give up now I can never win a game of chess. So I continued to play with more determination. Finally, that day came when I won a game of chess! It was some inexplicable feeling. It gave me the confidence that I can win. From there I went on to search for more info and history of Chess world champions etc and kept on improving my chess regularly. And after two years I started beating them (who had earlier beaten me) convincingly. And I won against delorie.com engine. Then I realized that I have improved a bit. I came across chess websites as I was trying to improve my chess. I played correspondence chess through “Chessworld.net” and blitz games on Freechess.org and Chess21.com. I loved chess21.com. Later Chess21.com merged with “Chessclub.com” or “Internet Chess Club.”

Here I am posting two games, one is Anand Vs Gofshtein game which was the first chess game I used to understand chess notations. And another is an annotated game from which I started my chess learning…

Vishwanathan Anand - Zvulon Gofshtein

Sicilian Defense: Kan. Midern Variation (B42)

2001, 1-0

Alexander Alekhine - Vladas Mikenas

Modern Defense: Two Knights Variation (B06)

1933, 1-0

1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 d6 4. Nf3 Nd7

The Modern Defence. This defence is generally not liked much by players with aggressive styles as White gains control of the central squares.

5. Bc4 e6

Halting White's pawn advance in the center.

6. 0-0 Ne7 7. a4! 0-0 8. Be3 h6 9. Qd2 Kh7 10. h3 c6

This weakens the d pawn but then black does not really have much options.

11. Bf4 d5 12. Bd3 a6?

Black could have thought of playing ...Nf6 and retreat to e8 as the d6 square is weak.

13. Bd6 f5 14. e5 Rg8 15. h4

White enjoys a positional advantage and has plenty of options to make inroads into enemy territory.

A tempting move would have been the queen sacrifice 15. Qg5 hxg5 16. Nxg5+ followed by Nf7 which would fork the king and the queen. But Black without accepting the queen has a good move 15... Bf8 which would offer some defence.

15...b6! [15... Nf8? 16. Qg5!] 16. Ne2 Nf8 17. a5