Dominance

by Donny Gray • March 29, 2014 • Endgame Fundamentals

One of my favorite chess books is Domination in 2,545 Endgame Studies, by Ghenrikh Kasparyan. It is solely about how to dominate your opponent’s pieces. Domination is a way to say that even though a piece has a wide choice of squares, it cannot avoid being captured. As you get the hang of this concept you can use it also in the middle game. Many times you will even be able to just partially dominate a piece in such a way that it has no useful squares even though you cannot win it.

In the 2014 Candidates Tournament in the 1^st round former world champion Anand used domination to win his game against the 2^nd highest rated player in the world, Levon Aronian.  But before we take a look at that game let’s see some basic examples.
In our first example we can see that white’s bishop is dominating the black knight.  No matter where the knight goes, it can be taken by the bishop. We say that the knight is dominated. Now all white needs to do is bring something over to take the knight, as it cannot run away.

Knights can dominate as well. In fact, all pieces can dominate. There are countless examples.

 

As we can see in our 2^nd example, the material is dead even. However, many things are in favor for white. White has the better pawn structure, the king is centralized, and, most importantly, the white knight dominates the black bishop. All white needs to do now is bring the king over to take the helpless bishop.

Now let’s take a look at domination in a real Grandmaster game. As you can see, our players have some pretty impressive FIDE ratings. Anand is the former world champion while Aronian is currently the 2^nd highest rated player in the world.

White: GM Viswanathan Anand (2770)
Black: GM Levon Aronian (2830)

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.OO Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 OO 8.h3 Bb7 9.d3 d5 10.ed Nd5 11.Nbd2 Qd7 12.Ne5 Ne5 13.Re5 Nf6 14.Re1 Rae8 15.Nf3 Bd6 16.Be3 Re7 17.d4 Rfe8 18.c3 h6 19.Ne5 Be5 20.de Re5 21.Qd7 Nd7  22.Red1 Nf6 23.c4 c6 24.Rac1 R5e7 25.a4 bc 26.Bc4 Nd5 27.Bc5 Re4 28.f3 R4e5 29.Kf2 Bc8 30.Bf1 R5e6 31.Rd3 Nf4 32.Rb3 Rd8 33.Be3 Nd5 34.Bd2 Nf6 35.Ba5 Rde8 36.Rb6 Re5 37.Bc3 Nd5 38.Be5 Nb6 39.Bd4 Na4 40.Rc6 Rd8 41.Rc4

 

As you can see, after 41.Rc4 black’s knight is trapped because it is being dominated by the white bishop on d4!

41…. Bd7 42.b3 Bb5 43.Rb4 Nb2. Sneaky if white takes the knight now on b2, black regains the piece with Rd2+. But, Anand did not win the world champion title for falling for these types of traps.

44.Bb5 ab 45.Ke3! Here white could allow the knight to escape if he had played Ke2.  All black had to do then was play Nc4!

45….  Re8+ 46.Kd2 Rd8 47.Kc3 Resigns

He resigned because if 47…..Nd1+ then 48.Kc2 and the knight is lost because once again the knight is dominated by the bishop on d4!

About the Author: Donny Gray

Donny received his U.S. Master title in November 1988. He is a two-time Arkansas Champion (1975 and 1978) and was the Georgia Co-Champion in 1995. He was the U.S. Army Champion (in 1988 and 1989), N.A.T.O. Championship (Top U.S.A. Player) Aalborg, Denmark in 1988, the 2000 South Carolina Co-Champion, and he represented Georgia in the 2005 Champion of Champions tournament . Additional titles and championships include: Title of “Master” in U. S. Correspondence Chess, Rank of “Master” in Internet Chess Club blitz play, Rank of “Master” in U.S.C.F. Online blitz play, 2007 Georgia Senior Champion, 1st Place Lee Hyder Memorial (2009, 2010), 1st place SC Blitz Champion (2011), and 1st place Snow Storm Open (2011, 2012, 2014). He currently resides in St. Simons Island. He owns Don’s Computers and teaches chess locally. He owns and operates http://www.ChessThinker.com.

http://georgiachessnews.com/2014/03/29/dominance/

 

 

The 4 Most Important Chess Principles! – FM Alisa Melekhina (EMPIRE CHESS)

Published on Jan 20, 2014

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Too many games end in either premature draw offers or resignations. Fighting in the endgame is a skill that can help players rack up those extra points. Alisa Melekhina analyzes two of her own games, one in which she drew a pawn down, and another in which she pulled off a win in an equal rook ending. The viewers are led through four major principles that can be applied in their own endgames: mentally adapt to a change in the position; resist by preventing your opponent from executing their only winning plan; take advantage of complacency; make your opponent make decisions. Even if a position is theoretically drawn, players should not discount the practical chances that they can create.
Rather than focusing on rote endgame theory, Alisa utilizes the medium of video instruction to exemplify the attitude and resourcefulness that accompanies the fighting spirit.

This chess video is an excerpt from the chess DVD ¨Fighting in the Endgame¨, if you liked it, you can get the full DVD by clicking on the “DVD” link above.

Alisa Melekhina is a FIDE master with one International Master Norm. She started playing at age 5 and entered her first tournament at age 7. In less than three years, she was winning prestigious international tournaments and has competed 4 times for the U.S. Women’s Championship. Alisa is currently entering her third and final year of law school at the University of Pennsylvania. You can “follow” Alisa at http://facebook.com/alisa.melekhina and http://linkedin.com/in/alisamelekhina .