Dan Heisman's Improve Your Chess
Learning Principles through Amateur's Mistakes
National Master Dan Heisman is a name that is synonymous with excellence in chess coaching and teaching. Dan authors the award-winning Novice Nook column (winner of three Chess Journalists of America "Best Instruction" awards), aimed at improving adults, for chesscafe.com that are clearly written and offer very practical advice and tips on how to improve your game . In the new Improve Your Chess series, Dan provides instruction by reviewing amateur games played on ICC and showing where the players went wrong and how to improve.
Today's show: Black gets a bad game from an unusual opening sequence but White then blunders a pawn, making the chances roughly equal. However, Black continues to make moves against general principles and White generates a menacing attack. Faced with a forcing sequence that would allow White to temporarily win a pawn, Black declines to allow this but instead gets into something much worse. White then has many wins and, thanks to an inferior defense, finishes nicely with a short king hunt and mate.