28 Games
It seems sad but true that so many young people simply do not have the patients to try to read and fully understand the importance's of defense and positional play. They want the excitement of the attack. Fast games, quick attacking plays and quick wins and then on with another game. To try to achieve the skill as a good positional player is just too time consuming. Its far easier to just find a unorthodox opening to surprise your opponent with.

And so this is what you find so many young people interested in, constantly switching from one opening to another trying to win games with the openings instead of spending their time in honing their chess skills. The results are that so many young players rarely improve very much, they just stay at their present inept and incompetent level for ages may be not ever achieving any level of competence.

If you do go through the games and read all of this, I guarantee that you will never play an opening or defense again as you have been doing so in the past. You will see the folly of spending countless hours in the study and memorization of openings and defenses to win games until you are thoroughly familiar with chess basics. Spemding your time in the study of the basics is going to be far more productive in winning games. Good defensive play requires all-around chess ability, from calculating ability to positional judgement, imagination and a cool nerve. While chess literature has lavished attention on the art of attack, relatively little has been written about defense. Yet good defensive play has been one of the outstanding hallmarks of every World Champion since Steinitz.

There are two kinds of players that are hard to beat, great tacticians and great positional players. Tigran Petrosian had a reputation as the hardest player in the world to beat and was regarded as history’s finest defensive player by many. Petrosian defeated Botvinnik in 1963 and defended his title successfully against Boris Spassky in 1966 before being unseated by Spassky in 1969.

The Advantages of being a Positional Player over a Combinational Player One of the reasons why some chess players reach the heady heights of a 2600 ELO rating is because their resilience in defense is impenetrable, like Vastly Smyslov, from Russia who has developed a first rate smooth positional style. When we look at the techniques of two great World Champions; Capablanca and Alekhine, their styles provide an interesting contrast with Capablanca being mainly a positional motivated player while Alekhine was always on the lookout for tactical shots.

The former World Champion Jose Raul Capablanca lost fewer games in his career than any other player of similar stature. He lost only 35 games out of a total of 567, a loss rate of 6.2%. Alekhine at 10% and Lasker at 11%

Positional Play is defined as a move, maneuver or a style of play that is based on an exploitation of small advantages. But Aron Nimzovich says that the accumulation of small advantages is only of second or third significance. A much greater importance is of a prophylactic approach.

A positional player is one who understands how to safeguard his position. A combinational player may only have attack on his mind. A positional player will bring his pieces into contact with some key point there by protecting that point from attack from the combinational player or to prevent him from using that key point himself. He may also protect a key point to use it latter on to gain strength in a position or to prevent his opponent from using it. A positional player may be thinking far into the endgame so that a pawn may be promoted to a queen and thus setting up a pawn structure to make this possible.

Aron Nimzovich talks of using a systematic prophylactic approach to over-protect a position. This prophylactic positional player approach makes sure that no enemy freeing moves may take place, no unfavorable, premature opening up of the game will develop. Weak points, strong points, in short evey thing that we can include in the collective conception of strategically important points, ought to be over-protected. Generally the law of over-protection applies only to strong points. Weak points can only lay claim to over-protection in such cases as where they help to support other key points and in supporting strong points.

A typical and very wide-spread misconception is the assumption of many amateurs that each and every single move must accomplish something directly, so that such a player will only seek for moves which threaten something, or for a threat to be parried, and will disregard all other possible moves such as waiting moves, or moves calculated to put his house in order, etc. Positional moves in general are neither threatening nor defensive ones, but rather moves designed to give to the position security in the wider sense, and to this end it is necessary for the pieces to establish contact with the enemy's strategically important points or your own.

A positional player's style may differ from the combinational player in a totally different way. Instead of trying to win the game by attacking, he may just beat his opponents by just letting them lose the game! The combinational player may not be able to match the positional player move for move. They may have to make serious concessions on each move and eventually their weakened position will so fall apart that the positional player will finish him off in a blaze of glory.

Every chess player has had the experience of seeing a promising looking attack crumble into dust, whereupon the enemy counter-attack sweeps aside everything in its path. It was the enemy's superior positional play and strong defense that stopped your attack in its tracks and destroyed your attacking forces. Your then weakened position provided the enemy with a superior attacking threat and also enabled the enemy the opportunity to mobilize an unstoppable mate against you.

Do you seem to think that losing many games is due to your lack of learning all the classical openings and defenses thoroughly? Do you wish you could find a way to circumvent learning this knowledge? To try to attempt to be a specialist in every opening and defense is a futile task. As soon as you find a line to deal with the Sicilian Dragon you lose because you were not aware of a wrinkle in the Scheveningen Keres Attack. Things may not get any better not knowing the nuances of so many other openings and defenses either to get an edge no matter what lines you chose.

Your problem is that you want to play a game of chess that has less of a theoretical understanding of the openings and defenses. This approach is called "Getting out of Book" and getting out of this large body of opening theory. After all the whole purpose of opening theory is to prescribe the best set of opening moves and counter moves so that a player can have a decent middle game position. Does then getting out of book mean being at a disadvantage, since your no longer following the recommended moves of the top grandmasters?

The answer is a resounding NO! There is no single best opening or best defense. What is important is to try to find openings and defenses that are comfortable for you to play and enhance your own abilities and special skills. Ones where you can best understand the formation and the plans that will give you the type of positions you are most comfortable playing.

But no matter what opening or defense you chose to learn you still may have trouble playing it if you don't follow certain basic rules of chess regarding the opening. The first and most important one is looking after the safety of your King!

More games are lost to this one single rule than all the other factors there are in Chess. After all is not the purpose of chess to checkmate your king? Then why is it that so few pay any attention to this one important rule? Many are simply too much in a hurry to attack you and try to get a quick mate. Others are complacent and think they are a better chess player than you are and don't really have to pay much attention to wasting time castling their King.

In your coming games try to pay attention to why you won or lost that game and how important was it to the safety of the King? Both your King and your opponents King. You may find a whole new way of looking at your games when you do this.

But if castling is not that important than why are masters and GM's so paranoid about doing this as quickly as possible? You should notice that experienced successful players rarely start their attacks until their King is first nicely tucked away and protected, only then do they really start to worry about such things as center control and attacks.

Are you one of those players with too little patience?
Many players in a hurry to checkmate their opponent's king and win the game in a few moves often leave their own King vulnerable to attack. They are so locked in targeting the opponent King that they constantly leave their own King inadequately protected. Defending aficionado enthusiasts, indulge in a strong defense first before attacking and usually win by checkmating your king or win on time as they chip away at your weak King's fortress.

In defending your king it is best to visualize you building a safe place for your king with a strong stone castle, a moat and gatehouse with a drawbridge. You're going to put a solid stone wall of pawns between you and the enemy. You also place pieces like the Kings elite guards, a strong knight and bishop and a solid round tower, the rook on one side to provide support. Your gate house drawbridge is the Knight on f6 or h6 and the gate is the Bishop on g7. As long as that Bishop stays on g7 the gate remains closed to the enemy. Once the drawbridge is lowered and opened and the Bishop is removed the gate is now open for the enemy to enter the gatehouse and attack the king. To protect the Bishop the f6 knight can also go to e8 if necessary to provide additional support to the Bishop and keep the gate intact.

If you think of the knight on f6 or h6 as the drawbridge and the bishop on g7 as the gate in that gatehouse you can see how such a solid castle is going to protect your King from attacks from the enemy. What sort of strong castle is this that provides such a superior solid fortress? What kind of place is this that is offering such resistance to a hostile force?

It is in the flank games of the hypermodern openings. In the thoroughly hypermodern openings, the plan shirks the responsibility of building the ideal pawn center and instead tries to control that critical area of the board the center, with piece pressure involving a fianchetto at g2, for White and g7 for Black.

For White it is the Barcza System in the Reti Opening, the King's Indian Attack, The Catalan, The Hungarian Attack/Pirc Fianchetto, and The King's English.

For Black it is in the Modern Defenses. The Mongredien double fianchetto, and The Pirc Defense. It is in the Indian Games in the King's Indian Defense, The Classical Variation, and The Queen's Indian Defense, The Classical Lines.

After looking at many games and finding out how important King safety was as to the success of those games you may begin to doubt the importance of spending a great deal of time in the study of opening theory.

When you finally decide that the learning of opening theory and the memorization of openings and defenses is not that important as to whether you are going to win or lose the game, you will then become more interested in the basic principles of the opening. You may then concentrate on a new move order for the safety of your King. Your new move order may begin with 1.Nf3 if you are White.

Instead of trying to occupy the center with either 1.e4 or 1.d4, your new opening moves are going to be the start of your castle building. The new move of 1.Nf3 controls the d4 and e5 squares and leaves it up to Black to choose his defense.

1...Nf6 2.g3 This is the second step in building your castle if you are White. The Bishop is to be fianchettoed on the long diagonal. You are going to concentrate on building a new home for your King. One with a solid pawn shield, covered by a knight, a Bishop and a Rook.

Your soon going to realize that after you get this solid formation, a safe haven for your King that then it is possible to simply play chess with out any disadvantages from not knowing the opening. The center is still left to be defined, but since your King is nice and safe you can face the future with confidence. No longer are you going to worry not knowing the latest wrinkle of a Open Ruy Lopez. You can now try to outplay your opponent with just playing your own moves.

As Black you can do the same with 1...Nf6 2...g6 3...Bg7 4...d6. You're under no obligation to occupy the center. You can put pressure on the center after you first complete your Castle and protect your King.

How as Black do we proceed to use our knowledge of defense to control the center? Black should neither seek symmetry in the center nor try to control it. He should cede the center, finish development as soon as possible, and then try to fix and undermine the opponent's center by side blows.

The key is to fix the center, which means to provoke a blockade, and sap the center of its dynamic potential. You rely on the simple, universal truth that whatever is fixed, and immobile has a tendency to grow weaker. It is exactly on these new propositions that the new modern openings were introduced with the King's Indian Defense among them.

Do you know how to make a solid defense?

Steinitz was the first great player to make the transition from young attacking master to mature defensive master. And being a great chess thinker had asked himself what made an attack succeed? It wasn't just the genius of the player marshaling the attack or the lack of skill of the defender. Even with the best defense, some attacks can obtain a major advantage, but also even with the best attacks some defenses also can obtain major advantages. It can just depend on how much you know about the positional aspects of both. Don't just study one wiht out spending an equal amount of effort and time on the other, and them maybe you will be as diversified as Steinitz.

Steintz thought, may be there is some form of superiority in the hands of the attacker before the first attacking move. After much thought, he finally concluded,

An attack against a solidly positioned opponent cannot succeed!

A successful attack is nothing more than the correct exploitation of an exploitable weakness. It may be a king side weakness in the opoonent's camp or an edge in space or in development in a certain sector. Of course, this justification alone will not make a successful attack, but it is necessary for any real attack to proceed.

Leaf through any collection of great games and pick out a dozen kingside attacks with sacrifices. In almost every case the amnotators have discovered that the defender could have held out much longer, in fact, should not have lost at all in some instances. Yet in the vast majority of these games, the defender misses his best chances. Mikhail Tal became world champion because he won many of those games. Occasionally he was upended by a minor master who refuted his attack, but Tal made up for it by winning five or six extra games that might otherwise have been drawn. Tal was able to do this because he was not only able to find a saving defense but a winning defense! Tal was not only a great attacker but also a great defender.

What kind of defensive player are you going to be?

Black's Defenses

In the first three defenses we will look at some solid Black defenses in detail that use this Castled fortress approach. The others are noted to be the most solid and safe defensive weapons against White that Black can use.

1.The Mongredien Defense
The Mongredien Defense uses a double fianchetto against White's 1.e4 opening.

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