Learn and Master Progressive Chess - Matej Guid, 2017.pdf

(9323 KB) Pobierz
Learn and Master
Progressive Chess
Matej Guid
The CIP record was created by the National and University Library Ljubljana.
COBISS.SI-ID=293222144
ISBN 978-961-6209-96-0 (pdf)
The electronic edition of this book is available at URL: http://zalozba.fri.uni-lj.si/guid2017.pdf.
Copyright
©
2017 Založba UL FRI. All rights reserved.
Reviewers: prof. dr. Ivan Bratko, prof. dr. H. Jaap van den Herik
Proofreading: prof. dr. Walter A. Kosters
Publisher: Založba UL FRI, Ljubljana
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Computer and Information Science
First edition, 2017
Design of book cover: Bojana Fortuna
Illustrations: prof. dr. Matej Guid with DeepArt.io
Editor: prof. dr. Franc Solina
Preface
Progressive chess is an incredibly exciting game. This chess variant was particularly popular among
Italian players in the last two decades of the previous century, but seems to be almost forgotten at
the time of this writing. The aim of this book is to provide training materials that will enable
interested readers to learn and master the game progressive chess.
The author assumes basic knowledge of the game of chess. From the perspective of education,
mastering progressive chess may lead to improved imagination and calculation skills. The game of
progressive chess may also provide a challenging domain for chess composers.
The preparation of the training materials used in this book would be hardly possible without the
excellent computer program
Progressive Chess
created at the University of Ljubljana. The program
is freely available online and is presented in detail in the following publication:
Vito Janko and Matej Guid. "A Program for Progressive Chess."
Theoretical Computer Science
644 (2016): 76-91.
The
program was developed by Vito Janko as a part of his master’s degree thesis at the Faculty of
Computer and Information Science, for which he also received the faculty’s award for students.
Developing a computer program for progressive chess is a very difficult task. The extremely large
branching factor due to the combinatorial explosion of possibilities produced by having several
moves per turn makes progressive chess a very rich environment for testing new algorithms and
ideas. In particular, an efficient search for checkmates in progressive chess is a very interesting
challenge and may be both fun and an insightful part of any course on artificial intelligence.
By developing a strong computer program and training materials, we hope to revive the interest in
progressive chess among chess players. By the book and the computer program, the chess players
may obtain a strong playing partner and an adequate analysis tool. Moreover, they will possess
learning materials that will enable them to confront both the computer program and other
progressive chess players all over the world.
We hope that you will find this book useful on your own way to become a master of progressive
chess and have as much fun playing this game as we did in creating this book for you.
Matej Guid
Ljubljana, Slovenia
2017
Foreword
In my late teens I was an avid chess enthusiast, playing on board one for a tiny club in Hamburg,
Germany. I did fairly well, considering I knew very little openings theory
–
that aspect of the game
was too tedious for my taste. I relied completely on tactical skills, and that was not enough to bring
me to full master level. So I started experimenting with chess variants and chess problems.
I solved countless mates in 2, 3 and more moves, and fell in love with the compositions of Sam
Loyd. Then I turned to helpmates, which are problems in which Black helps White to mate him in
a specified number of moves. That genre shows you the breath-taking range of mates that are
possible in chess but will never occur in regular tournament play. From there I progressed to series
helpmates, a problem form in which Black plays a specified number of consecutive moves, all of
which must be legal, after which White can deliver mate in one move. It was a bit outlandish, even
though there were many beautiful and wondrous examples.
But of course over-the-board chess, a contest between two humans, has a primeval attraction,
and I continued playing. To overcome my weakness in openings knowledge I dabbled in chess
variants, of which there are hundreds. For a while I played Checkless Chess, quite intensely. This
variant is completely defined by one simple rule: checks are illegal unless they deliver mate.
Suddenly the king becomes a powerful attacking piece, a kamikaze warrior living dangerously to
restrict the enemy’s forces. I spent some months playing this game quite intensely.
And then I discovered
Scottish Chess,
so named I believe because it was first played in Scotland in
the late 1930s. Actually that is not well-established fact, but at least England appears to be the
most likely country of origin. Which is not of crucial importance, since the game soon became
universally known as Progressive Chess, when it became popular as high-level tournaments were
being staged. Soon it was
–
and is to this day
–
one of the most widely practised of all chess
variants. Hundreds of tournaments have been staged over the years, and there is database of
games, PRBASE, with more than ten thousand master-level games. Italy was the dominant country
where Progressive Chess was played, during a period when the Soviet Union dominated classical
chess, and the great champions in the history of Progressive Chess all bear Italian names like
Leoncini, Magari, Dipilato, Polacco and Cassano
–
corresponding to Alekhine, Botvinnik, Petrosian,
Spassky, Karpov and Kasparov in classical chess.
In Progressive Chess White starts with a single move, Black replies with two consecutive moves,
White has three consecutive moves, and so on. Checks are only allowed on the final move, so that
the opponent’s king can get out of it. Checking the opponent’s king in the middle of a sequence
means it ends there and it becomes the turn of the other side again, and of course no player may
expose his own king to check at any time during his turn. These two very logical rules give the
game a special flavour, and especially Progressive Chess problems and studies become
wonderfully challenging because of them.
After an initial period of disinclination I became a dedicated Progressive Chess fan, and soon a
fairly competent player, actually winning a lot of games, because (a) nobody else had studied it
systematically and my lack of openings knowledge was not an issue; and (b) my experience with
helpmates and series helpmates was a big advantage. Progressive Chess was very attractive
because the action started much sooner than in classical chess, where there is usually a fairly long
phase when very little happens
–
you are basically making
sure you don’t lose material and are
trying to manoeuver your pieces onto good squares. Even in the middle and endgame there are
long phases which can be fairly tedious. In Progressive Chess, on the other hand, the action comes
after just a few moves
–
usually on turn five or six you sit there calculating very deep and complex
tactics, lines that could lead to mate or a game-deciding advantage, with the danger that you might
be overlooking a reply, one move longer, that could lead to your own demise. You soon learn that
giving check on the last move of a sequence is a good strategy, as it restricts the opponent to
getting out of check on his first move. And already on White’s third and fourth turns you are
looking at the promotion of pawns that have not yet moved. And as in Checkless Chess the king
becomes a powerful attacking piece when it advances into enemy lines. There it can sorely restrict
the opponent’s ability to capture or to advance pawns because those moves lead to premature
checks. The endgame has its own strategic rules. For instance king and rook vs king is almost always
a draw, whereas king and two knights vs the bare king (prepare for this) is a win for Black, but not
for White! The reason is that Black always has an even number of moves on his
turn, while White’s
odd-number oscillations with a bare king make him vulnerable to a checkmate with two knights.
There are many such strategical points that have to be learned if you want to become a master.
I played Progressive Chess intermittently for maybe a year, but it was difficult to find opponents.
There were a lot of tournaments, but few (actually none) in my area of residence. And so after a
while my over-the-board activities in this attractive field of chess ran dry. Luckily I discovered that
it is not absolutely necessary to have an opponent sitting across from you to enjoy the variant.
There is a whole world of Progressive Chess
problems,
positions with very clever and very deep
solutions, in many cases equal in beauty to my beloved helpmates. And so I continued to delve
into this field, solving mates and studies, but very rarely actually playing a game.
Then I learned, quite recently, that a friend, Professor Matej Guid of the University of Ljubljana,
had actually written a book on subject, a comprehensive volume with all the information you need
to get started (or become an expert). I read it voraciously and spent pleasant hours solving some
of the hundreds of problems and studies that he has included. I have also learned that a graduate
student at the University of Ljubljana, Vito Janko, has developed a Progress Chess playing program
that gives you a strong opponent or training partner, as well as an analytical tool to study games
and problems. As chance would have it, part three of this book gives you basic lessons in openings
and endgames, just as any normal chess primer helps you get started in the classical version.
I strongly advocate that you peruse this e-book, the first comprehensive work in a non-Italian
language; and get the Progressive Chess engine of Vito Janko, which is also available as a mobile
app. Then you can give this fascinating chess variant a try. Chances are you will not regret it.
Frederic Friedel
Editor-in-chief at ChessBase.com and co-founder of ChessBase

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin