Our first Hammer training session was well attended last night with many new faces – welcome to Matt, Orial, Daphne and Adam!!
However the evening was dominated by our own version of Ant and Dec – Baj and Car (BajCar) – aka Bajrush and Carsten – who gave us a thoroughly enjoyable evening with great advice and amusing comments!!
The evening began looking at the three different types of pin that occur in chess – followed by a forensic examination of our own David Lambert’s game against GM Chris Ward.
The intention was not to heap more misery on David but to illustrate graphically how the pin can be utilised to tie your opponent in knots and gradually increase your advantage. To the extent where tactics are inevitable and this translates into victory. You really appreciated that playing simple (not that simple!) positional chess can lead to a win without any risk to yourself.
Very instructive!
The session then started to free wheel with lots of questions from the members and a quick examination of openings. For players new to the game this was invaluable and the advice given by Bajrush and Carsten was really pertinent
- Learn one opening – practise it and experiment
- Always ask the question what does your opponent intend with their move(s)
- A heightened sense of paranoia and scepticism are excellent qualities in a chess player
- Rapid development with gain of tempo are ideal
Our evening finished at 10pm and everyone went away happy and curious to apply what we had learnt asap.