The Saturday Study group has been fun for and because of the core players that have become regulars, but I still have hopes for providing a broader appeal. We will be trying out a new format, starting today. Instead of a 3-4 hour marathon starting at 4 PM, we will try three one-hour sessions, starting at 5 PM, 6 PM and 7 PM.
The first hour will be fast-moving and light-spirited. This week's topics include the Polish Opening 1 b4!?, the Smith-Morra, Joe B - Castaneda, pawn endings and maybe a game or two from the World Cup. The second hour will be unstructured "practice play" as a group or individually.
A few feelers went out last week, but at 5 PM, it was our core group of four. We still had a very good, informative discussion, with reviews of two of Nelson Castaneda's games. Mike Smith showed some study insights with Chessible.com and Kevin Corteville presented a game from the World Cup.
Hopefully, we will attract a few more today (online chess may soon make a comeback!). Nelson (thanks!) has posted a very compelling draw against Mark Bourque. He lost a piece in the opening, played a piece down the entire game, and was able to secure the draw through the elimination of all pawns despite a problem-like "stockfish win" for Mark in the final position.
In addition, I have been working on some king and pawn basics and was reminded by Andy Soltis in Chess Life of the Shirazi Gambit against the Caro-Kann, giving me a chance to review some of the changes in the Caro over the last 30 years. Those and any other chess-related topics that you wish to discuss should lead to another interesting session.
All are welcome,
Rick
ore depth on some of the games or concepts that come up.
Hope to see you then,
Link to Zoom - https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85697496782?pwd=T3FnRi9lNVp5VkRrMjRoZmFPWkpjZz09
Meeting ID: 856 9749 6782
Passcode: NBCC
