Report from Martin Burns:
Foolishly, Richard Lee has moved home, and he now lives too far away to come to Crewe CC much. Next time any of you decide to move just look at a map first; Kobus went to South Africa; ridiculous. Though he now lives down south, it is clear that Richard still has a soft spot for the club, and that he continues to worry about how bad we are at playing chess. He decided that if he could not be with us in the flesh then he would bring us some of his wisdom via that magical thing that is Teams. He scheduled in a Teams session, loosely aimed at those with a rating between 1200-1600, at an hour not too early last Sunday morning. About 20 of us assembled, eagerly and virtually, to hear his words. His sermon was all about tactics. Usually when folk think of tactics in chess the emphasis is on what dastardly tricks you can find to crush your opponent, but Richard stressed that it is important to be aware that your opponent might be trying to lay traps for you. He borrowed the phrase “the seeds of tactical destruction,” not, as you might think, from the bible, but from Dan Heisman, a respected chess trainer. We were told to look for clues in the position to make us aware of possible pitfalls; the king might be exposed, pieces might be lined up on a diagonal, and so on. Richard then invited members of the audience onto the virtual stage to have a go a finding the dangers in some chess positions. As usual Richard came well prepared, showed his mastery of the technology as well as the game, and managed to not laugh at our solutions too much. It was all great stuff, and I enjoyed it immensely. As he said though, he can point us in the right direction, but the only way to get good at this stupid game is to practise, then practise some more. I look forward to the next session, which we hope will be in November. Mario plans to put a recording of the session in the members area of the website, so watch this space.
All the best.
