Jayden's Chess Journal Edition #10

Welcome to the 10th Edition of Jayden’s Chess Journal!

I appreciate you all coming on this chess journey with me, now let’s jump into some chess.

Chess in Pop Culture

In the famous movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the main character, Harry, has to play chess to receive the Sorcerer’s Stone. This scene highlighted the tactical elements of the game and the sacrifices needed to win at chess.

💡Puzzle #10

White’s bishop just captured Black’s rook should Black take with bishop or is there a better move?

✅Solution

Black should, in fact, not take the bishop. Instead, Black has a much better move with Qh6+. This move will lead directly to checkmate, and Black will win the game.

♟️Tip of the Week

It is best to analyze the position properly to find the best moves instead of impulsively responding to a capture. This will allow you to look for better moves to improve your position.

🪶Chess History

Today we are going to look at the head of the powerhouse Soviet Chess School, Mikhail Botvinnik. Mikhail Botvinnik was born in Finland in 1911. He moved to Russia where Botvinnik learned chess at the age of 12 from one of his older brother’s friends. He instantly fell in love with the game and developed “concrete concepts” and then derived general principles from them. He found great success with this strategy and greatly contributed to his analytical approach to chess.

He quickly rose the ranks in the Soviet Chess world and in 1948 Botvinnik won the World Championship convincingly with a score of 14/20, 3 points clear of the next person. Let’s take a look at a position from one of the most analytical minds in chess.

Here Botvinnik is finishing up a position and just look at the constriction around Black’s king. Black resigned from this position, this just shows Botvinnik’s strategy to control the entire board, no flashy tactics just concrete analysis.

 That wraps up this edition of Jayden’s Chess Journal

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, and if you know anyone looking for more chess knowledge, send them this link so they can access this awesome newsletter.

Thank you so much for reading this edition, until next time!