Introducing "Chess Chatter Challenges" #1

A weekly assortment of positions to think about

I’ve been posting on Substack every Sunday for about 1.5 months and wanted to add something new to my weekly posting schedule. In celebration of passing the mark of 100 subscribers (thank you to everyone reading this!) I am going to start a new weekly post every Wednesday titled “Chess Chatter Challenges”. This weekly post is going to include 6 positions to look at and think about. For now, three of the positions will be tactical (a forcing move sequence will win material or checkmate) while the other three positions will focus on positional improvement (attacking a weakness, improving a piece, stopping the opponent’s plan, winning the bishop pair, gaining space, etc). I may adjust this over time to either increase the number of positions each week or change around the ratio of tactics-to-positional exercises. There will be one “best” move in each position and the rating level of these puzzles will most likely lean towards the “intermediate” level (around 1200-1600ish on lichess) but players of lower or higher levels are welcome to solve them too! I’m not going to give away the answers to the positions at the bottom of the post but will instead give the answers to the positions in a few different ways that I think foster a bit more of a community approach:

• I will be having a meeting on Zoom for anyone interested each week on Tuesdays at 2pm EST to discuss the positions live (see Zoom meeting information at the bottom of the post). I will (attempt to) record the Zoom session and then post the video on the following “Chess Chatter Challenges” post so even if you cannot attend the session live then you can watch it later.

• You can reply to this post in your email inbox or if you’re reading it online/app/etc then you can email me your answers at chesschatter@substack.com. If your answer is correct then I’ll let you know while if your answer is incorrect then I may give you a hint or help you to work out the correct answer so you can try to solve it again.

• I’ll post the answers for this week’s puzzles in the “Chess Chatter Challenges #2” post next week.

I would rather readers not put their answers in the comments below the post in order to not affect or influence those who want to solve the puzzles on their own. Also, I may end up making weekly stats based on the (average) rating-level of people who work on the puzzles so keep on the lookout for that. I will never share anyone’s names in these statistics though (unless they specifically tell me it’s okay to do so). Finally, I am going to be having these “Chess Chatter Challenges” posts be free for a few weeks at first but will most likely turn them into paid subscriber posts in the future.

Alright, so let’s get to the six positions. Each position is going to come from a recent over-the-board tournament game but I will generally try to avoid positions that are in games from the top-level events. The reasons for this is that:

1. The level of play in these events is above 99.9% of people on the planet (which means that the tactics and puzzles that come from these games are usually very difficult)

2. Many readers may already be following the top-level events and have seen those games/positions

With this in mind, the positions that are in each weekly post are going to be from intermediate/advanced level (not super-GM) OTB tournament games played around the world. This will (hopefully) make the positions and puzzles more relatable to the average reader. For this week, we will be taking a look at six positions that came from the FIDE World Senior-65 Championship 2023. The number of the puzzle and which side is to move is in the caption below each position.

TACTICAL

#1 White to move — Jansa, V vs Toro, G — FIDE World Senior-65 CC 2023

#2 White to move — Birnboim, N vs Lochte, T — FIDE World Senior-65 CC 2023

#3 White to move — Ftacnik, L vs Bagamasbad, E — FIDE World Senior-65 CC 2023

POSITIONAL

#4 Black to move — Jhunjhnuwala, N vs Fernandez Garcia, J — FIDE World Senior-65 CC 2023

#5 White to move — Balashov, Y vs Ofstad, P — FIDE World Senior-65 CC 2023

#6 White to move — Madeira, W vs Knaak, R — FIDE World Senior-65 CC 2023

Feel free to reply to this post in your email inbox or email me at chesschatter@substack.com with your answers. Also, if you would like to join the Zoom meeting where I discuss these positions live then here’s the information for that:

Chess Chatter Challenges #1
Time: Nov 7, 2023 01:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85175833909?pwd=N056VlZEVXlvS0cyODR5cmNsek1xUT09
Meeting ID: 851 7583 3909
Passcode: 076412

Finally, if you have any suggestions for changes or ideas that could help with these posts/puzzles then I’d be happy to hear them.

Happy solving!