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Loomis's Blog

New content is posted twice weekly. Roughly Monday and Thursday mornings.

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Exchange Down Endgames

Submitted by Loomis on Thu May 15, 2008 5:46am.

We all learn fairly quickly that rooks are stronger than bishops and knights. But sometimes in the endgame you can make up for the deficit of the exchange if you have dynamic pawn play. Of course, the objective will be to promote a pawn safely. &n... Read more »

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King and Pawn Endings IV

Submitted by Loomis on Sun May 11, 2008 9:34pm.

Hopefully I don't seem like a broken record regarding king and pawn endings, but all of these examples come from actual games I've played, so it's clear to me that they are frequent and it's important to get them right.   The ... Read more »

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Play the Samisch for something different

Submitted by Loomis on Thu May 8, 2008 4:40am.

I recently posted a couple of my games where I played a rare system for white against the King's Indian defense featuring an early Bg5 with the intent of taking on f6. I have recently decided that I'd like to try something different agains... Read more »

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More Puzzlers!

Submitted by Loomis on Mon May 5, 2008 5:57am.

Many tactical workbooks and online training sets are full of examples from the games of great masters. But even patzers like me can get into positions where we spot tactical gems. So why not take advantage of these positions to lump ourselves in w... Read more »

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Counterplay for white in the KIng's Indian Defense

Submitted by Loomis on Thu May 1, 2008 6:09am.

As a 1. d4 player, it's important to have some idea of what's going on in the King's Indian. This means knowing what the pawn structure will look like, where the pieces go, and a general plan for what we're playing for. In the vari... Read more »

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Wild Wild French

Submitted by Loomis on Mon Apr 28, 2008 5:14am.

I recently completed a wildly tactical game against the French, including a sacrifice of a whole rook to generate an attack on the king. By all rights I could have lost this game on a few different occasions, but it's easy to slip up when your... Read more »

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King and Pawn Endings III

Submitted by Loomis on Wed Apr 23, 2008 9:22pm.

The previous examples of King and Pawn endings (K&P I, K&P II) have featured fairly straightforward winning positions. In this entry, I'll show some games with a little more subtlety. As a result, there are more mistakes in the game pl... Read more »

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King's Gambit? Accepted!

Submitted by Loomis on Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:04pm.

A friend of mine is well known to play the king's gambit and loves open tactical games. I play 1. d4 and do better in a positional game. I typically meet his 1. e4 with the French or Sicilian,  but in this game decided to let him play his... Read more »

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Puzzlers!

Submitted by Loomis on Thu Apr 17, 2008 8:33am.

One of the small pleasures in chess is creating puzzles from our own games. In a way we try to immortalize those moments where our hard work in chess study meets up with the good fortune of fortuitously placed pieces.   Before I get to exampl... Read more »

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King and Pawn Endings II

Submitted by Loomis on Mon Apr 14, 2008 5:18am.

In a previous blog post (K&P Endings I) I looked at trading to a King and Pawn ending where the winning side had an extra pawn and bringing it home to promotion didn't pose a big challenge. Sometimes we can trade pieces into a materially e... Read more »

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