OFF THE BOARD DRAMA

All the drama took place off the board in last night`s scheduled match.  South Belfast second team were playing at the Lindores venue in East Belfast. 

Unfortunately one of the players was lost in strange surroundings and had to be guided to the venue via "telephone communications control," situated in the Ulster Bankers club.

The whole telephone drama is captured on video.

The match between South Belfast A team and Fruithill ended in a draw.

Is there scope for a new type of tactics video?

Here is a position reached in my game  from last night. It highlights a scenario I do seem to have problem with.

I am black and it is black to play. I could instinctively see what seemed to be the best way for black to continue and I could see the next few moves.

After that I have real trouble visualing all the possible continuations. 

Having spent about 15 minutes looking at this postion, I could not work out the final position of  a sequence of moves to my satisfaction, so I decided against playing an instinctive but unclear line and settled for B x Bishop on b4.

Now, I realise this is probably very easy for IMs and GMs to work out but but for a club player like me it just seemed too difficult on the night.

Today I think I realise what the problem is for me. It is easier to solve tactical problems when it is a forced mate in 2,3 or 4 moves, or if it means forcing the win of a piece in 2,3 4 moves.

It seems to me to be more difficult to work out tactics which don`t give you an immediate win or immediate gain of a piece.

If someone could produce a DVD or book specifically on tactics which are merely designed to give you an improved position from which to play for a win, I would be  extremely grateful.

Hopefully I have explained this in an understandable way?