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I have a prejudice that club games are as interesting and as valuable for study material as master games. I have been asking around for club players' games - not necessarily special ones, just games - with the thought that these 'ordinary' games may also be instructive. Some are presented below.

"Why don't you use more club games in the coaching sessions?"

-- This is a common comment. There are some good reasons why not:

1. The reason for showing master games is often to illustrate a particular point of strategy so the games I use are often

  Let us begin with a mistake - what we might call
positional mistake:

"Positional sense should free you from the slavery
of `variations'." - Nimzovitch

Overprotection and prophylaxis are all very well, Dave, but what about ordinary players, what do they need? I believe that we don't really know a lot about the chess thinking of ordinary players. There are some things that have been done on amateur games over the years (by de Groot, Euwe/Meiden, Webb, Heisman, Silman, Rubin/Emms and Davies) and there are a set of common beliefs about amateur play, but I think that amateurs are a lot more complex than is often suggested.

Amateurs are more diverse than is given credit for - they often