1.d4 Kicks Ass

If you're one of those people who thinks 1.d4 always leads to dull, positional games, check out the following gem between Steinitz and Lasker at the 1896 St. Petersburg tournament. Annotations by Kasparov (this is from Chessbase's excellent DVD "Kasparov: How to Play the Queen's Gambit". If you play 1.d4, I highly recommend getting the DVD).

This is a very exciting game :)

Mighty Magnus Did It Again

I think I have a man crush or something like that. This kid is just so cool, I really hope he becomes world champion one day. For now, he continues to prove his strength with wins like this in the first round of the M-Tel Masters in Bulgaria, against Topalov.

Greek Sacrifice Miniature

Here's a cute blitz game I played tonight, with a Greek sacrifice. These sacs work particularly well when your opponent doesn't have much time to calculate :-)

Ah yes, chess blogging.

I almost forgot that I have this blog. Too many things going on in my life… I haven’t been playing much in the last 2 months except for the occasional blitz game and a few casual games against friends and family, without a clock. Not much happening in terms of studying…

So I did manage to go to my chess club last night for the first time in months, and I actually played pretty decently. Here’s a position from a casual, untimed game that stuck in my head:



I am black, and it’s my opponent’s move. I had gotten my rook into an unpleasant spot on e4, but there were some tactics looming that I thought would keep my opponent from trying to chase the rook with Nf1-d2. Well, he played 1.Nd2 anyways, which allowed me to play the cute 1…Nxd4, threatening to take his queen. Play continued 2.cxd4? Qxd2, and white seems to be lost in all lines. I’ve got a mate threat on e1 and plenty of other options. If, for example, 3.Bc3, I can simply take the knight with Qxf4.

That was fun :)

Duh.

I was playing a blitz game earlier today against a guy rated about 200 points higher than me. I'm white and we reached the following position after he just played Qe4, with each about a minute and a half left on the clock:



I'm thinking about my move, and after about 5 seconds he offers a draw. Here's what went through my head, all within a few seconds: "I can't castle to protect my rook on b1 since he will just take my queen with his bishop. Ne7+ obviously doesn't work. Oh he's offering a draw? Well he's higher rated and probably doesn't see any win for either side. Screw it, just take the draw." Duh. Stupid blitz. I'm such a patzer.

Alekhine Gone Bad

Ok, I have to do something before LEP puts me on his infamous Zombie list. Hmm how about a mindless yet fun blitz game from last night. Ah, quality posting.

alekhine.pgn

White to Play and Kick Ass

I found the following little gem on Tim Krabbé's Chess Curiosities site. Take a look at the following game from Hendriks - Spanton, Hastings 2006. After

1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.d3 c6 4.Nf3 d5 5.Bb3 Bb4+ 6.Bd2 Bxd2+ 7.Qxd2 dxe4 8.Nxe5 O-O 9.dxe4 Qe7 10.Qf4 Nh5

they reached the following position:



What’s the best continuation for white? Hint: It’s a beautiful move. Highlight between the brackets for the solution:

[12.Qg3! Nxg3? 13.Ng6+ hxg6 14.hxg3# Note Black isn’t forced to play 12…Nxg3, but 12...Rxf7 still leaves white with an advantage, for example after 12...Rxf7 13.Qg5]

Tournament of Lepers II, Round 4: Tom

I played round 4 against Tom a.k.a. Rhuiden tonight and had a good time except that well, I lost. Things were going well as we transitioned into the early middle game, when I managed to make one of those beautifully horrible moves that are too ridiculous to even really get upset about it. I could try to make excuses - I was tired, the sun was blinding me, my dog ate the keyboard. Truth is, I just didn't pay attention, and it's hard to win a chess game that way. Nicely done Tom.

Too tired for analysis...

Fun Mate

Well, this is not high quality chess but I thought it was a fun little discovered mate. My opponent helped me by leaving his poor king quite exposed in this 5/0 blitz game.

Tournament of Lepers II, Round 3: Polly

After the bye in round two, I had a fun game today against Polly. This tournament rocks, I really enjoy meeting everybody online. Polly - I loved our chat, you're awesome. So anyways, I was fully expecting an ass whooping since she's the number 3 seed and generally seems to really know what she's doing, but somehow I managed to win with black. Here's the game with some analysis:

Tournament of Lepers II, Round 1

I played Sciurus (of Squirrel Chess fame) in round one of the Tourney of Lepers. He's a really cool guy and seems to know his stuff, so we got into some funky Catalan that I had no clue how to play. I just pretended I knew what I was doing and made loud noises when I moved, I don't think he was able to hear me.

I just signed up for the chessflash player. Here's the game with limited analysis:

Sleeping Pills

Do you know the feeling when you win a game, but you just don’t feel satisfied? You won, but you know you could’ve played more forcefully. You won, but only because your opponent blundered a piece. You won, but only because your opponent ran out of time.

I just won my fourth round game in the T4545 league tournament, but I don’t feel satisfied. My opponent blundered a knight early on, and the game just proceeded from there, slowly, boringly. After being up a piece, I just tried to trade down into a won endgame, and obviously my opponent was trying to avoid that. The end was very anti-climactic, he just ran out of time (I am not sure how someone can manage to run out of time with a 45 second increment – heck, just turn it into a blitz game at the end if you have to).

The game didn’t feel exciting at all, and I just know there had to be more forcing lines. I will go over the game this weekend, and I am sure I will find ways how I could’ve attacked more aggressively and ended the game on a more exciting note.

Oh well, a win is a win I guess.

Shit Happens

I just pulled a Bacrot, putting my queen en prise in my third round T4545 game. I really thought I'd left those kinds of blunders behind me, but I guess not.

Rampage

Played my first round game in T37 of the T4545 league yesterday and won. Woohaa :) Here's the game:

BDK, Was This You?

In honor of The New Englunder (who seems to be bowing out of chess blogging, sorta kinda), here's a 5 0 blitz game I played on ICC today. I am white playing against the Englund Gambit. I know this wasn't BDK because he would've played a better line, not this silly crap that allowed me to crush him ;-)

White To Move

I have been playing around with the Trompowsky a bit lately, and this is a position from a recent game. Black just played e5, the position is roughly equal. What's white's best continuation? There's no spectacular tactic here, just try to figure out the best line of play to keep the game equal. The Trompowsky can offer a good game for white if played right, but I did not find the right continuation OTB and lost the game fairly quickly from here...



Highlight the text between the brackets for a line that keeps the game equal.
[13.Nxd5 Bxd5 14.exd5 Nxd5 15.Qxa5 Nxa5 16.Ne2 Nc4 17.Bc1 e5 18.f4 Bc5 19.fxe5 Nxe5]

Weekend Tournament: Round 1

Here's my round 1 game from last weekend's tournament. I was black against what started out as a Grand Prix Attack. I didn't remember much so I deviated from the main line on move four. White didn't make it very hard on me though, it was a fairly straightforward win for me.

Weekend Tournament: Round 4

I played in a tournament over the weekend in which I lost two games and won two games. Overall, I am happy with my performance, I thought I played some decent chess. I will post two or three of the games over the next few days. I will start with my last round game, which I lost against a guy rated quite a bit higher than me. It was an interesting game where I was on the white side of a Slav Exchange Variation. I had some chances but took a wrong turn on move 19 that looked promising over the board, but I failed to see a strong continuation for black that won him the game. So here goes:

King Hunt

Here's a fun little blitz game in which I chase white's king across the board. Very nice of him to visit me on my side of the board. In my excitement I missed 17... Bxc3 and 21...Bxc3 (and probably a bunch of other stuff) but oh well, I was in king hunt mode.

The Good Ol' Canal-Sokolsky

I won’t be posting much (or at all) next week due to other fun stuff I’ve got going on. In the meantime, here’s my first round game of the T4545 league. As the league name suggests, it was a 45 45 game. I had black, and apparently this was the Sicilian Canal-Sokolsky attack, Sokolsky variation. Oh really? Good to know. 'Cos here I was thinking I have no clue how to play this line so I just made what seemed the most logical moves. I think it worked out ok, and after 12…Rad8 I had a decent position.

I haven’t had the time to analyze the game properly so this is all off-the-cuff commentary. I made some inaccurate moves during the middle game and never really got much counterplay going, but overall I defended ok and white didn’t really get anywhere either. (Fritz might have some suggestions here) I think the turning point was 25. ... fxe4, allowing me to open the f-file while getting the queens off the board. The open f-file proved crucial a little later as I was able to cut off white’s king. White tried to defend his e-pawn, which gave me enough time to get my king over to the kingside after white decided to exchange rooks. (giving me a passed f-pawn in the process) After snatching off his kingside pawns I had another unstoppable passer and white had to resign.

I’m happy with the result but I need to work on finding better ways to create counterplay. As usual, there is much potential for more accuracy. But then again, I’m not Fritz.

See ya’ll in a week or so.