Lunch chess!

I brought my chess set to work and I am now going to make it a point to try to be there for chess at lunch on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Probably 2/3 of those each week. They're typically 10 minute games, so nothing too serious, but something good to keep the blood flowing. I have been too busy, personally, to devote much time to chess over the past couple months and my quality of play has definitely suffered.

Anyway, I lost horribly. It was a Dragon and I forgot to play f3. D'oh! If I had, apparently he was going to play the 'Dragdorf'. Later, he got some cheap tricks in. It was rough. Next time!

Slowly recovering

I played my third game of the season and drew it. My second game was very uneventful and very bad. I played against an 1800-ish player and lost terribly. Nothing to remark on. The game last night went poorly, but I eked out a draw as there was no way to penetrate the closed position. I feel like I made some positional errors in the middlegame that left me needlessly cramped, but my opponent was not quite strong enough to take advantage of my weaknesses. It was the sort of position I've seen Alekhine rip apart. I am most proud of my time-management skills, as I used up all my time in the first time control. That's the only real victory. I haven't run it through Rybka yet, one or the other of us probably missed some tactical blow at some point. My opponent definitely had some resources somewhere he could have used.

EDIT: I had initially not planned on playing since I have a test tomorrow in that data mining class and wanted to review the finer points of a couple of the algorithms. As an aside: the kernel trick for support vector machines is cool.

I played terrible chess last night.

It was the first match of the CICL season. I had a rough game, but I was ahead for most of it and I was in a position that was winning, although a bit technical (Rybka confirms). I hadn't played flawlessly, but I had done okay up to this point. I gave my opponent a gift. Instead of playing a winning move, I played a losing move that I had seen, on the previous move, as immediately losing. I immediately lost.

Well, it's a start. Good game, well played, etc. I'm definitely going to learn some lessons from this.

EDIT: I suppose I should always remember that I'm only one step away from defeat.

Why I have not been blogging.

I've been reading the A Song of Ice and Fire series on the train instead of chess for the past couple weeks, so I've been thinking about that instead of chess. Accordingly, I don't have much chess content to share. I've also been too busy on weekends - I moved, I've been traveling, I've been going to weddings, I'm short on cash - to go to tournaments. The summer tournament is also over. I don't have anything to write about on this web-log if I'm not playing chess on the train or playing in tournaments.

Unfortunately, my daily commute is much less chess friendly now. Instead of 5 minutes of walking and 45 minutes of sitting around, it's 20 minutes of walking and 25 minutes of probably standing on the train. I gain five minutes, but I have so much less possibly productive chess time. I can't arrange my chess wallet and my chess book while standing.

Been busy lately.

I won a copy of Rybka 4 and the Rybka opening book for winning my section of the CIG chess tournament. That is pretty awesome. I have not yet had a chance to play around with it much.

I just moved, so I have been fairly busy and still do not have internet access at home. I have had to skip chess tournaments and have not had a chance to write much because I would have to write at work.

I need to not screw up so bad at endgames.

I need to get better at this. I'm in a dead drawn rook endgame. I might have the slight advantage. I just played a move and offered a draw, the opponent said he wanted to play a couple more moves. Here we are:

He played 1. ...a4. Okay, I still have a draw in hand. But I play the wrong move: 2.a3?! . This doesn't lose just yet. However, after 2. ...b4!? 3.Rc4?! (better is f4!? first, which definitely holds the draw) ... bxa3 4. bxa3 and my opponent said it was a draw, so I was very happy.

After ...f5+ and ....Rb3 I'd be fighting rather hard for the draw. It's possible if he plays imprecisely, since I can get the rook behind the passed pawn, but I am not optimistic.

I really need to avoid taking these things from "drawn in my sleep - no chance of losing" to "probably lost, very hard to draw and easy to lose".

So, with that draw, I finished off the summer tournament and won my section with a score of 7.5/8 (two forfeit victories, also two extra games, one win and one draw). The regular season for CICL is starting soon. I'm the co-captain of my team. I'm looking forward to it. I don't know if I'll play in any tournaments in the next few weeks, I'm moving to a larger apartment soon and will be quite busy.

Reviewing my playing history.

Upon reviewing my tournament history, I was surprised to discover how few events I played in where I could be expected to face people rated significantly higher than me. Most of the events I played in were scholastic tournaments where there were one or two players rated 1500+, a couple 12-1300, and the rest in the scholastic abyss. There were a few tournaments I played where they had classes and I was near the cap on my class. Unless I'm miscounting, the four events I've played in since coming back to chess this year matches the number of "real" events I played in as a scholastic player. No wonder I didn't get very strong! And no wonder my rating jumped up 200 points when I started playing in "real" events (it may jump further, of course, but it's at +200 so far). When I look at the playing history of successful scholastic players (either my contemporaries or current successes), I note that they are playing frequently in "real" tournaments - if not "open", at least having a ceiling such that they will play people stronger than them.

I am stupid.

In that draw - it was a draw all along at the end - I had the opportunity to win a piece for a pawn or two earlier in the game. D'oh!

I escaped with a draw

I suppose he didn't fancy the queen ending. I'm going to play this out against a computer a few times, but I thought he had all the winning chances. I had White, he just moved and offered a draw, I accepted.

I play Kd4, of course. I think his plan should be to try to lose a move so that my king is on c3 when he gets his to f5, so I respond to ...Kf5 with Kd4 instead of Kxd5 followed by a pawn race. I think in that position, the plan of ...g5 trading off pawns leads to a win for Black. Maybe I'm calculating wrong. Hence my plan of playing this evening against the computer.

EDIT: I believe he was worried about lines involving 1.Kd4 Kf5 2.Kxd5 and then pawn races leading to a volatile queen endgame, so he didn't want to try any breakthrough, which means he may as well offer a draw. I thought he could lose a move, forcing me to burn my free tempo with a3, then lose another move so that I end up on c3 when he plays ...Kf5, which then quickly gets complicated.

What did I just do?

I just suffered a severe chess hallucination and threw away a pawn endgame. I'm not going to post the position just yet, as the game's still going on, but it was bad. I'm not quite sure what I was thinking. I'll resign in a few moves. I think I had a good position, then I slipped up on the queenside, and then I botched it with this move. I don't really have drawing chances.

I'm on the ropes in another game, too. It's not quite at that point yet.

EDIT: Okay, maybe I have a draw. If he bungles it. Badly.

Second to last round of round robin.

If I win tonight, I'll have clinched at least a tie for first. I'm 6/6 so far (one forfeit victory) and one person I have not played yet has one loss. He's my last round game (well, I have a bye in the real last round, so it's my last round). There's another guy with only one loss, but that was at my hands. If I lose both my remaining games, I could be in trouble. I don't think it's terribly likely, though.

There have, generally, been a lot of forfeit victories in our section, which is unfortunate.

I really like this link on the opening: http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/ten-rules-opening One can't be too dogmatic, of course, but I think this is far more useful to me right now than spending a lot of time on concrete lines (not that I was ever much of one for that, anyway, apart from correspondence games).

Speaking of correspondence games, I just won this game against an Expert:

Black to move. White just played 18.c3? He resigned immediately after my response.

EDIT: My opponent didn't show up, so I got a forfeit victory. I played a quick G/45 against one of my teammates who came along in hopes that there would be somebody to play a friendly game against. Well, there was! We decided to play unrated. I played the Alekhine-Chatard attack, he declined the pawn offer, but later slipped and dropped a piece. Then it was a simple grind.

Long-ish term goal

In light of the last post on "real" rankings, where it was found that, once you got rid of the low-ranking juniors, the median rating of active players in the USCF is around 1800, I decided to revise my long-term goals slightly. I think my long-term goal will be to get to a solid class A level. I think that is very attainable if I work at it. I will then be able to compete reasonably in open events, though I won't come close to winning anything with decent competition. I think part of the reason for the high median rating is that people, either kids or adults, don't stick with tournament-level chess unless they're good at it. If they aren't, they're much more likely to stop going to tournaments because it's a lot of time, work, and money to go to a tournament, especially if you're not playing at a reasonable level. You can enjoy chess a lot without going to tournaments, after all. Also, the people who really enjoy chess as children and continue that through to adulthood are probably much more likely to improve to a reasonable level while still a kid.

So, where do you really rank among active players?

I like the feature on the USCF rating website which tells you where you rank among active players in America (active players are those who have had a rated game in the last year). However, the ranking is a little deceptive, since there are large numbers of junior players ranked below 1000. Naturally, one would probably want to compare oneself to adult players or at least reasonable chess players, no slight on underrated juniors intended. The discrepancy can be pretty great, since there were 46,000 active players, but 33,000 of them are juniors and those are mostly toward the low end of the spectrum. I was bored, so I did a little exercise. I picked a random junior player with a rating of around 1450. His overall ranking was in the 77th percentile and his junior ranking was in the 92nd percentile. Approx 11,000 out of 46,000 and 2700 out of 33,000 respectively.

Now, suppose you're an adult player of a similar rating and want to figure out how you compare to adult players only. It's a simple bit of math: (11,000-2700)/(46,000-33,000). This puts you at around the the 25th percentile, which is a lot worse than the 75th percentile, I tell you what. A better adjustment might be to disregard the juniors rated beneath you, but include the ones rated higher than you, so the equation becomes 11,000/(46,000-33,000+2700) which is again around the 25th percentile. I think this ranking is much more reasonable for an adult player of that rating.

Then again, I find low rankings and bitter defeats to be inspiring: I'll fight for a higher ranking and learn from my defeat. Some people don't get motivated by that, so they probably should not find out that, instead of being in the 80th percentile, they're really in the 30th. Me, I just like having another metric to track my progress and evaluate my performance.

EDIT: For instance, in this method, a 1700 rating only puts you at the median. I think that seems realistic. A 2000 rating puts you at only the 80th percentile of active adult players and a 2200 is about 95th - perhaps a little harsh. It might be a good idea to include all juniors above a threshold rating rather than just those higher rated than the test rating. Perhaps above 1300.

EDITED AGAIN: A junior rated 1200 will be ranked around 4900/33,000. I think that's a good point to start at. This would put somebody with a 2000 rating at around the 86th percentile of active players. I think that's still kind of surprising.

How I botched a knight vs bishop endgame

I had an advantage, then blew it to go to a drawing endgame, but my opponent right here made a critical mistake a couple moves ago, so now I, White, have a win. Unfortunately, I missed it and made a move which loses instantly. I got a gift back later, though, and drew the game.

The correct move here is 1. h5! Both ...g5 and ...gxh5 lose. After 1. ...gxh5 2. Nf3 White puts the knight on h4 and starts pushing the f-pawn. Black will lose the h-pawns and have to give up the bishop for the f-pawn, leaving an easy win for White.

attacking chess

I've been studying a bit of tactics and endgames while going over games collections (mostly Alekhine) and reading Lasker. I think my next project should definitely be going over some work specifically on attacking, like Vukovic. I really don't know how to attack well and I'm almost helpless against my opponents' attacks. I'm playing a rather informal correspondence game against a friend of mine who seems to be getting his groove back and I slipped up, ignoring his mounting threat on the kingside. He hasn't executed the attack yet, but it's really a rather textbook attack and I don't see how to get around it. I might find something. I don't know. It's not a "serious" correspondence game, so I'm not going to spend several hours looking at the position, just as I didn't spend several hours getting into this position. Anyway! Attacks and attacking. This is not an atypical experience. I'll also look at the section of Polgar's brick with the example games with the attacks characterized by location.

EDIT: Yes, I realize that I said previously that I also have no positional sense and would need to work on that. But I think preventing oneself from getting blown off the board and being able to blow people off the board is a good idea.

Ratings and stuff

So I went back and calculated what my rating would be if the tournaments I played in this year were my first forays into rated chess. The calculator spit out that I would have a rating of approximately 1580 (based on 15 games). This is pretty far from the rating I started at this year, but not terribly far from what my rating is right now. I think it's probably a pretty decent approximation of my actual playing strength, but who really knows? These are really just labels we attach to things.

Sometimes people dislike the rating system because ratings don't "accurately" portray the play of somebody who is returning to chess from a long break (they've either grown weaker in absence or stronger in absence), but I think my rating is catching up very quickly to my playing strength even after only 4 tournaments, especially given that 2 of the 4 tournaments I've been at I played at a mediocre level (losing two rating points at one, even). I played around with the rating tool and found that, if somebody rated 1200 plays at about a 1600 level for 16 games, their rating will be over 1500. The exact parameters depend on the number of games in each tournament, exact ratings of opponents, and exact performances in the tournaments, but that seems like a very reasonable amount of activity to get to one's "real" rating after a spell of inactivity.

Survived the Marshall Attack.

That was a close one. My scheduled opponent forfeited, so I played a game against somebody who had a bye. He played the Marshall. I thought, oh, drat, I don't know any Marshall theory and this is a highly theoretical system. Anyway, I held onto my pawn and I think I went into the ending with a positional advantage, but I think erroneously simplified down to a knight vs bishop ending (I had the knight and an extra pawn) instead of keeping the rooks and keeping some pressure on. I still had all the winning chances, I think, but I made a mistake which let his king in and rapidly changed the evaluation. I think I had a draw set up, but then I made a mistake which let him simplify to a very easily won pawn endgame. Oops. I was about to resign, but I decided to let it go just a little bit longer and he made a mistake which made the ending turn into a dead drawn Q vs Q+P ending. I queened first and then won his extra pawn, forcing the draw. Hard work. A swindle.

EDIT: Since my scheduled opponent forfeited, that puts me at 6-0 for the tournament. It's a round-robin with 8 games and, based on the scores, I think it's highly unlikely that anybody will catch me in my section. I also think I'm 7.5/8 for all the CICL games I've played - still undefeated!

Mysterious Line in the Cordel: When Does Bxf2+ work?

Twice now scholastic players have played the Cordel and, when I eventually went for the center fork trick, played Bxf2+. The first time, it was at a point where he could recover the piece, but he wasn't doing himself any favors. The second just gave up the piece for nothing, but I played inaccurately and had to give it back. For those wondering, here's the latest line (IIRC): 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Bc5 4. c3 d5 5. Nxe5 Bxf2+?? Okay, this isn't a fork trick right there, since the knight is pinned. But it was the other time.

What I'm wondering now is if some coach in the area is showing them some games where there is a thematic Bxf2+ sacrifice after Nxe5 and they are incorrectly following the theme, thinking it always works in similar positions. That's twice now that I've seen it (and the third time somebody has played the Cordel against me, I didn't try the center fork trick in any way in the first encounter).

Also, the kid annotated my c3 with a question mark and his ...d5 with an exclamation. I wondered whether I should get the tournament director to inform him how making annotations during the game is not allowed or inform him myself after the game, but it didn't seem worthwhile. We didn't have time to go over the game, either, as I would definitely have informed him that c3 is the book move and ...d5 isn't. Anyway, I presume I'll keep seeing this ...Bxf2+ move, since the Cordel seems popular with kids around here and I like Nxe5 at some point.

strategery about who to play

I didn't really get much chance to face strong opposition while playing scholastically, so I didn't get much of a chance to fill out my chess knowledge in high school. Perhaps I should have been more diligent about seeking out strong opposition. Look, for example, at my history here (and, if you want, subtract the stuff from the last year): Player History


Note how much of my opposition was rated below 1200: almost all of it. I was rated around 1200-1300 for much of that time and didn't go up. This is not a coincidence. There are two problems here: it's impossible to go up much in rating if you're toward the top of the rating list in a tournament and it's impossible to become stronger if you don't play people stronger than you. The rating range I needed to be playing, if rated 1300, was probably 1200-1600, not 900-1300 with occasional games against a 1600. The range I'm playing right now (see last 12 months) is pretty much the right range for my current rating (almost 1500), though I should be dropping some of those lower rated players soon and adding more 1700s. It's no coincidence that I'm adding lots of rating points as I'm playing stronger players (and, I think, getting stronger, too, they aren't the same).

EDIT: This is obviously an economic problem. If I'm going to spend my time and money on playing chess, I'm going to spend the time and money playing strong opposition. I wouldn't refuse, on principal, to play in the Chicago Class this weekend because I'd only play players in my (former) class, but I'd refuse because, in combination with that, it's also more expensive and more time-consuming than an alternative. Going back in time, I wouldn't have forgone scholastic events, I would have added other events, of which there were and are surprisingly plenty given the relative emptiness of the state of Iowa.

this week's super fun chess times.

I played in the monthly NSCC G/45 tourney. In the first game, I drew against an 1800. It was a dead drawn double rook endgame from a Winawer French. That's all I was shooting for. In the second, I beat a 1590 who foolishly sac'ed his bishop on like move 6. I slipped and had to give it back, but won the game. Another double rook endgame, I got a pawn up and he foolishly simplified to the pawn ending. The rook ending has practical drawing chances, the pawn ending is just a dead loss. I lost the third game to a 1770, but it was a long, tough fight. I was down positionally the whole time, though. In the end I went for some practical chances in time trouble, but the tactics just didn't work. I had a worse position and, like, a minute to his 10 minutes, so it was worth a shot. The last game was a gift from a 1100 player, he straight up gave me his queen. I was playing quickly and in a slightly inferior position, actually, and then he just gave me his queen. I need to review how to play the Black side of the Ruy Lopez, I'm just not getting anything good here. I keep having problems with my d-pawn. Anyway, performance rating of like 1700, should give me a good 80 rating points or so.

EDIT: results are in, I gained 78 points, so I've gained a total of 205 rating points in the last month. Not so bad.

And I did the first four levels of CT Art yet again.

I am embarrassed, though. I probably went through the exercises too quickly, and therefore didn't improve. I calculated less and played more moves that "looked" right.

Level 10: 97%
Level 20: 92%
Level 30: 79%
Level 40: 73%

Oops! Just like last time, except worse on level 10.

Today's super fun happy chess post.

I'm up to Alekhine's match against Capablanca in his game collection. I've noticed that I have been going over the games faster lately. I went through two this morning on the train. I think this is not good. I should make a conscious effort to slow down a bit. I think one per train ride is a good pace for my purposes. It's enough time to reflect a bit on the game and work it out but fast enough that I can do it.

I played two quick games at lunch today against the ~1650 player. He's been wanting to play me ever since my success last month. I won one - he made a mistake in the Najdorf and I stole his queen. I lost the next. I need to figure out how to go against his "slow kingside buildup and attack" plan in the Two Knights with d3. I think maybe I need to be more aggressive and open things up before he can get it rolling, as he keeps his king in the center for a long time.

Anyway, I've been having some fun playing games besides chess lately. I played softball last night and I'm going to a "game night" at a friend's tonight. He's a chess player, but we're going to be doing other board games.

I'm not going to go to the Chicago Class tournament, but I will go to a tournament on Sunday afternoon. I just can't spend an entire weekend at a tournament right now (or spend $100 on entry fees). I can justify spending a Sunday afternoon and $20, though. It would be unrealistic to expect as good a showing at this tournament as last month's, but I think there's a good chance I'll do okay. I'll be happy if I win one game and play some good games against stronger players. Okay, scratch that: I really want a performance rating over 1500 for this. That's modest. So, if I can win one game and have a 1500 performance, I'll call that a good showing. There are plenty of reasonably rated people showing up to this event usually, so that might not be a problem.

Boost Your Chess!

I started Boost Your Chess 1 and am enjoying it. More of the same good stuff. It is very nice.

On chess.com, I just bungled a game against a friend of mine, but he bungled it, too, and I managed to get him to force a draw. I don't know whether I had a forced win earlier, and since it was a three-day-per-move game I probably should have taken more time to verify I did not (I'm pretty sure I didn't). But I am happier with the draw than with the loss for sure. One thing I don't like about chess.com is that it presumes that somebody who is unrated is 1200 when it calculates how your rating takes a hit.

I also started up a game against somebody who turned out to be undefeated and, though only rated 1865 on chess.com, is rated 2000 in real life. He's only 1865 on chess.com because he has mostly played low-rated players. My only hope, I think, is to go for a "correspondence game" type position - sharp tactics and what-not and hope that my theory ends up being sharper than his theory, but it looks like he's playing a staid line of the Vienna Game. Drat!

In other news, I'm taking up the role of co-captain on my company's CICL team.

Finished Build Up Your Chess 1

I found it tremendously helpful and informative. The exercises were hard work and were very rewarding. I am going to review the material some more, play over some of the variations in the chapters and exams a few more times to make sure I've got it all and then I will start Boost Your Chess. I have to guard myself against laziness in doing this, especially as I work these things out on the train. You are supposed to go over every variation and spend 1-2 hours on each lesson. Then you are supposed to spend 1-2 hours on each exam, writing out all the relevant variations. The temptation to do less is great. I passed the final exam with a "Good" score, but not "Excellent", and there were a couple problems I just did not get at all.

Still undecided about what I'm going to do in terms of chess tournaments in the next few weeks. There are several opportunities to play on Sunday afternoons and there is the opportunity to play in the Chicago Class, but that would take all weekend and the wifing unit might feel neglected if I do that. I'm taking the car in to get some work done on the brakes, so I might not have it back by this Sunday, so that would answer the question of this week's tournament. Beyond that, who knows?

I played better on the second day.

I won both my games for a final score of 2.5/5 (I took a third round bye). My opponent from the first game in the tournament won the section, he played very well. My first win was against the guy I played in the last round of the Evanston tournament a few months ago. He played the English again and I was a bit more ambitious. I think I had a bit of a positional advantage and then he slipped up, dropping a pawn. His position fell apart quickly after that. In the second game, I was against a low-rated junior. He played the Ruy Lopez, Classical Deferred, but got himself a cramped position. I used the fork trick to gain some central space and then won two pieces for a rook. I picked up another pawn and then went into an endgame with a rook, two minor pieces, and a couple extra pawns against two rooks. I didn't have to use my super endgame skills, though, as he made a tactical blunder and lost a rook. I think I'll lose a couple rating points from this tournament, which I don't particularly care about. I think I also picked up a few dollars. The tournament seemed to have far fewer people than they had hoped for (50 as opposed to far more, the quoted prize fund in the advertisements was b/250). I think it was because it conflicted with another large local tournament, the FIDE Continental Amateur something or other, which had about 100, as well as, of course, the World Open and everybody's 4th of July plans.

I'm still undecided about playing in the Chicago Class in a couple weeks. It's a choice between that and playing the NSCC G/45 event. On the one hand, I did get some cash money to make the entry fees a little better and it's a long time control. On the other, it takes all weekend and, even playing up a section, I'll probably face weaker opposition than I would at the NSCC event.

EDIT: Going over one of the games on the computer - I realize it's no substitute for master human commentary - I think it's amusing that, for four or five straight moves, Houdini insists that Black needs to play ...Nc5 and White needs to play c4. In retrospect, those are good moves...

I played horribly today.

Perhaps I can redeem myself tomorrow.

EDIT: The first game, I just got steamrolled in the Alekhine. Lost a pawn early. In the second game, I had a pretty decent positional advantage, but I foolishly gave it away to equalize when I thought my opponent had an attack that needed equalizing. I then made a major blunder which lost.

Tournament tomorrow!

I'm playing in the double class tournament starting tomorrow. It's a 40/90, SD/30 time control, which is a little slower than I'm used to, but it's a time control I should learn to play. I've been playing G/90 lately, but I've been going fast because I've been getting winning positions. I'll try to make the most of my time. The SD/30 is kind of fast, IMO, for a secondary time control, so I'll think of this as like a G/120 and possibly leave some time at the end of 40 moves unless the game looks like it won't need that much for the finale.

I think if I win money at this, I'll go to the Chicago Class in two weeks. If not, I'll go to the North Shore Chess Center tournament in two weeks. It sounds kind of lame to predicate this stuff on winning money, but it's one thing to spend $100 on chess tournaments in a month, another to spend $200. Even though it's a shorter time control, I think the NSCC tournament would be better for my development as a player because the players will be stronger than the ones I'd play in the class tournament (even if I played up a section). A challenging (but feasible) G/45 is going to be better than a less-challenging or trivial 40/2 SD/60. As I said, if I do win money, I thnk I'll play in the Chicago Class, but then it's a question of whether I'll play my own section or play up. I just don't think I'll get good games if I play my own section - Section D (!). I probably need to play against B and maybe C players to get a good game. So I could play in the C section - but what about the chance of filthy lucre in the D class? Ah, filthy lucre...

Finally lost on chess.com

I played the Dilworth, then I lost a pawn, so instead of having two pawns and a rook for two minor pieces (a decent deal), I had one pawn and a rook (not a good deal). And I traded some more stuff off so my opponent had the two bishops and a rook against two rooks. This is bad mojo. Anyway, it was a good game, it was against a buddy who used to be rather strong and is just now getting back into chess. Good times.

I'm in Texas right now, so I don't have my tactics training software to practice with. I hope I don't get rusty this week, as I'm planning on playing in the "double class" tournament this weekend. I'll be in the C+D class, since playing up into the A+B class would not really be a recipe for success by either metric I care about - winning or learning. I can give a good game to the 1600s, I think, and 1700s are a good stretch, maybe, but above that... I'm considering playing in the Chicago Class tournament two weeks later. I'm not sure whether to try to play up and get experience or shoot for the money in my current (for the moment) class.

chess.com winning streak might be ending soon.

I played a little carelessly in one of my chess.com games, so now I'm going for wild counterplay to keep it interesting. Right now the material is even, but we're about to get into some vicious and unclear waters. I'll just have to keep this in mind: they can only take one piece at a time. I may end up down a piece when the dust clears, but that was what I was avoiding by going into the complications, I think. I also dropped a pawn in my Dilworth game, so now I don't have much compensation.

I'm on chapter 20 of the Yusupov book now and am still going over tactics problems. I haven't taken a good look at my games yet.

Don't tell my chess set, but I played a different 4 hour strategy game last night. It was fairly fun, but I'm definitely not a "gamer". I like my games to have perfect information and my work to have stochastic processes, not vice versa. And, yes, I know that's not a dichotomy...

EDIT: I wonder about the psychological effects of conditional moves. I just used a conditional move in my dangerous crazy freewheeling game. I hope that makes him think I have something forced up my sleeve, but it was more so that I wouldn't chicken out after his response! Still, if you know every other move loses and this one is unclear, choose the unclear move. And, in the end, it's chess.com, not nuclear warfare.

EDIT EDIT: Okay, that was boring, my opponent basically accepted being down two pawns after a few minutes of thinking instead of going into this slugfest. I expected to barely get out of this alive! One variation I looked at had me with a knight, bishop, and couple extra pawns against a rook and pawns (not forced and probably not the best moves). I might post a position once the game is over. I expect Houdini will give me a stern talking-to about this.

more winning.

I won my game last night in the CICL tournament. It was against my teammate, the top rated player in our section. He played the Danish, and it's a good thing I went over those games a while back. We got to the Schlechter, but I think I was somewhat inaccurate in that I played ...d5 before ...cxb2. I later won a pawn and then it was a long, slow grind until he resigned. In the final position, it was suggested that my opponent had drawing resources, but the computer says no (I haven't looked at the analysis yet and would prefer to work it out on my own, I just saw the numerical evaluation). It was a long, tough game. He said I should really consider entering one of those big money tournaments for class players since I seem to be rather underrated at the moment - and only for the moment - and might just be able to pull something off. I am, however, rather busy these days. Anyway, I'm still undefeated in CICL play.

I also won that correspondence game against the rather strong player, which was rather surprising. To be fair, I put quite a bit more effort into the game than my opponent, so it's somewhat like winning during a simul (not to say anything about the amount of effort he put in, but I spent pretty much an entire weekend on it at one point - a very good learning experience). This means I'm still undefeated at chess.com. I'll be interested to see what Houdini has to say about some of the moves and variations I had thought up, as the game was rather tactical in nature.

Anyway, I now have plenty of material to look at critically.

EDIT: PS I discovered the true cause of scid's borking up the annotations. It was the "mark tactical exercises" feature. So I can go back to labeling things with a "??". Also, one feature I don't like about annotation algorithms is that I don't care about the difference between +7 and +9, and maybe not between +3 and +5 unless it really is a minor piece vs a rook or keeping a couple pawns, but it makes a bigger deal out of those than the difference between 0.00 and +1. I remember once when I was playing against Chessmaster(TM) and had it annotate the game that it marked as the "worst move of the game" a point in the ending where my theoretical advantage went from "+86.5" to "+44.2" or something like that. And making derisive comments when I took 15 moves to mate with king and rook instead of 8.

Quick Tournament Update.

I played in a tournament yesterday afternoon and had a pretty good day. I went 3/4 with a performance rating around 1700. I lost my first game against a 1700, but later analysis showed that I could have won a piece at a certain point. Houdini confirms. I thought I had something there, but couldn't find it. Later, I dropped a pawn in a miscalculated exchange in the endgame and lost. I faced an unrated player in the second game and won a piece early and the game much later. I played a 1500 in the third game and crushed him slowly after tricking him into giving me a pawn, a space advantage, and a lead in development. The last game was against a 1660. I won a pawn early, but at the expense of very awkward development and a cramped position. She attacked me and I pretty much held her off, then, in time trouble, I made a slight misstep. However, she missed a zwischenzug and lost a piece. Unfortunately, I don't have the details of the position as I was in time trouble. After that, I simplified to a trivial ending which she played out pretty far. It looks like I'll gain 130 rating points. I might have won the "biggest upset" prize, I'll let you know later. I might post some positions later, too...

EDIT: I didn't get biggest upset, a 1350 beat a 1900.

Tricky position!

So I was playing a game and got to this position from the 5.Nc3 line of the Petroff. I considered Ne5!?, but it seemed rather unclear, so I went with Bxf7+!?. It seemed reasonable and it worked out decently for me. I won a piece a little bit later - not a result of that move. It seems that Ne5!! works, though. I'll have to keep that in mind in case it comes up again (on ne sait jamais).

The Dilworth

So I'm thinking about playing the Dilworth as Black against the Ruy Lopez if White will let me (9.Nbd2 avoids it, of course). I think something is wrong with how I filtered things out of my database, since I know Yusupov played the Dilworth occasionally (that's what brought it to my attention, as I'm reading Yusupov's series), but I don't have any Yusupov games showing up. Yes, I looked for Jussupow, too. So I'll have to go through and find some game collection of Jussupow/Yusupov to add in to my database (and then remove the duplicates).

The motivation for doing the Open Spanish is that the Closed has a ton of theory and the Open seems logical for both sides, though White is less likely to have prepared for it. I'm not going to overthink this, as, at my current level, this is hardly the most significant thing to worry about. The Dilworth is almost certainly far too complex, really, but it's worth trotting out in a correspondence game...

That was a pretty bad game!

I went over that last game. It was pretty bad! That previous post is indicative of how the game went. The guy who made the second-to-last mistake certainly won in that one.

scid's auto-annotate feature sometimes borks up on me, and I think I noticed in this game where that happens: on moves it ranks with a "??". I suppose the way to fix this problem is to stop making stupid mistakes in my games. And change the criteria so that it only awards "??" for mistakes of magnitude +9 or more. If I make a mistake that bad, it deserves to break my computer...

I won tonight, but it was a close game.

I screwed up more than once, but it wasn't noticed. He also screwed up a couple times, but I missed it. In the end, I found a tactical line that he couldn't quite find his way through - the best continuation would just get some pieces off the board so the position was less volatile - and he ended up getting creamed. But here's a position where I screwed up majorly. I just played Nb1??, thinking it would save my a-pawn. I should not have castled queenside in the first place, it was a bad idea.

Black to move and win.

Whoops! Fortunately, he did not notice and played O-O-O instead.

How my chess.com games are going.

So I've won two of my games so far. That gives me a rating of 1644 so far (ha!). In the first, I played quickly because I was in theory (the Tarrasch Trap - he accepted being a pawn down rather than falling deeper into the trap), then I played quickly because my choices were fairly easy. I made some less-than-precise moves. In the second game, I was playing slow until I saw I could win a pawn and then things got easy, so I played faster. I think I kept things fairly precise there. I'm in the middle of a few more games, mostly against weaker players than the ones I just beat. The one game against a strong player is still going on. It's still very sharp and it's probably a matter of time before I make a small slip that leads to an explosion - unless I already have.

I'm going to try to keep five games or so going at once. I'll probably have to start editing the lower end of the default strength option on my open seeks, since I want to play people stronger than me and there are so many players around 1300 that they will likely suck up any open seek that includes them (which wouldn't be so very bad if it didn't seem, at the moment, that the 1300 level is not going to be satisfying opposition). It will take a bit of experimenting to find that sweet spot where the opposition is challenging, but not completely insurmountable with the level of effort I'm willing to expend on these games (namely, treating it like a 40/2 game, or maybe like a G90).

Speaking of G90 time controls, I really should play slower in my CICL games. I have a tendency to speed up and get sloppy once I get an advantage (ugh, see above!).

It's a trap!

Alas, there is no Admiral Ackbar in our heads during the game. An opponent in one of my current games fell into the Tarrasch Trap. This is why I always make it a point to look up the famous traps in an opening before trying it out even casually. Sometimes they are rather subtle. It stinks to fall into one and sometimes you get a free point. Even if it never comes up, the tactical idea is often valuable.

This isn't such a bad trap, though, so the game isn't over yet.

I finished the first volume of Alekhine's game collection.

As mentioned in the title, I finished the first volume of Alekhine's game collection. Suddenly, I feel like I am a much better attacker. I am going to start on the second volume on the train ride home tonight.

I also started a couple more correspondence games on chess.com. I just put out a couple open seeks. I have no idea how good of an indicator chess.com ratings are for playing strength. The first person who accepted is rated 1300 and the second is 1500. I'll try my best, they'll try their best, and then we'll see how it looks. The motivation for this is that most tournaments require you to have had at least 5 rated games, so I want to get 5 rated games in. Then I can think about what openings I'm interested in getting into and play in thematic tournaments. That seems like a good way to learn an opening. I can also then figure out what rating level at chess.com would constitute a challenge to me at my level of involvement and then try to play people at that level (as mentioned in previous entries).

EDIT: I've added a couple more games. Right now I have five rated games going.

So I won my game today.

But it's like that anecdote about the two hikers who see a bear and one of them starts running - he doesn't have to outrun the bear, he just has to outrun the other guy. It was somewhat of a struggle. My opponent played the Schliemann and I didn't play it right (I took on f5). Anyway, I have a couple endgame positions, I'll show them to you later once I analyze them myself and remember them.

My correspondence game with the strong player is nerve-racking. I'm probably going to get blown off the board rather soon. That's what I get for getting in over my head in a sharp variation of the Sicilian. I spent much of the weekend analyzing the position because I spent a lot of time waiting in the airport and sitting on a plane. What else can you do when you've finished your novel and don't feel like playing over yet another Alekhine game? I'm finding it very educational.

Done with first four levels of CT Art again.

Level 10: 98%
Level 20: 92%
Level 30: 79%
Level 40: 73%

I was coasting at around 75% on level 40 until the last 50 problems. I perhaps went through them too quickly. I'm not sure whether I will continue to go all the way through CT Art again or whether I'm going to start another pass through the first four levels. The combinations at level 40 are probably too difficult to expect myself to be able to see them instantly, but level 10-30 might be that easy, and it's good to get faster at level 40. Not too sure about using level 50+ this way. Some of the problems are rather tough.

Those results are still fairly weak.

I am shocked and appalled!

Okay, not appalled. I decided to sign up for chess.com but somebody had already taken the gzt name. So I'm gzthompson there.

I'm not sure whether I'll play much there or not. But I have an account now.

Finding Stronger Opponents

Well, I'm 4-0-0 so far in CICL rated play. Only one game in the regular season, two games in the tournament, and one extra rated game from the tournament. This means I need to play stronger opponents. I'd rather be at maybe 1.5/4 right now. In two of the games (both against the same guy, actually!), I had an objectively lost position. I showed you the position from the last game. In the other, the opponent (same opponent) had an attack that should have won, but it wasn't quite clear. So I need to play stronger people. These players are not punishing my blatant mistakes.

I'm sure I'll get more than I bargained for at some point, though.

Last night's game

Last night's game was interesting. I was Black, I played an extra rated game against the guy I beat a few weeks ago. We ended up transposing into a line of the QGD and were in theory up to move 14! I don't recall the exact order of moves, but there are a lot of move orders to get to the position. I'm somewhat pleased with how I played the opening - perhaps I did not do it ideally, but I ended up in theory at the end of it, so I didn't botch it completely. Toward the end, however, I made a critical mistake. Fortunately, he did not notice.

White to play and win:

I had just played Re3-d3. I thought Qg5 didn't work (it did) because of h4 - I missed Qe7. He played Nxg3 instead of the winning move. I missed it, too! Otherwise I wouldn't have gotten into this position. From there, though, the game is easy for Black.

I suck at "positional" chess

I've been working through Yusupov and barely passed the last couple tests I took which were on more "positional" themes. It's very rough going. Granted, they are still heavily tactical. Fortunately, I still understand the solutions once I see them. If I get to the point where I can't even appreciate why what Yusupov suggests is better than what I'm trying, I'm going to have to back off and try again. Hopefully this struggle will raise the level of my game.

I'm also still going through CT Art. I'm working on level 40 right now. I'm going through a little faster than last time and getting a slightly better score. Perhaps I should slow down and get a truly better score. This is the level where there are some I can't understand at all and some I can get instantly. There were only a couple that I couldn't understand on level 30, they were often ones where you went through a drastic simplification that nets you a pawn, so I didn't feel so bad about failing to understand. I was looking for something bigger in those.

I'm also still reading through games collections.

I did a very small bit of opening preparation. I blitzed through a few games in the Danish Gambit just to familiarize myself with the black side of the game and glanced at a couple articles. Just enough to make sure I don't fall into a stupid trap and play reasonably when I run into it.

So that's my status report. I hope I figure out this "positional" chess thing soon.

To play blitz or not? OR: To play correspondence or not?

I have a FICS account, but I don't use it much. I've played one game, actually. I think it's hard to get a good long game on the internet, so I don't really try. I also am skeptical of the value of playing blitz, so I don't. I think it develops bad habits when it's done more often than real games, and I don't play many real games these days (once every two weeks and maybe a tournament every few months, which isn't terrible but isn't great).

However, I do need to play sometimes. Blitz is better than nothing, and there are worse ways to waste time when you have 10 minutes to kill.

What I might consider doing is taking up correspondence chess. I wouldn't be hardcore about it, I'd probably treat each game as though I were in the middle of a 40/2 type game (well, I'd probably do a little bit of fiddling in the opening book). Voila, 5-10 minutes killed. I would probably lose a lot playing that way if I were playing against serious players, but it would be informative and it would be relatively serious chess. Not as intense as doing correspondence chess right or a tournament OTB game, but good enough to count as a "real" game. I suppose one of the servers like RedHotPawn or chess.com or something would be an appropriate venue for that, but I've heard the players are of very variable quality or something like that. I think I'll do it as soon as I'm done with my travels. I have a few short trips coming up and I don't want to have to worry about being sans computer or busy for 4 days or so.

What I Really Need

I need a nice book of annotated games that fits in my coat pocket. The Capablanca endings book did. Most of the Dover books do, but the Alekhine one I'm working on only barely does because it is thick. The Mammoth one is too thick. There's just something awkward about carrying a book around on its own, mostly because it's free when you're done traveling. With a coat, you have somewhere to put it.

This is mostly moot, though, since I won't be wearing a coat anymore in a couple weeks. I will have to endure.

So I'm currently reading through these collections of annotated games:
1. Alekhine.
2. Mammoth - starting as soon as I'm no longer wearing a coat.
3. Most Instructive Games by Chernev. It's an old, beaten-up copy that I won't travel with. I should probably just buy a new copy, it's cheap and portable.

I'm also working on Yusupov, but that's always been too big for my pocket. I plan to start glancing through some endgame stuff, too. I'm playing through CT Art when at home. I think this curriculum should be more than enough for now if I can get enough good games in. One game every two weeks against a human is a good start, I can plan to play a game against the computer or something on the off weeks and find a tournament or two over the summer.

Tactics, tactics, tactics.

Now that I'm not busy with school and travel, I have time to dive into tactics again. For a while, I wasn't even playing over games on the train, instead frantically working on maths problems. It was actually a pretty good time for working, I could manage the equivalent of a good hour of work each day in the 1.5 hours of my total daily commute.

I've noticed that I'm a little rusty, but not too rusty. I am, however, a little bit lazy. As long as it doesn't bleed into my play, I suppose, but I've always been a lazy player.

This is why I need to play against stronger players. Weak players only indulge my laziness. I'm heartily enjoying the Citadel Tournament, but I am 2/2 and suspect I'll have an easy 5 points (the other three points, who knows?). As I said earlier, I'd rather have a tough fight every game and go 3/8 than win all my games.

So, more tactics.

EDIT: they seem to have missed posting my game last round. Well, they have my result, at least.

Round 2.

I came about 15 minutes late because work was being lame. Goverment audits and such. I played very sloppily and won. I had white, my opponent played the Petroff and I won a piece rather quickly. At one point, I sat there for a good long think trying to see if a particular attacking idea worked (around Nxf7), but it didn't, so I got another piece out. He responded and I quickly played Nxf7?? because I thought I recalled that the attack worked after his reponse. It didn't. Sadly, I could've just played Nxd7 (a knight) and had an absurd advantage, since the pieces just start coming off. In fact, I had a way to preserve most of my advantage after Nxf7, but didn't, and ended up "only" a pawn ahead. Indeed, part of what made me so lazy was that I'd be up a pawn against a guy who pretty much just gave a piece to me for free earlier, so I could be a little lax (bad habit!). Later, he had a chance to equalize a bit, but he didn't take it, and then he made an ill-advised rook trade that left me with the only active rook. And then he dropped a piece again and resigned. Not my best game. In the future, just keep the advantage, no need to get fancy!

First round of summer tournament.

The folks at Citadel are kindly hosting a summer tournament with one game every two weeks or so. I won my game. I played white against the Dragon. We castled on opposite wings and let loose on each other. I made a critical mistake and wasted a tempo, which gave him a decisive advantage, but he didn't prosecute the attack properly. Once his attack fizzled, I counterattacked and it should have been equal with plenty of opportunity for both sides. And then he gave me a piece for free. It seems he's the second highest rated person in the section, so I'm not sure how tricky the rest of my opponents will be. I ended up with half my time left, but the game ended suddenly, so I'm happy with my time management. But I played like a fish, mostly.

Pretty much not doing chess, but it's a planned break.

I have finals this week and then another big thing on May 11th to prep for, so I'm pretty much not doing any chess right now. It's a planned break, though. I have a game for the CICL on May 2nd, and I might do a few tactics problems and play over a couple games to lead up to it, but, otherwise, I'm not spending time on chess until May 11th. Outside of idle thoughts while at work! I can easily have a tab open to a couple chess problems I can idly glance at, it's not so easy to idly prep for exams...

I saw somebody reference my opposite-colored endgame! Ha!

I just ran into somebody referring to my endgame which I discussed here and on chesspub.com. Amusing. I'm famous?

Too busy for chess

I take a few minutes to look at tactics problems in the evening. Other than that, too busy right now. I'll have that game on May 2nd. Then I'm too busy until the afternoon of May 11th to think of anything but being busy.

However, today's dinosaur comic is pretty great: chess comic!

Chess is such a difficult game.

I'm lazily going through level 30 of CT Art again. I'm not going very well because I'm going through it lazily. It's also annoying because a lot of the combinations have +/- evaluations at the end (maybe it won a pawn, sometimes it's just a won endgame), and when I'm going through lazily, I'm just looking for something more decisive. I figured it's a lower level combination, so it's going to be something obvious. On the level 60 and above, getting a +/- was good enough, so I'd look for that.

Anyway, other news: some people in the local chess league are organizing a tournament over the summer, one game every 2 weeks, eight rounds. I'm in. This will force me to get some slow practice. Though I'm kind of curious how they will do this, because they are thinking of a 9-person round-robin, but 9 is odd. I'm sure they'll figure it out. I'd also rather play in a stronger section than the one I'll probably be in. I'd rather score 2-3/8 and work hard than score 7/8 against weak players, though I certainly understand that the organizers of the tournament might not want somebody who'd score 1-2/8 in a section of a round robin.

EDIT: Not to get ahead of myself. Perhaps the low section will indeed be challenging and I'd score 4-6/8 (or less!). That would be great. However, if I'm in the low section and have a lot of easy games, I'll be bored. If you win a tournament, it's because your opposition is too weak for you (at least, while you're still a developing player).

Just finished CT Art.

Level 10: 97%
Level 20: 90%
Level 30: 77%
Level 40: 71%
Level 50: 69%
Level 60: 64%
Level 70: 61%
Level 80: 58%
Level 90+: 62%

For a final rating of 2570 (ha!) and success percentage of 71%. Now to go through at least the first five levels again!

Compare to this from a couple years ago: http://gztchess.blogspot.com/2011/02/digging-up-post-from-2-years-ago.html

Chapter 8 in Yusupov was very tough.

I worked on it on the train. I passed, but didn't get a "good" score. Not quite sure of the exact score, since I didn't write down my answers, being on the train. But there were some I got and some I didn't get, and the ones I got put me over the pass mark and the ones I didn't get put me beneath the "good" mark, so the details don't matter. I'm definitely going to go over the lesson and the answers some more. Chapter 9 is pretty easy, though.

I only have, like, 6 problems left to do in CT Art. Being at level 90+, my method at this point is to sit there for 5-10 minutes trying to figure out, at the very least, the motifs, and then giving a plausible try. These problems are too hard for me to calculate out. Sometimes, though, I get the first few moves but miss some little finesses along the way, and that's good (better than being lost). I'm not yet at the level where it would be productive, I think, to sit there for half an hour with this level of problem because I'm just at a loss for what to do, quite often. At level 80, though, it seems productive to do so sometimes.

Still plowing through Yusupov...

I had some spare time on the train and felt like I knew the lesson, so I decided to go ahead and do the 6th Yusupov test rather than go through the chapter again. I got 16/19 (excellent). Even the "positional" chapters at this point are still heavily tactical. I enjoy these books a lot. I will play through all the variations in the answers later today to gain more understanding, especially of the problems I missed.

I was amused, though, that one of the problems I ran into on CT Art the other day was from a position I had just seen as an example in this chapter, so I solved it immediately with all the variations.

In other news, I'm almost done with Capablanca's Best Endings. When I'm done, I'll switch back to Alekhine. I'm about 65 games into Alekhine. I think I'll switch between Alekhine and the Mammoth book after that.

I went ahead and did chapter 7 because it was easy tactical stuff, got a perfect score (or -1, I wasn't sure how to score one thing, because it wasn't clear to me whether the score was for getting a whole variation or just the key move). The next chapter, however, looks hard. I'll take my time.

Finally posting some stuff here.

Here I am playing White. Black has nothing here.

I made a slight misstep because I was afraid of the consequences of b3 that I couldn't quite calculate. I worried about things like Bxb3, Nb4-a2, Qg5+, etc, but I end up far ahead in those lines, it turns out.

Yusupov Chapter 5

I know I was going to take it slow, but chapter five was an easy tactical chapter on double checks, so I did it quickly and got a perfect score on the test. The next section, though, is hard, so I'll spend plenty of time on it. I enjoy this a lot.

Still playing around with ideas in the bishops of opposite color endgame. Perhaps Black can hold the draw. The direct attempt to push the a-pawn after Be1 or Bd2 doesn't seem to work. If you get the white king behind his pawns and push, ...bxa3 followed by Bb4 draws immediately because the white king is now stuck in the corner and the white bishop is stuck guarding the f-pawn. If the king goes north and tries to push the a-pawn, the bishop is the only thing that can stop the a-pawn after bxa3. But, really, I don't have the analytical apparatus to think about this rigorously just yet.

EDIT: King goes north, see below. Kb5 Ka4 a3 and there's the game.

Is this drawn?

Black to move. I'm black.

I'm skeptical that it can be held, but might be possible. The obvious first move is ...Be1 or Bd2. After that, I think it's hard for White to make progress. I lost, however, but I only had like 0:20 left.

EDIT: This is trivially won. 1. ... Bd2 (or whatever) 2.Kb5 3.Ka4 4.a3 and no matter what Black does, you have two passed pawns and it's not a tricky technical endgame.

Yusupov Lesson Four

I was going to work through this slowly, but I'm pretty good with endgames, so I just went ahead and blitzed through lesson four, which was on elementary pawn endgames. I scored 19/22 on the test (excellent). I missed one problem completely. I learned something from that problem, though. There were two plausible moves, I discarded one because I thought I had refuted it, so that left the other. I had the drawing idea and thought I had calculated it out, but there was a refutation in there that I missed. However, the drawing idea works, but only with that first move. I should've thought to try cross-pollinating the idea.

Anyway, I'm not ready for lesson 5 yet, as I'm still reviewing the answers from lesson 3's quiz. It was very tough!

This Yusupov stuff is tough.

I'm on chapter 3 of the first book (opening stuff). The test was tough. I got 21/31 and was surprised that I did even that well. 15 was passing, 20 was "good". I like this. It is tough and makes me think. It would be humbling if I didn't already know I sucked.

Incidentally, on the first two chapters, I got 15/16 and 16/20 respectively (excellent and good - I just couldn't get one Damiano calculation to work and Greco did not stick with me at all).

Chess Informant

I have a few old issues of Chess Informant that I got off Amazon.com for like $1+shipping. They're old, but my intended use for them is two-fold: games to play over quickly to get a feel for grandmaster chess and positions to try myself against (the combinations and endings sections in the back). They're fairly awesome: I highly recommend trolling around Amazon.com or some other used books service every once in a while to see if you can find old issues floating around for a couple bucks (be sure to search for both "Informant" and "Informator"). One thing I didn't count on was the historical factor. I have the issue containing the Fischer-Spassky match. I have the issue where Karpov was declared world champion. I have the issue with the '86 K-K match and the issue with the '90 K-K match. I think that is fairly cool. I might try to get the Informants containing all the K-K matches. I also have the issue containing games from when I was born. Also of interest are the notes previous owners may have made in them.

NOTE: you may want to check the combinations against computer analysis, since the issue will likely be pre-computer if you purchase with this method.

LATER ASIDE: Speaking of which, Korchnoi and Smyslov are fairly impressive for their ability to perform at high levels, even contending for the world championship title, well into "old age". Interesting interview with Smyslov: http://www.gmsquare.com/interviews/smyslov.html

Yusupov's Chess Course

This isn't a review because I can't really review the books until I've used them. One thing I noticed in glancing over them is that Build Up Your Chess 1 and Boost Your Chess 1 are 90% tactics. There are a couple lessons in each that are strategic, but the rest are tactics. I looked on the Quality Chess site and the higher orders of the series are more strategic. This definitely makes sense. I am looking forward to working hard on these books as Yusupov directs: spending at least 5-10 minutes with each position in the lesson, setting them up on the board, moving them around, trying to understand fully, and then taking 5-10 minutes on each test position treating it like a position in a game and then writing down all my thoughts and the relevant variations. Each part of the lesson should take 1-2 hours. I plan to study these books while at home with a chess set. Very structured. I think the structure will be very good for me, because, while I've been working hard on tactics, it's mostly been solving problems and I've had very little thematic education (besides Lasker's phenomenal chapter on combinations, which I think has been very helpful). The combination of thematic education plus systematic discipline will help me a lot in OTB play, IMO. Most of my chess time, however, will be on the train to and from work, mostly playing over annotated games. I can't concentrate as much on the train, so I will not be doing Yusupov there.

Somebody mentioned somewhere an interesting thought about My System: the material is basic and outdated in some ways, but authors of modern positional texts don't cover the stuff in My System in as much detail as they ought to because they assume everybody has already read it. I'm going to wait until I am at least 1600, perhaps more, to start reading it, however.

I need more tournament play!

EDIT: I realize that the lessons aren't directly 90% tactics, but the topics for 90% seem a lot more tactical, if you catch my drift. In retrospect, I think this statement is wrong. And here's a more exact person commenting on it: http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/blog/gm/115#comment-3341

I won my CICL game.

Turns out they got the colors wrong in the e-mail and I played black. Guy played the center game. I messed up a little and let him take one of my pawns, but his king was still in the center and his queen was wandering around, so I figured I could arrange something to get my pawn back and I did - in such a way that we traded queens and destroyed his pawn structure, making it easy to eventually win a pawn and then the endgame. I mostly slacked off at that point, since the win was in the bag. It was a matter of pushing the passed pawn and forcing him to give up a piece for it, then repeating the process. The guy was mildly unsporting - he tried to claim a draw at the end when I was about to queen a pawn because he moved his king back and forth three times, but I explained that's not how threefold repetition of position works, then he tried to claim I stalemated him, but I pointed out he had a legal move, so he then resigned.

I noticed one inaccuracy at the end that would have shifted me back from a crushing victory to an easy victory - giving him a pawn back when I was two pawns up at a point where one pawn is still decisive. Other than that, no huge flubs, but plenty of minor inaccuracies.

Match for Chicago Industrial Chess League today.

I have white in my game on board 7 (only the first 6 boards count toward the result). I've been playing over a lot of Ruy Lopez games lately. Mostly just quickly over unannotated games to get a feel for the types of positions that come out of it (and a feel for how my database works!). I also read a bit of Watson's MCO on the Ruy. I think I'll try to play the Ruy with white and black. I think everybody needs to go through a phase where they struggle against the open games. Maybe I'm wrong. Kasparov said that when he first learned chess, he learned the first 20 moves of the Najdorf and that if somebody had taught him 1. ... e5 first he would have never gotten over 2000.

I now have scid!

I'm trying to figure out how to use it. I'm not at the point where it's extremely useful to me, of course. I downloaded a dirty, but free, database of 1.7 million games and I'm going to go back and add a bunch of games from TWIC to it (and try to clean it up a little). Then I am going to enter all the old games of mine I can find into my own little database and analyze them there. I downloaded Arena, too (why? I don't know). Now I just have to figure out how to tune these things to do exactly what I want.

Here are some things I'm thinking of doing that will still be helpful for somebody at my low level of playing besides the obvious tracking of my games:
1. Taking key positions I remember from blitz games at lunch or whatever and making a training database out of them.
2. Taking key positions out of tournament games of mine and making a training database out of them.
3. Viewing hundreds of games rapidly in order to get a feel for certain positions.
4. Playing a lot of blitz on FICS and using scid to analyze the lot of them, then do #1. Analyzing blitz isn't great, but it lets you quickly make a personally relevant database of training positions.
5. Putting positions from books I'm reading into databases so I can easily play the moves in them or train against them.
6. Starting to think about building the basics of a repertoire.

Done with CT Art Level 60.

I finished with a score of 64%. I think the score might have been 65% if I hadn't utterly bombed the last problem. The problem was like witchcraft. The moves did not make any sense to me even afterwards. I think sometime it might be helpful to have Bronstein's The Sorcerer's Apprentice because he has that section with 40 combinations where he takes an entire page to describe how the combination works - not just giving variations, but prose describing what's going on. I think I'm going to take this evening off of chess. I've been plowing through these combinations and need a break. I'm still going to play over Alekhine on the train, of course. What else is there to do on the train?

I ordered Build Up Your Chess: Fundamentals and The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games. I also plan to order Boost Your Chess: Fundamentals. I also ordered a couple CJS Purdy collections of annotated games because they were cheap used. I'm excited about using the former as the cornerstone of my improvement. I'm also excited about the latter because I've heard it's a very good collection. I've played over a lot of the historically significant games of chess, but not as many as I would have liked, and one of the strong points of the book is that it brings new, modern, and rigorous analysis to the games.

EDIT: After, of course, I finish Lasker.

As soon as I find out how to post chess positions...

...I'm going to post a couple from my games showing missed opportunities from my tournament games. In the first, I went from being far ahead to merely being ahead (instead of "far ahead" to "much farther ahead") in a game I won, in the other I failed to exploit an inaccuracy in move order which would have boosted me from a pawn down to slightly ahead in a game I lost. Tactical rather than strategic missed opportunities.

I played today at lunch. It was a terrible, terrible game. I completely messed up the opening and was a pawn down with awkward piece placement, a king stuck in the center, and little prospect for equalizing. The opponent had a bad bishop, but a central pawn majority that could move along and make the bishop good. However, the opponent made the decision to play on the queenside (attacking a weak pawn), which gave me time to consolidate a little and after a few inaccuracies I won a pawn back and got a dominating attack on the queenside which led to a quick back rank mate. The crucial strategic mistakes were not exploiting a lead in development + king stuck in the center, allowing me to catch up on development, and playing on the wing instead of in the center. Then there were the tactical mistakes. My crucial mistakes were utterly flubbing the opening and getting into such a shitty position in the first place. There were a couple tactical finesses I missed, some of them were taken advantage of, some weren't.

Almost done with level 60 on CT Art. Some of the problems are incomprehensible, some aren't so bad at all. I'm running around 66%. A few of the ones I just couldn't get at all were from "R. Fischer, 1963, US". I presume there were from his 11-0 US Championship victory. They boggle the mind.

In other news, I'm at 1541 on the Chess Tactics Server right now. This is okay, but not awesome. My highest is 1605 from 3 years ago.

Done with Level 50

Right now I'm at
Level 10: 97%
Level 20: 91%
Level 30: 77%
Level 40: 71%
Level 50: 69%

I was coasting along at 71% until the very end, but a couple bad tests brought me down to 69% and I couldn't quite make it back up. It's tough from here on out, I think level 60 and higher will be mostly beating my head against the wall.

However, I think this work is reaping dividends. I was reading through an Alekhine game today and got pretty far into one of his combinations before I lost the thread. I found all the moves until the guy resigned, but I didn't see conclusively past that until I set it up on the board (and I didn't know the guy had resigned at that point, of course, because I wasn't looking at the moves). It was obvious when set up, though, that mate would come in like 5 more moves.

What I'm Working on Right Now

Still chipping away at CT Art 3.0 (level 50). Averaging 71% so far on the level, almost done with it. Going over Pandolfini's Endgame Course sometimes. Playing over Alekhine or Capablanca on the train to work. I started using Polgar's brick as well - I do a few mates-in-two and play over some of the miniatures pretty quickly in the evening. The miniatures are a course in attacking/tactics on their own, especially since they're categorized by what square you're attacking. I'm going to take some time to go over my games from the tournament very slowly. That second game, in particular. I was down a pawn, but I had drawing chances until the endgame. I kept simplifying down until I was in a dead lost pawn endgame (rather than a lost rook endgame that required decent technique to convert if the defender is decent).

More on my performance this weekend.

So, I had some goals for this weekend. I think I met them in two out of three games. In the last game, I just did not play "real chess". In the second game, I don't recall enough about my thought process to say whether I had lapsed out of it or had a mistake in judgment. Either way, I have several lessons to learn.

I ran my games through the computer to double-check some of my tactical thoughts, and I was pleased at a couple junctures where it confirmed my calculations. In the first game, however, there was one situation where I was worried about how to preserve my advantage in the face of an attack. I was up the exchange and a pawn. I saw a clear line which gave back the exchange, but kept the pawn in a position where that would be an overwhelming advantage. I also saw a more risky line that I couldn't clearly evaluate and had some complicated lines where he gets a couple of my pawns and there are attacks on my king and what not. So I gave back the exchange. It turns out, however, that the attack fizzles out and I end up ahead an entire piece in the line I didn't choose. I didn't look at all the analysis, though, just the "+4.18" - I want to work it out on my own! I might post the game with all its blemishes once I figure out the best way to do that. I will do a critical examination of all three games, but I don't know if I'll post my losses. I'll be more critical of them, though!

Still a patzer

It was a three round G65+5.

I won my first game against a 1400 playing the Dragon. I forced a trade of the dragon bishop, won a pawn, then won the exchange, but had to give the exchange back to stave off his attack. Endgame was easy, won another pawn, used up all of our time, but he made me mate him, which was annoying. I had a bishop and two pawns against his king. You can resign there. I'm not going to lose on time...

The second game, a 1350 played the Scandinavian. At one point in the opening, I noticed that he'd win a pawn in one line, but I had a big lead in development that might turn into an attack, so I thought I had some compensation, but nothing came of it. He held onto his pawn until the two rook endgame, I traded down to a rook endgame, thinking that I could hold onto the draw, maybe, but he engineered a trade of rooks to a dead lost (for me) pawn ending. Pretty sure it was dead lost, I didn't really have any good counterplay. I didn't feel so bad after I got home and looked him up and saw he'd gained 170 rating points in his last tournament and 100 in the tournament before that, so this suggested that he's underrated. In that last tournament, he beat all four of his under-1700 opponents and lost to his three over-1700 opponents, which suggests a higher rating than 1350.

The third game, I just straight up lost to some 1375 who played the English. I miscalculated a line so I lost a pawn, then I made a little patzer mistake a few moves later trapping my own bishop, so I decided to just resign and go home.

So I went 1/3 with a really shitty 1260 performance rating. At least that first game went okay.

Goals for this weekend.

Three game tournament this weekend. My goal is to not be lazy, in accordance with what Heisman's book is revealing. My goal isn't to win anything at all, it's to try to play chess well. Yeah, I'll try to win all my games, of course, but I won't be disappointed by 0/3 if I played "real chess" every move of every game. My section is U1800, so I think playing "real chess" would net at least one win in there.

Dan Heisman's Looking for Trouble

Dan Heisman's Looking for Trouble is exposing me as a lazy ne'er-do-well. I certainly have the ability to sit down and calculate lines sometimes, given that I sometimes solve level 50 problems on CT Art (not often enough!). I'm just not doing as well on this as I should be. I'm often content to say, "Oh, I've found the threat, here's a line that looks okay, I'm done," even when there are six possible ways of dealing with the threat that need to be evaluated.

I also butted up against the problem of not knowing the pattern meaning you just can't solve the problem. It was on a level 50 problem based on a Tal game (of course!). I kept calculating lines and found one that looked good, but just couldn't get from the position I ended up in to a mate (and I would need a mate). It was the most promising, though, so I tried the first few moves and they were right, but then I got to the tough position and still couldn't figure it out. The 5x5 hint was... that same position. Drat. Once the computer showed me how to solve the 5x5 (bishop to the corner!), I got it. So I have another pattern now.

being careful not to develop bad habits

I've been working on solving tactical exercises lately. Since we're starting to get to more difficult problems, I really need to be careful not to develop bad habits. Namely, you have to sit there and spin out all the variations before making the first move. Sometimes you can stop on some of the variations if you know that you'll have an overwhelming attack and you can work out the details over the board, but you can't rely on the fact that there is an answer to guide your choice. However, I really do with there were a good "give up and show me the answer" option in CT Art, because sometimes that would help me avoid developing some bad habits. The scoring is also annoying sometimes. If, on level 50, you just can't see it, but they give you a hint immediately after you fail and you can figure it all out from there, hey, you get 37/50 points. If you see the idea, get all the variations right, but at the very end you miss the maneuver that the problem wants you to take that has a slight plus over whatever it is you've tried a few times, you get, like, 22/50. In the first one, however, you completely missed the idea and probably lost the game with your move, so you should get 0, but you've still won the second game.

Done with first four levels of CT Art

So I'm at
Level 10: 97%
Level 20: 91%
Level 30: 77%
Level 40: 71%

Which is okay, but not awesome. Tournament next week.

That was dreadful.

Last night and this morning, my CT Art sessions just sucked. I only do, like, 3 problems in the morning, but that's still enough to know when you're sucking. Then my blitz game against a 1500-player at lunch was horrible. I dropped a pawn in the opening and later succumbed to an attack. It was bad. When you consistently lose at blitz to somebody in the 1500s, you're playing at well below a 1500 level. That's bad.

I'm not disparaging people rated in the 1500s! I'm disparaging people rated well below 1500. I think we can all agree that people who lose regularly to people rated in the 1500s are not playing anything like reasonable chess.

Unforcing Play

It will be a while before I have occasion to read Aagaard's Excelling at Chess, as I have a long way to go before I can think of being good, much less excelling. However, I read a review that pointed out something quite enlightening in the book: the concept of unforcing play. The mere mention of the term brought to mind one of my big failings as a player. Namely, that I'm bound to forcing variations and resolution of tension. eg if a trade is on offer, I'm apt to accept or decline immediately rather than getting on with my way. There are some exceptions - in the Queen's Gambit Declined, I'm used to letting the pawns just stand there for a while. But, seriously, this sort of thing is a big blind spot. This is one thing I notice in some transitions to endings or at the end of endings esp. in Capablanca. I'll have to keep this concept in mind as I play, even if I'm not quite ready for all of Aagaard's insights. I'm sure his discussion is a lot more subtle, but, for the time being, the simple thought that you don't have to force things is very freeing.

Working through Lasker's Manual of Chess

It's great so far. I finished the first book of it pretty quickly, as it's the simple stuff, but it's important to re-educate yourself about the basics. I glanced over the next book (openings), the combinations section, and the last bit about philosophy and chess education, kind of trying to get a feel for how I would progress through the book. I thought, initially, that I'd go straight to the combinations section and work through it, possibly never going back to the openings section. However, after reading a review on ChessCafe.com, I was convinced of the importance of Lasker's treatment of the openings in his system even if the lines are outdated. I think it will also be helpful to me because I'm going through 500 Master Games, and most games are from this era. The amount of space Lasker spends on each opening is also proportional to the space taken in 500..., so it works out nicely.

Maybe I should have gone over the first book more closely. I still don't really know how to do the bishop + knight mate.

Another bad chess day.

I thought I was being clever, but once I was into the combination to simplify down to a won endgame, I realized that it didn't work because, at the end, I can't take the rook back. The zwischenzug bishop check, which I did not overlook, put my king on the wrong square, which I did overlook. Drat, and I was a clear pawn ahead, too.

On chess improvement trajectory

There are a lot of tournaments in my area, as this is a major metropolis. If you're willing to go to the suburbs, you could find a chess tournament to play in on most weekends. There are a couple different series that are monthly and then there are occasionally other tournaments. One thing I have also noticed is that some people play in them rather frequently, and that there are a number of juniors that play in a large percentage of these events and they rapidly improve up to the class A/Expert level. I don't think this correlation of their activity to their rapid rating increase is a coincidence. While they are surely doing stuff besides going to tournaments (maybe not!), playing 120 tournament games in a year certainly seems to be very helpful in attaining that level of play (even if a lot are G/30 or G/45). I noticed one junior made the jump from an established rating of 1100 to 1800 in one year - including some wandering around at 1400 for several tournaments, so he wasn't terribly underrated the entire time.

If I really wanted to improve when I was younger, I really should have taken more of the opportunities I was presented to play strong opposition. I didn't quite have this many opportunities, but I certainly could have played more than I did against stronger opponents than I did. Once the wife and I get a car again, I'm going to try to play at least once per month. I'm not a teen, so I can't have that kind of trajectory anymore, but there are worse ways to improve than to play in tournaments frequently.

I still suck at chess.

But I'm trying. I'm still mostly working on tactical puzzles and working through master games (Alekhine, for the most part). This is still, however, mostly light work. I'm not struggling hard against Alekhine, I'm reading at 20 minutes per game. I'm also still mostly on the level of tactical problems where, if I don't get it in 5 minutes, I'm probably not going to get it. I need to work hard against positions. That means playing slow games and doing hard analysis of complete games (or at least positions).

The Damiano!

So I had people over last night and one of them wanted to play chess. The game went

1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 f6?!
3. Nxe5 fxe5?

and then a few unimportant details because the game is lost here. He went for losing the exchange rather than getting chased around. His remark afterward was that he didn't know openings, and I guess if you play the Damiano, that's the one time a beginner could use a hint about openings. Just play 2. ... Nc6! Beyond that, no point in knowing openings at that level.

My own theory of chess

Which should be taken with a grain of salt because I'm a crappy player. My thought on the way to approach chess is that you need to learn a lot about tactics/attacking and learn a lot about the endgame (and I don't just mean how to win with a rook and pawn versus a rook, I mean late middlegame to endgame, when you still have like 7 pawns, a couple minor pieces, and a rook or two), and the rest of chess will follow from those considerations. The opening and middlegame (and your attacks) are all about maneuvering the position toward a better endgame, so the best way for a beginner to improve is to work hard on those two things, tactics and endgames. And, of course, the very important matter of the thinking process (cf Dan Heisman) and the problem of thinking about strategy in those specific terms.

Then again, when I took Khmelnitsky's chess exam a couple years ago (when I was last playing chess), I scored 2300 on "standard positions" (like, textbook endgame positions, Philidor, Lucena, etc), fairly high on endgames (I forget the exact score, at least 1800, less than 2300), and abysmal on strategy and middlegames (like, my two lowest scores, I think 1300-1400ish). Given my overall level (at that time, I tested at, like, a 1610 rating), I don't think you can conclude anything other than that I suck.

Magnus Carlsen is the Justin Bieber of Chess

I had this amusing thought and had to put it on a web-log.

I still suck at chess.

I definitely recognized one of the problems I ran into this morning. And I recognized that I recognized it a couple years ago and got it right then. However, I did not remember the solution this time, only the vague method, but couldn't quite calculate the precise method. I'm also running into a lot of problems where I see all the ideas and motifs, but can't quite assemble them in the right order to make the problem work. I'm giving up after about 5-10 minutes because they aren't yet the difficulty that warrants half an hour and I'm not yet back to the level where taking longer is worthwhile.

It is not enough to be a good player; you must also play well.

A very important point to note. The only way to make that transition is to play frequently and analyze your mistakes afterward.

Anyway, despite the fact that I certainly have more than enough chess books (my endgame library of a handful of books is more than sufficient to take somebody from rank beginner to master in that discipline if combined with plenty of practice), I decided to purchase Lasker's Manual of Chess. In my defense, I need to start from the level of a "stupid person" and my library does not have any books that quite fit in that range. The lowest level of book I have is probably The Amateur's Mind. I certainly have enough "strategy" books and "tactics" books. I might be able to justify purchasing Yusupov's books later, too, on the same premise. One can always justify purchasing collections of annotated games.

What convinced me to pull the trigger on it, though, was that a friend of mine who is also getting back into chess recommended it. That was enough to push me over the edge.

EDIT: The above about endgames is not quite true. I think Shereshevsky's Endgame Strategy might be necessary as well to get up to master strength in the endgame, or at least very helpful. In case you're wondering what endgame books I have, I have Averbakh Essential Endings, Pandolfini's course, Silman's course, Minev's Practical Rook Endings, Mueller's Fundamental Chess Endings, Secrets of Pawn Endings, Secrets of Minor Piece Endings (in my defense, I got it years ago on clearance), and Dvoretsky's course. I've worked through Pandolfini and part of Silman, have used the pawn endings book as a source of exercises, and have read parts of Averbakh and Minev. When I get to the stage where I'm studying endgame stuff again, I think I'll go through in roughly that order and make sure to play through a lot of examples with a clock against the computer.

Well, drat.

This week's G/65 on Saturday morning only lasted 40 minutes because I walked into a knight fork. So, rather than play out a long game where I'm a piece down, I resigned.

I need to figure out...

...a good way to put positions onto this web-log. I'm playing blitz games at lunch some days with people at work and come up with some interesting positions I want to analyze further and I might as well discuss them on the web-log. I recently had an endgame where I was down a piece, but had an aggressively posted king and advanced pawns and I think I had some drawing resources.

In other news, I brought out Alekhine's Best Games: 1908-1937 to play through on the train. I'm going to toggle back and forth between that and Capablanca's Best Endings or whatever that Chernev book is called. The analysis, of course, is much better in Alekhine.

Digging up a post from 2 years ago

This is a post I wrote two years ago (May 2008). I will compare with current results when I finish the program again. What I'm doing right now, though, is going over the first maybe 4 levels and going back over them a few times (with different user names for each pass). I'm not very concerned about things at level 50. Right now I'm doing level 30 and going back over level 20.

For those interested, I finished my first pass through CT Art, a computer program containing 1200 or so tactical chess problems. I mostly worked by "skill level" rather than by theme. I'll post my score breakdown below because I don't really see anybody else doing so. Overall, I had a success rate of 69% and a "rating" of 2420. Note that on a couple of these, I went back over "erroneous", so the percentages are slightly higher than on the initial pass, but level 50 and up is straight.

By Skill Level
10. 99% (originally 93%)
20. 91% (originally 86%)
30. 78%
40. 69%
50. 66%
60. 60%
70. 57%
80. 56%
90+. 55%

Levels 10 and 20 were initially a few percentage points lower.

Note that the "rating" provided has little correlation with real rating. I'm probably a weak class B player at the moment, in case you're wondering, though my real rating is public information if you really want to look it up.

Chess Improvement.

I thought a bit about chess improvement and noted that what some people (learners, not instructors) seem to miss sometimes is the importance of actually playing the game and playing it at tournament speeds (ie, slow, for those of you without any chess experience). Perhaps it's just me, so don't be offended if you feel implicated. One canonical example discussed on web-logs is the phenomenon of Michael de la Maza - what the people don't comment on much is that he played around 200 tournament-speed games over 2 years when doing his "rapid chess improvement" and critically examined them. Many discuss his tactical study plan, but few try to emulate that aspect. Dan Heisman recommends, IIRC, 55% practice, 45% study, but it's easy to let get out of balance, as it's easy to sit there with a book and hard to carve out time for a G/90. That's three hours, after all! And all at once! Probably with another human (at least, it's best with another human)! Anyway, there are some opportunities around me to regularly play in tournaments, so I'll do that and just let my rating float up.

Note: I'm being very lazy up there, I could just google what Dan Heisman recommends, he has a great web site with some great articles. It could be 45/55 rather than 55/45, but the point is still the same.