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.