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.