Ugh, that was terrible.

My CICL game last night was terrible. I had a combination where I was going to win the exchange, but I lost the thread. My opponent was threatening to win a piece and I could not calculate the way out. I sat there for 15 minutes and couldn't see a way through, so I resigned. My opponent was surprised, so I said, "I can't get out of losing a piece, so I'm resigning. My opponent was like, "Well, okay, but I think Nd5 works." I wasn't sure what line had led me to discount that move, but it appeared not to work when I calculated it and it appeared to work when I saw it on the board. Drat. Rybka later confirmed that Nd5 was okay and kept things at about White's typical advantage. Not as good as things were earlier, but definitely okay. Frig. But, you know, if you're not in a position to fight for and find the best moves in the position, you might as well resign. If I had been asked to make a move at the exact instant I resigned instead of playing on, anyway, it would not have been Nd5.

The most annoying part was seeing when I got home that, yes, indeed, I had correctly seen that I was supposed to win an exchange. I played the move from the wrong line, though.

Thoughts on playing blitz chess on chess.com

I've been playing blitz occasionally on chess.com since my wife got an iPod Touch and I can use it to play blitz while killing time. I've never been much of one for playing blitz on the internet. I have some thoughts on it. My rating is pretty sucky, somewhere in the mid-1400s.

1. I'm better on the computer than on the iPod. Fewer mouse slips and using the mouse is quicker, so I get in time trouble less often. I also see better. The difference is on the order of 100 points.
   
2. I was a little rusty and blitz knocked the rust off a little, but once that is done, I find blitz has no redeeming qualities except as entertainment. Which is important.
   
3. There are a lot of people playing the Philidor and 1.e4 2.Nf3 3.Bc4 openings. Sicilian variations involving ...e5 are also popular.
   
4. Sometimes people fall for amazingly transparent swindles. Including me.
   
5. When you're in the 1400s, going into the random pool usually means you're playing somebody rated beneath you.
   
6. It's a great way to blow off steam while waiting for responses from grad schools. There will be a lot of residual tension to blow off over the next couple months or so.

I might pull out some nice problems Rybka found from my games and post them here. Or things I successfully found. Or just interesting positions. There's no point in seriously analyzing blitz games, but sometimes the computer finds something interesting that is worth looking at. I've played approx. 100 games so far.

One other thing I'm doing with the iPod is playing skat against the computer. Not on the internets, as I usually don't have enough time to play more than a couple hands. The ProSkat app is very nice for that.