I haven't been playing much chess lately!

I have, unfortunately, not been playing much chess lately. I quit my job and went back to school for a PhD in statistics, but I haven't really gotten in touch with the chess scene here in town yet. Nor do I really have the time! I will eventually, though.

So I've decided to go to a school in Iowa

And, fortunately, I'm quite familiar with the chess scene there: there is one. It's not quite as active as Chicago, but it's better than one would expect, frankly, in a town of that size. A university chess club, regular tournaments, regular tournaments in nearby towns, some strong players available, etc.

Our company is having its last match of the year tomorrow, but I think I'm too far behind in everything right now to represent our team. However, I will definitely try to hit up a couple tournaments over the summer before my departure for academia. It would be a shame to waste my last few months in such a great city for chess as Chicago without exploiting it in some way.

A game a couple weeks ago.

I was playing poorly, I was down a pawn but it was kind of drawish. I played what I thought was an objectively good move that laid the seeds for a trap. The opponent fell into the trap, losing a rook. I didn't feel so bad about it, but it was a cheap victory. Still, a win in CICL play is good.

I'll be moving in the fall to some university to get a PhD in statistics, hopefully whatever school I'm at has a decent chess scene. I know one of the options does, not sure about the others.

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.

Won my game last night.

Finally, a victory. Unfortunately, it was against much weaker opposition. I didn't use even 10 minutes of my time. We played the Dragon - he didn't play it quite right and I had a little room for improvement, but that much didn't take too long. Then he made a mistake that dropped a pawn with a second pawn falling soon after (no thought for those, very simple calculation), but he had a little counterplay that got him a pawn back. We were, at that point, simplified down to a two rooks vs two rooks endgame with my rooks a bit more active, but that is still fairly drawish. I was preparing to burn through a lot of time grinding it out. But... my opponent agreed to trade off one of the rooks and it left him in the unenviable position of either leaving me free to terrorize the 7th rank with my rook - he'd get his rook over to my side as well, though I'd get the best of the situation - or trade the last pair of rooks into a dead lost pawn endgame. If I were him, I'd choose to keep the rooks on the board even though it doesn't look pretty at all. He chose to trade rooks into the pawn endgame either of us could probably play in our sleep. So I ended up not having to think much. I could tell by the way he went into the pawn endgame that he definitely thought he had better chances there than in the rook endgame. 3+2 vs 2+2 just isn't going to work, though.

BONUS: I delivered a pawn checkmate.

That was a rather horrible game.

I played the other day. It was a terrible game. I walked into a well-telegraphed trap which lost an exchange. Prior to that, I had made a few rather unhelpful positional moves, but I would have had easy equality as Black if I hadn't dropped the exchange. Oh well. Next time. I will try to play in a tournament next month, as I'll be free every Sunday and might have some spare change.

I'm getting back into the swing of things a little now that I'm done with statistics/applied math grad school applications. I just have to wait for results. I presume I may have less time for chess if I get in. Or more. Hard to tell.

In other news, I'm also playing skat a little bit again. Not in person, though, which is unfortunate. I've never played in person. I'm also a rather indifferent player, but it's fun to do on the Ipod.

I have not been playing much lately.

I have been busy. I'm allegedly working a lot and I've decided that I might go back to school for a PhD in statistics (at a good school, of course) rather than stopping at a masters from this crummy school, so I've been spending a lot of time over the past couple months researching stuff, filling out applications, etc. And then there were the holidays and then some travel to a school. It's been a good time, though I do regret not playing much chess. Still, I did manage to play a little over the holidays. I've also been low on money, which makes going to tournaments a little tougher. Well, it's easy enough to justify spending $20 on a tournament once per month, really, so that's lowest on my list of excuses.

I think once I am done with applications - next week - I will have time to start playing again. I (or, rather, my wife) got an Ipod Touch, which means I have an easy way to play on the train now, too. I think the difficulties in playing on the train was the biggest thing.