This one gets my vote
He could have won it quicker in a couple places, as Bronstein points out, but this game is a tour de-force on why Geller was one the greatest players of all time. This is like another dimension of chess that the titled players mostly know about.
Early in the opening, Bronstein points out that Black should have played …d5 instead of …Be7. After …Be7, it is all White.
I figure this is how I should play with players of equal or better rating, don’t try some nutso attack as Black.
After going over Polly’s last game, I realized how quickly that Black can lose, so the pressure is more on Black to be solid.
Here is a game I just played on FICS. I ran out of time G/20, he had 4 minutes left, but I was looking at either …Rc7 or …Kg7, the same alternatives that Crafty was looking at. White can perhaps improve a little somewhere, but I can take heart that I did not crack under positional pressure or boredom as I was quite prone to doing until perhaps after reading this Zurich ‘53 book. 
Crafty gives White a .29 advantage, which isn’t winning, and likes …Kg7
Otherwise known as Adult Chess Improvement Seekers.
My take on this now is to learn tactics primarily, learn endgames, otherwise forget everything you thought you’ve learned and calculate it out at the board. Openings are useful to know because it saves on time, energy, and the chance of blundering at the board.
Trying to rely too much on knowledge is a mistake because you may sense that something doesn’t seem right, like …Be6 by my opponent in my last game in the Center-counter. But calculation proved at odds with my original suspicion. In fact, this is becoming the norm as my calculation and game has improved. I can use my intution to blitz out an endgame or come up with an attack, but I used to rely on the “look” more, as in “Oh, that doesn’t look right”. It has to be calculated, you don’t know, and may be simply wishing. Play with intuition, but rely on calculation. The reason I say this is because when I get home I realize, via Crafty, that the calculation part of me was correct, and the other parts of my game are based much more on emotion and thus not as reliable.
I am going through Zurich ‘53 book a little here and there. I notice that Bronstein will often throw out an idea, but not always back it with a variation. Sometimes this is helpful to know regardless, and sometimes it makes one waste time for a variation that doesn’t seem to be present. When in doubt, I will trust the players who played at perhaps a combined 6hr time control over an author that isn’t providing a variation. That seems the safe bet by far.
The other thing to keep in mind is to play a whole game. Don’t do like my post below where the game was marred by my time-pressure on both sides of the board. Play the opening to make sure you at least get to the middlegame, to make sure you at least get to the ending, to make sure you at least don’t lose on time. You never know what move your opponent will make (not the same thing as the best move), and the supposition of an accurate rating is largely based on the graciousness of you allowing your opponent to make his/her mistakes.
Is bigger than all my other chess issues put together, so I am going to focus on moving in a reasonable amount of time.
Tonight I played a game where my opponent blundered in MY time-pressure, yes that is how bad it’s gotten.
Afterward, I played the game out minus the blunder with an older guy named Joseph. It went down to a draw – just found out he is 1861. I had no problem moving quickly against him during analysis, nor with quality.
At the end of the game, I had 6 minutes 41 seconds left to make it to move 30.
I looked at 6. Qf3, but saw that there was no antidote to 6…Nd5-b4, as the c2 square is untenable for White.
In fact, 5.Nf3 was the correct move as my 5.Bc4 was adroitly “refuted” by his 5…Be6, but it’s really an even game.
Crafty preferred 8. axb3, doubling the pawns and opening the a-file. It does look quite better, but interestingly it’s because if Black is allowed to 0-0-0, then he gets immediate rook pressure along the d-file, allowing an …e5 intrigue, which he did not play. Black should have played …Nb8 when he made the blunderous …Nb4 (really, not even sure what he was thinking, but I was relieved to see it).
His weaking of the f3 square was an interesting idea. In the post-mortem with Joseph, I relieved a pin of the knight there (…h3, then g3 while Qh5 pins Qe2) with Kf1, trading queens on e2 after Nf3-e5 relieved the pin. I liked my endgame better even down a pawn, bishop vs. knight but he had doubled, isolated b pawns, one which raced down quickly to draw it, even though I had picked off his advanced h-pawn with my rook.
Went 2 out of 3, but the pattern continued, beat the two lower-rated players and lost to the higher-rated player. I wonder if Joe has somehow now surpassed me in strength, seems like he has. I need to watch my clock against him as he plays moves that I don’t plan for ahead of time, anyhow.
New Rating: 1825 -> 1833
I know these games are kind of worthless without the analysis. There was a lot of coulda/woulda/shoulda in this game on my part. I saw the best moves that Crafty is rewarding, but my analysis simply didn’t cut through correctly to find out why. For instance e5 instead of Qf3 (somewhat passive), heck even a3 isn’t used so much ‘in theory’. Could have played fxe instead of the immediate retreat-move Ng3. This is my problem, somehow I find the other chances for the other side and it doesn’t looks so great – I’ll have to check out Crafty’s analyses. Anyway, for some reason he decided to throw his queen into a simple trap.
Ah, so we were both tracking with the same moves as Crafty, or the other way around. Anyhow, you can see how I went into time-pressure induced stupidity mode at the end of the game, even saw my blunders as I was making them, kinda like an online game. hehe.
Anyhow, I learned something. #1, I didn’t have to lose this game, but the time-pressure was the major reason I did. If you see a move, don’t verify it for 15 minutes when you knew all along there was nothing better. It should be 15 minutes to find a move perhaps if necessary, hopefully not but, but definitely not wasting time with useless verification if it seems forced anyhow. Make weird moves quickly, same as with normal looking moves! This is what I have learned. Chess is full of weird looking moves so stop getting freaked out over them and this “Oh no, I don’t want to spoil my game with one bad move” mantra that I see so many others there engage in as well, not just me. Apply logic, same as any other move. There are no freak-out moves in chess, only freak-out emotional responses. And I for one can say that I saw a lot of weird moves today.
I avoided NxN early on, knowing that yes it was best, but not wanting to simplify. I did get my chance after his Re1? I could have played Bh4! I guess, but I was so locked into “defense-mode” by then. Actually, we both saw my Qxb2, but I guess I was “worried”. haha. Man I can be dumb sometimes, then he compounded that by playing Bc3, turning his weakness into a strength.
Joe actually was down a rook in his first round game to an upper 1700’s rated Black guy that I hadn’t seen at the club before. Joe won on time, the other guy signed his scoresheet as a loss and with a “happy-face” while he was away, and then left. The guy got there late, and we know how fast Joe moves, and that was it, the other guy didn’t play any more rounds.
My time-pressure strategy had a glaring weakness, that of only looking for “defensive” looking moves in time-pressure. This is very often a recipe for getting mated or losing as the best moves are very often attacking moves and not purely defensive moves.
Another “hole” in my game is the discrepancy between middle-game tactics and the endgame. Tactics are usually about anything but a pawn push on the wing (which is why I miss pawn pushes more often than any other move/tactic), whereas endgames are usually all about promoting the pawns. This change in mindset is like a bridge, good players can transition through it well.
Yes, he did pepper me with draw offers up until the very end. Shyam was a bit better about not offering them too much. It intensifies the pressure as you think you are winning, but could easily lose it. Come home, oh yeah, Crafty has got me up by +8 and all, easy for Crafty to say. The kid was offering me a draw during this point, too! And people were watching, of course. I praised his comeback in this game afterward and said he simply needed to “beef up his endgame a little bit”. His dad seemed more interested in having him pick up the pieces and getting out of there than hearing anything positive that I might have to say. Yeah, who needs me when you’ve got Fritz, right?. hehe. Quite a few kids stuck around to play round 3 this time.
Next week is the G/60 tournament that I don’t play in, besides, I could better use it as study time – I will play Wednesday night, though. I thank God that I am able to continue beating these lower-rateds (usually kids), but I really should be playing more quickly/confidently against higher-rated players.
The funny thing is these “lower-rateds” take up a lot of time, even these kids, they are taking most of their time up, too! But the A players, it’s like they are playing G/30. it’s 30/90 and I played round 2 first 14 moves in 34 minutes, but then, it’s in the early middlegame that I suddenly let myself get bogged down in time, and I do it frivolously as I see the move I want to play usually right away, a shame.
Lost to Neal, again, as Black
At first, I played Nf6 too fast and then realized that meant that I couldn’t castle queenside, which should be excellent for Black here (with Ne7). There were about 6 other people there that I had never played before, strong players, I just happened to end up playing Neal again, and he seemed surprised too.
30/60, SD/1hr.
The time controls were faster for the first 30 than usual, which made me play some moves that were more passive than should have been played. I tried to get a tactical position by giving him a hole on d5 and one for me on d3, but it didn’t work out that way. Of course I thought I was fine once the queens were traded, but against Neal’s expertise that wasn’t to be the case. At least I remembered to ask for a draw this time, but he knew what he was doing. He really hardly seems to need any time on his moves. I used up my 2 hrs, and he had used up maybe 30 minutes for the game.
When I play Neal, he beats me like a man, and I lose like a little kid. Of course, he is a couple decades older, so perhaps it’s understandable.
1825 -> 1816
I should have a “if Neal didn’t exist” rating, which would be close to 1900. My “if I keep playing Neal” rating is probably somewhere around my floor.
I played moves 30 and 31 rather quickly, so I’d say the time control had a great effect on that, as I should have played …g6. Also, I note that it does seem more unnatural to find tactics around move 30 and beyond, but they are there. I can see now that I didn’t take advantage of where his bishop is placed, and that it’s critical to play against that tactically above any other positional considerations. So that if a rook leaves that file, then RxB, pawn takes, and the Rd1 is en-prise.
At the end, it was hard to see that opening up the queenside and trading a rook would lose because it would activate White’s king, which of course not only adds a piece to the attack but pushes out the bishop from defense. With two rooks, a fortress seemed to have been possible. During the game of course, I was not sure which way to go while I was pushing that a-pawn. In fact, that’s when I offered the draw and actually thought I was better, even though he was the one winning, but he seemed to know immediately. I liked …Ra4 to keep the king out, it seemed most solid, but I did not stick with it. It takes a lot of confidence to defend a fortress because if you are wrong, you lose, it’s that simple, versus playing bad by opening things up, but at least trying to create some doubt. After I had moved, I felt sure that a fortress was best as I was analyzing what I should have done.
Incidentally, …g5 loses, as he can still pry the a-file open with a4, trade a rook, then invade with his king to take that b5 or c4 pawn. …g6 and gxf would weaken that whole weird looking bishop fortress, let Black trade bishops, and then be able to try to draw a pawn down in the rook endgame.
With my gift-certificate prizes I bought Lev Alburt’s book on tactics and Khemelnitsky’s test yourself book, but I could really use some work on the endgame. Not simply to learn an endgame theme, but it seems like I have looked at middlegames and tactics for so long that when Neal starts marching his king, all of a sudden it hits me like a new concept “What is he doing with his king, where is it going?” I feel like a caveman getting hit over the head with a novel concept.
My original strategy was to “study tactics until I make Expert”. That is now back-firing as I’ve come to see that there is no way I am going to make Expert unless I improve my endgame. My game has become lopsided, even though I can easily outplay a 1600 kid at the endgame. Winning endgames against a 1900 level player, however, is another story.
My mind has been going blank too often in these endgames. Neal even makes moves that Crafty doesn’t see, but he “sneaks up” on me, same as I do to junior players. I need to become more comfortable with endgames again, and just looking at a book on endgames, it takes more discipline to concentrate than on some neato Kasparov middle-game killshot.
We know that I could go on forever, but another thing is that when I get to endgames, the brain isn’t as fresh. It’s so easy to spend time looking at all kinds of tactics in the opening, then get to the endgame and think “I’ze tired, the queens are off the board and there is no mate, can I go home now?” bzzzt, wrong answer Private, that’s exactly where they want you, in a position where you can’t easily escape.
I could spend a fortnight on what could have happened in this game. My ….QxQ loses by force, it’s just lucky that he didn’t find it, whereas Nc5 actually seems better for Black – of course he is not Crafty, and might improve, but it was winning in the variations I looked at. The amazing thing about this opening is that it looks so placid and staid, but once the queens come off, there is like another 45 moves or so to follow. The queens coming off is when this game really begins, not where it ends. Next time I’ll have another go at perhaps a nearly identical variation.
Round 1, Robert – 1762 provisional rating player (sporadic playing over many years). I won as Black in the French Adv.
Round 2, I thought I had a win against Neal, but it was a trap and then I blundered and lost. He said that if I had asked for the draw, he would have given it to me.
Round 3, I beat Yale as White in the CK. He is 1514, but has been rated in the 1600’s many times before. I was impressed that he saw some of what I was planning.
Estimated new rating: 1821 -> 1825
Neal is funny. Me and Yale agreed that he should be a Master but plays down to everybody – he even said it, not me. Against Yale, Neal gave up a Ng5-Nxf7 sort of laugher that only beginners are expected to make. Of course Neal won, though. lol. Because he is actually really strong.
So much of a rating is mostly a measure of performance that it takes a real player to discern ability. My first round opponent was simply making quick moves and had not played for a while, and didn’t like closed positions. He played a Sic Dragon against me, blitz game afterward, and I let my advantage go, then had to find the draw in what should have been a losing endgame. But blitz, what can you say, it’s informative but it’s still blitz.
Round 1
Round 2
Unbelievable. I thought I was going to lose anyway right before I blundered my rook, yet had an easy draw. 5 1/2 minutes on my clock and I thought he was trying to beat me on my clock, but he said he wasn’t. Now I realize how emotional and irrational that the perception of time-pressure can make a person. After the game, we both thought my position was lost anyway, but we blitzed it out again. I sacked my rook for his pawn, and then used his d-pawn as a shield to race my a-pawn down because I thought I might be able to win the game. Turns out his king caught up to me, and of course he had two pieces, so he won my pawns and the game. What I was missing was two essential things. First, a voice in my ear shouting “draw it!” and 2. I didn’t know how to deal with his d-pawn, figured the bishop had it covered, but I overlooked the simple …c5, and he has to trade off his last pawn and thus it is a simple draw – rook and pawn vs rook and bishop. How totally stupid of me, dah!!
I know that if I had simply let myself “lose on time” that I would have found …c5, even if I had only a minute left when I found it; plus, he had a five second delay. I let myself panic and lose for no reason.
Round 3
I went into extensive detail after the game telling Yale all I know about every move, why I made. Man, I am so full of it, and yet gave him tons of pointers and did correctly show him that exf5 was his mistake, and that he was fine with his usual Nh4 and I can’t do anything, went through the variations, he simply needs to do nada, and his f6 should have come earlier, blah blah blah. But since I am such a moron, I never even noticed Nxd instead of Nxf (which is winning). hehehe.
When I skim through Crafty’s analysis of my games, it makes me feel like some two-bit hack that doesn’t even deserve a mention – no wait, make that 2-bit, blabbermouth hack. And yet, if I play in the Colorado Springs club, I will have the highest rating there. Man, we all suck. haha. Kidding. People and computers, still two different things. Sometimes I think Crafty makes a lot of positionally sucko moves/advice, but a computer doesn’t get emotional, it can always calculate the simple things.
If I had drawn that game, my new rating would have been approx 1841 instead of 1825. If I had gotten White against him, and won, it would have gone up to 1860+. Drat! wasted time…almost. I always learn a lot by playing OTB, but I think that’s because I take my time and get a lot of it. I only got 6 points for two wins, but would have gotten an extra 16 points had I drawn the round 2 game instead letting myself panic. Man, how bad does that suck? Dang, that’s a lot of work for nothing. hehe. Wow, it’s not even that, it’s that I get one decent opponent, and even then I should have had the draw. In this situation, I have to be near perfect to progress or play in a higher rating pool of opponents. Cut to the chase – It would be very hard to make Expert, would almost need to play in the American Open on Thanksgiving weekend and do well, make or break pretty much. I’m wondering whether to play 3 days in the American Open or leave to Colorado instead. I may play and leave afterward.
I was just looking over an argument from 2008 about the effectiveness of the MDLM training. I believe that combinations, offensive or defensive, are the heart of chess. I think that tactics and positional play set that up, and calculation is used to execute it. Being stronger at combinations should also raise one’s defensive play, which I think is something major that gets overlooked, but that also comes back to willingness to spend time and calculate on defense.
I meant that from a pure chess perspective. From a practical perspective, jet-lag, tired, hungry, time-pressure, short time-controls, insert psychological reason here, will also have a big effect on the result of a game. For me, short time-controls is huge. I couldn’t have played that round 3 game at G/90, I don’t think; I would have had to play on general endgame sort of considerations what would have been a boring and useless game.
This will be my training strategy going forward. Go over games with a database, and also try to analyze the middlegame more deeply. Probably this means setting up a board and a PC – board so that I can look at board without being tempted to see the answer on the screen first.
If there is an opening line that you don’t know, but want to play, my advice would be to play it. If you can’t figure out why it is bad, look, you aren’t dropping a piece by playing it so what the heck, play it. You can always look at an openings encyclopedia afterward, if one isn’t built into your software, but when you study deeply, you don’t need it so much for your own games as to examine other possible ways of playing that position/separate strategies.
Middle-game analysis probably needs to deepen and become more accurate, in order to make Expert strength. Tactics will be there one way or the other, offensively/defensively, that is basically unavoidable, but it is one more thing to examine correctly OTB, and just as importantly find!
Some games may not need quite as much work as others, but in any game, the missed tactics could stand to be studied and not merely “Tell me Fritz! tell me! tell me!” before trying to find it oneself (and letting the engine notify you that it’s there, perhaps the first move only). Unless there is this sort of commitment to each game, Expert strength is probably going to be elusive or unmaintainable. I’m saying particularly once the 1900+ stage has been reached, to be able to progress from there.
As far as openings, I am going to stick to the ones, variations, that I already use. If I am not sure what to play in some opening I don’t see often, fine, I’ll just play something and figure that part out later when I am going over the game and looking for ways to improve it. Basically, I am going to study what I play, and only perhaps a key main line in some opening that I don’t see much of, like Bb4 in the Scotch, where I was kind of stuck, having bad internet results – but that will be more limited. I am not going to try and study every line in the Sicilian, for example, because a move-order can negate a whole variation, and it can get depressing trying to find an advantage, if you look at it to much. If anything, that approach seems to lead to yet even more variety and risky lines, because you want to see something different after a while – which is not a bad thing, it’s simply an openings thing. And what I am saying is that, either way, good or bad, it’s going to be the middle-game which determines the result.
Another thing I figured out is that there is a reason we like to play our variations. I could pick up and have cursory knowledge of other variations, but when I study the main lines, sometimes it looks as if both sides are goofing-off, willy-nilly pointless attack/counterattack. If I played them, I would probably care more deeply, but there is a style element involved. If one of the responsibilities once a person reaches A level is to find a “style”, then so be it, style usually means openings choices. For example, I may play French Advanced, but there are still many lines within that one opening, if you let there be.
Side note: I may be moving to Colorado very shortly and not playing chess for a while – until I get a permanent job there. So this may be it for a while, but I will update eventually, when I get there and get my feet back in the ground. 
Round 1, beat a 1537 rated kid as Black.
Round 2, drew Simone as Black (she’s around 1900). Wild finish. I had a queen and pawn and she had rook and 3 pawns. Her clock did not have delay and luckily she was gracious enough to give me the draw as I had about 28 seconds left on my clock. If I hadn’t mismanaged my time so poorly, I would have won, but only because she kept letting me back in, of course.
Two interesting French defenses.
Round 3, lost quickly as White to Joe, French adv. var. (he’s upper 1800’s).
I’ve been going to be at 6 pm lately, but round 3 was right after round 2 because Joe never seems to need a break. From now on I am going to grab dinner before round 3. The problem with round 3 last two times is that I did not really want to play a third game, never got into it mentally, nervous energy was spent. I find that food gives me energy. It’s weird because chess doesn’t really make a person hungry, I don’t think. You don’t feel hungry, but just a little bit of food can wake you up. Driving home, I am very tired, then pick up dinner right by my house. As soon as I eat, presto, I’m instantly woken up and then type all these games in – I do this every time – that is why I should eat dinner before round 3 instead of before bed.
He pushed a pawn to dislodge my knight on f3, and then I realized I needed that defender to defend the d-pawn. Not only that, but I immediately realized he has either a bishop skewer or a knight fork, my choice, and that is basically how the game went. We blitzed from that moment on, the game lasted perhaps 20 minutes after that point, and it was right in the opening.
I realized that I don’t want to play the French Adv as White anymore. I want to play classical Nd2, more open game. Round 3 French Adv is like uggh, that is not a round 3 opening. Anything free and breezy is best bet for round 3, not another constriction BS type opening, round 2 was enough of that, but fun.
Crafty says I should have played 14. Nd1. Weird, that was my plan, Nd1-e3, just like Crafty says, it just seemed like a horrid position to have to play from because there is such a long game ahead with no clear advantage to White, yet Crafty gives White a slight edge anyhow.
My new rating is 1821. Just need to get back to where I am playing round 3 well, and my rating would seemingly have been going up. It’s weird, some people play quite strong in round 3. We watched and analyzed Neal’s round 3 game. He was super-strong and the B player, Chris, was trying to go Mikhail Tal like on him, but it didn’t work, he’s too good for that. It’s odd, Neal seems lose his first round games against weaker kids, but wins his 3rd round games, and have done the opposite. Realistically, this puts too much stress on my first round games because at this rate it’s like I *must* win my 1st round so that I can go to sleep in my 3rd round(??) Just terrible idea.
I like how a couple of the kids withdraw and don’t play round 3, and sometimes only play a single round, while us adults are honor-bound to play on. Some will usually miss a round, like Chris, so he can come in fresher for that round 3. Nevertheless part of me wants as much playing experience as I can get my hands on, even if it means losing.
There was one game where Ryan was playing Joe. Ryan is 1441 or something like that and was and exchange and pawn up in a queen ending. Shoot, I could have won that game in my sleep. You could have given me a lobotomy and I would have won from that position. What does Ryan do? He, for no reason, position is not under pressure, sacs his rook for bishop then asks for a draw! Joe refuses! Shoot, I still could have won that queen ending in my sleep as Ryan cleverly cuts out any chances of perpetual, he should be able to win another pawn with soon to be passer by force, but instead trades pawns and which gives up more queen access to his king as well. It was a draw eventually.
I think I’ll take it for what it is, I was greatful for doing well in the early rounds.
Another thing, I love when my opponent gets all novel in round 1, so that I don’t have to initiate things and can simply respond, even for round 2. But round 3 is the opposite story, it’s difficult psychologically speaking to deal with novelty in round 3, I find. Even when I was mentally-wasted and hanging things, I could still calculate, that part of the brain seems to consistently stay intact, which I find amazing, but I can no longer handle novelty and simple threats which require just a little imagination. If my bed time had been later, I would have done better in that game, but just making it there and playing in any condition is a victory over not playing.
Looking over that round 3 game again with Crafty, I would love to have my position back as White, didn’t realize how perfectly things would have played out. I presume he would play differently next time, though, perhaps not …g5, who knows. A big part of Joe’s strength is keeping a person off-balance, IMHO, which also means for him switching up openings, which also always gives me chances since I feel he is pretty much winging it with whatever I’ve seen him play.
Here is a latest attacking game that I played. I messed up and let him have a mate in two, but otherwise played very well, and we both missed it anyhow. This is how my online games usually go, I am winning then get careless because it doesn’t count for anything in the real-world, but my skills are improving regardless of the end result, I can tell. G/15
The mating net that I should have employed
Here is another game that I just played. I used Crafty to find all kind of neat mating nets, but as for the actual game I blundered in time-pressure – he made about 10 moves in the last minute and a half. All I had to do was play Qxh5 instead of Qg4 (which drops my queen), and it is winning, but the clock was king – I had < 15 seconds and he had 22 seconds G/15 5. Note, see if you can find where he simply left a piece en-prise and neither of us noticed it. Another game of attacking chess. Notice how often it turns into an attacking game because they attack me first (which is the vast majority of the time).
I didn’t go to the club Saturday, long story short ‘up all night, sleep all day’, but I am already getting back to normal for next week. Kinda sad, only 4 people showed up at the club (checked out the results), so they did get one quad grouping in at least. I should be able to make it next week.
