Month: November 2011

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No bones about it

I decided to play solid for a few games, and more importantly with increment, to get back my FICS rating back up to a more realistic level.

Game

I haven’t studied tactics in over a month, but I solved the first problem in this video in around 4 minutes.

http://roman-chess.blogspot.com/2011/11/solving-chess-tactics-queen-sacrifices.html

I only looked at the first and last problem in this video, and the last one was easy for me but it took this Master a long time, not sure he solved either one. He is a much better player than I, from having watched his videos, but this did let me know my tactics aren’t so weak, I guess, and probably the same goes for Blunderprone. The tactics study does work. The main difference is between having a strong sense of “Oh yeah, there must be a winning tactic in this position!” and not having that sense. But it’s also just as much pattern-recognition from having seen so many similar ones before.

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G/60 on FICS

Going along with TommyG’s policy of longer games on FICS, I found one listed on there and went with that.

G/60 FICS game

I was planning on finishing the game with 30.Qc2 Rc8, 31.Qf2 with an easy win, but waited to play the move because I knew it was winning, and I was waiting for the nerves to go away, so he resigned where we were both under 10 minutes left, but I was up on time for most of the game and managed the clock better.

This is how I like to win a game of chess. Win the war of development, counter the opponent’s attack, find it’s flaws, and then counter-attack. Incidentally, he gave up the exchange because I was trapping his rook with h4. Actually, this is RollingPawns style, too! (counter-attack) hehe. 😀

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Dumb games on FICS

I want to show this moronic game that I played this morning, just to illustrate the difference between OTB chess and G/15 online. Please note that I have _not_ looked at this game with an engine, simply went over it quickly myself after the game and was truly appalled at how poorly that I (both of us) played at chess when moving quickly.

Game from FICS

The other day I played him, odd how things happen like that, and won as Black, and expected him to correctly play 13.Nd2 this time, for which I had prepared 13..f5. So we both rushed through this opening very quickly to reach this tabiya. Now we are both “on our own” and here is where the awful play begins.

16..Bb6? I could have played 16..Bb4, 17.Qd2, then roll the pawns with ..c5, ..d4, ..e3.

17. Nc2?! 17.Nb3! dxc, 18.Na5 with a Nxc4 on tap, and Black’s pawn formation looks rather losing.

21.Qa4?? I had missed the check when I sacked the center pawn. White can play 21.Qc4+ followed by 22.Qe2 and is simply winning.

23… Rd2? 23…Bxf is winning easily.

34..Rxg2? I knew this was the wrong pawn to take, but took it anyway.

40..Kxf5?? 40…Ra5! wins on the spot.

46.Kh3? 46.Kf3 forces a perpetual, if desired by Black, with 46..Rf7+ to avoid being mated.

Why did I bother to let his king from the first rank? I should have used the bishop to shield my king to let it out of the h-file. Really, haven’t tried this before, but during the last few seconds it crossed my mind that I could probably disconnect and get a draw, since it is rook vs. rook with no increment “insufficient losing chances.”

But this game illustrates well how online is not OTB. I mean, we are rated 1800ish and this is a 1400ish performance OTB at best, probably not even that.