The transition to wordpress is pretty much done and I finally had some time to sit down and annotate some recent games, so here we are. The October tournament at the Metrowest Chess Club is half way done, and so far I have a win and a draw. Also, a quick warning to anyone reading this via RSS in Google Reader, Google Reader won’t display the flash chessboards, so you won’t be able to see the games unless you click through to the actual blog.
In round 1 I had white against a player rated between 4 and 500 points lower than me. I got a win in reasonably clean fashion.
(show chess board)
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In round 2 I had a black against a player of about the same rating as me. I’ve been really tired of the Scandinavian Defense, so this was my first use of the Modern Defense in a serious tournament game. It was a total mess, though not because of the opening. To be honest, we were both lucky to get a draw in this game, but I was luckier, as I gave him many more winning chances than he gave me.
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I’ve played 17 tournament games since coming back from my chess hiatus, and I’m finally getting back into it, but I’m missing way too many simple tactical ideas. I guess I need to do more tactics puzzles, but they’re just not as interesting as reading about strategic ideas. It’s a hobby and it’s supposed to be fun, but….is it more fun to read what I want to read and then have an unsatisfying performance, or do somewhat more boring preparation and play a better game when the time comes?
It’s fascinating to watch your games play out with your commentary. How long does it take to create the chessboards?
It’s not too bad actually. There’s a utility called chessflash (chessflash.com) where you can paste pgn (a standard digital notation system for chess games) and out pops flash code to make the boards. If you read further back into the older posts, I used to pick positions to show diagrams and that took a lot more work, both in deciding at what point to place them and getting the formatting all nice. Chessflash makes things much easier.
I’m really glad you found the games interesting. I’m currently trying to figure out how to deal with moving off of my LJ account and deciding whether to crosspost and if so, whether to selectively not crosspost the chess stuff, since I worry it’ll be uninteresting to the majority of readers. My main purpose in posting the games is to give myself a motivation to do the writeup, rather than the idea that there are many folks who actually want to see it. At this point I play a game a week and my general plan is to get them all commented and posted, though possibly in batches.
I’ll get my LJ “what do you guys think I should do?” post up and you should feel free to comment there as well.
I really enjoyed stepping through the games, and the commentary! You’d beat me handily in actual play, but I can still learn from your games, which is neat.
I’m curious: On the second game, why 42 … a5 ? (For my other “why [x]?” questions I’ve managed to work out the answers for myself – very satisfying – but I’m missing that one.)
As I noted in my comments after black’s 41st, I’m a little unsure what the outcome of this position ought to be. I haven’t had time to really sit down with it. I feel that white can hold the draw, but it’s hard for me to be sure.
In any event, “Why 42 … a5?” is a good question, and it’s probably a bad move. I knew I could hold off the d pawn so I figured my only chance to win was to convert the 2 on 1 (a-b vs a) advantage into a passed pawn of my own.
To be honest though, I was thinking draw at this point, but wanted to give my opponent one more chance to lose…. 44 Rxa5? would lose to b3, when after Rb5 b2 the pawn cannot be stopped due to the fact he can get his rook to the first rank with check.
I’m sure there were many head scratchers in this game, and you certainly shouldn’t assume I’m playing anything like the best moves in most cases. As you’ll see in the next game I post that I played last night, even people rated a fair bit higher than I am make plenty of tactical blunders.
Glad you enjoyed the game, and I’m glad to get questions…it makes me think more, and that can only be good. It also occurs to me that I should make a pgn file available for games I post so people can easily suck it down and play with it if they’re so inclined.
Oh, and as to your comments about the likelihood that I’d beat you in real life….most of my gamer friends who are not chess players still play maddeningly solid chess. I’m often frustrated by the fact that while I theoretically know something about this game I cannot consistently defeat certain of my non chess playing friends. The price for having intelligent compatriots, I suppose.
No assumptions that you’re playing the best moves; My guess that you’d likely beat me in real life because reading over your train of thought during the game, you’re generally doing deeper/better lookahead during midgame than I think I could manage right now, so unless you made a fair number of mistakes (or one catastrophic one) I’d probably be in trouble. Were I to get back into practice, I expect my odds would improve substantially – one of the reasons reading your reports is fun is that the level/type of lookahead you’re doing isn’t foreign to me, I just haven’t really gone quite that deep in some time (most eurogames have enough chance/uncertainty that you can’t see as far ahead in the analysis). It’s a pleasing sensation, exercising those mental muscles again.
Out of curiosity: do you enjoy Go, or Go-like games?
In the endgame, I wonder how 42 … Rb2, Ra2, or Rd2 would have worked out. I don’t know my pawn-advancement endgame well enough to suss offhand whether 42 … Rb2 43 Rg7+ Kc6 44 Rg6+ Kb7 is disastrous for black (since without those moves, the checks will permit 45 Rxa6, and 43 … Ke8 permits 44 Ra7, winning the a-pawn), but if it’s not terrible for black, it seems like white has no good options; both pawns are somewhat blocked and can be quickly threatened by black, and getting white’s King to c1 to threaten the rook at b1 would take long enough that black can set up a5, then either b4, or a4 followed by Rb3 depending on what white does with the rook.
If black moving a-wards with the king is bad, then perhaps 42 … Ra2, since then any Rg6 by white can be countered by Rxa3. 43 Rg6+ doesn’t work any better, since black can refuse to permit the discovered attack on the a-pawn with 43 … Ke8. (Again, might be bad for the pawn endgame, not sure.)
42 … Rd2 seems like it ought to force 43 Rg3, in which case 43 … Rd3 costs white one or the other pawn. If 43 Rg6, then … a5, and from there I get a bit muddy. 44 Ra6 a5 45 Rb6, perhaps? Or 44 Rb6 Rb2, maybe?
[I find myself putting words like 'perhaps' and 'maybe' after speculative moves, lest I accidentally imply that the final move in the sequence is ?-worthy. Heh.]
All of the above speculation is with 30+ minutes to ponder over this particular board configuration under no pressure, I should add.
I have an uncertain relationship with go. On one hand, I find it elegant and really want to like it. On the other hand, I find it far less intuitive than chess, and that combined with the marginally greater popularity of chess in western culture has prevented me from really starting to explore it.
I’ve often read that people seem to be either chess or go people, and less frequently both, and to the extent that that is true, I seem to be more of a chess person. I’d certainly be open to playing some go at some point though.
I’ll have to think about your analysis when I can stare at a board (digital or otherwise) for an extended time without worrying my boss is about to happen by….
Whoops!
“43 Rg6+ doesn’t work any better, since black can refuse to permit the discovered attack on the a-pawn with 43 … Ke8.”
should be
“43 Rg7+ doesn’t work any better, since black can refuse to permit the discovered attack on the a-pawn with 43 … Ke8.”