RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE. This stupid POS made a move with 9 minutes left. WONDERFUL.

Watching a bunch of those John Bartholomew games would be great for you

Personally, I think he should play more correspondence chess against guys who make moves at the last second, :P.

Hypothetical position from your game, following White's correct response to your piece sac.



Exercise: What is White threatening?

His actual response on move 11 was totally baffling. It's like a forced engine blunder in that it doesn't make sense from a human perspective.

I know that was dumb. In all honesty at that point I was already enraged at his pace of play and was trying to force issues and speed the game up - win, lose, or draw. Which is why I captured a 2nd pawn instead of retreating my bishop.

He's threatening Bc1 and if I back my queen up on the diagonal, potentially Ba3 attacking my Rook through my Queen.

h7 is potentially weak after Ng5 or a Kingside pawn break. Nb5 threatens my Queen, which I can play ax, then he follows with Qx. I guess that doesn't do much for him. Other than smaller things like "e5 is a safe square for his knight" I'm not sure what else I see. Positionally speaking, it's worthless to have my QUeen way up there and I'll probably have to waste a tempo retreating since the queen is going to ultimately need a couple more attackers to mount anything anytime soon.

But again, I realize it's a poor sac and I don't think I play it against someone who doesn't enrage me, or who is at least similar in strength. He made a lot of poor moves this game. He never mounted anything resembling an attack against me in either match. 18.Nh4, for instance, seems unbelievably dumb. Please tell me what that does. I was waiting 23 hours for moves like this. You can see why I wanted to hurry up and beat him and move on.

The idea is 13. Nxd5 followed by the in-between move 14. Nxf6+. That forces Black to waste a tempo moving the queen instead of bolstering the attack. Tactical ideas persist after 12.-Qb4+ 13. Ka1.

Yeah, that's something I just don't see yet, but I see it now. If he plays Nxd5 I think I just play ...Qxd3 14.Nxf6+ ...gxf6 15.cxd3

He wins a pawn and makes large exchanges while already up material. My Kingside pawn structure is kind of whacked, and his is basically non-existent. But my only 2 developed pieces just died so I have no attack any time soon. Thanks for the tip.

So after waiting like a month to get to Round 2, I finished my first game in like 2 days. I went into Round 2 tied for 2nd with 3 other players with 4.5/6 (4-1-1). The leader had 5 points (5-1). I was playing him and I had the white pieces. It's not a great game really and the end is brutal, but I won so that's cool and I'm not atop the standings with 5.5/7, and most importantly, having already played the leader once. I think I'm 9-1-1 in my last 11 correspondence games, which feels good. The loss being a curbstomping and the tie being that game I blundered away with Q+7p+initiative vs. Q+4p.

Anyway, here's the game.

The most important thing I want to discuss is a relatively giant blunder I made. It ended up working out not too badly but only due to happenstance. He plays 16...Nf6 and I under-react to it. A couple plays earlier I'd considered he may try to get his knight to like h5 as a hindrance to my h-pawn, so this is what I thought he was doing. Of course I look to see what else he's attacking and he's attacking 2 central pawns. I look at my defending knight, which I was well aware was the defender of these 2 pawns for most of the game and tell myself "But if he takes then I just take and end up on much better squares", so I stay patient and slide my Rook over to g1. Of course, his follow-up of 17...b4 is relatively brutal for me. "Uh, oh". I know he's about to win my e4 pawn and threaten my Queen. So... what did I fail to do here? When I realized I had a defender of each pawn, I failed to ask myself the simple question "But how long is that defender safe?"

This bothered me because I felt like this was a fairly big swing in game dynamics here, and of course I felt like this game was hugely important for the standings. He goes on to play 19...Nxd5 and now I'm thinking Oh ****. My first consideration was to play 10.Bd3, since I'd been eyeing that weak g6 pawn for a while. But I took my time and found the groovy 20.Bc4 instead, which I'm guessing is an engine move here. It discovers an attack on his e4 Knight, pins his d5 Knight, and potentially forks the King and the Rook on e8. From there he makes 2 large mistakes and then resigns. Full write-up below, but these moves were really the crux of the game.

15.Bg5. He's about to trap my bishop so this is just preparation for that. Only safe square.

16. Nf3. I spent a lot of time here. I debated between f3, a Bishop exchange on e7, and Bf3. Ultimately I hated leaving my pawn stuck back on f2 but I figured f3 just removes a development square for my Knight, and Bf3 doesn't actively do anything. So I put my Knight here, which adds a defender of g5, develops my knight a bit, and frees up my back rank for a Rook slide. Of course, at this point I absolutely loathe my LSB, which is much like a fat old lady walking in front of you on the sidewalk. Doing nothing important and just getting in your way.

Moves 16-20 I talked about above.

22...Nxf3 is a giant mistake. I expected him to play Qxa8 (I mean, this is partly why he moves his Bishop one move earlier...wtf.) Earlier when I was analyzing the possible line I considered his ability to play Nxf3 forking my QUeen and Rook but I noticed my Bishop is on that diagonal and could just recapture. He fails to notice this. Not sure how. He just donated a Rook. So the LSB that I said I hated just a handful of moves ago... yeah, in the last 4 moves it has captured both Knights and a Rook, and is still in play. Wow, what a turnaround. He's now my STAR!!!!!!!!!!

23...Qa5 is a bit worrisome. Not too much but I would hate to lose while being up material here. I expect his next play to be Qa3+ so I consider Kb1, which also defends the a2 pawn. I'd expect him to play c4 next. Can't remember my plan there. Maybe to grab the g6 pawn. Of course I'm worried about my a2 pawn, and ruled out a4 immediately because "he can capture en passant". Luckily, I analyzed it again just to see (I am getting better at using the analysis board to exhaust all options b/c I catch stuff that I miss without it). And voila! He can't capture because his Queen is hanging! I can't see anything immediately better than this defensive move so I play it, thinking "there's a chance he just captures and fails to notice his hanging Queen (Us noobz are always excited to notice e.p. and people at this level will sometimes play it without heeding anything else). Even so, I like my position much better now. Then, he captures and I grab his hanging queen and it's all over. Wowza.

Some of these corr. games are getting to the point where I question whether I can actually win against this opponent since a lot of them are quite even-matched. Then I just keep making solid moves and my opponents end up making too many inaccuracies or blunders and then I get an edge and am getting good enough where I can close out (for the most part). Not leaving major pieces hanging really is worth a lot of points - it's amazing. A fairly even game and he makes 2 blunders and hangs his Rook and Queen...

New rating all-time high: 1553!

Nice result!
Can you explain your thought process for playing 9. b3?

I thought it helped defend c4 a second time. I knew he wanted to keep pushing those pawns and didn't want him to gain space by playing c4. Also, c4 looks like a realistic square for his undeveloped knight. Because I have a pawn on d5, he won't develop to c6, which means c4 falls in line with that knight's anticipated path. Also, if I can move my knight on c3 maybe I can play c2-c4 and keep his pawn thrust back, and make a better pawn wall for me.

The short answer is: I fruited out and have no idea how to use my pawn wall as a defense. That is one of my weak spots compared to my opponents.

Here is a 10 minute game I played in bed first thing in the morning. It's pretty poor for me, especially poor pawn play and I end up losing an exchange. I was down into the 1 minute+ area and he had like 8 minutes left. But the mate is pretty fun, so I figure I'd post it. Though I missed 26.Qh8#, which should have been plenty obvious for me. The way it plays out is funner though, since I get his Queen and King. Move 23 is where it gets good. For move 24, my first instinct was to play Re1 but I took my time and determined if I had anything better, especially a check.

Here's a quirky little 10 minute game. I had 1:01 left and he had 3:46.

Intro is weird. I'm still practicing this Queen's Gambit or whatever 1.d4...d5 2.c4 is called. I hadn't seen 3....b5 yet so tried to figure something out quickly.

12.b6 I thought about taking but thought maybe I could queen this pawn or at least force him to devote a defender to it. Turns out no.

17.b7 was derpville.

20. Nxh8. My b7 pawn is lost so I played this out of order. His rook isn't going anywhere in fewer than 2 moves so I should move my hanging Bishop. For some reason he doesn't take my hanging Bishop...

21. Be2. Not too sure where to move my Bishop to but this seems good as it defends g4 at least.

23.e4 is a lucky find for me. I expected him to play ...Bxd4 and at least win a pawn in the minor piece captures on h6 and h6.

25. Be3. I need to get my Rook involved and this seems like an OK square for my bishop, since it defends the d4 pawn and he doesn't have a Rook left so I'm not too worried about lining my bishops up on the same file.

From here it's mostly throwing poo at the wall and seeing if I can get a mate somehow. I was probably already down to 2 minutes and some change.

29. f3 lol empty threat. Immediately recognized this as dumb since he can play c3 then potentially e2+. I thought I'd just lost.

32.....cxd5. Not sure why he captured with pawn instead of King. That feels wrong.

For future reference, 3.-b5 sucks because of 4. a4. Black can't keep the pawn. 4.-a6 5. axb5; 4.-c6 5. axb5 cxb5 6. Qf3; 4.-Bd7 (or lol 4.-Ba6) 5. axb5 Bxb5 6. Nc3. Black can hold on to it longer with 4.-Qd7 but you can simply play chess and have a better position.

A correspondence draw by agreement (my offer). Pretty boring game. I feel glad that he gave me the draw. His position is better but other than him pushing his c pawn down, I didn't see much for him so I guess he didn't feel excited about playing it out. I'm not 6-0 against all other opponents, and 1.0/3 against this guy.

I feel like he should have played 21...a3 instead of capturing, but not sure. Anyway I'm 7.0/9 so far and comfortably in 1st place in this tourney. Pretty neat.

I had dreams of maybe a rook lift back to h3 and maybe something on h7 attack. For my last move I'm either going to play Kd2 or Rc1. Ultimately, if he puts his Queen back on the a-file, I didn't want him to have a rook exchange on a1, leaving his Queen on a1 and having access to my back rank. I have Qd4 to help defend a1 a 2nd time, but if he pushes his c-pawn down I have jack ****, this is why I offered the draw. If he finds this, I am not sure what to do.

21.-a3 helps you keep the queenside closed, so it's a strategic mistake. Black's best option is to maintain the tension. He can try to push c7-c5-c4 (and probably not c3) to break open the queenside and try to create targets or a passed pawn or both.

9. 0-0-0 and 11. b3 wouldn't be my preferences.

Moves 13 through 19 look very active -- every single White move is forcing, and Black is defending against threats -- but the result isn't good. Black's pawn levers are far better, and there are no relevant offsetting factors. It's important to avoid sequences like that.

The draw offer is fine.

Yeah early on my DSB gets basically inactivated or left as a defender of the king. I feel like I did well to get it traded for his knight.

The reason I castled long is because I'm still on this kick of castling opposite my opponent then working on pawn pushes on the Kingside.

If I had black I wouldn't have accepted the draw. Since pushing the c-pawn for black seems good. Or at least better than anything I have going on. He also has the a-file and just so much more space overall. He had a weak back rank (he did last game, too), but my queen was on an awful square to ever get back there for a cheap mate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZxW8Myw-vM

This game is up your alley (dueling attacks following opposite-side castling).

Rei, I'll try to watch that. I started watching it in bed on my phone last night in the middle of the night and my wife rolls over and goes "Alright, enough." lol.

Here's a game I just won by resignation against my ARCH NEMESIS. Finally beat this dude. Was 0-1-2 against him in our first 3 matches. Crummy game, really. I wish he'd played it out, though, but he's pretty much ****ed I'm pretty sure.

6....exd4 I wasn't sure about. I thought if he recaptured with Queen that I could play Bg4 and either move or capture his knight and remove its defense of h2, then play Bxh2+, discovering an attack on his undefended Queen. So Kxh2....Qxh4, but I'm not so sure about all that and he recaptures with Knight anyway.

7....Be2. Not sure yet where I want to castle so I try to just play a simple development move from the Queenside, which required 2 moves before having the ability to castle as opposed to 1 on the Kingside. Not sure if this move is good or not.

8.Nxe6 surprised me. Just not sure why he would play it. I mean yeah I've got kind of a floating (not sure what to call this?) pawn on the e-file and my kingside wall is a lot smaller. But I also have an open rook file if I play 0-0. And he's just traded a piece that he spent 3 moves on and is his only central piece for a piece I've spent 1 move on and is not really doing anything yet.

9....Qe7. I've noticed if I play 0-0-0 I can sac my Bishop+ and be able to capture his Queen with my Rook. It's a stretch but I figure let's go for it. I want to play fun games and keep the initiative. So I need to move my Queen ASAP. I have 4 options. 2 of the square suck (1 leaves my Queen hanging, the other takes away f6 for my Knight), so really I have 2 squares. h4 or e7. I considered h4 since it may lead to a super weak mate on h2 but this guy I know well enough to think he's not going to miss that. It also draws attention to the fact that I have a check with Bxh2+ so I opt to just develop to e7, which at the moment doesn't do anything but it seems more cryptic.

10.Be3. Great, my plan is working! lol. I was glad he didn't develop to the d-file, blocking his Queen from a discovered attack.

10....0-0-0. If my plan doesn't work out I'm of course not thrilled with castling this side since it's a complex kind of position that I'm not used to. But I do like that there are 2x as many pawns over here than had I castled short. So whatever, let's try it.

11.Qd2!?!?!?!?!?

If he plays 13.Bxd2 I have ....Qd6+ followed by Qxd2, with an immediate attack on his c2 pawn. So it ends up being an 8-for-13 material gain (Bishop + Rook for pawn, Bishop, Queen) Honestly, when I hatched the plan I assumed it to be an 8-for-10 gain, where I wouldn't be able to recapture his bishop on d2. I kept eyeing Qh4+ as my check square but then somehow I looked for an alternate check and found Qd6+, forking his Queen and Bishop, which basically makes this game a win afaict. Still wish he'd have played it out. He'd have his rook pair left, which is nothing to sneeze at.

So since starting correspondence games for tourneys or match play across the 2 groups I am in, I'm now 12-1-2 for 13.0/15, with a rating gain of +87 from 1490 to a new high of 1577. I''ve got 1 outstanding corr game on my docket and I'm winning that one and should go up another 10 to 1587, and have me at 6-0 for Team 2p2.

I'm now onto the final round in the Speedy Quads 1300-1499 tourney, leading 8 to 7. No idea how many games I play against the other guy. Not even sure how the trophies are awarded. If it's cumulative points or points acquired just in the championship games???

Anyway I might be above 1600 by the end of the 1300-1499 tourney. lol.

The key long-term imbalances after move 7 are White's unblemished 4v3 kingside pawn majority and Black's bishop pair. The position is roughly equal. After the exchange, Black loses the bishop pair and gains, in its place, a potentially weak e-pawn. Not exactly an fair trade. In the endgame, Black will be on the bad side of a freeroll. The half-open f-file and extra attacking chances aren't enough to make up for that. Black also has short-term coordination issues to solve. Fwiw, White spent one tempo on the knight, 2. Nf3. The second move was a recapture, and the third move forced a recapture, so neither involved a net loss of tempo.

Moreover, White has 9. e5 Bc5 (9.-Bxe5? 10. Qh5+) 10. Qg4 Qe7 11. Nc3, saddling Black with a lot of problems. (The "active" 11. Bg5?! is counterproductive after 11.-Qf7, clearing e7 for the knight.) Nc3-e4-g5 and Bg5 are ideas, a rook will land on d1 at some point, and Black can't castle or develop his knight without losing material. SF says 10. Qh5+ g6 11. Qg4 is even better, which makes sense.

Championship game 1 win on time lol.

This was certainly a weird game. I don't normally/normally like getting my Queen out early and when people do it against me I assume they suck at chess but it just kind of happened this way. Anyway, my thoughts:

3....a6 The explorer tool said this is the most played move by Masterz so I played it.

5.Nxe5. I knew this was coming and that he'd win a pawn and wasn't totally sure the response. Maybe Qd4, Qe7, or Qg5 are OK. I play what feels like the aggressive Qg5, attacking his knight and pawn on g2.

6.Nxf7. OK? Seems like I can ignore this for now and threaten his Rook.

7. I considered Qxe4+ but he retains both rooks after Qe2....Qxe2 Kxe2....Kxf7, though I'm up material. During analysis, I flip the board to see it from his view and immediately notice Bh3, and I like it, so I play it. If he responds optimally, it's not a huge gain but there are plenty of ways for him to respond sub-optimally. The f1 square has to be defended once more against Mate, and the only piece he can use to defend it is his Queen, which he does. There are some fun variations where I can skewer his Queen if he plays sub-optimally.

8....Kxf7. When I played Bh3 I originally thought I would win his Knight after the total exchange on f1. But I failed to recognize my Bxf1 does not come with check and he can win my Rook (or at least an exchange on h8). So I groaned. I have to capture his Knight first, but I made sure I could do so without any damage.

He has one piece he can check me with: His queen. But it's overloaded by protecting f1 as well. If Qc4+....Kd8 and he still can't get another piece over in time to defend f1. If
Qf3+....Qxf3 winning his Queen. If Qh5+....g6 staves him off and also the subsequent checking squares of f5 and d5 are both pawn-protected.

No idea why he timed out. I'm going to be up a rook for a pawn but how I proceed from there isn't entirely clear to me. I've got a gaping hole in the middle of the board and he has 2 pawns already marching. I had some ideas that were better than others but none seemed immediately fantastic for me. It certainly wouldn't have been game over.

It's a trivial win for Black, but coordinating the pieces efficiently after the liquidations on f1 and either of the natural-looking 11.-Nc6* or 11.-Rd8 is mildly annoying. Probably best is 11.-c5, to weaken White's center.


*edit: I mean 11.-Nf6, lol.

Yeah, to me that's much more complicated than I would imagine being up a rook for a pawn would be with that much material left on the board. He timed out so obviously I had 24 hours to consider my move after the inevitable liquidation on f1 (he could have played Kd2 I guess but I didn't consider lines after that) and I just didn't see anything immediately viola-worthy. I was surprised. In our chatbox in our current game 2 he told me I would have won anyway and I told him it wasn't entirely clear for me. I still probably win but it doesn't look like a fun endgame at all.

Posting this game b/c it's probably the best endgame practice/battle I've had in a long time.

I had :33 left to his 4:47. I almost offered a draw sometime around Move 30 but glad I didn't. This game was 37 moves deep once we got to King+pawns! I stink at endgame so I'm sure I made plenty of mistakes.

I'm surprised he didn't play 31....gxh5. Also 32....Kf7 seemed bad. Also 41....Kd5 when he goes for my pawns it should have been fairly intuitive that my pawn would Queen much faster than any of his, so I was glad to see this. I thought he should have just protected his h pawn and we probably agree to draw.

I thought his 15....exf3 was also pretty poor. I hoped he'd play it to free up that diagonal for me.

White can be a barnacle in that rook down position for a long time, but that doesn't mean that your win is in doubt.

41...Ke5 is winning for black. You will have to abandon your h-pawn and then he will clean up on the queenside while you take care of his h-pawn. I didn't look too deeply but 31.h5 is probably a losing move, and he responded correctly. His protected passed pawn on g5 is better than your isolated e-pawn. K+P endings are very sharp and you have to play accurately.