4. Qa4+ loses time because 4.-c6 and 4.-Nbd7 are productive moves for Black in this sort of position and the queen is misplaced on c4. 4. e3 with the idea of Bxc4 is the typical way of reclaiming the pawn. His response squanders that though.

Along with "advanced pawn chains", you overvalue knight jumps to the central fifth-rank squares (i.e., see them as a good thing inherently instead of conditionally). They can be useful but are dangerous only when they happen to be dangerous. Ne4 is a total waste of a move in this position.

I don't dislike it. Having to castle queenside looks like a concession for Black.

Seems fine -- f6 can't realistically be occupied by a piece. Getting dynamic play going would be easily worth a slight weakening anyway.

18. Nxa6 is an example of a good non-speculative piece-for-two-pawns sac (you can calculate it to a material win or mate).

Move #22 is an instructive sort of position where Black is "frozen" in the pin. He has no productive moves (22.-Bg7 develops the bishop to a useless diagonal) and can't stop the exchanges on d7, so you can win a tempo by first developing a rook to c1 and then swapping.

Cleanest conversion is something like 26. Rc2 Be7 27. Rac1 Rc8 28. b5 winning the pawn and probably leading to more exchanges. But up a clean exchange and two pawns, anything that isn't bad or impatient is fine, so good finish.

Looks like a great series is on the way.

Cool. Just watched a couple games.

Great, I'll try to finhunt now to appear on Youtube

I could see him against me "Hey guys, this is John, and I'm playing ChessKing9577. I have a feeling that name is a little bit in jest. I also find it funny that the implication is that there were already nine thousand, five hundred, and seventy-six kings of chess registered. OK, onto the game. He opens with queen's pawn - OK. I'll just play d5 in response. ...OK he's taking a lot of clock here, let's see what he plays... Oh boy, somehow he or she just sacrificed their bishop. I do not like that move at all."

Very solid impression imo, .

I can see that Fins played the 1000-1200 episode of his series while I was sleeping

Perhaps the 1200-1400 part (the one for which I'm eligible) is on Sunday US afternoon (8-10 PM CET).

Nice quickie declining the King's Gambit with 2... Bc5. Few players at that level decline the gambit I'd imagine, so KG players wouldn't see that move much, and if they don't know about the trap they're falling into it a lot (the trap being 3 fxe5 or 3 f5 get met with Qh4+ and carnage to follow).

Yeah, that's a nice trap!

Beat: I totally forgot that John would be doing the 1200-1400 part today and overslept the chance.

Variance: it looks as though I have 2 days to gain 46 rating points to become eligible for the 1400-1600 part (where the level of his explanations will be most helpful to me). That must be relatively easy to me if I play with an increment and rematch selectively.

Missed the chance for the parallel series "Stalking Fins through the rating ladder" where you play him every level

looooool

Yes, I had an idea of playing him in both the 1200-1400 and the 1400-1600 parts, but as said above, I just overslept.

Here's a very popular sac. I like the vid because he covers two types of examples: when the sac is good, and when it's bad. Offense and defense.

I'm playing a 1909 in corr. (308 point dog) and was up a bishop and pawn with initiative and i just played a rook sac. Well see how it works out. No comments please but check it out if u want. It's a neat little game so far. Opponent is Josh something.

^He just screwed up by playing the worst of 3 possible moves. I've got a mate in 4.

33...bd5 34.rxd5+ 34...qxd5 35.qxd5+ 35...ke8 36.nf6+ 36...kf8 37.qg8#

My highest rated scalp! 1909 correspondence

that's a pretty sweet finish. His earlier play with his queen is bizarre (better is 17...Qxd4=+) and you punished him well for spending a million tempi on getting it as far from the action as possible

Yeah I was surprised he didn't trade queens and give me another floating pawn. That was so long ago, I think I was just content to be up a pawn. Then he wasted time making all his pieces static. I think I was pretty patient in attacking his knight on f6 aND screwing up his pawn structure. Then getting my queen to f5 was a strong turn that won me material and harassed his king.

Q@a8 is a common idea in positions with a queenside fianchetto, like the hedgehog, but not so great here. Usually the queen-bishop battery can do something like help with a d6-d5 breakthrough (no such pawn exists); pressure a pawn on e4 (nspe); pressure a knight on f3 that's (semi-)pinned to a piece or pawn on g2, often in conjunction with a knight attacking f3 (blahblahblah); or pressure g2 (solidly defended by Bf1 and no way to get another piece at g2 -- ties down Bf1 but Black's queen is also sidelined). a-file stuff is also sometimes possible, but bad here. I guess he could put a piece on e4/d5 or something, but that doesn't seem like it can lead to much but exchanges. And if exchanges happen, especially of the Nf6, Black's kingside is going to be bare just like it was in the game, with his queen being so offsides, and White's a pawn up too.

Seemed like he was playing a lot of typical ideas but from the wrong positions.

Just lost a long game to Renaldo wherein I lost my queen early. He played the rope a dope and I fell for it. Queen and bishop vs. Rook and pawns endgame I thought I could manage until I let his king get to f4.

Some notes on the last two games.

http://chess.tuxtown.net/game/view/i...0401af0f995563

http://chess.tuxtown.net/game/view/i...a55d097f8d52f5

I usually lose interest at the point when someone is flat-out winning, so the Renaldo game has basically no notes.

Thanks Rei. I did look at those notes way back when you first posted them.

My 3 outstanding corr. games arent looking good. I blundered in one. It wasnt a design sac, just straight up blundered.

But in Arbitrary Numbers News my blitz rating just surpassed 1000. I havent played much blitz lately but when i do i am winning games with like 3-5 minutes left on clock. Im 6-1 in my last 7 and 9-2 in last 11. Yay.

I'm peacing out from the forums. I want to thank everyone who helped me. I enjoyed this forum immensely.

I will remain active on chess.com. If someone were to want to contact me for any reason, PM me there. ChessKing9577.

Thanks.

Adios.

Gl!