Variance:

Last day of my thanksgiving chess tournament my similarly rated opponent and I both had plus scores and thousands in prize money was up for grabs. Here's the game: http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=54622

To his credit he succeeded in tricking me into playing the mediocre 3...b6 when he was probably playing the same fourth move no matter what. Someone later told me he won his first game with the same opening.

@allen,

Wow????

That is the weirdest chess game I've ever seen.

What is the point of all that?

edit: I guess it's called the "bongcloud"

Best case scenario, and goal of the opening? Your opponent underestimates you because of it, overextends themselves trying too hard to punish you quickly, drops some material, and suddenly you have a won position. The rest of the time? See Allen's game.

Beat: I'm sure if that particular player tried this opening against me, he'd still be the favorite to win the game

White's best move?

Ive had people play that in blitz against me. With a weak mind like mine, I allow it to get under my skin. I enjoyed watching this "opening" get blasted.

Either you posted the wrong position or the wrong answer, but I'm having some confusion over where the black rook is supposed to be. I also just woke up so it's possibly all in my head.

My fault -- there's a typo in the solution (but the posted position and key moves for White are correct). The sample line should continue with instead of what I wrote.

Ah, I had read

so I didn't realize that this was the simple error. Is this from a real game?

Almost. Rooks were just exchanged: Black's last move was Rd8xd4. In the game, Black saw this tactic and recaptured with the queen. This is nominally better, but the resulting position is still lost, due to a different tactic, namely

I have been working on tactics tactics tactics and just won my first game with a Queen sac.

link


[Event "Let's Play!"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2011.12.04"]
[White "The_Shocker"]
[Black "checkmate3636"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1226"]
[BlackElo "1335"]
[TimeControl "1 in 2 days"]
[Termination "checkmate3636 won by checkmate"]

1.e3 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.Qxd4 Nc6 4.Qd1 d5 5.Bb5 Nf6 6.Bxc6+ bxc6 7.c3 Bd6 8.Nf3 O-O 9.Qd3 Rb8 10.b4 Re8
11.Nd4 Rb6 12.a3 Ba6 13.Qd1 Ne4 14.f3 Qh4+ 15.g3 Qxg3+ 16.hxg3 Bxg3#
0-1

I just played good/fundamental chess and got my King castled, developed my minor pieces and put my rooks on the best files available. My plan was that after 10...Re8, move my rook to b6 and then hit the Q with my bishop, trapping the King in the middle. Whites 11. Nd4 is fine as Rb6 is now needed anyways. From there I didn't really see a way to get at the trapped King so my plan was to see what happens. 13...Ne4 seems natural and I know knights prefer advanced central squares so I played it. After 14.f3 I just checked all checks available and spotted how his King is trapped and any check will be checkmate.

Nicely done. Boden's mate has the same sacrifice where the king is castled queenside and the f pawn I think has advanced.

I've almost continually played blitz games for the past month or so and I got my rating up to almost 1400 but I just seem to be playing really terribly, and it's back down to almost 1200. I decided that I need to play more slow games again, so have been playing 15/10 for a bit. Apart from 3 stupid losses where I just didn't think, I've played pretty well I think.

Anyway, time for a brag: I tried to sacrifice as many pieces possible in the danish gambit and still win, and I somehow managed it!

http://www.chess.com/livechess/game.html?id=216095270

Nice!

Holy **** I just found a smothered mate in 5 over the board.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=55355

Not that proud of every move here obv, after I missed 15. Qb6 and the baby woke up I kind of drifted but once he missed 20 Qxe4 I pounced like a machine.

Looks like the tactics trainer on chess.com is starting to pay off!

^nice

I composed a mate in 3 once with someone where you started off in check, sacked a queen and mated the king with a knight in the middle of the board. I really wish I could remember it lol

So I took six weeks off of chess club when my son took swim lessons. Told them I'd see them when it was over, hadn't checked back in since.

This afternoon, I took a really bad loss on FICS. Opponent went into a turtle early, I tore apart his defenses only to get lazy and sacrifice one piece too many. Annoying, but I figure "I'm way between tournaments, don't need to be in good form right now, just keep playing."

Just got a phone call: "Hey, Kyle, just wanted to make sure you are definitely coming tonight. Remember that idea for rated one-a-week quads that you had? We're doing it and it starts tonight! You better be here!"

*sigh* Hopefully I get a friendly matchup or my +8 =1 -0 stretch in OTB is over.

LOL, yay for advanced warning right? Good luck!

Well, that's round 1. It's 3 rounds, one game per week, G/60.

There's three of us in the 1500-1600 ability range, one guy who's behind that but credible enough to make us work for it, and two guys who are just happy to be there. The top three seeds all won.

Man, it felt really *really* good to play competitively again, even if it wasn't all that competitive.

my preciousss streak

It's like when you are a kid with a bubble wand and you make the awesomest bubble evah. It's not going to last so you feel like you have to cram in every precious second of appreciation that you can.

Haha I know the feeling. Had a nearly 50 game non-losing streak in rated games (subtle) about 10 years ago, plenty of mental boners took place

Time to move up to a higher level where they'll respect your raises, imo.

yeah nowadays I'm too lazy to beat up bums in weekend tournaments and focus on getting whooped by Eastern Europeans in team matches :\

Brag: won the Long Island Chess Club championship with 9.5/10
Brag: 2500 performance rating
Variance: not the strongest chess club on Long Island
Beat: Will only gain about 35 USCF points

Well done Tim! That's awesome.