Why on god's green earth did you give him your rook in that endgame??

first of all because i'm terribad. second of all cause i had no idea what i was doing. third i thought if i let him keep the pawn i auto lose but i thought since he was in time trouble if he sucked at K vs K R endgame i might flag him. but i didn't wah wah

Positions like this:



and



are clear draws. You should spend some time figuring out these drawing ideas, because rook + pawn endgames are really common, and at the novice levels you can steal so many half (and full) points by playing them correctly.

For the first one, pretend you trade rooks. This gets you into a simple king and pawn endgame. Is it a draw or not? You of course did not know, but you should. Spend time going over king and pawn endgames and figuring our which are wins and which aren't. In fact this is the first lesson in Reassess your chess, so pick up that book if you haven't already.

And in the second position, you trade your rook for his pawn. Why? What happens if you move Rd1, how does white progress?

Every expert ( Elo 2000+ ) should draw these 100% of the time if not in "time trouble"; it pays to know some very basic endings.

How the hell is trading rook for pawn a complete draw - that looks like a sure win for white from my viewpoint

RB

That's what I thought ^^

it's a mate in 3 if you take the pawn with your rook -

I know I'm weak, but hopefully not THAT weak - must be a bad diagram somehow

He's critiquing the actual moves of the game. In the game Rxp was played and black lost. Pokergrader wants to know why he would play that since Rd1 draws.

no one said it was a draw if black takes teh pawn.

I just haven't played enough games in my life to remember how to play situations like this. I was a little chess tilted after i missed queen takes but the reason i lose games like this is because my technique is so bad. (I play golf alot) Its like going golfing with only a 3 iron a pitching wedge and a driver. U can probabily get by with those clubs enough to have fun, but if u want to do good u need situational clubs, and i dont have them yet.

"Brag":

Had a winning position in blitz against one of the "bots".

"Beat":

This was close to the first "winning position" in the game.



"Variance":

Flagged (even though it was 5 1 and not 5 0).

Nh sir for spotting the mateski in 3ski

I played in a rapid tourney today (20min/g 9 rounds) and scored 6,5/9 against a german rating average of 2037 (mine is 2046, it's roughly 100 points lower than fide rating for most people except juniors). Came in 6th of 90ish participants, 5 prizes Would have been my first main prize in an open tournament.

One game:

[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2009.06.13"]
[Round "?"]
[White "M.M."]
[Black "F. P."]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2046"]
[BlackElo "2107"]
[PlyCount "53"]

1. d4 g6 2. c4 Bg7 3. Nf3 d6 4. e4 e5 5. Be2 Nc6 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Nc3 Ng4 8. Bg5
f6 9. Bc1 O-O 10. O-O Nh6 11. Be3 Bg4 12. d5 Ne7 13. Ne1 Bd7 14. Nd3 f5 15. f3
f4 16. Bf2 g5 17. Rc1 Ng6 18. c5 Nf7 19. Qb3 Bc8 20. cxd6 Nxd6 21. Nb5 Rf7 22.
Nc5 Nf8 23. Ne6 Nxe6 24. dxe6 Re7 25. Nxc7 Qxc7 26. Rxc7 Rxc7 27. e7+ 1-0

Don't hand out tempi like that in the KID guys (11. ...Bg4?).

Another slightly boring game from the same tournament (1st round) against a badly played open sicilian from white, i like how i just use some thematic ideas (Bf8-g7 Nf8 defensive setup, Kasparov's Re7) to bring in an easy victory. My opponent was convinced he had a strong attack and just went wrong somewhere. I obviously disagreed politely.

[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2009.06.13"]
[Round "?"]
[White "J. H."]
[Black "M.M."]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1700"]
[BlackElo "2046"]
[PlyCount "50"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be2 e6 7. O-O Be7 8. Be3
Nc6 9. f4 O-O 10. a3 Qc7 11. g4 Nxd4 12. Bxd4 b5 13. g5 Nd7 14. Be3 Bb7 15. Bd3
Rfe8 16. Rf3 Bf8 17. Rh3 g6 18. Qg4 Bg7 19. Qh4 Nf8 20. Rf1 Re7 21. f5 exf5 22.
exf5 Rae8 23. Bf2 Qc6 24. Ne4 Rxe4 25. Bxe4 Rxe4 0-1

Look how beautiful black's pieces coordinate after the position opens after f5?. That's why i play the sicilian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emcn5ivTzYk

Guys check out "Chess Bus"



and the prank calls on this Chess Now show are very hilarious. and the host is Hot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y0UZIm2vfw

Beat: ~1 hour is the max amount of time I can maintain good blitz play without a break. My endurance is super weak.

Brag: New 5-minute high rating today!

Variance: McLovin heckles me while I play blitz.

lmaoooooooooooooo

Nice variance sir.

I finally broke 1300 on chess tactics server. Haven't actually played a game in over a month...

Anyone on ICC?

I am now. whats ur handle

Trash Talking after a game where my opponent spammed me with draw offers:

All-inMcLovin says: did you want a draw?
All-inMcLovin says: :: passes you some crayons and construction paper ::
All-inMcLovin says: okay go ahead and draw.

im kingdan on icc and fics if anyone wants to play, prob be up for another hour maybe a bit more

omg just beat a 2200 on FICS shipit

Beat:

I had been drinking a little and lost miserably in 4 games. Then I rematched the last guy, and got myself to any easy win:



Then of course, I play e8=N, because for some unknown reason babaschess was set to auto-promote to a knight instead of a queen. Of course I then go on to lose. FML.

haha autoknight it's an option for suicide/loser's players i think