White (me) to move against a much stronger player. I played Kb3, which repeated the position from two moves ago, and I accompanied it with a draw offer, which was accepted.

Were there winning chances here for white? (or black?)

Should be a draw.

You can't really try to invade the Black position because d4/e5 will hang.

Looks pretty dead drawn to me, I don't see a plan for either side to make progress, but then I'm terrible at endgames. I'll go check it with an engine out of personal curiosity, but you can do that yourself if you want, I see no reason to post the results here.

First thing to notice is that trading bishops with Bb4 is a draw (and maybe a little instructive in basic K&P endgames -- Black draws by maintaining the opposition -- after 1.Bb4 Bxb4 2.Kxb4 Kb8= whereas 2...Kc7?? is losing). A good exercise is thinking about where Black's king can be so that he can trade bishops on b4 and draw -- and how that changes if the a or g-pawns have moved. (Black is not compelled to trade bishops, of course. But in this sort of position, White doesn't lose anything by making the offer and checking that Black knows what to do.)

And otherwise, passive defense is fine for Black. There's no way for White's king to enter. E.g., the potential entry point on g5 can be covered by Black's bishop from two diagonals. White can only prevent Black's bishop from occupying one of these with B@g5, but in this case, the square is not available for the king.

(White has some weaknesses of his own and needs to use either King or Bishop to prevent Black from penetrating via b6, but it appears to me that Black doesn't even need that resource.)

Live from the Springfield Winter Open (well, from a McDonald's nearby as I have a break), it's the adventures of Class E Guy (1086p6 going into this tournament).

First round, I got white against a 15XX (I forgot, but it was the low 1500s). I proceeded to play one of the best games of my life (I hesitate to say this without computer analysis of the game, but I was in the zone). A tense game culminates in a situation where he's threatening mate in a few moves, and I can either defend or push for a promoted pawn. Early lines I consider all leave me promoting the queen but getting checkmated the next move. I keep trying to figure out a combination that buys me the one extra tempo I need, and then it hits me: if I underpromote to a knight, I promote with check, then I can do some fancy forced maneuvering to trade down and I end up with R+minor piece vs. R+N with 4 pawns vs. 3, and my extra pawn is passed. The promotion also leaves me with the option of forcing a perpetual draw.

I sit there for a few minutes and think about it. Do I want the draw to guarantee I won't go 0/4? I really didn't want to go 0/4. Nonetheless, my position was clearly better and I played on. Two moves later, I spaced out on my move order and hung a bishop, leaving me down a piece for a pawn. We were in time trouble blitzed out to the end but I was done. The game took up the entire time control and was a blast.

Unfortunately, that left me with 15 minutes till the next round started, not enough time to get lunch. I got a 1320ish player, with me playing black.

He played an opening I hate and just recently learned how to handle. I don't know if he didn't respect me because of my rating, if he always plays this way or if he was as hungry as I was, but he was playing blitz speeds from the beginning and trying to set up mate-in-ones that he hoped I would overlook. I never did, and we ended up in a game with two rooks, a knight and a bunch of pawns each. He kept playing insanely fast and basically seemed determined to keep his rooks in the worst position possible. He eventually hung a pawn, and then his defensive position let me force through a passed pawn and a win. Plus, he played so fast I have plenty of time for lunch! Best win ever!

So no 0-fer for me! I can definitely play with these guys. I love chess so much.

Good luck Kyle! Nice you hear you are having a good time

I'll post all my games (that I can recreate with my bad notation) later with my own computer-aided annotations, and if anyone has any suggestions then I'll appreciate them! I see a few places where I made mistakes and places where he probably could have won or at least had big improvements on the moves he did make. But in the meantime for funsies, here's the game up to my fatal blunder:

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=40496

Man this reminds me so much of when I was first starting tournament chess. Played one kid when I was rated ~1500 and we banged out the first 12 moves in under a minute total. Guy next to us whispers "Can you take that in the skittles room?" We look at each other and then we realize that this other guy thinks we're playing blitz in the middle of the tournament. Hehe.

Kyle, make sure you don't get caught up in moving fast just because your opponent does. It's a common trap. Also, good luck with the rest of your games!

Argh, you could have just protected g2 with the knight you just promoted (30. Nf4, other wins seem to be also available, such as 29.Rxf6). What a pity

I thought about that, but simplification seemed better. Better than leaving a piece en prise? I guess not, but in the words of Calvin (as said to Hobbes) "arrgghhh! That's not what I meant to do!"

I wanted to play someone as highly rated as possible in the third round, and I got a 1900. He was, unfortunately, so intimidated by my reputation that he never actually appeared at the board. 1. d4 flag.

In round 4, I'll be playing with the coveted Class E $40 prize on the line. I'm a full point in the clear over the other four E-ers right now. Oooh, the pressure.

All the best Kyle in your last round.

Great pic of Fischer and Tal:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=2448

Brag: Went on a huge heater with the chess.com tactics trainer around New Year's, and after months of hovering in the 1700s, I managed to run my rating up to a peak of 1916 on January 2nd, a personal best.

Beat: Two weeks ago I began a huge downswing with the chess.com tactics trainer, ultimately bottoming out at a low of 1510 this morning.

Variance: Currently rated 1705 on the chess.com tactics trainer.

Move up to where they respect your tactics.

LOL!!!

Obviously my problem was that it gave me problems that were too easy, meaning I couldn't gain meaningful rating points by getting them right. I would have obviously done much better with harder problems

White to move and win.

I just had this position in a blitz game and spotted the move/tactic pretty quickly.

Pretty indeed, nice find for a blitz game!

Thanks YKW!

I had always wondered what happened to Dire, since he hasn't posted here in a while..

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=2207

He requested a perm ban back in June!

Asnwer to mclovin:

it's so awesome to spot cool tactics in blitz, some weeks ago i was so proud to make my first "forced" underpromotion to a knight. Obv, no gamescore so it didn't happen.