Yep. Fire away.

Do you guys play on Pogo games? Or is that just totally LOL? How accurate is your score on there?

a fun game from the weekend tournament:

I think the exchange sac is correct, possibly not winning though

I was recently remembering that when I played chess in grade school, people would often try to "mirror" white's opening as black. Even now, I answer 1. e4 and 1. d4 with e5/d5.
If taken to an extreme, there are checkmates available - for example 1. d4 d5 2. Qd3 Qd6 3. Qf5 Qf4 4. Qxc8. But nobody will fall for that ever, since 3. Qf5 hangs the queen, as does 3. ... Qf4
Poking around, I came up with 1. d4 d5 2. c3 c6 3. Qd2 Qd7 4. Qf4 Qf5 5. Qc7 Qc2 6. Qxc8# Here the moves look reasonable until 5. Qc7. is there a better one?

the game I usually show kids for "why you can't just copy the other guy blindly" is 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Ne5 Ne4?! 4. Qe2 and now they realise they "can't" play Qe7 (though it's possibly best!) 4...d5 5. d3 Nf6 6. Nc6+

not quite what you're looking for obviously

another good one, which I can't remember where I saw (might have been here), is 1. b3 g6 2. Bb2 Bg7 and black resigns

different sort of reflection.

Double-knight checkmate is hawt

Pogo isn't that bad. However almost anyone "good" on that site is a progger.

Might as well just play on FICS (free internet chess server)

Easier to find a game on FICS also.

Thanks to the recommendations of this forum, I started solving tactics problems on chesstempo.com a few days ago and having a lot of fun with it. My blitz rating on there seems to be around 1480, although I have no clue how that compares to other's.

Thanx McLuv

Zugzwang with 3 pieces left!

Was White's last move Kxe3

How do I not allow people to see my email address when they finger me on FICS?

I'm pretty sure that random people can't (only you and admins there can see it) but they may have changed the policy in the last 100 years.

Your e-mail is not public. Only admins can see it, I was told this a few months ago.

Let me know your handle and i'll tell u if i can see ur email or not.

Be1-h4+ Ke7-f8.

So I've been playing some lately. Probably done almost 1000 problems on chesstempo and got my rating on there up to low 1400s. Played a friend a couple times and have a 2-1 record against him, lost to his father who is a pretty good player, but we were pretty much even going into the endgame and I just really don't know how to play those yet. So I've been pretty happy with my progress.

Anywho, I'm at work and ask a kid if he wants to play. He reluctantly agrees, prefacing that he never plays and just barely knows what does what. When we set up our pieces, he has his knight and bishop switched, his king and queen switched, and asks me if the pawns can move two pieces. After about 10-15 moves each, I've taken a rook and a bishop plus several pawns from him, losing only a couple pawns. The whole time I'm focusing on trying to mate him in as few moves as possible, looking for the best possible attack.

And he mates me, after I'm completely ignoring my king being blocked in with no protection and no escape route. Back to the drawing board.

Sounds like a really good (if slightly embarrassing) lesson. Keep an eye on that king safety!

he clearly hustled you

+1

I'll have to try this "knight/bishop king/queen misplacement" against unknowns now.

Don't forget to open with 1. a3 as well. I've gotten killed in games where my opponent played that, and I dismissed them, and sleepwalked through the first ten moves, before realizing they actually did know what they were doing and were now beating me.

Nice one sir.

I'm also aware of the 1. a3 hustle

a3 actually has decent enough merit in most systems, the exception being vs. the KID --> where White typically just goes a2-a4 in one go. So vs. the KID you're just losing a tempo.

A few years back a friend of mine who was 1600 uscf maybe, he upset an 1800 and 1900 in one tourney with 1. a3 ---> his opponents obviously underestimated him cuz of that move.

The French:

1. e4 e6

Why not 2. e5?

Nvm... google found it as the Steinitz Varitaion... at first glance I like it

Some show it as happening in round 3 though... I like it in round 2