We have an annual event tonight at my university, called Chess Educator of the Year. Basically every year my university honors one person who has achieved something in the field of chess education. Last year it was GM Rowson, some other notable names before him, while this year it will be Elizabeth Shaughnessy. I saw that she is Irish so I thought I'll ask

Black To Move..

Whaddya do?

Solution:

I got that one.

chess music

http://jonathanwstokes.com/2011/02/14/chess-music/

The article I was reading on it argued that it was adequate positionally even if they don't fall for the trap, and it had the bonus of getting a lot of mediocre Ruy Lopez players out of book.

But I tried it in a game last night and it just felt awkward and weird. I'll save it for funsies once in awhile, but I don't think it's worth learning for realz just yet.

Houdini says to stick to real openings. It's not quite totally busted and lost by force, but after 5. ... h5, Houdini (at depth 20) grades this position at 0.78 for white (as long as they don't fall for the trap and snap off the knight). And it's not like white has to find some specific line, even white's 14th best move still grades at 0.50. Basically, white can do whatever he wants (other than take the knight) and have a nice comfortable game. Which seems to fit well with your observations from your test game.

Getting mediocre Ruy players out of book will be a lot more valuable in a line where they might actually face some danger if they stumble, rather than this line where basically everything is good.

Agreed. I spent a day on the dark side yesterday learning some gimmicky traps and gambits and playing some blitz, but I think that's all out of my system. I got punished for it by having my slow games that night be awful.

This one was a lot better. I was in an interesting spot at the end when my opponent disconnected, but it was still very much in doubt and had some interesting possibilities I thought.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=41445

I was about to play Qb3 check, and I was imagining the line going something like ... Kf1 33. b6 and at that point I think we're basically dead even, but Crafty is acting all weird about it. It keeps assuming the line will go 33. b6 Bd4 34. Kf1, which looks suicidal to me. I would just play 34. b7 but Crafty just refuses to show an evaluation after that move. That usually means there's a mate-in-one on the board somewhere, but I don't see it.

Okay, I see it now. I hope I would have seen it if we'd gotten that far.

Unless there is a particular reason to do it, strengthening the Black centre with Nxc6 in positions like that one is wrong.

I had a reason, I just don't think it was a good one in retrospect. Something about thinking the b-file would be less useful to him than the c-file and the isolated rook pawn would be vulnerable. Neither of which came true in the game.

I need help with an opening line:

im black.

e4 c5
Bc4 Nc6
Nf3 d6
d4 cxd4
Nxd4 Nxd4
Qxd4 .....

I never know what to do here because if I do Nf6 white does e5 . Should I just play e6?

why are you playing Nxd4? Just play Nf6 instead and then no problems.

1.e4 c5
2.Bc4 Nc6
3.Nf3 d6
4.d4 cxd4
5.Nxd4 Nf6
6.Nc3 e6

and you're just starting a main line in the Classical

Pretty sure 2.Bc4 is already an inaccuracy from him

1.e4 c5
2.Bc4 e6
3.Nc3 a6
4.a4 Nf6
5.e5 d5

or something similar and you're already equalizing.

I found a very nice move yesterday in my club championship game:



Here i played Ng8! which, as i just found out, is also houdini's preference, with a healthy -0.9 evaluation. Looks like my candidate move finding is improving

Board battle! Got Cadaz in the 45 45 pool. Both sides missed some wins, but I made the last big mistake in botching a drawn endgame by getting greedy.


http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=41496

Brag: I'm finished with The Amateur's Mind! I sat down with a board and played through every single example and sideline. Not including the glossary, that's 425 pages and it probably took me a good 30-40 hours.

February is basically over, time for my end-of-the-month 2011 goals update:

1) 53/300 days with at least 15 minutes tactics training. This was has been pretty easy, pretty much any downtime I have at work (I have a ton), I fire up chess.emrald.net and rip them out. Also, the waits in the 45/45 pool at ICC late at night are a good chance to do that.

2) 16/50 standard games where I use at least 45 minutes of clock, annotated in my chess journal and posted online for comments.

3) 22/50 standard-game moves in which I use at least five minutes of clock, thinking the entire time and play a good move.

4) Feel comfortable playing every endgame correctly in Class C and Class B chapters in Silman's Complete Endgame Course. I spend more time studying endgames than anything besides tactics, and I think I'll definitely declare myself happy with this goal by the end of the year. Still a long way to go though.

5) Play through every example in The Amateur's Mind and Modern Chess Strategy. I'm done with AM and I'm thinking about ditching MCS for Silman's Reassess Your Chess. For one thing, I loved what I got out of my other Silman books, and for another, MCS might still be just a smidge ahead of my level. We'll see.

6) Compete in 10 OTB tournament games. 3 down, 7 to go.

I had one about learning some openings, but I have to admit that I'm picking up openings so fast just through normal play and checking my games that it seems a little silly to plan to learn any. Especially now that I'm playing e4 more. So that's dropped.

I played a lot of chess my first two years of high school before drifting away from the game. Fast forward 15 years or so, and this forum has helped me catch the bug again. I started going through the old books I collected in high school, and I really have to laugh at some of my choices. Some of the stuff I read was way over my head, considering my rating was around 1100.

Winning Chess Tactics - Seirawan
Winning Chess Strategies - Seirawan
Chess Fundamentals - Capablanca
Pawn Structure Chess - Soltis
Essential Chess Endings (Vol One) - Silman
The Art of Attack in Chess - Vukovic
The Art of the Middle Game - Keres & Kotov
The Art of Ches Combination - Znosko-Borovsky
Think Like a Grandmaster - Kotov

I remember my favorite book was something by Silman, which I can't find now. I'm guessing it was How to Reassess Your Chess. I also found a log book from my tournament games back then, and it was a lot of fun going through them. It also quickly became apparent how much I sucked at keeping accurate notation.

It's amusing to see an ad for "The Official Guide to the Prodigy Service" in the back of Winning Chess Tactics. Also, one hell of a typo at the start of Winning Chess Strategies states the point value of a knight is 2. How do they miss that one during editing?

I dug out my old chess board while reading through Winning Chess Tactics. This may sound dumb, but just hearing the clink of one piece take another on a live board has to be like crack to a chess player. You don't get the same feeling while playing online. It's a shame there aren't many tournaments in my area (and naturally I already had plans during one coming up a few Saturdays from now).

How good is Sam Sevian? Just turned 10 and aparently getting better every day. He will likely be shipping IM norms before the end of summer. Discuss...

Did Rowson visit your campus? That'd be awesome. Rowson is a very interesting person.

Good job man!

Winning chess tactics propelled my game from 1200 to 1500 when I was in high school. I've heard great things about The Art of Attack. I even have it and have read a few chapters. It's great, but sadly, I gotten through much of it.

simple icc blitz tactic, Black to move:

Multiple wins obv but this one is the most clear-cut by far