Getting to 2700 at least

[QuantumCage]

Oh hostels, where you have to keep pushing a button to get freezing or boiling water in the showers. I have to admit though cold water is pretty refreshing. In the fifth round, due to my previous draw, I decided to destroy my opponent with 1.h3. He soon got confused. His main opening against d4 is the grunfeld. But as he had already played d5 himself, and I had not played Nc3, he could not play his normal stuff.
I do not understand commas. Where to put them??

Spoiler:

Comp likes to play aggressively. 1.d5 gives white's knight the d4 and e5 squares. 1...Na5 (Nb4 2.Nd4 Bc8 3.Qb3 Nfxd5 4.Nxd5 Nxd5 5.Bxd5 Bxd4 6.Bh6 Bg7 7.Bxg7 Kxg7 8.Qc3 Kg8 9.Rad1 with great comp) 2.Bf1 Rc8 3.g4 Bd7 4.Ne5 aggro aggro

Found this nice position in analysis. Black to play to a get a small pull. This must be a gm level problem.

Spoiler:

1...Nb2 2.Qd2 Rxc3 3.Qc3 Nxd5 4.Qd2 Nd3!! 5.Qxd3 (5.Bxd3 Bc3!) Nxf4

8/R4pk1/R5pp/8/4b3/P2qB2P/5PP1/6K1 b - - 0 28



Simple for some.

Spoiler:

1.axb4! Rxb4 2.Ne5 normal, 1.Ne5?! Rxe5! 2.dxe5 bxc3 3.b3? Rc6 4.exf6 Bxf6 white just has huge trouble dealing with the passed pawn. If white does not want to give up the exchange, he has to play something like Kh2, Rg1 but that of course leaves his rook very passive. 3.Rxc3! Rxc3 4.bxc3 Nd5 5.Bd4 Bd3 6.e6 Bxd4 7.exf7 Kf8 8.cxd4 I saw all this but could not evaluate it well enough. It takes work for black to even get to two pawns deficit. Like 8...Ne7 9.g4 Kf7 and 10.d5 is annoying. My choice 3.exf6 was ok but not the best.

Black to draw.

Spoiler:

1...Qb1 2.Kh2 Qb8 3.g3 (3.f4?? Qb2 -+, 3.Kg1=) Qb1 4.Bd4 Kf8 (4...Kh7 is a draw too) 5.Rxa8 Bxa8 6.Rxa8 =

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=69136

[QuantumCage]

Ok I just lost my last game. I see I have not improved one bit in the last two months. My tactics, positional judgment, and time management sucked. This time my openings were ok even though I know very little. So basically the old 2400 level. Not really a huge surprise though. I have only trained 1-3 hours a day. I should train at least 8 hours every day. I do not have anything better to do anyway. I already received an extra punishment: a flu. I still have a blitz tournament to attend to. Analysis to follow at some point.

[YouKnowWho]

I looked at your game after you played Rd1 (at the point where you were up a pawn but he was taking d3), I thought you were still fine there, looked drawish). However, with the way I played in this tourney, my evaluation really does not mean a whole lot lol Interested to see what happened later on.

[QuantumCage]

Jou I have been both lazy and busy. Today will already be the 6th round of some Barcelona tournament http://www.chess-results.com/tnr7877...et=YES&flag=30 After two draws I think I finally managed to get better at time management. I did some research and found out about 85% of the games end in the first 60 moves. So with the tournament's time control of 150 minutes (added up), I can actually after 10 moves of theory think for as long as 3 minutes on every move. My plan is to almost never move in under 1 minute. So far it is working great. Very small analysis from my 6th round game as black against Lokander Martin in Riga.




I avoided this possible variation as black because I saw he would be up an exchange.
Comp just evaluates this as 0.00. First of all black to move gives an extra 0.2 points.
Knight will be very strong on c4. Pawns will go to a5 and b5. Black will also win a tempo in developing his g8 knight. It is just very hard to break black's formation.



There are two good moves here. Both are pretty hard to find.

Spoiler:

1...Qe7!
( even 1...h5 wins. White just has no good moves against the coming qe7) followed by Rxg2 or Knight somewhere (mostly Ng3) The move I chose fails to 1...Ng3 2.R1f2 Qe7 3.Rf8 Bg8 4.Qe8 Qxh4 5.R2f7 Bxf7 6.Rh8 Kg7 7.Qf8 Kf6 8.Qd8 Kg7 9.Qf8=

[ohsnapzbrah]

It's ok to be lazy, just umm...rest up for the olympiad, then UNLEASH (I wish I could find a Skip Bayless .gif for that, but I'm lazy) for the olympiad. That's the only thing that matters anyways.

[NajdorfDefense]

Interesting position, thanks.

[QuantumCage]

Wow my technique (blogging too) was super bad in Spain. Take a look at my 9th round game. Just gg. I still like the way I used my time in the rest of the tournament. No more big blunders in the first 50-60 moves. With a win there I would have finally become an IM. But I might actually still get it here. My federation is requesting the IM title. Because in one of my tournaments I made an 8 game norm. Unfortunately one my opponents did not arrive so I got a forfeit win. But even if I had lost one more game it would have been a good 9 game norm.
I am not sure I can unleash something without training. Prob have to wait for a tournament brake before I can learn something. Anyway I will try to at least blog the olympiads daily. I am accomodating in a 5 star WOW hotel I think. But I do not find it anything special. It just looks a bit nicer. But internet is very slow. Today a banana team from somewhere. So our first board player is resting.

[TexAg06]

Awesome, I'm really looking forward to your games and blogging. Thanks for doing that for us. Good luck in the games man.

[QuantumCage]

So I had white against Taleb Mohamed Ahmed 1965. Pretty easy win. The only unsual thing I noticed was that the first round got delayed by 10-15 minutes. Arbiter still had the balls to tell us to obey the zero tolerance rule. Some new rules were invented for this olympiad: bringing a cellphone or forgetting a green player card is punished by a fine, offering a draw before move 30 loses, captains can not stand in front of the players. Anyway the playing hall seemed pretty nice, and the food is good.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=69650

[img]http://www.chessvideos.tv/bimg/sc3z4****sh.png[/img]

White to survive the tactics.

Spoiler:

1.Nc7 Kd7 2.Nxb5 Ba6 3.Nf3!! There is just nothing for black after this move

[1.Qxd4! I think white just wants to make it diffitult for black to castle. Na1 is such a bad piece that it is very difficult for him to get out.
One variation goes 1...Rc8? 2.Qa4! Qd7 (2...Ke7 3.Qe4 black king is too open; 2...b5 3.Qxb5 Ke7 4.Bf4 king is again just too open) 3.Qxd7 Kxd7 4.Bh3; 1...Be7 2.Qxg7 Bf6 3.Qg4 white is taking important pawns away. To be honest it is really not easy to play Qxd4. One has to calculate a lot of different variations and understand chess deeply. [/spoil]

[QuantumCage]

Hello once again. I haven't only "forgotten" to blog but to also analyse my games. I have again added so many games to my list which I will never analyse. But hopefully that will change. Tomorrow starts the European championship. I'm ready to play and lose some elo points!

My journey started with a boat trip to Stockholm and a 100km train ride to the airport. 10 hours of waiting and it was fly time. After spending one night in Poznan it was time to again take the train tshu tshu tshu to finally Legnica. Just one thing lingers in my mind. When I arrived in Poznan I met this middle-aged sleazy looking man with a maybe underage girl. Though she spoke very good english and seemed mature. When I asked him the purpose of his visit here the girl instead answered "he was his guest". My insticts tell me she is just a prostitute. But when did they learn english and started to wait for their customers in airports?

I wanna try a new system here. And that is to draw my openings. I have already written some stuff down and e.g. now the chances of me playing 1.f3 are about 1/200. So it's not going to be completely random. I might also dish out f3 and stuff in really important games. Still I'm excited about this. I can't wait to draw my openings to my first game.

[NajdorfDefense]

Good luck and can't wait! First Europe then Carlsen then the World

[TexAg06]

Thanks for the post QuantamCage, very excited to follow your results. Pleaseeeee actually play 1.f3 in a game

[TexAg06]

For those that are curious, here is the Chess Results link for the European Championship that QuantumCage is playing in.

http://chess-results.com/tnr95789.aspx?lan=1

[QuantumCage]

Hey can anybody make chessflash work here? http://chessflash.com/

Here is the pgn anyway for my first round game. You can just paste the game to a gui.

[Event "European championship"]
[Site "Legnica"]
[Date "2013.05.05"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Zhigalko Sergei"]
[Black "quantumcage"]
[Result "1-0"]
[BlackElo "2445"]
[ECO "C08"]
[Opening "French"]
[Time "08:53:04"]
[Variation "Tarrasch, Open, Main Line, 4.exd5 exd5 5.Ngf3 Nf6"]
[WhiteElo "2660"]
[TimeControl "300"]
[Termination "normal"]
[PlyCount "113"]
[WhiteType "human"]
[BlackType "human"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. c3 d5 4. exd5 {The main move but not the one I was
expecting. He always played e5 before.} exd5 5. d4 Nf6?! {This might be a
slight mistake. What is more embarrissing is that I have actually analysed
this position for a few minutes. And in the game I at least remembered the
move Nc6. I guess I just thought I could play it anytime I liked. It seems
Nc6,Bd6,Nge7 is a tiny bit better plan. My move allows the exchange of
bishops which is not what I want with an isolated pawn.} (5. .. Nc6 6. Bb5
Bd6 7. O-O Ne7 (7. .. Nf6 8. Bg5 O-O (8. .. Be6 9. c4 O-O 10. cxd5 Bxd5 11.
dxc5 Bxc5 12. Bxf6) 9. dxc5 Bxc5 10. Bxf6 Qxf6 11. Qxd5) 8. dxc5 Bxc5 9.
Nbd2 O-O 10. Nb3 Bd6) 6. Bb5+ Bd7 (6. .. Nc6 {This move allows some Ne5
annoyances.} 7. O-O (7. Ne5?! {White still would need to be exact though.
Castling first wins a tempo.} Bd7 8. Nxd7 Qxd7 9. O-O cxd4 10. cxd4 Be7) 7.
.. Be7 (7. .. cxd4 8. Re1+ Be7 9. Nxd4 Bd7 10. Qe2) 8. Ne5 Bd7 9. Nxd7 Qxd7
10. dxc5 Bxc5 11. Re1+) 7. Bxd7+ Nbxd7 {I didn't want to allow Ne5 to come
with tempo.} 8. O-O Be7 9. Qb3 {Annoying and surprising move. Qb3 was still
part of my old analysis though. Unfortunately I couln't remember ****.}
Rb8?! {I just couldn't find anything else.} (9. .. b6! 10. Ne5 (10. Bf4)
10. .. Qc7 (10. .. Qc8 {This might be the best one. Bf4 would hit air.})
11. Re1 (11. Bf4 Qb7) 11. .. O-O {For some reason I missed this simple
move. Ng6 is nothing to be afraid of.}) (9. .. Qc7?! 10. Re1 {No castling
for you.}) (9. .. Qb6?! 10. Re1) (9. .. Nb6?! 10. dxc5 Bxc5 11. Qb5+ Nfd7
12. Re1+) 10. Bf4 c4 11. Qa4 Ra8 12. Re1 O-O 13. Nbd2 Nh5 {Bishop seemed to
be out of squares.} (13. .. a6 {This was another normal plan I thought of
during the game.} 14. Nf1 b5 15. Qc2 b4 16. Ne3 Re8 {Comp really likes
white quite a bit here. But to me black's position seems so aggressive and
nice.}) 14. Bc7?! {Computer's first choice but exchanges way too many
pieces.} (14. Be3 a6 {Reinforces c4 with b5 after a possible b3 move from
white.} (14. .. Bd6?! 15. b3) (14. .. f5?! {The move I was wondering about
during the game. Unfortunately it seems to just be weakening black's
position.} 15. Ne5 Ndf6 (15. .. Nb6 16. Qd1) 16. f3) 15. Qc2 Bd6 16. b3 b5)
14. .. Qxc7 15. Rxe7 Nc5 16. Rxc7 Nxa4 17. Rxb7 Rfb8 18. Rxb8+ Rxb8 19. b3
Nxc3?! {I was really surprised to find this move to be a mistake. It is all
about tactics so it's hard to explain it. I guess cb3 just keeps the d2
knight away from action.} (19. .. cxb3 20. axb3 Nxc3 21. Rxa7 Nf4 22. g3
(22. Rc7 Ne4) 22. .. Ne6 {d4 pawn is just too weak.}) 20. bxc4 dxc4 21.
Nxc4 Rb4 {My awesome plan.} 22. Nce5?! {Tricky move.} (22. Nd6 {Now moves
like Ng5 couln't be met by f6. Also the e-file would be open for the rook
to roam.} Ne2+ (22. .. Nf4 23. Re1 h6) 23. Kf1 Nxd4 24. Rc1 g6 (24. .. h6
25. a3 Ra4 26. Rc8+ Kh7 27. Nxd4 Rxd4 28. Nxf7) 25. Ng5) 22. .. Ra4 {Even
though I can't immediately take back the pawn, it's very very hard for
white make progress. As long as I don't allow d5, black should be fine.}
(22. .. Ne2+? 23. Kf1 Nxd4? 24. Rc1 {This was the hardest move to see. Rd1
is just more normal.} g6 25. Nd3 Ra4 26. Nc5 Rb4 27. a3) (22. .. Nf4 {Maybe
slightly more accurate.} 23. g3 Nfe2+ 24. Kg2 Nxd4 25. Rc1 Ndb5) 23. Nc6
(23. g3 {Computer's choice. Should be ok for black anyway.} Nf6 (23. ..
Rxa2 24. Rxa2 Nxa2 25. d5 Kf8 26. d6 Nf6 27. Nd4) (23. .. Nxa2 24. d5) 24.
Ng5 Rxd4 25. Ngxf7 Rd2) 23. .. Nf4 24. g3 Nfd5 25. Re1 (25. Kf1) 25. .. Kf8
(25. .. f6 {Another good move. I was afraid of ghosts.} 26. Re8+ Kf7 27.
Ra8 (27. Rd8 27. .. Ke6 28. Rg8 Kd7) (27. Rb8 Rxa2 28. Rb7+ Ke6 29. Rxg7
a5) 27. .. Rxa2 28. Rxa7+ Rxa7 29. Nxa7 Ke6 {Comp eval is 0.06 for black! I
guess the king is just way too strong.}) 26. Nfe5 Nb6?! {This little knight
move didn't stop him coming in anyway. But as always it's all about
tactics.} (26. .. g6 27. Nd8 f6 (27. .. Rxa2) 28. Nd7+ Kg7 29. Re8 Rxa2 30.
Kf1 (30. Nc5 Ne2+) 30. .. a5 31. Nc5 {Looks kinda scary right?} g5) (26. ..
f6 27. Nd7+ Kf7 (27. .. Kg8) 28. Nd8+ Kg6 29. Nf8+ Kh5 {This seems to be
fine also. Too scary for me though.}) 27. Nd8 (27. Re3 {Comp move. Figure
it out yourself.}) 27. .. f6 28. Nec6 Nbd5 29. Re6 (29. Ne6+ Kg8 30. Ra1
{Compness} (30. Nc5 Rxa2 31. Re8+ Kf7 32. Rd8 a5 33. Rd7+ Kg6 {Black is
better!})) 29. .. Rxa2 30. Rd6 Ne7? {Too greedy. I had a feeling this was
going to be a bad move but I made it anyway. The idea was just to exchange
pieces which is of course fairy tail.} (30. .. Nb6 {My first idea.} 31.
Nxa7 {Embarrassingly I didn't even see this. It all works out though.} Rxa7
32. Ne6+ (32. Rxb6 Ne2+ 33. Kg2 Nxd4) 32. .. Ke7 33. Rxb6 Nd5 34. Rc6 Kd7
35. Ra6 Rxa6 36. Nc5+ Kd6 37. Nxa6 Nc3 {And the pawn falls.}) (30. .. a5
31. Rd7 a4 {Comp does not care about little mating threats. Perpetual is
forced. It's very scary to allow this in time trouble though.} 32. Ne6+ Ke8
33. Ra7 a3 34. Nxg7+ Kf8 35. Ne6+ Ke8 36. Ng7+) 31. Ne6+ Kf7 32. Ncd8+ Kg8
33. Rd7 Ncd5 34. Nc7 {Outch it's looking very scary now.} Ra5 (34. .. Nxc7?
35. Rxe7) 35. Kg2 h5?? {So the game was decided by a stupid blunder in
mutual time trouble. I just forgot about Nb7. Back to chesstempo I guess.}
(35. .. Nxc7 36. Rxe7 Rd5 37. Nc6 Nb5 38. Rb7 Rd6 39. Rxb5 Rxc6 40. Rb8+
Kf7 41. Rb7+ Kg6 42. Rxa7 {Still a fight ahead.}) 36. Nb7 Nxc7 37. Nxa5
Ned5 38. Nc6 Kf8 39. Rd8+ Kf7 40. Nxa7 Nb6 41. Rd6 Nbd5 42. Rd7+ Kf8 43.
Kf3 g6 44. Nb5 Nxb5 45. Rxd5 Nc7 46. Rd7 Ne6 47. d5 Ng5+ 48. Ke3 Nh3 49. f4
g5 50. d6 h4 51. Re7 g4 52. Re4 Ng1 53. d7 Nf3 54. d8=Q+ Kf7 55. Re7+ Kg6
56. Qg8+ Kf5 57. Qh7# 1-0

[wlrs]

I (disclaimer: not very forum savvy) think embedding flash is not allowed due to security risks. Thanks a lot for the game still, it can be copy-pasted into that chessflash site for instance and viewed there. Also gj with round 2