yeah and her move is nowhere near a check and why would he push directly allin when he should have a decent amount of play left with his 17-piece-stack

Triple draw is awesome though, i became an instant winner at this game in the 8-game rotation when i finally figured out that it's usually not worth drawing vs a pat hand on the third draw.

Beat: So I've spent a month floating along, doing a little bit every day to keep myself from completely falling off, but not nearly as much as I used to. The big problem is that I'm not going to be able to make any tournaments for at least the next three or four months, and tournaments are always what I work toward.

Brag: Was in the mood for a little more today, got some serious training work in.

Super brag/beat: Played this stylish win in 30 10 on FICS:

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=53665

First, white to play and win after 33. ... Rd2





Then, if



But of course

It was funny so I posted it.

Not all humor can be perfect with it's comics design and accuracy.

i know, but i'm a german chess nerd so how can you blame me for nit-picking.

Brag: In a perpetual state of setting new rating highs on FICS

Beat: It's very slow going, the formula gives you like 6 points at a time for beating similarly-rated players. Also, these players are terrible and I'm doing nothing but developing terrible habits looking for ways to crush them quickly.

Variance: Ever since that sad loss to YNW, I've been ridiculously conscious of how developing my bishops weakens the b and g pawns. It's like someone telling you that you are now aware of your tongue.

Double brag: beat an IM with R+B vs R

beat: could have won a lot more quickly if i had realised that with an attack, you don't have to mate immediately or exchange everything into a better ending. 31. Kf2 wins pretty much by force. We were playing 2h/40moves +30 min and i didn't have much time left.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=53802

I'm not an IM, but i don't like his opening at all. Why go 7. ...d5? And i've been taught to believe that moves like c4 are bad if there's no concrete follow-up. His draw offer at move 12 confirmed that something must have gone wrong.

21. ...Re7 is a blunder because he can't oppose on the h-file after that and furthermore it runs right into Nf5 ideas.

Beat my first 2500 elo guy. Finally broke the magic barrier. He blundered a queen for a rook though lolololol. I have been close to doing this before quite a few times. One time I was up a queen for a bishop and I lost. That position was also winning for me and I had lots of time left.

Nice job! Always a good sign to see the "vaguely threatening move + draw offer" combination when playing someone stronger.

For me, it was interesting to play through the R+B v R with a tablebase to see where he went wrong:



And a good reminder that I still need to practice defending that endgame...

Pretty solid result: congrats.

He forgot to mention it was bullet

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=53869


Couldn't resist a speculative (to call it generously) piece sac, and it led to an nifty perpetual.

solid brags guys.
beat: lost a drawn r+2p vs r+p ending vs an IM on Sunday. Defended it well enough on 30 second increment almost all the way, then ****ed up one of those "one tempo missing from getting the philidor position, crap how were you supposed to defend this" situations and instalost team won though

Played a g30 swiss tonight. I didn't write down any of the moves, but I was able to memorize this game vs 1650 and it was a lot of fun.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=53972



And a pretty easy puzzle.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=54145

Sometimes it's a good reminder of how far I've come to just shrug someone off like they don't matter. Two years ago, he would have outrated me by 100 points.

It's a nice finish, although he kind of walked into that pretty hard (8.e4, 10.Bd2, and 12.Nxd2 all look like very big mistakes).

Kyle laying down the law What's better than 10.Bd2? There is a mate on d1 you know.

I like how he tried for the shepherd's mate and got mated himself on f2.

Yeah, I saw the mate on d1 (that's why I thought the Bb4+ was so nice-looking, in fact). I think I got carried away just querying all of the even-numbered moves. (Although Qxg4 is bad too, now that I'm looking back.)

Anyway, I'm missing the point. White's bad moves allowed for a good-looking finish.

What makes games like that fun for me is not really having to think about it. I always hated playing someone good who would do that to me. I'd be terrified and try to make what I hoped were reasonable moves, only to get mated in 13 in a blurry flur of nearly instant moves.

Yeah, completely agree with that sentiment. The feeling of winning a game effortlessly and tactically is great.

Thanks guys. I can't go too in depth about strategy because i suck. hopefully i well get good at chess so I can talk about it on here

That's okay either way spaceman Bryce,

just be as awesome as you historically are, and you are very welcome here!

It's great but sometimes it's a bad thing if it's all you're subjected to like I was for years.



When I joined my secondary school at 11 I was good enough for the first team with all the 18 year olds. By the next year, I was board 2 and the only game I played against the board 1 I beat him (he only played matches he didn't play "socially"). Next season I was board 1 and that continued until I left the school and I could beat people without thinking much at all.

It's not like I was an awesome player or prospect or anything - I was pretty bad. I just enjoyed the game and picked up the patterns quicker than most people. I had no positional sense/opening knowledge whatsoever I was just better tactically and it was enough. The standard was bad and only "geeks" played chess making it really antisocial to play, and putting many people off.

As a result I didn't have as much of an incentive to get better.

Barring the odd game where somebody returned the favour by beating me in their sleep (yes I'm looking at you Ameet Ghasi), I could win over half my team matches on board 1 anyway. Many of the other schools also sucked.

I never studied chess or was even aware of just how big a difference it could make (I knew that opening theory existed for example and I even played the dragon after seeing it played against me for example but I never knew that it was the dragon until somebody started talking about how he "hates the dragon" after a match..)

I assumed that I'd just reach a "natural plateau" from trial and error and that'd be that (lets not get into that debate).


After I left school I stopped playing for X years until I found the forums here and realised that I completely sucked but probably could have been much better.



Anyway, I kind of derailed the original point..

I played the following game the other day which I think shows how far I've come. It's not the best game I've played but what I like about it is that by move 12 my position was far from good.

My bishops weren't doing an awful lot at all, my knight was pinned my queen which hadn't moved yet. But I thought up a plan which involved first breaking the pin on my knight. I'd have been too afraid to play a move like that in the past because it would leave my king exposed, but I figured that without whites light squared bishop my king would be relatively safe on h8.

I then sacced one of my doubled pawns so I could open up a line along the diagonal for my dark squared bishop and by move 17 I was already threatening a mate. I found a nice tactic with Bf4 and he didn't play the correct move which I think was just moving his queen back to d1.

http://www.chess.com/livechess/game.html?id=211211113

Brag: My blitz rating is almost at 1400 which would be a all time high for me!

f7-f6 is a very thematic and good idea, good work. c6-c5 I'm not so sure about, what were you planning if he took back with the b-pawn

Yep not too bad, like how you realized after move 10 that things were not going well and found a good course to try and repair the position (but like RT said, bxc5 for him would have made things harder)