Me when I win: Players at my level are so bad at endgames

Me when I draw a game I should have won: I am so bad at endgames

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=97440

I'm white. 30/30 game on ICC, both sides went under 5 minutes by the end, so not playing too fast.

Moves 1-20: "Man, this is fun. We are a couple of solid doods playing solid chess, no blunders here."

Moves 20 - end: Repeated facepalms, wondering if we should mutually resign and apologize to the game itself.

i disagree. the first 20 moves were very lackluster, but the rest was genius

Played in that ICC USCF-rated blitz tournament last night for the first time. Only went 2/7 as I am a *terrible* blitz player.

In one of the games, I was up considerable material and trying to capture a pawn with my queen, but my son bumped my arm right as I was letting go of the piece and instead I fell one square short and left my queen en prise. It swung the evaluation from +10 to -5, but I still won by checkmate 15 moves later.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=97535

(Quoted from here.) So how is the 'new rating' more useful than other ICC ratings, given that it's currently applicable only to these ICC tourneys? Is USCF going to partner with other chess servers and sustain a united rating system for them all? If not, USCF online ratings will be as useless as FIDE online ones.

It's completely useless other than the idea is kind of fun, and I like fun.

DRAW DECLINED: Jomitch5 has declined a draw
GAME OVER - dcmayo vs. Jomitch5 - dcmayo won on time (+8).



This is just the greatest feeling in the world.

+1!

http://www.chess.com/article/view/th...-for-stalemate

I fear I've finally reached a level where people don't just shoot themselves in the face when they try to play the Sicilian, and now I'm sick of trying to get an advantage against the million different varieties of it. It may be time to consider the unthinkable.

The grass on the other side of the fence is the same shade of green.

congrats on reaching 2750, Kyle!

Well, I mean, people still shoot themselves in like the foot or gut, but I do the same and it's a race to see who can kill themselves first.

Beat: my only remaining corr chess opponent was about 2000 before my last moves but then started timing out in all his games and, by the time he timed out in mine as well, his rating was already 1234 and I got only +2 to mine instead of +30 that would be if we continued as I was comfortably winning in both (not crushing, but one-two clear pawns up and with a space advantage in complex endgames). So I ended up 1916.

Brag: put on tilt by it, I played a mammoth session of 5-minute with Computer 2-medium also on chess.com (with result of about 42:28, I don't remember precisely) and finally managed to cross 1300 blitz rating despite terrible time management and hanging pieces left and right. I could have arrived there much earlier had I realised from the start that, unlike most human opponents, the comp gladly accepts a draw when its position is busted but I have only a few seconds left and can't mate it so fast.

Variance: due to this comp's manner of play (making exploitable premoves, thinking too fast), games with it are all-or-nothing - I either convert one or more extra pieces (the comp likes to sac a piece for two pawns for some reason, and I gladly offer such opportunities with a7-a6 and b6-b5 or a3 and b4) into a mate rampage, or I lose on time or blunder everything. Hence the games are usually rich in tactics from both sides

I'm yet to review all the games (I must have made a rook or queen sac somewhere); for now, I'm looking at what happened in the last game.

The comp (Black) had just chosen a wrong bishop retreat, Bc5-b4? instead of Bc5-b6. Now it was my (White's move) and I should have seen how to pwn the comp, it's quite doable , though there's a subtle defensive resource for Black (that may be overlooked in blitz) and only one way to make it unavailable.



Instead, I played 1. d5?, and the comp correctly replied 1... Na5!, but after my 2. Qe3,



it didn't see that

Instead, it played 2... Nxd5? How does White win now?

Meh, an uberstandard pattern that arose when I was already both knights up doesn't really count.



No comment... (Besides, the engine says that, instead of my Nf6-g4 setting it up, to which the comp replied Bc7-f4, Nf2xe4(+)-d2 - a fork threatening also Qxh4+ - was even better; as played, White could have just traded the g4 knight off.) That's already been the second time I've (semi-)smothered the comp. I thought there was smth else in the session, but can't recall anything juicy.

Woot. 4/7 in tonight's USCF online blitz (3-minutes with a 2-second increment). I have almost no blitz experience, so I spent a day playing 3-minute and that helped a lot. Opponent's average ICC blitz rating was 1829 against my 1367.

Lost in the last round to break a five-game unbeaten streak when I missed the key drawing idea. Move 97 was my last chance to implement it.



Black to move and draw.

correct

shame on you

I had like 10 seconds left and I'm *terrible* at blitz and also terrible at endgames. But mostly the blitz part.

My USCF online blitz is now a little higher than my standard and so now that's what I'm going to claim when referencing my "USCF rating" from now on.

So I started playing again a couple of years ago after a break of around 18yrs, my highest ever rating was around 1850 if memory serves, anyways to start this season I managed to get my first FIDE rating (2037) and I've had my 3 best results ever in the span of the last couple of weeks. Beat a FIDE 2257, drew with a 2150 FM and beat a FIDE 2225 tonight with black:

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=97845

I'm not even sure how this is happening but I've either developed or tuned into some deeper understanding of the game, I feel I'm able to trust my intuition a lot more and I'm not talking myself out of closing the door on these higher rated players. 3 of my aims for the season were to get a FIDE rating, beat a player rated >200 ECF and get a result against a titled player, I'm only 15 games into the season and I've already hit all those goals.

Anyways this wasn't meant to only be a brag post, my current renaissance in chess reminded me of something I'd read in a book about Professor Andrew Wiles who was the man who famously solved the most famous puzzle in the world, Fermat's Last Theorem, he said:

“Perhaps I can best describe my experience of doing mathematics in terms of a journey through a dark unexplored mansion. You enter the first room of the mansion and it’s completely dark. You stumble around bumping into the furniture, but gradually you learn where each piece of furniture is. Finally, after six months or so, you find the light switch, you turn it on, and suddenly it’s all illuminated. You can see exactly where you were. Then you move into the next room and spend another six months in the dark. So each of these breakthroughs, while sometimes they’re momentary, sometimes over a period of a day or two, they are the culmination of — and couldn’t exist without — the many months of stumbling around in the dark that precede them.”

Of course I'm not claiming to be Andrew Wiles nor that my own breakthrough has been as noteworthy but I thought those words may be of some solace to people who feel as though they've hit a brick wall in terms of their chess development.

^ awesome game.

I always go on a huge run of wins right after I come back from a long break. Something about a clear mind and time to process or something.


I need to change my avatar. I'm in love with d4.

so glad I own players of similar ratings with my better understanding of endgames. Remember kids, it pays to study endgames.





A blitz game against a player ~200 points higher. It's blitz with not much time left so everything needs to be understood intuitively. black has already declined a draw despite the fact it's obviously a draw. I suppose he had a time edge so fair enough. Black just played ...Bd3 and white can just keep the bishop to draw, however I knew the pawn ending should be a draw. play continued


47. Kc3 Bd3 48. Bxd3 cxd3 49. Kxd3 Ke7 50. Ke3 Kf7 51. Kf4 Ke7 52. Ke5 Kf7 53. Kd5 Ke7 54. Ke5 Kf7 55. Kd6 Kf8 56. Ke6 Kg7 57. Ke7 Kg8 58. Kf6 Kf8 59. Kxg6 Kg8 60. Kh6 Kh8 61. g6 Kg8 62. g7 Kf7 63. Kh7 Ke6 64. g8=Q+ Ke5 65. Qg4 1-0

Beat: Misclicked and had to play the French.
Brag: I played the Winawer and won.
Variance: Bishops are better than knights: