I think that can be classed under the "beat" category.

Tactics is by far the weakest area of my game so I've been solving problems on chesstempo time to time since summer. Nice to see the progress .

Chess is a bit rusty, might miss obvious mate, but here it goes

Black has got 5... g5. But aside from that you line wins a ton of material.

I'm playing black. This guy offered a draw after his move, and I accepted immediately. The computer says he's lost some material tactically if I play f4, but I'd already decided I was leaning strongly toward Qxa2 because 25. Qg6 looked scary after f4, although I hadn't given up on finding a way to play it or a few other possible move.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=40859

Why is this draw awesome? Because it came against this guy:

http://www.chessclub.com/activities/...p?handle=danya
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Naroditsky

I'm sure he had some sort of reason he wasn't playing at his best, but still.

Whoa, drawing against Naroditsky is very impressive, congrats!

But taking a draw in that position is just.. well, not good but it's understandable because Naroditsky is such a strong player, and secure draw is an awesome result. However, I find one thing very puzzling - you said that after f4 Qg6 looked scary, but at the same time the main move you were considering was Qxa2, which grabs some random pawn in the corner of the board and doesn't do much towards your defense. So how come the same Qg6 move was not scary after Qxa2?

I am not saying Qxa2 is a bad move, but I find your thinking pattern in that spot to be a little bit weird/illogical

I had been thinking for maybe a minute or two, saw the draw offer and insta-accepted. There was just no way I was risking anything when I could bank a result against him. I figured he was either generous, bored with the game (I was taking my time and he had only done so on a couple of moves) or he'd goofed up.

My thought process was something like

"Does Rxd6 Qxd6 Qxh4 get me anywhere with a mating threat? Doesn't look like it. Okay, I need to get that pawn back. Qxa2 does that and threatens to gobble the b-pawn as well. The bishop is loose, if I can deflect the queen somewhere else I can take it. Qg4 exchanges but then the bishop gets away. f4 deflects it, where's he gonna go after that? He's not gonna take the bishop loss, he's gonna threaten something. Qg6 threatens the rook. That looks awful, attacking the rook and putting the queen in an even more attacking position. Qxa2 protects that rook. Is that a draw offer? Fist-pump accept!"

But Qg6 does not attack the rook anyways, a little tip to you - if much much stronger opponent HIMSELF offers you a draw in a position that isn't totally dead drawn, 99% of the time your position is at least very much better, if not winning by force already. If there is a time to fully concentrate and look for a move (like we talked in another thread), that is definitely the time If you try and cannot find it, okay, take a draw. But to just snap take without even trying to find a win is bad, I mean it's not like his offer will dissappear if you won't snap accept it, so you have absolutely nothing to lose

Higher rated player (especially that much higher) will never offer you a draw if he thinks his position is slightly worse, because chances of outplaying are just so high. So draw offer normally means that something is reaaaal bad for him, and he hopes that instead of looking for it and finding it you will snap take a draw.

I've done what Daniel did myself numerous times, and vast majority of the time got away with a draw I even remember that when I got somewhat higher rated, around 2250 or so, I even had a couple of lectures by my coach specifically directed to this topic of how to save valuable points by using your higher rating as psychological pressure. Eh, smart guy my coach was/is

Oh man, you are right. Why *was* I scared of Qg6? It made sense at the time, I swear. Lesson learned. The next time I find myself offered a draw by an international master, I will examine very carefully before deciding if I want to play on.

haha nice

massive brag: my team just finished second in the national championships, which almost certainly means we qualify for the European Club Cup -- the strongest team tournament in the world.

extra brag: I won the last game to finish in the last round. We were paired against the second seeds who, like the first seeds, had drafted in a few hired guns who rarely play for them during the regular season and were expected to qualify easily.

variance: it was against a 2300 on the black side of a 2+2 speciality line, the Dire Sicilian with ...e6 ...Qb6.

Nice. Post the game itt imo. Dire sicilian is before my time

Congrats!

Saying your game was a 2+2 specialty line and not posting the game should be infraction worthy imo similar to making a thread about a hot chick without posting her pics

That is very cool. Congratulations!

nice job RT!

congrats RT

here's the game, no annotations

it's not particularly accurately played by either side! in particular, ...d5 is probably mistimed and throws away my advantage, he should play for f5. instead we both miss some tactical stuff and maybe I give him a chance to get back in the endgame, although by that point we were playing on the 15-second increment or close.

This thread delivers!

Thanks for posting the game.

Brag: Thanks to this board helping me with the important concepts in the Two Knights, I've learned a whole lot about Italian Game lines and really enjoy the games it produces.

Beat: I think I'm becoming a degen gambit player.

Variance: I have no idea if that's a good thing or bad thing in the long run.

I played an extremely fun game in our team championship today.

I have had a long-term relationship with my old love, the French defense, but I recently decided we shouldn't be exclusive anymore. As I was reasonably sure that my opponent today (1826 national rating which probably means about 1900 FIDE rating) would play the Exchange French for which I was not in the right mood, it was time for me to play 1..e5 for the first time in like 15 years (though I have studied it for some time now).

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. O-O Nf6 5. Re1 d6 6. h3 O-O 7. c3

Here I thought for about 25 minutes. I had so many ideas but I find it hard to pick the right plan in a new opening. Be6, Ne7, Na5, a6 and Nxe4 were moves I considered. In the end I decided that a6 is too slow when he hasn't played d3, and I did not like Nxe4 because of 8. d4 so I opted for 7.. Bb6 (8. d4 doesn't attack the bishop now).

7.. Bb6 8. b4 Nxe4

b4 did nothing for him. Now I started to like my position, and he continued to play second-rate moves.

9. Rxe4 d5 10. Bxd5 Qxd5 11. Re1 e4 12. Nh2 Ne5 13. Na3 Nd3



Why did I ever play the French when I can have this kind of position with Black after just 13 moves with 1..e5?

14. Rf1 Qg5 15. g4 Qh4 16. Qe2



Here I stopped and looked for the mate. It seems I could play 16.. f5 because White is totally tied up and basically can't move. However, I also saw that the forcing line with 16.. Qg3+ was easily won for me so I just played it.

16.. Qg3+ 17. Kh1 Nxf2+ 18. Rxf2 Qxf2 19. Qxf2 Bxf2

Now would have been a good time for him to resign, but he continued. The rest was fun, but not interesting any more.

20. Kg2 Bb6 21. Nc4 Be6 22. Nxb6 axb6 23. a3 Rad8 24. Nf1 f5 25. gxf5 Rxf5 26. d4 exd3 27. Be3 Rdf8 28. Ng3 Bd5+ 29. Kh2 Rf3 30. Bd4 d2 31. Rd1 Rd3 32. Nf1 Rxf1 0-1

Variance:
My team lost 3.5-4.5 and will almost certainly be relegated now.

Isn't 16...Nf4 just lights out?

I saw that too and calculated Nf4 / Qxe4 Nxh3+ / Kg2 which seemed a bit messy.

Qg3+ on the other hand wins an exchange and a pawn and he has to trade queens too because of the mate on g1. Just a simply won endgame so I stopped looking for something better (which Nf4 might very well be).

Oh well, your line should have gotten immediate resignation anyway since it's so hopeless.

I'm coming to a very good understanding of exactly how 90% of chess players manage to convince themselves that they "actually play stronger" than their rating would indicate. The classic "Well, I'm rated 1400 right now, but I play at like 1700 strength" syndrome.

I'm rated 1246 right now (a provisional rating, last published 8 years ago). A week ago I got to play three games against a gentleman whose last published rating was over 1900. I lost games one and three as black, drew game two as white, but in game three I had a winning position before I crumbled (I blame fatigue, because like all chess players it can't have been my fault, right?). Today I played a G/20 game against someone currently rated 1400, and pretty easily got a position I felt was advantageous, then converted it into winning a piece... but got behind on time, and couldn't find how to convert the win before I flagged.

Reality: I scored 0.5/4.0 in the four games, for a performance rating of about 1350... and the "draw" actually ended with me pressing too hard for a win, making a move that dropped a rook, and him generously saying "well that doesn't work, but the position before that was drawn, I believe", and extending his hand. So really I went 0/4, and there's no evidence at all to be found in those games that I'm any better than my published rating suggests.

Tempting fiction: On the other hand, it is REALLY easy to discount the two losses as "just time pressure and fatigue, but for all intents and purposes I won those games", and then try to argue that I "basically" scored 2/4 in the four games, which would be a performance rating of over 1800, so "obviously" I'm much stronger than my rating would indicate. It's not true, but I see how easy it is to fall into that psychological trap. I now understand why so many chess players are convinced they're better than their rating. Pretty amusing psychological insight, imo.