Won round 1 against some 1800.

Poker has taught me one thing - to properly table select! This is my first tournament in like 8 months, and of course I am the top seed and all the top players in the area are not playing.

That is a joke of course, I didn't know they won't be playing.. But so far I am running good in my comeback to chess lol

Is this a real life tourney or internetz? I presume real life...how are you gonna post the games, scan the scoresheet in?

He could post the pgn, or put the game here: http://www.chessvideos.tv/

YKW: Congrats! What's your rating? And were the Topalov games any inspiration?

Done with D1, got 2.5/3. Had a very tough game in second round against a very talented young (I would think he is 11 or 12, not sure) kid rated 2150 or so (don't really remember), managed to win in the end mainly because of experience. I made several mistakes in the end of the game and I realized that I am too fatigued to fight in another game, so took a quick draw with black against my teammate at UTD who is rated 2250 but is probably underrated by like a 100 points, so I was not too sad about it. You might call me a coward but hey, sometimes it is good to forget the ego and go for the best practical result

In general, it is pretty tough so far. All those young talented kids want a scalp of the top seed so they go all out and they don't really have anything to lose, which makes it extremely dangerous. Also, I just don't know opening theory at a required level. If this was a Fischer random tournament I would rate my chances of winning very very highly, now I have to claw my way in every game because I simply don't know the latest theory and have to spend plenty of time to figure it out OTB, which is very exhausting physically and psychologically. I would say that on a good day I play at ~2400-2450 ELO level, while my opening theory knowledge is maybe at ~2100 level if not less. Sad

Yeah it's real life tourney. I will post the games with some thoughts tomorrow or sometime next week, really too tired ATM. I am probably just going to enter it to Rybka or Chessbase, get a PGN and post it via chessvideos.tv or something.

Thank you I am 2319 FIDE and 2341 USCF. Topalov games were always an inspiration to me, he is one of my favourite players as far as playing style. I hate Danailov and his bullcrap though, I wish Topalov would kick him out of his team and just play chess instead of political bull****..

Sounds pretty draining, YKW. Hang in there, and good luck, I'm rooting for you!

Jim, your wishes helped

Won both games today, against 2200 USCF and 2260 USCF, so 4.5/5. Tie for first guaranteed, but hopefully the guy who can catch me does not win and I will have clear first hehe Anyway, some $$$ is coming my way, + some rating points for both FIDE and USCF which is always nice.

surprisingly both games today were fairly easy. Had two whites and both times my opponents blundered in the opening and it was a matter of technique to finish them off. In the second game I clearly played not the main move in this quite well known Slav line after which it is probably equal or maybe black is even better, but my opponent missed a nice tactical shot and resigned on move 15 with mate next move. Good day

http://dod.ru/chess/game/Crest/Smallville.htm

20 games of an epic match icc (2008) match with grischuk and nakamura

Ha nice

Not going to happen but hey. More interested in Tom Pym's graph actually given that when I was playing junior tournaments we regularly played each other.

Gogo ykw by the way

carlsen makes it look so easy...

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1598629

I could have played that as white (if I knew theory n stuff) because the moves are quite straight forward, but I don't know if I would have spotted Ng5

Well that's how straight forward Carlsen's moves were. His opponent basically gave the game away. There were no specal moves by carlsen

Movsesian played Be2 here.

Is Nxe5 winning here?

E.g. Qxd1 Bxf7+.

I think the main line after Nxe5 is bxc4, after which white has several possibilities:

14.Qf3 (I think Qd5 is good for black)

14.Bf4 and Qxd1 Raxd1 looks good for white, e.g. Nxc4 and Bxc4 is bad: bxc4, and now:

Be7 (and Rd7 transposes into this line) with Ng8 and Rd7 and f7 or both, but I think white is winning in every line, with easy advances like c4-c5 (with Bishop on d6), and if Bxd6 ever, then cxd6, and then c2-c4-c5 etc and white looks winning in every line. But instead of Bxc4 maybe black has Be7. But maybe then Nd6+. Not sure.

If Bf4 can be refuted with a Be7 and Be6 setup, then 14.Re1 looks strongest.

14.Qe2 also looks like a possibility. 14.Bb2 not so much.

14.Nxc4 Qxd1 Rxd1 Be6 and now either Bf4 or Re1 look interesting, but better for black.

Another idea to include when calculating is maybe Bf4 and Nb6 if Be7 and Be6 setup.

Edit: I just checked with computer and LOL I'm being way too opimstic. If Nxe5 bxc4 Re1 then simply Qxd1.

Hi there 2+2 chess people,

I didnt want to open a thread for this, so I post here.
I'm looking to improve my chess game (status: knowing basic strategic principles) using a computer tutor or online course or anything similar.
Basically I dont want a book, but something more interactive.
Any advice where to look and what to look for?
Thanks a lot in advance!

rberg

You probably need to clarify what you want to improve. Most beginner/casual players will improve most by learning to spot tactics. Is that what you want to do?

tbh, I dont even know the usual ways to practice chess nor what my biggest "leaks" are.
So, yeah, I guess what you mentioned would be good place to start.

http://chess.emrald.net/ for tactics puzzles. Don't try and maximise your rating, try and never ever get one wrong. (Take your time, speed will come naturally, rushing is pointless).

If money is no object, buy Rybka4 and use the verbose analysis and training modes to both play through and explore famous games.

Thanks! That site is pretty much what I was looking for.
Still open for any other suggestions though.

This is the most awesome chess game I have seen in a while
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1160207

For most people, tactics is their biggest leak. So the emrald site mentioned above is good; an offline alternative is the program CT-ART 3.0.

Here is a monthly column dealing with adult chess improvement.

If that game was a woman I'd marry it.

It is of course a very very beautiful game, but this is a good example of why people should not play Najdorf if they have no idea what to do, because it will always end in mate, sooner or later, in a fancy like that or something simple . That guy just butchered it completely, after which of course White's idea was fantastic, not trying to take anything from him

It doesn't look that amazing. But the idea of e5 after Qxd4 is not intuitive, so I guess it required some calculation and imagination to come up with the idea. f5 is also a nice move. Everything else is forced and a standard tactics sequence.