I just got home from a board-game night at the local public library, which I went to specifically hoping to find some local chess players. I met an older gentleman there who was really nice, brought his own board, and apparently used to be rated 2100-ish, but hasn't played seriously in a long time. We played three untimed games, and it was an absolute blast. I haven't played over the board in ages, and I haven't played a game where I actually had as much time as I needed to think in even longer.

I lost two, drew one, but the third game was really really fascinating before I blundered it away in the end. Great position, we spent a good hour going over it with a third gentleman in postmortem. I *think* I've managed to accurately recreate it from memory, and would love to hear thoughts (please be kind regarding the last couple moves, lol):

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O b5 6. Bb3 Bb7 7. c3 d6 8. Re1 Be7 9. h3 O-O 10. d4 Na5 11. Bc2 exd4 12. cxd4 c5 13. b4 cxb4 14. Bd2 Nc6 15. e5 Nxd4 16. Nxd4 dxe5 17. Nf5 Bc5 18. Rxe5 Bd4 19. Nxd4 Qxd4 20. Re7 Qxa1 21. Rxb7 Qxa2 22. Bxb4 Rfd8 23. Qe2 Qe6 24. Qf3 a5 25. Bb3 Nd5 26. Re7 Qg6 27. Bxd5 Rxd5 28. Qxd5 Qxb1+ 29. Kh2 Qg6 30. Qxa8# 1-0

That sounds like a lot of fun BBJ!

Unrelated thought: I never cease to be bewildered about how many times I think to myself "If I trade down here, the material's even but I'll lose the pawn race" and then proceed to do it anyway. Why do I do that?

I figured out a variant of chess in which I can easily beat any young prodigy.

Just out of curiosity, is the line 1.Kf8 f5 also drawn? I hadn't considered that originally, but it probably is also good enough as:

is a draw (after: 1.Kf8 f5 2.Ra6+ Nf6 3.Ke7 fxg4 4.Rxf6+)

Houdini said that EVERY legal move was a draw except, obviously, for Kd7.

Right -- that makes sense to me. I was wondering after 1.Kf8 whether Houdini also thinks 1...f5 is drawn.

I personally find 1...Ne3 easier to "see" as drawn, but I now suspect 1...f5 also works and was trying to be lazy and was hoping a generous soul with a good engine, such as yourself, could check that! :-)

Oops, misread your post, lol. I thought Kf8 was the key move you were asking about, not the f5 followup. But yeah, Houdini actually considers f5 to be the main line response to Kf8, and evaluates it at 0.02. Nf3 is also drawn, but not quite so clearly (0.20).

If you wanna put your money where your mouth is, let's arrange this? Though I guess I am no prodigy.. but still fairly young

That's awesome you had a good time.

Awesome, thank you. I'm no Houdini, but if f5 works, then it definitely forces a clearly drawn position more easily. That was a fun endgame to think about. Thanks for posting it Kyle!

I can remember playing blitz with some strong players one night while (some of us) were drinking heavily. The one master (Russian, but very sober that night) was getting incredibly frustrated by the fact that he was being wrecked by an IM who was almost blacked out. It was a lot of fun.

A couple hundred rating points ago, the worst thing about playing guys the level I am now is that they still made mistakes, but sometimes they'd wriggle out of them with a draw when I thought sure I had them. Now I get to do that to other people

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=41356

a bit of topic, but I found that endgame pretty interesting and instructive. After 50.. Kf5, I think White should still be winning, and the motive is this:

51. Kd3 Kg4 (what else? if 51.. Ke5 52. Kc3 Ke4 53. Kb3 Kd4 54. Nc1 and black is dead) 52. Ke4! Kxh4 (again, black has to take one way or another, 52.. Kg3 53. Kf5 and now Kxh4 is forced or else White will win h5) 53. Kf4.

So now it is fairly simple, white will just "stalemate" black's king on h1 (white king on f2 [NOT f1], black king on h1 pawn on h2) , whenever needed white will just waste a move with a knight to achieve that. Then black will have to play c6, white moves N, black plays cxd5, white plays cxd5, c4 d6 c3 d7 c2 d8Q c1Q Qd5+ 1-0. Correct?

That is a nice idea, but I'm not sure it works here, because I don't think White can force Black to stalemate himself like this. Why does Black "stalemate" himself by ever playing h2? Can't he play the pawn to h3 and then Kh1-h2-h1?

My reasoning is that if White plays 1...Kh1 2.Kg3 Kg1 3.Kxh3 Kf2 Black can win by getting back to the queenside and promoting the a3 pawn.

(And if Black does play h2 and Kh1, White has a pretty mate after 1. Nc3 a2 2.Ne4 a1=Q 3. Ng3++)

I'm not seeing how white can stalemate the king either. Black doesn't have to advance the pawn.

After 53. Kf4 Kh3, white's options are:

54. Nc3 or Nc1, both of which lose as far as I can tell. ... Kg2 wins for black, as white is forced to capture the h-pawn but that leaves his king too far away as black's king goes over to the other side of the board and clean up.

Or 54. Kg5, which leaves the same problem after ... h4 55. Kf5 Kg2.

54. d6 just drops a pawn.

54. Kf3, after which black can just play Kh4 and repeat the position.

Yep you guys are right, for whatever reason I totally forgot that black King can always just move back instead of pushing the pawn.

Apologies

Funny good knight vs bad bishop position i had in a FICS game:



Of course i have lots of advantages here and the position is not that interesting, but i found it funny how my bad bishop dominates his knight to the extent that it's his move, i need two moves to attack the knight and still the horse is virtually doomed.

Hey guys. Just wondering what the situation is with computers vs humans. Could the top chess programmed computer beat the best human players?

The threshold was crossed in the last decade, but now the top computers wipe the board with the best humans.

So I'm fooling around with ways to play against the Ruy Lopez as black and I'm attracted to the Berlin Defense for some reason, and now I've come across the Fishing Pole line. Is that worth learning and playing or is it too gimmicky?

I have recently started to play the Berlin but just had to look up what you meant by Fishing Pole line. I don't think that is a worthwhile idea. You basically play "hope chess" hoping your opponent makes a mistake. The move Ng4 looks pointless to me.

Just play Nxe4. There is no reason not to take the pawn. White's best choice then is most probably to go into the Berlin endgame which is fascinating stuff where it is much more important to know the general ideas than concrete lines. Against most other White choices, Black is usually just fine.

Long games probably a bit gimmicky but a good laugh for blitz I'd imagine. It's caught me out recently but I'm possibly th worlds worst blitz player and only just learning the Ruy :P

Pretty sure my friend (who was a young prodigy) would be a world class GM in this game.

He sacs his Queen you play worse. You sac your Queen he plays better.

Not something to brag about, but I do think that I would easily crack top50 in the world in that Entirely too much drinking in my youth (at that point of time it seemed completely normal for youth to constantly get drunk in Lithuania. That is, thank God, changing these days), combined with playing chess very often while drunk/semi-drunk/hangover (in serious tournaments, too. Ashamed of that :/ ) made me quite strong in that particular game. As a matter of fact, in Pardubice 2007, where I had my highest rating performance in a serious tournament, 2449 (you need 2450 for an IM norm..) I was not sober for six or seven games out of 9. Makes me wonder, what if I was sober for the entire tournament..

unrelated: RoundTower, do you know anything about Elizabeth Shaughnessy?

This will be megafun to watch. I will ask him if he is up for it. Are you going to be at the National Open this year?

I don't think we've met, but she offered me a job in Berkeley if I was willing to commit to a summer rather than just a few weeks. Don't know much about her -- why?