1460ish+ is good.

Ok, here's the beginning of an aborted correspondence game in my usual opening where my opponent played pretty sensible moves and I don't exactly love how it ended up. Any ideas for improvements? I'd try changing something about 14...Na5 15.Ng5...Nxg5. Either capture the bishop on move 14 or 15 or just 15...Qc7 without capturing. Do you think the final position is playable?

[Event ""]
[Site ""]
[Date "2011.03.29"]
[Round ""]
[White "Player N.N."]
[Black "Allen C"]
[ECO "B27"]
[Result "*"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Qxd4 Nf6 5.e5 Nc6 6.Qa4 Nd5 7.Qe4
Nc7 8.Nc3 Bg7 9.Bf4 b6 10.O-O-O Bb7 11.Qe3 h5 12.Be2 Ne6 13.Kb1
Rc8 14.Rhe1 Na5 15.Ng5 Nxg5 16.Bxg5 Qc7 17.Bb5 Bc6 18.Nd5 Bxd5
19.Rxd5 Qxc2+ 20.Ka1 O-O 21.Rxd7 Nc4 22.Bxc4 Rxc4 23.g3 e6 24.Rxa7
Rfc8 25.a3 *

Also I can't imagine g3 was better than Rxe7 for White.

Oo, how about this: 25...Qf5 26.f4 (or Bf4)...Bf1 and Black's doing fine?

Glancing through that game I really don't like 11. .. h5. You substantially weaken your dark squares for no apparent benefit, in particular the g5 square. With white's pawn on d5 that is going to be a long term issue since eventually playing something like f6 is liable to leave you with a million weaknesses on the kingside and center. I think 11. .. h6 would be a simple and solid improvement.

I think 15. .. Nxg5 is a significant mistake. In the positional sense you would LOVE if white played Nxe6 since that gets rid of your potentially weak pawn on the d file, gives you control of the super important d5 square and also control of the f5 square which will allow you a little more freedom on the kingside. Even more important I think black is tactically losing after: 15. .. Nxg5 16. Bxg5 Qc7 17. Bb5 Bc6 18. Ba6.

18. .. Rd8 19. b4 Nb7 20. Nd5 +-

18. .. Bb7 19. Bxb7 Qxb7 20. Nd5 +- as white will force massive weaknesses for black to keep on living.

18. .. Nb7 19. Nb5 Bxb5 20. Bxb5 Nc5 21. Qa3 +- with the threat of Rxd7

All those lines are driven by the super strong bishop on g5 which 15. .. Nxg5 creates. For instance if instead you tried 15. .. Qc7 then 16. Bb5 is completely innocuous.

quick blitz tactic of the day:

Re: SmilingBill's position:

Another tactic of the day:



Amusingly I played this game while trying some 'live commentary' (recording some 5-minute games on ICC) & spotted the tactic while black was considering playing what was ultimately the losing move ...

Yea 1.-Bxf3+ is what I was after. I managed to finish with more flashiness after 2.Kg1 Bxg3 (Re2 is murderous as well of course) 3.hxg3 Qh1+ 4.Kf2 Re2+ 5.Qxe2 Qg2+

HipHopRTR,

Yes

[Event "ICC 5 0"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2011.03.31"]
[Round "-"]
[White "DaMelch"]
[Black "hagbard"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ICCResult "Black resigns"]
[WhiteElo "795"]
[BlackElo "833"]
[Opening "Sicilian: Smith-Morra gambit"]
[ECO "B21"]
[NIC "SI.48"]
[Time "00:10:27"]
[TimeControl "300+0"]

1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 e5 5. Bc4 d6 6. Nf3 g6 7. Nxe5 dxe5
8. Bxf7+ Ke7 9. Bg5+ {Black resigns} 1-0

So what did black play? Can't think of anything decent that allows Qxf7+. Maybe e3?

Black played Bf5 (was on c8 previously) ... and obviously Qxf7+ wins ...

I found this online chess engine, http://www.turbulence.org/spotlight/thinking/chess.html It has a beautiful way of showing how the chess engine thinks.

maybe I'm nostalgic but I hate the new NiC format...

Nothing like getting beat in about 20 moves twice in a row to make an 11 game no loss streak I had end suddenly. lol Ahh well, I learned something from those games, and I guess that's the important part, right?

really hope that the story that chessbase has removed those ridiculous popups isn't one of their many april fools gags

oh dear, it was

so you preferred flashing/blinking/moving ads to these pop ups? wow.

i'm one of those people that realised internet explorer was crap 10 years ago and as such do not have a problem with anything pop-up related apart from ******ed flash stuff like what chessbase uses

Would chess be a worse game with a super-ko rule? This would state that a move which repeats a whole board position, with the same player to move, results in a loss for the player who caused the repetition.

I think draws would be impossible. Perpetual check disappears, for example.

Someone I knew solved this game for K versus K endgames, but he's died and I can't remember the solution.

That would take away many of the defensive resources in some positions.

It would also create lots of hassles in non-recorded games about whether a repetition had occurred or not.