Playing USCL for Destiny in about an hour.

God help me!

Good luck man. Be sure to let us know how you do.

Oh man you are like a celebrity.

YouKnowWho's game is being shown live on ICC for those that are interested.

This was apparently "End of Book 7 YouKnowWho" and not an awesome version like the end of book four or something. He got blowed up pretty bad.

hmmmm? haven't checked with an engine but I am positive that Nxe8 instead of Rxe8 is just winning for me no?

also, King going to f7 and not castling isn't exactly blowed up pretty bad

Real-time Crafty said Nxe8 was something like -0.9, way better than what was played.

3.Nc3 is a good move, developing on a good square and creating some Nd5 scares
4.d4 would indeed have been logical as well, if you are going to play d3 you should also considering moving the B outside the pawn chain first with Bc4
moves 5-8 all sensible for both
9.Bh5 might not be useful, 9.f4 is logical and pushing your development edge. if something like 9.-Nf6 10.f5 Qh7 11.Bf4 his Q is really awkwardly placed
10.Be3; not too bad but f4 is still more straightforward, maybe even some e5 ideas since Bh5 is now pressurizing f7
11.Qe2; now it would be high time for f4. You don't have enough open files/weaknesses to exploit without pushing some pawns. After what happens your pieces are in an awkward lump and Black is somewhat OK again.
14.-c5; bad, he should develop with Nbd7. He doesnt have the activity to compensate for the hole on d5 created by this
15.Nf5; looks strong, probably better than Nb3
19.h3; why not Bxh6, the Be7 (and the pd6) are loose. This motif was around since Nf5 though Ra7 stopped it for some time.
21.Qd3; good work spotting this
26.c3; nitpick but 26.Bb3 trapping the Rook is more sadistic and effective

Well played overall, no bad blunders. Some too cautious play in the opening (4.d3, avoiding f4)

Does anybody have a good link on the ruy lopez? Im not looking for a 230 page book with all the lines but something like a 30 min video .

Dennis M has an interesting looking series called the Quick Ruy on chessvideos.tv which I haven't watched because I don't play it.

The quick ruy is like 6 hours of videos

There's just soooo much to the Ruy Lopez. You are talking about possibly the most theory heavy opening in chess (am I wrong on that? Someone will correct me).

Maybe start with the Exchange Variation, since that's more or less white's option. Otherwise you'll need to know how to respond to a variety of black defenses (well, you don't *need* to know, you can just play and see what happens ).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbR9KHMiJ0A

I haven't actually watched this, but it's probably what you are looking for.

Incidentally, I never planned on actually learning the Ruy Lopez. I was busy playing over a bunch of Fischer's games as white, and after about 100 or so of those, I suddenly realized I could play the Ruy Lopez credibly (for my level). Funny how that works

Thanks for the comments, I'll definitely spend more time on your analysis tomorrow when I have more time.

Meanwhile.....nothing like blundering your queen, but winning anyways. =]
http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=49562
Playing white again.

Trying to learn the open sicilian but have no idea what to do against 2...Nc6 or 2...e6 after about 5 moves. Help!

assuming you're sticking to main lines there are three separate categories:

1. transpose back into Classical/Scheveningen, etc. If you're OK with ...d6 then you have this covered.
2. Sveshnikov. Learn one of the main lines separately, Nd5 or Bg5. It's usually obvious what Black's ideas are, probably you mostly have to try to stop them
3. Pure e6 Sicilians (Kan, Taimanov, etc) with e6, a6, likely Qc7 early. Either develop your pieces normally and hope d7-d5 isn't all that good for him, or you have some extra choices in c4 or g3 to put extra control on the d5 square.

I don't think there's an obvious repertoire here that is particularly coherent, you just have to pick a system against each of those 3. Obviously this is the simplified version.

If you are happy to avoid the main lines you could start by meeting 2...d6 with d4, but meet 2...Nc6 with Bb5 and 2...e6 with g3, d3, KIA stuff which is all less theoretical.

ty, this is exactly what I need; a structured way to tackle the problem. I'm meh vs d6, I'm certain I make a lot of inaccuracies but I'm able to generate play which is what I'm aiming for. Over time, after gaining understanding over the positions, I'll make a better attempt at booking up, but right now the plan is just playing chess and only looking up theory only if the opening was dreadful (which it has been vs Nc6 and e6). I don't want to clutter up low content thread, I'll start an open sicilian thread tomorrow.

Yay. I'd like a better understanding of what to do with the e6 lines as well. Especially with playing Nc3 in front of Pc2.

In response to this post:

I offered our self-described "beginning player" a game. I assumed, with his ~1200 chess.com rating, that it would be a cakewalk and then I could give him some good pointers afterward. Instead, while I did win in the end (and computer analysis shows I missed a few nice tactical shots that I would never have seen in a million years), he pushed me for all I was worth. The only piece of advice I really feel justified in offering him is: "Don't drop your knight after playing so well."

That's not to say he didn't make plenty of mistakes (some of them major). It's just that I matched him mistake for mistake, so I figure he deserves advice from someone stronger than me. And while we're at it, I wouldn't mind some input on my poor play as well

Here is the game: http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=49616

Thanks for any info on this game.

I have studied the Scandinavian and thought this was my best chance at doing well as playing 1...e5 would be playing into whites hands as evident by his tourney win with the fried liver attack tourney on chess.com

Here are some of my thoughts on this game to help any discussion...

6.Bc4 was a welcome move as I planned on 6...b5.
9...Be7 to keep my pawn structure ok should white take on f6.
11...Nbd7 as pushing my c pawn to c5 is part of my plan.
13...Rac8 placing my rook behind the pawn I plan on pushing.
15...Qxd2 to remove my stronger opponents Q
16...Nxe5 17.Rxe5 is what my computer gives as a better move.
17...Nce4 was my plan to fork the Bg5 and Rd2
19.Rd7 caught me by surprise. (hoped for Rd8 )
20...Rb8 is huge mistake. I wanted to swap off rooks if possible so white doesn't get both rooks on my 2nd rank.
23...Bxd8 was played and I knew that my lack of endgame study will be my death in this game vs my stronger opponent.
25...Bf6 and I thought I picked up a pawn with a skewer tactic.
27...Ke7 drops my knight. Whites win will probably be child's play so I resigned.

Here is a game I played. http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=49618

some comments.

11) I didnt know what to do so I did a6 to protect b5.
13&14) I thought moving my bishop back was going to give him control of the centre, I took with the pawn to move it to the centre and because I wanted to avoid Bf3 and he wins a tempo.

17) Planning to put the rook on 7th.

Feedback is going to be apreciated

Botvinnik Memorial is underway, a two-day rapid event with Anand, Carlsen, Kramnik and Aronian. I have just klicked through the games from day 1; only one decisive game but quite interesting. Aronian with a miracle save against Carlsen. Kramnik with yet another piece sacrifice, this time against Carlsen. He's probably sacrified more pieces these past few weeks than during the ten years before that.

Im black and this is a position from our game linked above. I was worried about tactics involving Bxe6 since the Bb3 and my king are on the same diagonal. It seems I was almost right as fritz gives Rxe6. During the game I couldn't see it so felt I was ok when in fact I was lucky BobJoeJim didn't see it as my Q would be removed from the game.

fritz suggests 14.Rxe6 fxe6 15.Rxe6 Kh8 16.Rook takes my Qd6. White wins a Q and 2 pawns for 2 rooks.

BobJoeJim were you also thinking about any (but came up with the same conclusion I did) of this while playing?

I'm also looking to learn the Ruy Lopez but it seems so overwhelming so I never started. I will start with the exchange variation as mentioned. Thanks for the suggestion.

I don't think the Lopez is as theory heavy as many other major openings (Sicilian & Semi-Slav come to mind immediately) & a lot of the opening plans are common to many lines (such as white's Nd2-f1-g3[e3] & a4 to prevent/slow counterplay on the queenside), which is not always the case in some other theoretical lines.
Also the theory is reasonably static, in that it hasn't changed too much in the last 10+ years, whereas this cannot be said of many other openings.
A great book (or series of 2 books) I used to learn the Lopez is 'Opening Ideas & Analysis for Advanced Players' by Soltis.
Volume 1
Volume 2 (with Ruy Lopez)
Both are well worth a look if you can find them.

Black to play.