I think this may be my best tactical move ever in my young chess career; I knew after my opponent played h6 that Rc8 was coming, which he thought would win a piece. He thought wrong....



1. e6 Rbc8
2. exg7+ Kh8
3. Qxc8 Rxc8
4. Rxc8+ Kh7
5. f8=Q

Boom

Nice one! I probably wouldn't have resisted the temptation to play f8=N+ and pick up his queen via a discovered check on e6 though

In the club blitz tourney one time my opponent accidently knocked the clock (not digital) on the floor and when it was picked up my flag had fallen. He instantly claimed a win (lol) but in the end we settled on a draw. The situation before that was that I was way ahead on material but sick short of time and probably would have lost had the game continued. What should the ruling have been?

I would guess that you would get 2 minutes of time and the game would continue, as if he made an illegal move on the board.

FIDE Laws of Chess say:

6.7 c.
The players must handle the chess clock properly. It is forbidden to punch it forcibly, to pick it up or to knock it over. Improper clock handling shall be penalised in accordance with Article 13.4.
13.4

The arbiter can apply one or more of the following penalties:
1. warning
2. increasing the remaining time of the opponent
3. reducing the remaining time of the offending player
4. declaring the game to be lost
5. reducing the points scored in the game by the offending party
6. increasing the points scored in the game by the opponent to the maximum available for that game
7. expulsion from the event.

So going by the book, the arbiter should probably give you more time (or even award you a win). But in a club blitz tournament setting incidents like this usually are ruled as draws indeed.

Thanks. Man, sucked-out on again.

Chess is in the headlines once again:

It's not the first time that Tkachiev drank too much. In last year's Olympiad, he didn't show up for the last round (with France still fighting for a medal) because of that.

And while I am here posting, I'd like to ask something I've been wondering about for some time: Why are you American guys in the forum here so obsessed with Nakamura?

I mean, he is a good player, but from reading all the threads here one has to draw the conclusion that he is a chess god or something. I can't understand that, especially since the US have a great player like Kamsky. Kamsky has "chess culture"; when I think about him, I think of his fine positional games, e.g. recently his Ruy Lopez win against Topalov. When I think about Nakamura, I think about 1. e4 e5 2. Qh5.

I'd guess that Americans think of Nakamura as just about the best hope for world champion. It was really unfortunate that Kamsky "semiretired"; who knows how much better (if at all) he would be if he had not, although it would still be doubtful if he would be among the elite group of Anand, Topalov, etc.

IMHO, it's unlikely that Nakamura will be world champion. Why doesn't the young phenom Magnus Carlsen "get more love" at this forum? Besides Carlsen, Karjakin's chances of being world champion are not too bad ( depends how he copes with "married life" ).

Believe me, it's a small but very vocal minority of Americans who are obsessed with Naka. Naka is the closest thing to a native chess superstar that we've had in a long time*. There's a very definite desire to see a native US resident do well so the foreign born players just won't generate the same excitement.

*I know Naka wasn't born in the US, but he was born to an American mother and has lived in the US since he was 2.

Honestly it's cuz im a huge fan-boy (and friend).

that's right i said it.


but for a serious answer, read swingdoc's cuz i agree.

Yeah, I kinda dislike the guy based on the very little media-filtered info I know of him. I'm not going to go around bashing him, but I also haven't said any words in support of him that I can recall.

As far as Kamsky goes, it's a little stranger. He was retired when I started following chess, and then returned. The act of returning made him seem old and distant, of a past generation. For whatever reason, this makes it harder for me to put my loyalty behind him.

I personally don't care what country a player's from. I support players whose games I enjoy playing over. Maybe I should be more vocal here to drown out the Naka-fans.

[x] Carlsen is awesome
[x] Go Naka

/discussion

Recently made youtube vid of Hikaru Nakamura

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-eW-xR4wWY

You just ruined that song for me

Does anyone here have a Danish chess rating and can you give me some idea how it compares to FIDE?

Hey Swingdoc, I'm US but I asked the future Danish Chess Champion what she thought and here's what she replied back -

"There are no general comparisons I can think of/that I know of. My own Danish rating is 30 points higher than my elo, because elo rating is getting rarer with the fees. Usually, the Danish and elo is not entirely mismatched, but tend to follow eachother. Exceptions do occur. "

Pardon the shameless self promotion, but just wanted to point all of you guys to the interview I conducted with curtains (IM Greg Shahade) this week. It was based on questions asked from ChessVideos.TV I thought has some really interesting content and ideas from curtains.

Kasparov - Karpov match in Valencia:

I wonder why nobody told Karpov this was supposed to be a rapid match. Loss on time after only 24 moves in game 1? Come on, Anatoly. They even have a 5 second increment...

Game 2 was nice; Garry still can make chess look so simple.

I was kind of disappointed with the games. I think simply missing 22. Nf6+ in the second game in a very simple position showed Karpov's level of interest in the games. Kasparov, as always, was top notch. His pawn sac in the first game was great.

lol I quit for 4 years, first rated game back. I do an en passant when the guy tells me I CANT because my pawn also had the option to move fwd as nothing was obstructing that. I was like nah dude pretty sure youre wrong. He was convinced. So I took his word for it. He was wrong. I won anyways. Dragged it out too. *******.

Lololol. You just gotta stop the clock and go get the TD/arbiter when stupid **** like that happens. Nice job on the win though!

Oh, I totally missed this earlier. Thanks a bunch, whiskey!

hey guys
recently a friend humiliated me in a few games of chess and me being the arrogant stubborn person i am i need to beat him eventually
im not looking for some quick way to learn chess but am looking for some guidance on what to start looking at. i know of a few websites to start learning but it seems that there is just so much information im having a difficult time finding a place to start and i want to learn in a regimented pattern and work my way up. does anyone know of a way to go about doing this

There's another thread on this, probably should be a sticky too!

Cliffs: study tactics a ton if you want to improve and become a strong player in the long term. study some trap openings (blackmar deimar gambit, englund gambit, stonewall, etc) if your friend is not very strong and you just want to beat him without learning to play well yourself.