Good luck, Chris!

I won. Pretty fun game. Think I made a mistake at one point. Will analyse and post later.

That is one thing that all chess players can say with confidence.

I'm playing for both teams this weekend -- The Fugitives Saturday at 6:30 PM ICC time, and 101 Man Onslaught Sunday at 11:00 AM. I'll try to help both teams finish strong.

oh good - we're getting you fresh and awake -

our teams have definately been at a disadvantage with both sides coming just barely above the cutoff for the league below it - I'm hoping I can pull off an U1800 league next time (at the most) - but if I can't do it here I can just see if anyone wants to recruit me from another team -

been fun though

RB

PGN:

[Event "ICC"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2010.03.12"]
[White "Beddathanme"]
[Black "Chris2p2"]
[Result "*"]
[TimeControl "2700+45"]

1. e4 d5 2. d4 dxe4 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. f3 exf3 5. Nxf3 c6
6. Bc4 Bf5 7. O-O e6 8. Ne5 Bg6 9. Be3 Nbd7 10. Nxg6 hxg6
11. Qf3 Qc7 12. g3 Nb6 13. Bb3 O-O-O 14. Bg5 Rxd4 15. Bxf6 gxf6
16. Qxf6 Bc5 17. Kh1 Rdd8 18. Ne4 Bd6 19. Qxf7 Bxg3 20. Bxe6+ Kb8
21. Qxc7+ Bxc7 22. h3 Nd5 23. Rad1 Rde8 24. Nc5 Ne3 25. Bf7 Rxh3+
26. Kg1 Bh2+ 27. Kf2 Nxd1+ 28. Rxd1 Re7 29. Bxg6 Rh6 30. Bd3 Rf6+
31. Kg2 Rg7+ 32. Kh1 Rh6
*

Analysis:

So he sprung the Blackmar-Diemer on me. This is an unsound gambit, but it's pretty sharp and you have to be careful. Having been beaten by it a couple weeks ago I'd done my reading and knew how to counter it. Basically you play c6 as soon as possible, then either Bf5 or Bg4 depending on what they do and then e6. If the bishop is on f5, Bg6 may be necessary at some point to shore up f7.

1. e4 d5 2. d4 dxe4 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. f3 exf3 5. Nxf3 c6 6. Bc4 Bf5 7. O-O e6 8. Ne5 Bg6

In book up to this point. The next move deviates from the theory I knew.

9. Be3

This doesn't look very threatening. I'll proceed with kicking the knight out of e5 as against other ninth moves.

9...Nbd7 10. Nxg6 hxg6 11. Qf3 Qc7 =+

FireBird only gives me 0.44 advantage here, but frankly whatever compensation White is supposed to have, I don't see it.

12. g3?!

Dealing with the mate threat on h2, but the right move is h3. His pawn structure and exposed kings cause him problems soon. Here I considered O-O-O and Nb6. I eventually went with Nb6 to open up the rook when it comes to d8 and strengthen my Q-side a bit first. a7 looked a little vulnerable to his bishop. FireBird thinks O-O-O is better.

12...Nb6 13. Bb3 O-O-O 14. Bg5?

Tosses away a pawn. I wasn't sure if I could hang onto the pawn given that f7 would be weak, but capturing provided me with some initiative after Bc5 with a threatened discovered check, forcing his king into h1. So I went with that.

14...Rxd4 15. Bxf6 gxf6 16. Qxf6 Bc5 17. Kh1 Rdd8?

I wish I could explain why I didn't play the obvious Rh7. I'm sure I had some reason. One thing was that I thought I had plenty of time to defend f7 because of the threat on g3.

18. Ne4

Curses! Didn't see this. Now I have to defend my bishop somehow and there's still the threat on f7 as well. I need to renew the threat on g3.

18...Bd6 19. Qxf7 Bxg3 20. Bxe6+ Kb8 21. Qxc7+ Bxc7 22. h3 Nd5 23. Rad1 Rde8 24. Nc5?

Blunder time! My position was very strong in any case.

24...Ne3 25. Bf7?? Rxh3+ 26. Kg1

Mate in two. (Rg3+ Kh1 Rh8#, or Rg3+ Kf2 Ng4#

26...Bh2+?

Which I promptly missed. Poor on my part. In my defence this move is still completely winning.

27. Kf2 Nxd1+ 28. Rxd1 Re7 29. Bxg6 Rh6 30. Bd3 Rf6+ 31. Kg2 Rg7+ 32. Kh1 Rh6

0-1, mate is inevitable.

LOL. Won a piece right in the opening but now I'm having trouble slowing down and being careful. I haven't had this problem for a couple years so I'm gonna go run cold water on my face.

Well, that worked. Thankfully there wasn't any counterplay so my playing too fast didn't matter. Then my opponent made it easier and let me win everything else. Also, I've found a good way to further improve my tactics. I had sorta stagnated with regular CT-ART (de la maza style) training with different sets of tactics. I'm doing almost board vision style training with the Chess Tactics Server and then doing really difficult problems for 15-20 minutes per problem to improve my accuracy in longer calculation.

anyone heard from Uitje? - I see his game hasn't been scheduled yet - just hoping if there's a forfit it's on their side

RB

It looks like it'll be a forfeit. Uitje must be busy cause he never posted in the game forum.

DaMaGor's game is in progress - can't watch it from work but we'll get updates afterwards - if he wins and we got one forefit that puts all the weight on me

rb

bad news is DaMaGor lost his match - good news is that's less heat on me to win cause we're pretty much a goner in the standings this round anyways

RB

bah, took a draw on move 13 with a semi-busted KIA vs Sicilian - wanted a bye anyways cause I was tired and we weren't going to semi-finals anyways near as I could figure - twas a good time though - RB

Sorry guys, was on a 2 week vacation and thought I had posted it here, apparently I didn't, my apologies.

yep doin that chess thing