COMBINATION SHOWCASE.....

Background information...
this is a game I played online (correspondence) and was willing to go into the grunfeld defence which my opponent skillfully sidestepped .

please note
- from move 20 the way black uses the dark squared bishop before capturing the trapped rook.
-black uses the passed pawn to force white into passive positions.
moral of the story:
sometimes in chess, one can be excused for delaying a capture if by doing so, one will create weaknesses in the enemy camp.

The misconception that chess is boring....

to a casual non-chess playing spectator, chess can seem boring and tedious.
hope this entry disproves the assumption even in the most biased of us.
check this out

Friends don't let friends play chess drunk

Game Of Chess Takes Violent Turn In Greensburg

GREENSBURG (KDKA) ― Police in Westmoreland County are investigating after they say a game of chess ended in gunfire and a bullet nearly hitting a baby.

It happened early this morning in a second-floor apartment along West Otterman Street in Greensburg.

Police say 23-year-old Zachary Luco and another man were drinking and playing chess.

According to authorities, Luco pulled out a gun, and threatened to shoot himself with his 9-month-old son on the floor nearby.

"The victim grabbed for the gun," said Captain George Seranko, of the Greensburg Police Department. "Apparently there was a scuffle, a little bit, and the gun went off. The bullet went down and nearly missed a 9-month-old baby in the kitchen area."

Officials say the victim, identified as Dennis Klein, was shot in the elbow. He continues to recover tonight at a Pittsburgh hospital.

Meantime, Luco is facing several charges including aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and recklessly endangering children.

this entry is borrowed from here

A LESSON FROM THE MASTERS....

The evans gambit is one of my pet openings, (at the moment)and here I present to you a game from one of the most lethal masters of his time. Chigorin.
the annotations are "borrowed" from chessmaster (TM) .
Enjoy the game and watch a master at work.




On move 9.......Na5,
At the time a popular defense in this "Normal Position" of the Evans, but later it was realized that, while eliminating the Bc4 was desirable in principle, Black in his undeveloped state could not afford the time lost.
As with all gambits, tempo is a crucial element and here black self destructs with this move which hopes to exchange the lethal the c4 bishop

After 12 Qa4+,
white embarks on recovering the knight with tempo on the king.
Here one can see that black desperately needs to develope but chigorin is relentless.

by the 26th move...
with alarm bells ringing, black eliminates the white knight on e6 on move 25 with 25....BXe6.
but positionally speaking it is out of the frying pan into the bonfire... since white captures with 26.fxe6 and the python stranglehold tightens.
Black has eliminated the intrusive Knight at e6, but the pawn that replaces it is at least as annoying. with hindsight, black should have played 23...Nf8.

32.e5 ! is earth shattering
With all the Black pieces tied down -- the Knight must shield the g7 pawn, and the Queen and Rook are tied to the defense of the d6 pawn -- White opens lines to the Black King with this pawn advance....

the only solid responce, 32....fXe5 is decisively met....
by 33.Nxd6+ RxNd6
34. fxe5+ Rf6
35.e8=Q+ KxQ
36.Qd7+ et cetera with mate to follow


No better is 32...dxe5 -- 33.Rd8 (threatening e8Q+) Nxe7 34.Qxg7+ Ke6 35.Nxe7, and there is no good defense to f4-f5 mate.

the rest is history

Moral of the game

• hold the initiative
• present your opponent with multiple problems
• when facing the Evans gambit or any other gambit for that matter, consider returning material to free up your pieces.
  

The Opening Phase of a game...

One really good feeling is outplaying your opponent in the opening. This is where the foundation for any middlegame masterpiece should be laid. herein I present you with two games.

GAME 1:

my opponent playing black messed up his opening and faced with hellfire in the way of tactical complications buckled and finally resigned on move 18. job well done I thought.

GAME 2:

my good friend playing black accepted a transposition into the kings gambit accepted and me massively excited, borrowed an idea from the Evans gambit and pushed the e4 pawn on move six upon which I got properly THUMPED!!
A masterful sacrifice was unleashed on me and I cracked.



MORAL of the story:
know your openings well and execute them with reason. Chess is not a game of emotions so only borrow ideas from other openings ONLY when absolutely certain it will pay off.
Back to the drawing boards for me till next time.

A Case For Borrowing Opening Ideas.

Occasionally one plays a chess game which causes immense pride and appreciation of all the hard preparatory work done.

I am a great fan of the evans and kings gambits but have never really had a chance to effect any ideas from the openings.

In this game however, ideas from the Evans gambit are “borrowed” and ruthlessly executed against a much higher rated opponent.

This game embodies some heavy gambit ideas:

• open lanes for the rooks

• open diagonals for the bishops

• limit the freedom of the opponents king

• attack with all the tools at ones disposal

• “force” the opponent to lose tempo by capturing your material

• sacrifice material to achieve the above five principles.

Looking at some critical moments of the game!!

on move 3:

The move order 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 .... sets up the Italian game and blacks response 3. ....h6 can be deemed a “tiny” blunder by black due to the possible loss of tempo in case white never needs the square g5 and instead seeks to blast the center wide open.

My question now was how can I make this count?After some hard thinking, I came to the conclusion that any long term plans will revolve around the freedom my dark squared bishop attains.

I will need to develop my dark squared bishop soon but to where??

I had two main ideas:

1. moving the b pawn and developing my bishop to a3. This would have to be real soon since I wanted this bishop to control f7 thus stop the king from castling . Giving the game an Evans gambit flavor.

2. castle king side followed by f4 eXf4 and finally developing the bishop to f4 giving the game a kings gambit flavor.

My choice of action would be decided by my opponents next moves. So I castled king side thus developing more pieces and waiting.

Soon enough black sought normal developing moves and finally Bc5 was played.

Position on move 5

Here my plan to blast the center open and attack blacks king in the center was put into action.

White sacrifices the b pawn in true gambit style with the move b4 and chases the black bishop and knight away with tempo.

On move 23:

From here on end, white chases and harasses the black king relentlessly until with white to move after 23 .....Kf5

Aquiet but deadly 24.c4 threatening Qh3++forces white to surrender the queen with 24.... QXR.

Like clockwork, from here on, the rest is history.

ILLUSION OF CERTAINTY

In my experience, nothing is more decieving on a chessboard than the illusion of certainty.
take this game for example.


going through it , its like I played in very different modes. may be a case for me to get checked for multiple personalities at this rate to say the least. I have picked through a few critical moments where I think snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. the full game is at the bottom

on move 19

• black has won the exchange.
• blacks rooks will dominate the soon opening e and f files
  
• Whites dark squared bishop is hemmed in by its own pawns and the oncoming e and f double pawn push.
  
• whites knight is too far away from the action.

this positional analysis in my opinion has white winning.
at this point the plan should be simple, advance the pawns and consolidate the win for black.
on move 27
the advance b6?? is poor cos it surrenders material (a pawn) for no good reason.
on move 32
I should attempt bXc5. however my choice of action is doomed due to the three pawns on the a and b file.the false security at this point evaporated along with the illusion of certainty.
this loss hurt.
lesson learnt, stick to a plan of action and cold bloodedly kill the game when you can.

COMBINATION SHOWCASE

The French defence is one hell of an opening to play against and as an 1.e4 player, I come across it alot!!
I dont mind facing any of the sicilian family (forgive the cheap pun) or any member of the scandinavian or even any of the scotch. BUT the french is just plain annoying. In this game however, I had the chance to totally tame this rogue beast (the french not my good friend aka mr mxpl......)

After the opposite side castling, the ensuing pawn storms provide me a chance to play probably one of my best combinational attacks and the ensuing earth shattering queen sac leaves my opponent with no more counterplay!!
at this point it is checkmate!!

enjoy the game and feel free to comment.

FEAR OF THE UNCERTAIN!!

As a budding chess player one attempts to absorb all the theory and "knowledge" from those better than them. we have heard all the mantras of chess and here is a painful game where despite my outplaying my opponent in the opening, I was afraid of committing myself to the uncertain.
ok...
ON MOVE 16:
The center looks like its gonna bust open and as we know bishops prefer open positions so theory would have me exchange my knight for the d2 bishop and centralize my rooks and proceed to stress my central dominance..


ahem I was scared so I chose a less committing plan...

there was no turning back from this mishap and this loss more than any other has stressed to me the importance of cold bloodedly following a plan and sticking to it..

Snatching a draw from the Jaws of victory ..... PART 2..

As usual I have this pesky habit of getting my excuses in before making myself look a fool...

This game's build up involved the team captain scaring the living daylights out of me with encouraging stuff which went something like this
Captain: Francis the team needs the points badly for our league.
Me: As am playing white, should I just go for the jugular
Captain: No cos that way You risk a loss
Me (very confused now ) : Surely the laws of probability are such that 33% games won, 33% lost and 33%drawn. Give me 50% chance to win and am taking it.
Captain: ordinarily thats a smart presumption but this guy was the region champion like 7 years back and he is a very solid player.
Me: &%*!! (hands on head and seeing hells gates open to swallow me whole!!!

After ages in the gents room I entered the playing hall shook my opponents hands and wished him good luck through clenched teeth before playing 1.e4
after a few moments hesitation ( like 2 microseconds) he played c5 and my head even sank further.
Not cos of the fear but rather of the confusion.
ordinarily me meeting the sicilian defencce involves going for the smith morra gambit.
However I decided not to cos

• captain says he is a very solid and prepared player. obviously someone like him with obscene ratings as he did have would be ready to crush the dangerous but unsound Smith morra gambit.
• I have been looking at Ideas of playing against the sicilian revolving around Qxd4 as expertly handled on this site !! seeing I did not look likely to outsmart this wise man I decided to put into practice my 2 hour study of the ideas.
  

OK Now for the game.



As the game progressed, I hit my opponent with the sacrifice 13 Nd5 !! upon which he went into deep thought mode and I went into panic mode since I was sure he would find a 16 move forcing variation which I have no hope of ever seeing until its too late.

As my confidence was sky high , I delivered the earth shattering 20. Bxf7 check and predicted my going into the endgame two pawns up despite having both queens on board.

Typical sods law. I offered my opponent a draw since I figured that going into an end game am totally unfarmiliar with and the words of my captain ringing in my ears half a point wasn't too bad for the day. Just not good enough for me!!!!

well next time am not letting a win escape.

Torture in the hands of my friend......

As many a budding chess player will confess......
You cannot afford to lose tempo with no good reasons..
I followed the mantra in the opening and middlegame then forgot all about it in a knife edge middle- endgame transition.
seems I missed that lesson and was truly punished for wasting a move with 28....... Nf3-d2 only to return my noble knight on f3 on the next move..
I honourably resigned immediately cos my opponent had decisive control of the a- file

ok this is another lesson learnt...
Do not waste tempo ---check!!

SMITH MORRA TRAP!!

I was playing white in this game and most suprisingly my opponent didnt seem to comfortable with the transposition into the smith morra which led to him following natural moves before losing the queen to a common trap..
hope u enjoy this as much as I did.
simple stuff!!!

BENKO GAMBIT.

I have always had a soft spot for the much maligned gambit... (amongst others gambits Kings gambit, Evans Gambit,B.D.G.)
I think the gambit has received very poor press in the chess world considering no GM. uses it as a major weapon in their opening repertoire.
During the next week I will study some of the games and finally decide whether to take it up and sure as hell, if the games are interesting i.e I don't get blown out of the water facing equal or slightly superior opposition then the games will be here.
thanks.
the following "borrowed" videos are part of my elementary understanding of the opening.
UPDATE.
The video below despite the poor audio has pretty much killed my enthusiasm for the gambit.
please take time to play thru it and u shall also realise why to a prepared player, the benko is probably confined to providing a surprise weapon for white.
now am back to square one.

TACTICAL STORM

Having learnt my lessons from my previous game, witness how faced with an opponent slightly misplaying the opening, I decided to steal pawns and eventually a knight in broad daylight!!
Feeling slightly upbeat it seemed am finally learning how to squeeze wins in my games.
enjoy.

Bad Bishop....

I have begun playing the sicilian as my main weapon to counter 1.e4.
This was a game where I forgot one of the mantras of chess.....
its about the pesky little issue of seeking the initiative, keeping it and developing the pieces..
My opponent properly set on exposing my weakness (very bad bishop) which "encouraged" me to tactically try to solve the problem upon which I got properly thumped!!!!

CONVERTING ONE ADVANTAGE TO ANOTHER..

This was a conscious effort on my part to give back a pawn and effectively lock out my opponents bishop from the game..
hope u enjoy it..

Random posting

How to snatch a draw from the jaws of victory....

I feel some background information about the following game is justified....

• I was recovering from the flu at the time and so had a raging headache after 45 mins on my clock....
• I had hoped to play white and indulge my opponent in aggressive chess....
  please see kings gambits,Evans ,or B.D.G ,which I was prepared for..
• finding myself facing 1.e4 , the most logical response was the shveshnikov Sicilian which according to G.M. John Nunn is living on the knife-edge for Sicilian fans... (sir.. I agree)

The game itself started slowly before it opened up and I was suddenly an exchange up heading into the endgame...



typical of sods law, the brain stopped engaging and I allowed my opponent a chance to salvage a draw......
cue me slapping the taste out of my mouth and my opponent surely relieved that I managed to swindle myself out of a win....
oh well enjoy and let me know.
thanks.

HOW TO LOSE IN THE OPENING.

RULE 1: Surrender the initiative to your opponent ... check.
RULE 2: Ignore tactics from the beginning ... check
RULE 3: Basically leave your thinking cap at home.. check.

all the above 3 rules were strongly flaunted in this game.. and by move 6 I sure was in trouble...

"To Gambit or not to gambit"

I was meant to lose this game till my opponent fatally missed a mate threat till to0 late on move 8 and as my mate fritz says, "the rest is history"

PINS, PINS AND MORE PINS........

This was a game which entailed a series of attempts to unravel one pin after another before finally exchanging my queen for two rooks to stifle any counter play from my opponent.
having come out of the opening with a material advantage.