Chessgasm

Closing the Blog...but Linares is still pathetic

2010-02-18T08:54:00.000-08:00

So I am working a lot now, I barely have time to study chess much less write about it, so this will be the last post.

I am not going to post any games. I have been playing badly, and I don't think there's much to learn from my recent 'efforts'. Instead, a little bit of criticism of the chess world:

How far Linares has fallen. It used to be the superest super tourney of them all...winning Linares was the second best thing to winning the title. Up to 14 players playing, all the best, no Dutch hangers on (sorry Wijk an Zee) to lower the average rating...at most, one spanish GM who maybe shouldn't be there, though that hasn't been a problem lately with Pace Vallejo since he is pretty strong.

But this year...6 players. Very sad. No Kramnik (since Topalov is there), no Anand, no Carlsen...why should I care? I love Aronian, but that by itself isn't enough. Linares has become Sofia M-tel. A small tournament of good but uninteresting players set up for Topalov to win. Who cares? It's just sad that the site of two of the greatest chess tourneys of all time (1994 and 2000, though plenty of years at Linares could vie for that title) would be reduced to this.

I look forward to the world championship match. Go Anand. Kill that Bulgarian (and his asshole manager), and then figure out a way to get Carlsen in a match.

On that note, thanks for reading my blog when I still posted regularly. Chessx, good luck with your teaching.

Tom

Been a long time...

2009-12-13T17:52:00.000-08:00

I've been busy. Very busy. This will be a big post as a result, and I'm not even going to include most of the games I've played in the last few weeks. Most of them aren't so great anyway, either crushing wins or pathetic defeats, very little in the way of competitive play. I played in a local Open, which I had promised myself I wouldn't do (I usually don't have the energy after a week of work. I'm lucky to play my club games). I did okay...I only lost 7 points, though I did lose to a 1750 kid when I was dead tired Saturday night. The real mistake was not taking a bye that round. Here is one game from that event.

Kaufman-Rampley.pgn

My opponent is a really nice guy, a middle aged college professor, but as you might expect give his background he isn't the most theoretically cutting edge player. As such, I was really worried about creating winning chances, which I had to do to have any hope of salvaging the tournament. As you can see, he mixed up his move order a little and I whipped up a little attack. When the opportunity came to go into a winning ending however, I took it. He made me work for it, but I got him in the end. I also played a few club games, two of which I'll post to show you the difference between B-class and Expert level play, as if you didn't already know there was a stark divide.

Lopez-Rampley.pgn

Rampley-Font.pgn

Aldo Lopez is a really quality player, probably of master strength (he beat GM Rausis at the Turkey Bowl with black), and I again had trouble with him despite doing a lot of prep. Oh well. No shame in that one. I was glad I was able to handle Gary so easily. Which brings me to a problem I've had recently: winning with black against lower rated players.

It's a real issue in Swiss system tourneys. In the first round especially, you need to win and if you have black and an unambitious opponent, it can be hard. For example, last week I played a 1650 player I've beaten like 3 times in a row, but I had black. It was the first round, and I needed a win. The best I could do, however, was a draw. I was better the whole game, but he didn't risk very much and ably held the draw. I am actually thinking about adding a slightly sketch line (the Modern) to my repertoire just to make sure that lower rated players can't kill the game. I may yet do it. I just hate playing boring, non-theoretical lines of the Sicilian or Semi-Slav and having to take undue risks to create winning chances. Ah well. I usually win anyway, I just wish it didn't take so long.

So I've been playing okay lately, got up to just a hair over 1900, and I have gotten the chance to read a few books. I suppose I might as well review at least one of them:

Secrets of Creative Thinking: School of Future Champions 5, by Mark Dvoretsky

I try not to simply jump on bandwagons, but I have to say I really like the works of Dvoretsky. A few caveats: I'm not strong enough for all of them. I use his Endgame Manual a lot, but I can't solve the exercises 60% of the time (at best). He's very high level. That said, this book is not about tactics, or endings, or openings, but rather about how to think creatively. Like most Dvoretsky books, it's not really a book but rather a collection of lectures that were given at one time or another at his chess school. As such, there are many authors (some quite well known), and a diverse array of topics. These chapters are of varying utility. Most are excellent musing on the way decisions are made in chess, half advice and half philosophical debate. I like these the best. A few are more polemical, such as a book review of a Sanakoev games collection. On the whole, this is a very interesting book that I would recommend. Unlike most Dvoretsky books, this one could be enjoyed by a wide range of players of varying strength. The points are more intellectual than technical, and will be interesting to all.

So I suppose this wasn't really that long of a post, but I'm very drunk and I don't care to keep writing. For one thing, I have to keep deleting and retyping mistakes, which is tiring, and I have to work tomorrow. I will try to get back to posting more often. Peace out.

Endgames Are Where 'C' Players go to Die

2009-10-11T19:36:00.001-07:00

At least that's how I beat them. The last two weeks I've played two player rated 1600-1700ish, and in each case I've taken them into endings in which they're slightly worse (if not equal) and beaten them without a whole lot of trouble. I swear I'm not that good at the middlegame, except in terms of preparing favorable endings. My tactics are not so great but by God if I see a potential endgame weakness I can usually highlight it. It helps when your opponents are oblivious to their own weaknesses, or at least don't perceive the seriousness of them. Here are the games:

Rampley-Neptune.pgn

Rampley-Rockley.pgn

I feel that I've really consolidated my rating lately, so to speak. I pretty much always beat players 100-200 points lower than me, and I feel that's a big part of being a stronger player. You just can't give away points to much lower rated players...you have to find a way to beat them. Drawing people slightly stronger on a regular basis is a big part of it too, and I've definitely gotten better at that as well. Of course, sometimes I get rolled by someone at a higher level, and I have a painful example of that as well from three weeks ago. The line is one that I believe is good for black if he's playing for a win, but it's not easy to play (it's a gambit in the Alapin Sicilian). Anytime black gambits a pawn a lot of accuracy is required, and I didn't have it. I really need to study this position deeply because I've had a lot of trouble with it both over the board and online. Still, I wouldn't give it up as it's one of the few lines versus the Alapin Sicilian that isn't drawish. Here's the game:

Lopez-Rampley.pgn

Ouch. That one still hurts. Though I have very little time to study now that I'm working (which is going well, thanks for asking), this position is worth some time and effort. I just can't stand the early ...Nf6 lines, they're just so boring.

In the chess stratosphere these days, Carlsen is owning everyone like they're a bunch of 'A' players in a weekend Swiss. This guy is really ridiculous. I love how in the last round of Nanjing he beak Javojenko, even though he had already won outright. How many GMs would have just taken a short draw? 80-90% would be my guess. He's as flexible as Kasparov in the types of openings and positions he can play well, and he has the drive to win every game like Fischer did. And I believe he's about to be 2800+ before his 20th birthday. If he keeps this up, he could challenge Kasparov for best all time. I realize that's preposterously premature, but the way he's playing is just astonishing. Nobody wins as many games these days as he does. Defensive technique is just too good, but he just seems to throw people off their games. I'm a huge fan. I hope Anand whips Topalov soon and that Carlsen gets his shot quickly thereafter.

You know who I think could be Carlsen's great rival? Aronian. He plays in a sort of offbeat way, but he's tremendously strong at simply playing the game (as opposed to opening prep) in the same way as Carlsen. A match between those two would be excellent. The older generation is starting to fade somewhat in my opinion, in prominence if not in rating, and it's time for Carlsen, Aronian, Radjabov, Karjakin, Grischuk, etc to step up. I look forward to it.

Chess From a Different Perspective

2009-09-22T17:28:00.000-07:00

So I've had to cut back on my chess study a great deal since I started working, as one would expect. I've only been studying three days a week, and then only for about an hour. I've been working 10 hour days, and after work I'm just too tired to think about chess. Since my wife travels all week the weekends are just for us. I've only played one game since my job started, and I was pretty tired when I went in to play it. I was also ready to enjoy it.

That may sound obvious, but think how often you sit down at the board more worried about losing or really, really driven to win rather than with the idea of enjoying chess in mind. I almost always did. Though I think chess is beautiful, what I mostly got from competing was the thrill of winning. Consequently, losing made me feel awful. I studied not just because I enjoy chess, but also because I hate losing so much. There was an element of compulsion in it when I was unemployed because I felt the need to show progress at something, even if it wasn't something very important to my life in the long term.

This is all preamble to saying that the game I played last Wednesday was probably the most enjoyable game I've played in a long time. I won, but the reason I enjoyed it so much was that I didn't care all that much whether I won or lost. I don't think I realized how much importance I was placing on my chess performance, but after starting work and thus having my priorities shifted it became apparent that I hadn't been treating chess as a hobby, but rather as a serious undertaking the outcome of which I let affect my happiness, opinion of myself, and even relationship with my wife (I get very angry and difficult after losing and am not pleasant to be around). Though I know I won't be making as much progress (if any) as I continue to play, and I won't be playing as often, chess truly seems like a hobby now and I like it that way. It frees me up to just enjoy the beauty and depth of the game. I still want to win, but if I don't I don't feel like a loser (except in blitz...it's hard to be philosophical when you lose 5 games in a row on ICC, just human nature I suppose). I'd be interested to know how my few (but surprisingly loyal) readers approach the game and see themselves in relation to it.

As for the game, it marked my return to playing 1.e4 after 1.5 years of all 1.d4s. I just got bored playing the same positions. I'll probably play 1.e4 for a while and then gradually just start switching. Luckily I learned enough theory when I was studying 2-3 hours each day that I can play pretty much any opening I want, which is really nice. The game was a pretty dry Scandinavian where my opponent was trying to equalize rather than seize the initiative. He got pretty close to equalizing but misplayed when I broke in the center. In the resulting complications I was able to win a pawn and gradually bring home the win. It's a pretty interesting ending. I actually made it a little more complicated than necessary, but I think the tactics are cute. Enjoy (after move 20 or so, anyway. It's rather boring prior to that).

Rampley-Gellert.pgn

There you go. I'm only playing once a week and don't have a lot of time to blog, so it may be a minute before I post again. Peace out.

Getting Back to Chess

2009-09-10T08:19:00.001-07:00

So I've started playing again. I never really stopped studying or playing online, but I was a bit hesitant about returning to rated play, just because the US Open went so badly. As it turns out, I was over thinking it. I've found that the key for me is to be as relaxed about the result as possible and not to take the game too seriously.

That can be very hard, as we all know. To be good at chess requires commitment, and it's difficult to care about something enough to work hard at it while at the same time being unconcerned about short term results. I certainly haven't mastered that mental skill, but I'm trying. It helps to play in club tournies and avoid the big weekenders. There is so much more stress playing all those games in a row, plus the steep entry fees demand that you take it very seriously if you're playing at all. So I don't know if I'll ever play a big individual event again. Team events still sound like fun, but the major national tournaments are just too much investment, both monetary and mentally. Chess is my hobbie, and while it's a great hobby it's a horrible obsession because it's so unforgiving.

I have been enjoying chess in other ways lately. I've been teaching elementary kids, and that's been fun. Seeing how happy there are when they find the right move or watching the solution to a problem dawn on them is really rewarding. I'm going to have to stop teaching soon however as I'm about to start a job (finally, after all these months). I think getting a (good) job has actually been very beneficial to my attitude about chess as it's reaffirmed that chess is secondary for me, which has helped me to take it less seriously. In any case, I played my first serious game in about a month last night and it was very interesting.

My opponent was a guy I've played once before, and I've looked at his games a lot so I know his style and repertoire well. It's fair to say that he's an attacker to a fault, and I knew that if he got an initiative he could be dangerous despite our rating difference. Our previous game was in the Grand Prix Sicilian, and while that ended in a draw I was under more pressure than I liked. That game actually caused me to change my repertoire versus the Grand Prix, and I was happy to have a chance to play my new line. Joel knew that I had a new system as we're friendly and have discussed the opening several times, so he was a bit worried about playing his normal stuff. As a result he made a mistake and played something very offbeat which I imagine he'd never played before.

Look: when you're playing a higher rated player, you should just play your normal lines. At least you'll understand the position. If you play offbeat junk lines, then neither one of you will be familiar with the position and you're likely to get outplayed. If you put me and anyone 300 points lower than me in a position neither one of us have ever seen before, I'm usually going to win. I'll simply out calculate him, plus since my knowledge is broader than most 1600 players there's a great chance that any random position will be closer to something I know than something he knows. By playing a weird opening, Joel took away a lot his first move advantage because he no longer had the chance to steer the game into familiar (to him) channels. When you look at the game you'll see what I mean.

That said, it was a very sharp and entertaining game in which both sides took risks to try and seize the initiative. I went from winning by a lot to winning by a little as Joel found a series of accurate defensive moves, and eventually he obtained a drawn position. Up until that point he had played very well, way above his level, but then two consecutive endgame blunders left him with no chances to save the game. The finish of this one is also pretty cute as it appears near the end that white may have drawing chances, but instead he loses by one tempo. Here's the game:

Neptune-Rampley.pgn

Neat game, huh? It was a nice return to playing, and I'm looking forward to playing this Friday as well. Two games a week in club play is plenty for me, and I still feel like I'm improving though I imagine that will slow down now that I'll be working and won't have 2-3 hours a day to devote to chess. Hopefully I'll be able to study positions on my lunch break. I guess we'll see.

I may have gotten too good to enjoy chess...

2009-08-14T11:29:00.000-07:00

...and I'm not really very good. I went to the US Open in Indianapolis (my hometown) and hit a wall. I didn't have any will to get into positions (to calculate deeply, that is), to do the hard work over the board that is required for success. I almost liked it better when I was 1600 and a win or loss seemed to be more a result of inspiration than grinding. I admit, I was a little out of sorts as I was spending the days with friends and family that I rarely see, but more was going on than that. I simply wasn't enjoying playing. I was lucky to score the 1.5 points that I actually managed. The loss to Magness wasn't such a big deal as he's a talented junior on the rise, but the loss to Pressici was the worst upset I've suffered in years. I even saw the tactic he laid on me before he played it, but I was too lazy to do more than a superficial assessment of its power. It wasn't that I didn't know I should look more deeply into it, I just didn't have the will.

It may be that after I get my mental shit together I'll be able to play well again. I've been pretty out of sorts on many levels since I wasn't selected for a Project Management job (I got through two interviews and was very confident), as my employment outlook is pretty bleak. Chess is very mood dependent, as least for me, and I have not been in a mood to play serious chess for some time. I hope I have the first again by September, as I like the idea of playing in the Miami Open. If I were to play in my current mental state it would just be throwing money away. I'd probably end up withdrawing like I did from the US Open.

Ironically, not getting the PM job freed me up to take the chess teaching position that I'd been offered. It's only an hour a week and thus won't screw up my unemployment as I continue to search for work. The irony lies in my accepting the position only as I become less personally enthusiastic about chess. It may reignite my love of the game to see it played by kids without agenda or fear of losing rating points, or it may just make me even more tired of chess by forcing me to think about it when I'd rather not. I'm hoping for the latter. We'll see.

Almost as a post-script, here are the games I played. Go through them and you'll probably see why I withdrew. All I can say is that I played as well as I could with everything else going on in my life and in my head. It was really bad timing that the Open came when it did.

Roopnarine-Rampley.pgn

Rampley-Magness.pgn

Presicci-Rampley.pgn

Rampley-Yang.pgn

A Painful Return to Tournament Play

2009-07-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

The US Class Championships in Boca Raton was my first weekend tournament in some time. I was using it primarily as a tune up for the US Open, and while the tournament was great for that purpose it was a competitive failure at +0=4-1. This was my first time playing in the 'A' group, and I must say that it was extremely tough going. I was repeatedly outplayed in the middle game, though I must say that my openings and endings proved up to the task. This was very gratifying since I've been working on both a great deal, but the pattern of getting a better position, becoming much worse in the middle game and then only saving the position due to superior technique was not encouraging.

I really shouldn't be so hard on myself, I suppose. In some senses I performed well: I overcame one of my worst habits, namely giving up (or at least becoming extremely pessimistic) upon realizing that I was worse. In this tournament, each time I recognized that I was worse I pulled myself together and resolved to hold the ending. In each case, I was able to do so, though not without considerable help from my opponents. The one game I lost I lost due to tactical oversight, certainly not from giving up.

It is interesting how even players of ~1900 not only seemed to play the ending very badly, but almost seemed to stop trying when they reached winning positions. It's as if the prospect of playing out a better ending was enough to sap their energy and resolve. I don't know why they expected the win to just happen, but that seemed to be a consistent mindset of my opponents throughout the tournament. Here's an example. I was so lost in the first round that at least three times I resolved to resign if my opponent played the best move. These were not terribly hard moves to find, mind you. Each time however, he let me off the hook. See for yourself.

Machado-Rampley.pgn

Not an auspicious start, but at least I hadn't given up when faced with a difficult (in this case truly hopeless) defense. Garrett once told me I needed to become an 'old school scrapper from way back', and while he was half joking he was still completely right. The more I've come to see chess as a battle (as opposed to a display of skills and knowledge developed away from competition) the more successful I've been. The better I get, the more the psychological aspects matter. Toughness, resolve, these qualities can't be overestimated.

The second round was unlike the first in pretty much every way, apart from my playing badly in the opening. This was the first time I'd trotted out the Russian variation in response to the Grunfeld, and I knew there was a very real possibility that I wouldn't be prepared from a theoretical standpoint having only studied the most critical lines. My opponent in fact deviated early, but I didn't handle it correctly. What followed after was a mistake that indicative of my whole tournament, as well as all my chess as of late.: a tendency to enter complex positions merely for the sake of complexity, even when I had better 'solid' options available. I too often sacrificed a win in hopes of creating a brilliancy. While I got away with it here, mostly because I was white, it led to some really bad positions in later games against stronger opponents. I guess I've read too many Bronstein and Shirov books...but I just couldn't resist the urge to sacrifice my queen for three pieces once in my life.

Rampley-Smith.pgn

I have to say, playing in this manner may not be solid but it is admired. I had several people (including my opponent) tell me that 'that's how chess ought to be played'. I assume they mean sharply, creatively...hopefully not dubiously. As neat as it may have been, it was still a dubious continuation and I'd have had a better chance of winning if I'd played more simply. While flights of fancy aren't bad, they should be at least not worse than other continuations; a discipline I wasn't able to enforce upon myself, as you'll see as you look through the other games.

The third round was an English that I couldn't resist spicing up, much to my dismay. Again, I chose complications over what I knew to be the best continuation. I was again lucky to draw, based upon the poor endgame play of my opponent.

De Luca-Rampley.pgn

The fourth round was the worst for me, being my only loss. I came in ready to kick some ass, expecting a white. Instead, I was given my third black out of 4 games. My parents were coming in to town that afternoon, and I had actually hoped to play my white and then withdraw to meet them at the airport. After this game, I was unable to withdraw because I had to get some self respect back.

A short digression...I have to say I had about the toughest draw this tournament that I've ever had. Here were my pairings (with color and opponent's rating)

Round 1 Black vs 1960
Round 2 White vs 1812
Round 3 Black vs 1940
Round 4 Black vs 1975
Round 5 White vs 1870

My only 'easy' game in the 2nd round he played an opening which I had just started working on a new system against. I do feel like I was a bit unlucky. For what it's worth I had the highest tiebreak score (due to average opponent rating and performance) or any player other than the winner. Enough whining, here's the fourth round game: a flight of fancy by my opponent this time catches me unaware and I go down in flames.

McLean-Rampley.pgn

Couldn't save that one in the ending, as it never got there. Needless to say I was frothing at the mouth for my fourth round game. First however, I had to go through a little bout of self hatred and an attempted withdrawal before manning up and driving back to the tournament site to play the last round. The last round was much like the 2nd...I chose complications over a slightly better position. After dominating the opening, I felt an obligation to try and keep the initiative by entering a crazy line that I was pretty sure was dubious. Why did I play it anyway? Who knows. This is the big takeaway for me from this tournament: if you know (or even suspect) a move is bad, don't play it, regardless of how beautiful the conception is. Throwing away a better or equal position isn't beautiful, ti's stupid. It's not going to look like a stroke of genius when you lose...you just blundered. A valuable lesson, especially since I'll probably play down some at the US Open and really shouldn't take chances in games that I'll almost certainly be able to win from a better endgame position. Here's the game.

Tucen-Rampley.pgn

So that was my tournament. Good as a tune up, horrible as a competitive outing. I'm glad I played, but hopefully I won't have to repeat the same psychological mistakes again. Knowing one's own self destructive tendencies is the first step to correcting them. In the future I know to ask myself upon considering a crazy move: 'are you considering this because it's the best solution in the position, or just because it's crazy? Is it even playable, or are you about to do something dubious because it has a veneer of creativity?' If I can do that, I think I'll add some stability to my play and justify my ~1900 rating. As a post script, my tournament performance was about 1860, which I suppose I should take heart in since I was around 1700 in January. I've come a long way. See you at the US Open.

How Good is Good?

2009-06-27T08:44:00.000-07:00

So I drew a game against a master (with black), first time I've ever done so, and when I Fritzed it I was surprised. Not that I'd overlooked things, but rather that he'd overlooked so much, playing one or two pretty dubious moves. It's not that I assumed he'd play perfectly, since even masters clearly make mistakes, but even so the number of times he missed the best move seemed high. This guy has been a master for a long time too, with a peak rating around 2400, so he's no slouch. It got me thinking about what it means to be good at chess. By almost any standard, master is pretty strong. If you make it to master, you have a good grasp of the fundamental technical aspects of chess, and probably some areas where you possess truly exceptional understanding of the game. And yet...there's always somebody better (or something, in this computer era) to compare yourself to and come up lacking. So therefore we can't use purely comparative criterion. We also can't define chess mastery as not making mistakes because by that criteria nobody is a master. Beyond 'mistakes' vs. 'no mistakes', there are no absolutes. Mastery is an arbitrary definition we impose at an arbitrary rating of 2200.

Which brings us back to the comparative criterion. When I say we can't use it to define master, I mean that there is no formal way we can do so. In truth, mastery is whatever we say it is. John Nunn has done some comparative work that suggests that some participants in major tournaments at the turn of the last century were probably no more than 2000-2100 strength by today's standards, but in their day there were considered the leading chess masters. Considered is the wrong word...they were in fact the leading chess masters, based upon the knowledge developed at that time and the caliber of their opposition. In a way the development of knowledge in chess and the ease of disseminating that knowledge has made it harder to become a master, because it has raised the general level of chess play worldwide. The comparative criteria are stricter now for mastery than they've probably ever been.

In the end, how good you think you are is purely a function of who you compare yourself too. The better I get, the more I am bothered by small mistakes that wouldn't have worried me in the past. I find it hard to feel good about being 1800 (one point shy of 1900 now) because once you're there you recognize how much further you have to go. I think when you read GM annotations you get the sense that they feel the same way, because their self deprecation is almost always connected to errors they've made. The fact that those errors are so slight that a normal master wouldn't even rate them doesn't matter, no more than it matters to a master that I don't think his errors are gross inaccuracies.

This is a bit of a rambling post, but I really find this subject interesting. I remember one specific instance when I was talking to my buddy Garrett, who's about 2150. I was roughly 1700 at the time, and the conversation essentially consisted of him showing one of his games (which I believe he won) and repeating over and over that this move or that move was 'a blunder'. I recall thinking at the time 'wow, if that's a blunder then I wish I could blunder more often. These moves are at most small inaccuracies, 3rd or 4th best moves instead of 1st or 2nd'. Looking back, I completely understand that Garrett wasn't just being hard on himself, but was judging himself by the criteria appropriate to his level. As I keep getting higher, so do my standards. It's actually kind of a bitch, because it makes it hard to ever be satisfied with your play.

For today at least, I'm going to be satisified even though I took a draw when I could have pressed for more. It's still my first draw against a master. Here it is:

Cooke-Rampley.pgn

I won't be playing chess for another two weeks, so this may well be my last post for a minute. One final note: if you don't get New In Chess magazine and you can spare ~$100, then you should get it. The stories are great, and the annotations are by the top GMs themselves. I think the last issue I got had annotations by Aronian, Shirov, Leko, Carlsen, and Bacrot just to name a few. Congrats to Shirov for kicking some ass again. I would love to see him back in the elite mix. Peace out.

These Experts Ain't Shit...

2009-06-22T14:24:00.000-07:00

I seem to have more trouble with other 'A' players than those over 2000 recently. In the last Boca Raton club tournament that just finished, I beat two experts, drew one, and the only game I lost was to another guy rated under 1900. My last round game was on the black side of a Colle against a guy I'd lost to in the same opening in the last tournament.

I really hate losing to offbeat lines like the Colle, Torre Attack, Morra Gambit, etc. It's not that they're so bad, it's that I feel a moral obligation to at least draw. I think it's because I write most of these openings off and so if I get beat by them, it feels as if all my work learning and playing main lines is wasted. I mean hell, if I could get just as good a position playing the London system and the English defense to everything, then I've been studying for nothing. But I don't think that is the case. Playing something offbeat with black can get you beat in the opening, but with white you certainly have bit more latitude. Most of these guys don't have study time, and so they just want a playable position out of the opening. While I can respect that, it's not for me. I do like to press in the opening, as I feel it's one of the strongest parts of my game.

Returning to the main point of all this, I lost to him last time from a very drawable position, and this time I was determined to at least draw. As it happened, he made a few errors (mostly subtle) and I won. The tournament raised my rating to 1899 (I couldn't have gotten one more point?!?), which is basically my goal for the end of 2010. I think I need to reassess my goals. New goal: get to 200o before starting business school. That means before fall of 2010...basically, I have a year. That's a pretty tall order if I get a job anytime soon, but otherwise I think it's probably attainable. Expert level has always been my goal in chess. If I could really do it, wow. I'd feel like I'd accomplished something. In any case, here's the game:

Dima-Rampley_0.pgn

My opponent seems like a really cool guy, which was nice because it meant that I could talk to him about the game afterward. Post mortems are almost always valuable, even if you're quite a bit higher rated than the person you're playing. If nothing else, you end up giving a mini-lesson which helps you articulate what you were thinking at the board, always a useful way to retain knowledge.

So beyond the game, I've recently gotten the book Excelling at Combinational Play by Jacob Aagaard. I normally like Aagaard's writing and ideas but he has a horrible habit of disrespecting other authors which I find totally unnecessary and offensive. In this book he stays away from that (and actually makes a reference to not doing it, showing that he's aware of the criticism) and manages to focus on combinational play. If you've ever read a book of combinations, you know that most of them start out with some general advice on how to solve problems, the utility of doing so, etc. Aagaard is no different, and most of what he says is pretty standard for this sort of work. There was one thing however that really stood out, showing that Aagaard is still an active and practical player. He advises the reader to not just get the main line or see the idea of the combination, but to look so deeply into it that you know all the lines, such that if you were playing a game you could respond to any of your opponent's moves instantly. This is a tall order, and more work than most of do when solving problems. But think about it...if you're playing a game, you don't just want to play some sacrifice that gets refuted four ply down the line because you didn't look that deeply. You want to see to the end.

There's a connection here to the Hertan book Forcing Chess Moves which I reviewed recently. The way to know when you've analyzed enough is when you've analyzed all the forcing moves for both sides. You can't stop until you have, or else you risk a nasty surprise at the end of your combination. Any non-forcing replies are by nature non-critical, and so you don't have to analyze those. Certainly it's not always easy to even know what the forcing moves are four moves down the line, but that's a matter of board vision not the effort you put into solving. I find that if I do problems as Aagaard recommends, even four can take me an hour. When you think about it though, 15 minutes is not unreasonable for a critical tactical move during a game. I will go so far as to say that if you don't solve using this method of consistently looking through all the lines, then you're training yourself to overlook possibly critical responses during your games, like I did when I lost to Yin two weeks ago (see the archive for the game). If I'd looked at all the forcing responses he had, I wouldn't have miscombined like I did and would probably have retained the great position I gave up by miscalculating.

Returning to Aagaard, the problems in here almost all come from fairly recent games, and interestingly enough they're all from Sicilians. If you play 1.e4 or the Sicilian as black, then this book is definitely worth getting. Otherwise, it's just a good book on combinations with a few gems of advice amongst the boilerplate.

Final topic: I've changed the way I study openings. I used to spend a lot of time playing through one or two games trying to guess the moves of one side, thus forcing me to analyze the tabiyas of various openings. Not a bad method, but very slow. What I've been doing lately, and it seems to be working, is collecting a lot of annotated games (thanks chesspublishing.com !) in specific openings and play through them rather quickly, stopping to analyze only moves I don't understand. I find this gives me a good general feel for the opening, especially the differences between various branches of the opening tree. For example, I've been studying the Krasenkow (also called the Makaganov) variation of the KID, featuring an early h3. In this line sometimes you attack on the kingside, sometimes the queenside, sometimes you throw your g-pawn forward, or not, sometimes the bishop belongs on g5, other times on e4, etc. It's really hard to memorize all these variations, and it would take me a long time to learn the opening by playing through game after game in that slow, guess-the-move style. By playing through many games quickly (with pauses for deep analysis if I don't understand the point of a move), I'm starting to understand the differences between the systems and the underlying reasons for the moves the GMs play. The reason I can do this is that by looking at many games in a row I have the advantage of comparison, which is lacking when you just analyze one game very deeply. Give it a try. It's a lot easier mentally too, and would be much easier to make yourself do after a long day at work than trying to guess move after move.

Until next week. Peace out.

The Reign of Inconsistency

2009-06-16T11:00:00.000-07:00

The story of every class players life, right? You play a great game, then you blunder a piece on move 12. You concentrate hard and get an overwhelming position, then one careless move and you're drawing or worse, losing. I've been told I play at 21oo strength. If you looked at some games I've lost recently, you'd conclude I played at 1400 strength. Not surprisingly, my rating splits the difference.

I don't really know how to become more consistent. Practice, I guess. I notice that mood makes a big difference for me: if I don't feel much like playing, I may as well not because I'm probably going to blunder. If I could wave a magic wand and improve anything about my game, it would be consistency. Not least because it's the only part of my game I don't know how to fix through hard work.

As you're probably guessed, I have some up and down games to show. The first is a very nice effort against an expert (the first one I've beaten) played in Boca Raton. The game is an f3 Nimzo-Indian. It's funny that with since I moved up to the premiere division at Boca I've played 3 Nimzo-Indians out of 4 white games. I have always read that the higher your rating goes the more Nimzos you play, but it's funny to find it so true. It seems that after about 1800 there's a big move away from the QGD and the King's Indian to Nimzo/Queen's Indian and Slav systems. While that's not so surprising given the greater complexity involved in playing the latter systems, it's also enjoyable to start seeing a broader range of defenses. It certainly validates all the time I put in studying them when I was ~1600. In any case, here's the game:

Rampley-Wang.pgn

Not a perfect game, but I saw a lot and played with energy. I was very happy after this one. Not so much the next game. In this one my opponent also played the opening passively, but I got way too eager to punish him and over-reached. I blame studying tactics. I've spent so much time lately on tactical puzzles that I've started seeing almost every position as a tactical puzzle. While this might help me find some resources that I'd otherwise miss, it also makes it hard to step back and look at the larger picture. Sometimes you have to play with restraint. In this game I saw what looked like a good sac (it wasn't) and once I realized it wasn't good the only option I saw was to sacrifice more material (also incorrectly). When I analyzed the game, I found that a quieter continuation leading to space gains would have given me an overwhelming advantage. I didn't even look at it.

To my opponent's credit, I didn't just lose because I played badly. I set him some hard problems, and he found excellent solutions to all of them. I thought he played extremely well after the opening. Take a look:

Rampley-Yin,E.pgn

That one really hurt. I also blundered a game in Margate last week that I'm not going to show here, because I literally lost a piece to a one move tactic around move 20 (and to a guy I don't like too, which made it even worse).

Moving to study, I'm finding it harder to study openings. They simply aren't as interesting as they used to be. I suppose that's not such a big deal since my opening repertoire is already much better than most players at my rating, but it's odd since the opening has traditionally been my favorite thing to work on. I don't have an explanation, though the pleasure I'm getting studying advanced tactics and endings may have something to do with it. Or it might just be a case of diminishing returns. I mention this because I've been toying with the notion of playing some 1.e4 again, though to do so means a lot of opening work. I'd just rather keep working my way through Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual and Forcing Chess Moves. It'll be interesting to see what helps my game more. I certainly do get some significant advantages in the opening. I hope I don't lose that during the process of improving other parts of my game.

One last note: I will be at the US Open in August. 6 day schedule. I'm super pumped. If anyone reading this is going to be there, leave me a comment and we can play some blitz. Peace out.

Two Games and a Lesson

2009-06-04T13:24:00.000-07:00

So I went to the Miami Chess Academy for the first time. Had a lesson with the owner, IM Blas Lugo. It was very productive. It never ceases to amaze me how very strong players can just look at a position, any position it seems, and quickly come to a conclusion about the proper plans and ideas for both sides. If you're in Miami and you want some chess lessons, I'd highly advise the Academy. It is a little pricey, but chess lessons are expensive everywhere. One funny note: Blas told me $50/hour, which is pretty normal. I got there, and we sat down in a room without a clock. I had assumed we'd go an hour, even though Blas hadn't said anything of the sort. I think I assumed it because that was how the price was quoted. Anyway, we went through some games and then did some problems, and I was thinking 'this is more than an hour, is he giving me some extra time because it's my first lesson, or what?' only when I went to the bathroom and saw that three hours had passed did I realize that the rate was in fact, as Blas had said, an hourly rate and not a rate per lesson. For an unemployed guy (me), $150 is a lot to spend on a chess lesson, but it was extremely instructive. My wife insisted, by the way. She just laughed at me when she heard the price, because she knew it would bother me more than her. In the future I'll probably just stick to game analysis since problem solving involves lots of (expensive) time in which I just sit there and analyze. It's great to do it with a strong player there, but I can't afford that. $100 every 3-4 weeks wouldn't be so bad though. I plan on going back when I have enough questions to fill 2 hours. Not every game is worth going over with an IM, after all.

Speaking of games, here are two that I played recently. Both came down to endgames, which is a new thing for me. Think about it: when you are ~1600, your games are often effectively over by 30 moves or so. Someone drops a piece or otherwise blunders, and the endgame (if there is one) is usually just mopping up. Now that I'm getting good enough where I don't drop pieces or pawns that often, I'm starting to reach endings in almost every game. I really like the endgame, but I'm not so good at it yet because I've played so few.

But I have been (as I usually do) studying my ass off with Dvoretsky's endgame manual. I think one of the things I like most about it is how hard it is. The exercises are very challenging, and it's like having a teacher with high expectations. You get a sense for how hard you really have to work to get to a high level, and depending on your penchant for study that either excites you or scares you. I get excited because as I work and study I realize that I can in fact do it, I can see deep enough and calculate accurately enough if I really put in the effort. It's tough but rewarding (that could apply to almost any activity worth doing I suppose). I think it's already payed off, as you'll see from these two games. In the first, played in Boca, I made some mistakes in the middlegame and got into a clearly worse ending. I ended up sacrificing the exchange to maintain a passed pawn on the 6th rank which distracted my opponent enough that I was able to draw. He made some mistakes in the later stages, but they weren't obvious and it just goes to show how hard the endgame is to play well.

Goss-Rampley.pgn

I really should have lost that game, but I feel I defended well and I'll always take a draw in such a position. I do feel that endgames tend to favor the defender. In the middlegame the attacker often has natural squares for his pieces and a variety of tactical threats, while the defender is forced to walk a razor's edge to avoid defeat. In the ending this situation is often reversed, and the side that's better has to find 'only' moves to avoid turning a win into a draw. If you have pressure in the middlegame, it's often sustained whereas in the endgame one inaccurate move can completely change the evaluation of a position. What makes things worse is that mistakes are often not obvious at all. I must say the subtelty of endings is one of the things that attract me to them the most. The next game is not so high quality in the opening or middlegame (especially on my part...my opponent played the middlegame well despite a pretty bad opening), but the ending is a pretty example of how strong, subtle threats can get you a win without your opponent making any obvious mistakes. I am somewhat proud of my endgame play in this one. I didn't miss a beat, and that's something I can hardly ever say about my games.

Kutikoff,B-Rampley.pgn

I feel that Bruce played above his rating in this game, which makes it even sweeter to get the win. I believe it was Spielmann that said "play the opening like a book, the middlegame like a wizard, and the endgame like a machine". I've got the opening part down (at least for my level), and I'm rapidly improving on the third part. I wonder where I go to learn magic..?

A Book Review and ...I Swear This Isn't Erotic...

2009-05-27T19:45:00.000-07:00

...but I really love chess. I've had many loves (other than people) in my life...in order, I think they were baseball, classical cello, Magic: the Gathering (because I was a big nerd 7th-1oth grade), rugby, Korean martial arts (Hapkido primarily), Judo, and now chess. The big ones were music, Judo, and chess. I got pretty good at the first two, and I'm improving at the third. What I love about chess is the way intricate, detailed calculation combines with fantasy to produce beautiful ideas. Chess is no different than anything else: to really appreciate the beauty of it, you have to be somewhat good at it. You have to give enough time and effort to it to understand its subtleties. Once you do understand them, they become beautiful. The better I get, the more positions I understand, the deeper I can calculate, the more I love the works of great chess artists like Fischer and Tal, Capablanca and Kasparov. The different ways in which they weave masterpieces are as unique as fingerprints. The simplicity and directness of Fischer and Capa, the imagination of Tal, the naked aggression of Kasparov. I really love them all. I strive to create the same beauty in my games, though at best I only play one or two beautiful moves every 20 games or so, and I still haven't played a truly beautiful game. I'm not good enough, and neither are my opponents in most cases. We make too many errors. A truly sublime chess game should be close to error free, and what errors there are should be subtle.

It is funny what people think makes a beautiful game. As I implied before, I think it's a combination of exacting calculation (i.e. chess 'truth') and fantasy. An unexpected and original idea supported by valid analysis is the recipe for beauty. It's not necessarily a brilliant attack or a deep combination, though those can be beautiful. Many attacks can be formulaic even if they involve multiple sacrifices. The beauty for me lies in the originality of the conceptions involved. That's why Tal's games are so pretty. Not because he sacrifices material, but rather the way he sacrifices material. The positions in which he does so, the unorthodox (but so often exceptional) compensation he recieves. Anyone can sacrifice. To do so in a position where no one else would even consider it but yet it's still valid is where the beauty lies. Another player whose games I am astonished by is Petrosian. He had as much appreciation for the possibilities of a position as Tal did, but rather than exploiting them directly he prevented his opponent from taking advantage of them. Playing through some Petrosian games is like watching Shaq play one on one versus Vern Troyer. He doesn't have to hurry and he doesn't seem to work particularly hard, because his opponent can do absolutely nothing to stop him from doing whatever he wants.

After that extended soliloquy, here's a game I just played which is not beautiful in the least, though it's an example of reasonably good play by both sides. Note to everyone: I hate the black side of the French. Really. Hate. It.

Saliva-Rampley.pgn

There you go. And now for a book review.

Forcing Chess Moves: the Key to Better Calculation, Charles Hertan

So this book won the Chesscafe.com Book of the Year prize for 2008. After getting it, I'm not surprised. This is an excellent educational tactics manual, which is a pretty hard thing to do. This tome goes beyond the standard review of a few typical combinative themes followed by problems. Way beyond.

Well, 'way beyond' may be an exaggeration. The chapters do consist primarily of many examples of tactics, followed by a set of exercises. I suppose it seems so different from a standard tactics book because it's so much better. I haven't seen any of the combinations before, and writing is enthusiastic, and then of course you have COMPUTER EYES.

I wrote the phrase in all caps because that is how it appears throughout the book. Just so you know, computer eyes is the phrase Hertan uses to describe the search for non-obvious but forcing, winning moves. Other reviewers have complained that it's a silly term repeated too often in the book, but I happen to find it a very useful concept. As I believe repetition is the mother of learning, I also think it's good that Hertan repeats it over and over. Truly, the idea of looking at forcing moves first even if they don't look initially promising is worth remembering. You can probably tell I really like this book, and I recommend it to anyone. I would add that if you're under ~1700, don't expect to get the exercises right. The examples will still help you though, and the idea of examining all forcing moves will probably raise your rating anyway if you apply it consistently.

New tourney at Boca starts Friday. Peace.

The Return of the One Day Tournament...

2009-05-24T17:57:00.000-07:00

...for me at least. Even though I was on a steady diet of these in Indy, it's been a while since I played one. This particular tournament happened to be G60 5/inc, with four rounds. The first round was dirty.

Ibarra-Rampley.pgn

I'd beaten this guy two times in a row despite our rating differential, but I screwed this game up badly. What can I say? It was early, I miscalculated. I don't really enjoy playing these coffeehouse guys so much. They launch a crazy attack and either win or lose, play really fast, and their style is almost completely based upon tactics. I'm not saying that because they beat me...I usually do well against these types of players. I just don't feel like it helps my chess as much to play these guys as it does to play someone with a more classical style. This is not to say that coffeehouse players are patzers, because that isn't the case. Some very strong players play in this manner to a greater or lesser extent, I just don't have much respect for the style. I like chess that makes positional sense.

So the second round went better. I played Jon Haskel whom I've played twice before (all whites), and he seems to have trouble with me even more than our rating disparity would suggest. I've seen Jon play some good games, but when we play I always seem to roll him. I guess it's some sort of karmic justice since his son always kicks my ass.

Haskel-Rampley.pgn

I misnamed the file, but I promise I was white. Jon and I went to analyze and eat at Panera, and when I got back for the third round I found myself paired with Sergio Liberatore. He's an 'A' player who I had not played against before. I actually consider this my best game of the tournament even though I lost. It was very hard fought and only the short time control prevented a good finish.

Libertore-Rampley.pgn

A tough loss, though I didn't feel nearly as bad about this one as my round one loss. This was a good game, not a blunderfest. The fourth round saw me paired against another player I'd not played before, a medium strength 'B' player. He played a classical Dutch which I've never studied, and he got a good position from the opening. Unfortunately for him he blundered and gave me a nice tactic which resulted in a totally winning position. The game didn't last much longer after that.

Rampley-Becker.pgn

This wasn't a horrible tournament for me, though I will lose a few rating points. I was only unhappy with my play in the first game, which is not so bad considering how self critical I tend to be. I played one more game this last week in the final round at Boca, and it was very frusturating. My opponent had no pretensions in the opening and I was at least equal, but I blundered into a losing endgame. The worst part is, I saw the drawing move and played a blunder anyway. I simply didn't realize that the position was critical. Those sort of oversights really piss me off.

Dima-Rampley.pgn

I was not pleased at all with myself after that one. In other news, I went to the Miami Chess Academy in search of lessons. While I liked the owner IM Blas Lugo quite a bit, it's a very long drive for me. We'll see. I did get to meet Julio Becerra (sort of. He nodded and went back to ICC) and play some blitz with a master, so it wasn't a waste of time. I even won one of those blitz games. Peace out.

Sicilian Reflections

2009-05-20T12:59:00.000-07:00

The Sicilian is an interesting and singular opening within chess, and I've spent a lot of time studying it and thinking about its various branches. One thing that has always interested me is the mindset of open Sicilians versus 'anti' Sicilians. Examples of open Sicilians being the Dragon, Najdorf, etc. 'Anti' Sicilians are the Closed, Grand Prix attack, the Moscow, basically anything where white's second and third move aren't Nf3 and d4. Top 1.e4 players all play open Sicilians the majority of the time, though there are a few 2600+ GMs who consistently employ some of the 'anti' Sicilians. The best example of this is probably Tiviakov, who in fact maintains that the Alapin (charactierized by 2.c3) is a better try for advantage than the open Sicilians. When I used to play 1.e4, I always played the open Sicilians. I thought of it as a point of honor in a way to play what I thought were the 'best' moves, rather than cede equality to black by playing some inferior 'anti' Sicilian system. Now I'm not so sure.

For one thing, I used to play 1...e5 as black in response to 1.e4. Having no experience on the black side of the Sicilian and having never played the white side of any 'anti' Sicilians, I really had no basis for comparison other than what the top guys play. Since I've been playing the Sicilian as black, I've gained a lot of respect for the various systems at white's disposal. I find that I have more trouble against some 'anti' Sicilians that I do against open Sicilians. This is partly because I play the Classical variation of the open Sicilian, against which the Richter-Rauzer is the most testing response. However, nobody at my level plays the Richter-Rauzer because it's very theory intense and not a weapon they're going to use much (the Classical pales in popularity to the Najdorf and the Dragon at amateur level). People who play open Sicilians against me usually get a look of slight confusion on their face when I play 5.d6 and revert to either the English attack or play 6.Be2, neither of which are that scary. The 'anti' Sicilian players on the other hand know exactly what they're doing and often have a lot of practice doing it. After all, they get to play the same system every time an opponent answers 1.e4 with 1...c5. Open Sicilian players on the other hand may only see a given variation once in a blue moon. Think about it. If you as white play 6 Sicilians in a tournament and play 2 Najdorfs, a Dragon, a Sveshnikov, an Accellerated Dragon, and a Kan, you have to know so much more and be comfortable in so many more positions than someone who plays the Closed Sicilian.

Another thing to consider is that you really shouldn't go by what top players play. I don't mean that it's bad to play what they play, because it isn't. What I mean is that you shouldn't automatically play what the best play because their situation is completely different than ours. Two big things jump out when you start assessing the variations of the top guys. The first is that they have a lot of time to learn as many systems as needed. They're professionals who usually have seconds, plus they're so good that they can play any position they're given well. The second consideration, tied closely to the first, is that the top guys have the advantage of knowing what their opponents play. They can look in a database and see 'Hey Kasparov plays the Najdorf, and against the English attack he plays the Ng4 line'. This is a huge advantage because it means they only have to study one or two systems for each opponent. If you read match books (Tal-Botvinnik 1960 for example) you can get a feel for how much of a guessing game it is for top guys to figure out what their opponents are going to play. At that level it's also incredibly important because getting an edge in the opening really matters. Not so much at the class level.

Where I'm going with all this is that I think soon I'm going to start playing 1.e4 again and I think I'm going to play the Grand Prix Attack. Not because I think it's better than the open Sicilians, but because it entails so much less study time and I like the positions I get when I play it online. Here's a 5/0 blitz game I played using it on ICC. The game is of course not perfect, but it gives you an idea of how natural and strong white's play is:

Grand Prix Example.pgn

There are something like 4-5 legitimate answers for black against the Grand Prix, as opposed to hundreds of possible playable lines black can choose in the open Sicilian. It just cuts down on the number of things for white to study, bringing the Sicilian in line with the French or Open Games in terms of preparatory time. Frankly, I have a lot of trouble with the Grand Prix as black and I think it's a good system for white. I've also had my share of trouble against the Closed Sicilian and the Alapin, while the Bb5 variations are almost as main line these days as the open variations. A year ago I might have thought you were a little bit of a bitch if you didn't play the open Sicilians. Now I'm starting to wonder why any non-professional does so at all. Now if I can just find a way to get an attack against that damn Scandinavian, I'll be back to 1.e4 for good...

And So It Goes...

2009-05-18T17:49:00.000-07:00

A loss, and not only a loss. A really horrid, detestable loss. Losing a competitive game against an opponent who plays very well is one thing, just not showing up is another. The game I played in the last round at Margate was one of the most pathetic I've played in the last year, certainly my worst since coming to Florida. I simply didn't feel like working hard at the board, and I didn't work. At all. And I got rolled. Blunderville.

Veluz-Rampley.pgn

I did win a game against a strong A player, but it was marred by his being a dick and not resigning for many moves after being a piece down with no compensation.

Rampley-Rashas_0.pgn

So those are my recent games. I think I'm going to take a break from playing twice a week for a while. I need to recharge.

On another note, I was asked in a comment what has led to my recent rise in strength. I didn't want to answer in the comments, so here are the reasons I think I've been playing better:

1. Studying. I've been studying a great deal, and that helps. My opening repertoire is much more solid than most players my rating, and my endgames are coming along.

2. Working. Working is different than studying. Chess is math, not history. What I mean by that is that to be good at chess regurgitation is not required, or at least it is not the main thing. Playing chess, like doing math, is the process of solving problems. The problems are novel, but are usually similar enough that practicing solving problems will help you a great deal in you own games. To play chess is to analyze. Practice in analysis makes it easier to go deeper, and imprints patterns that act as shortcuts when you are trying to solve problems OTB.

3. Analyzing. Analysis is not just a question of solving tactical problems, but also looking at positions and analyzing possible moves for both sides. This part of my chess work is closely tied to opening study, as the positions I usually choose are transition positions between the opening and middlegame (though I need to look at middle-to-endgame transition positions more). Solitaire chess is a good exercise at this stage.

4. Critically assess your own thinking process. After analyzing my own games at length, I found that I often did not take enough time to look at my opponent's possibilities. This led to me getting surprised by his responses to my moves. Once I started looking more broadly at the other side's chances, as well as trying to figure out what his plans were, I started playing much more consistently. This has also helped my planning, as often if you are at a loss for a plan then prophylaxis is a good option. Dvoretsky has said that consistent prophylactic thinking bring steadiness to your play, and I agree. You will have to find the flaws in your own thinking process, these are just some examples of mine. This step probably did more to improve my results than anything else.

5. Time. I put in the time, played a lot of games, and really got a handle on how hard you have to work at the board. While natural talent plays some role in chess, it's not that big of a deal for most of us. We lose because people outwork us, both at home and OTB. If you want to get better, assess your play critically and work hard to fix your deficencies. Chess will give back to you what you put into it (like everything else in life).

6. I've never had a teacher, but I have had friends and traveling companions who were stronger than me, and I can tell you that having stronger players assess your play makes finding your weaknesses much easier. I would love to have a titled instructor, or even a USCF master. It can be done on your own, but it's harder.

So that's about it. Work on your openings (though not too much), analyze positions from different points in the game, solve problems, and take the time to really examine your thinking process. If you need some help getting started, www.chesscafe.com hosts a column by the excellent Dan Heisman called Novice Nook. Don't let the name fool you-it's a great column on thinking processes and everyone should read it. Go the Chesscafe archives and read them all. At the very least, they'll make you think. And for those of you who don't know why I've written all this mildly self indulgent prose, my rating has risen from ~1700 to ~1850 in about 6 months, and rose ~100 points the year before that, so I feel that I can pontificate just a bit about improvement at the class level. Can't help you make master though. Sorry.

A Tiny, Barely Significant Win Streak

2009-05-09T05:50:00.000-07:00

That's about all the love I can give to four wins in a row. Especially since two of them were against over matched players. The last two however I am quite pleased with. Both were against higher rated competition, and while neither were flawless they were both excellent efforts on my part.

In the third round at the South Florida Chess Club I had to play Paul Muro, who is a dangerous 'A' player and is in fact the only non-master I've lost to since coming to Florida. I had white in this game, and Paul played a fairly main line Benoni. I missed an early chance to become much better, but he in turn missed an equalizing tactic and a complicated middlegame ensued. I was able to maintain and even increase my space advantage while getting way ahead on the clock. An eventual pawn push on the kingside created too many threats for black to deal with, and Paul resigned in a losing position with less than two minutes left on his clock. I was very happy to get this win not only because Paul had beaten me in our last meeting, but because it kept me in a tie for first in the club tournament (which wraps up next Wednesday). Here's the game:

Rampley-Muro 2.pgn

My next win came on Friday in Boca Raton. Paired up against an older gentleman I had not played before, I was really in the mood to play. I misplayed the opening and he equalized easily, then he blundered and I won. ...Oh, wait, I forgot the part about how he made me keep playing after he was a piece down with absolutely no compensation. This is his prerogative, but I think it's pretty rude. I'm really not going to screw the game up that badly. Don't waste my time and yours. It's so much easier on ICC. There's that nice little resign button, and I can even suggest to my opponent that they press it. Not so easy face to face. I like to think my dirty looks said it all. As (I can only assume) consolation to me, he did withdraw from the tournament immediately after the game. Is it really that shameful to lose to me? I should have told him I've been on the rise. In any case, here's the game:

Rampley-Rashas.pgn

Quite a barn burner. Next week I think I'll probably play a master, or at least a strong expert. With black. I'm looking forward to it (really). On Wednesday I have to play a very underrated 'A' player to win the monthly tourney at the SFCC. If I win, not only do I get a cool $80 (they're very inexpensive tournaments to enter), but my rating would most likely go over 1900. That would be pretty sweet, but the way I've been playing I think it's probably only a matter of time. Assuming, or course, that I can stay steady. I'll let you know how it goes. Peace out.

A Relatively Smooth Little Win, and Two Book Reviews

2009-05-05T16:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, I made one blunder, but luckily it was late enough and I was winning by a large enough margin that I held on anyway. The game was an offbeat Sicilian. My opponent played too slowly and I was able to establish a dominant position. As quite often happens, once he realized he was constricted he lashed out reflexively without checking the variations thoroughly enough. I obtained a better ending, increased my advantage, blundered, but was still able to convert my smaller advantage into a win. Here's the game:

Rudensky-Rampley.pgn

Not such a riveting affair, but I take wins where I can get them. In other chess news, I will not be going to the Space Coast Open since I still don't have a job and really shouldn't spend money on tournaments. Luckily I still get some free books, so here are a couple of book reviews:

Playing the Queen's Gambit, a Grandmaster Guide by Lars Schandorff,

This is a very high level manual for how to handle the white pieces vs. various black defenses to the Queen's gambit. I got this book to shore up my repertoire since many of the lines I play are covered. These include the Modern Exchange line in the QGD, the 6.Ne5 lines in the Slav, and Bg5 versus the Semi-Slav. There is also coverage of 3.e4 in the QGA which I don't play but might take up, as well as a section on less popular lines like the Albin and Baltic. The Chigorin is given it's own section, which is probably appropriate given how its popularity has increased recently. The Tarrasch has a stand alone chapter, as does the highly fashionable a6-Slav.

The book is organized in the complete game format, which I prefer, and there is a good mix of prose and variations. As this is a book aimed at higher level players however, the prose is not as explanatory as you might find in a 'Starting Out' book. Generally the author will give a 5-10 move variation with only a few comments as to why a certain move was played and to describe the underlying concept. This is exactly the level I want in an opening book, but may not be enough for some.

The variations are generally not too long, though as Schandorff has opted for a main line repertoire they can become very complex. This is not a book to get if you simply want a playable middle game and are happy to let black equalize as long as you retain play as white. The purpose of playing these lines is to get positions where white has a real chance of being better out of the opening, and to put serious long term pressure on the second player. That cannot be done playing the Colle (sorry Colle people. Please don't leave a ton of analysis in my comments. The Colle is playable but equal).

Schandorff's style is conversational without being too chatty. Many correspondence games are cited, and there appears to be a lot of original analysis. I was little surprised not to see Chess Publishing listed in the bibliography, but other than that all the major periodicals and books were used.

I like this book a lot, but I cannot recommend it if you are just starting to play the Queen's Gambit. For that purpose, Everyman has two good introductory texts that I can think of, one by Chris Ward entitled 'Play the Queen's Gambit' and of course John Cox's wonderful 'Starting Out: 1.d4' which is hardly a starting out volume at all and of the two is the more theory heavy. If you are however an experienced player of the Queen's Gambit, Schandorff's book is an excellent resource to help your understanding of the critical lines and a valuable update to some rapidly changing theory. I have in mind the Anti-Moscow Gambit and the a6-Slav when I make that statement. Don't buy this if you're under 1700. If you're over that, give it a whirl. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual, Mark Dvoretsky

There's not much I need to say about this book. The reviews have been uniformly stellar, and after working with this volume I can only agree. The material is well explained, and the presentation order is very logical and facilitates learning.

Oh, and it's really, really hard. Really. Really. Difficult.

That's not to say the concepts are hard to grasp. In fact the opposite is true; Dvoretsky's writing is clear and his jargon is kept to a minimum. When he does invent a term, such as 'mined squares' to describe squares your king cannot go to in pawn endings, his inventions are easy to digest and remember. What always kills me about Dvoretsky books is that he is one of the few authors who really does write only for masters. The exercises in this book are exceptionally difficult, requiring calculation powers way beyond my abilities. Dvoretsky books are definitely aspirational rather than practical for most of us, but that doesn't mean we can't improve by trying to solve the problems he sets forward. If nothing else, they force us to go beyond our usual variation threshold which hopefully will improve our calculation abilities.

So I guess the bottom line is, get this book, work through it, and try the exercises. Don't give up easily, but don't feel too bad if you can't solve them. They are extremely hard, and unlike many problems grasping the key ideas does not make the problem easy. These are not the sort of puzzles where you say 'oh, the knight's hanging after sacrificing the pawn, duh' and then the variations are easy to work out. These are the sort of puzzles where you say 'oh, if I move my king backwards in this complex pawn ending then 8 moves down the line after an only semi-forced series of exchanges, I think I'll have the opposition which may be enough to pick up the additional pawn and win by one tempo another 9 moves forward'. This is a book for the very serious player who is willing to endure a lot of headache and suffering, but who is committed to getting better. This book and these terribly hard problems will help you improve if you put in the work. Not great for the casual player, but a must for anyone who want to reach expert or master.

One final note, concerning FIDE's proposed changes to the K-factor. For those who don't know, the k-factor determines how much your rating changes with each win or loss. FIDE is thinking about doubling the k-factor, which would mean that when you lose you drop twice as many points as under the current system. The argument is that by increasing the k-factor you would make ratings a more accurate predictor of future performance in the near term. Rating guru Jeff Sonas has presented quite a bit of statistical evidence supporting the increase in the k-factor.

Of all the arguments for and against the change, one I haven't heard that often is that increasing the k-factor might reduce some of the gridlock at the top of the rating charts. It seems to me (totally off the cuff, no stats to prove it) that of the top 20 probably 10-12 of them are always there, even when their performances seem a bit lackluster. This increase would create more turnover at the top, which might put more players in the super-tournament and world championship mix. I get really tired of seeing Peter Leko and Peter Svidler draw 3/4 of their games at Linares every year. While it's true they are strong enough to draw often, I'd like to see players who take a little more risk (and thus could expect the commensurate payoff in rating points under the new system). In my humble opinion, anything that can be done to make the ratings system more dynamic is good. I personally think live ratings are the way to go, but FIDE will never go for that. Way too logical. Plus, it would be harder for FIDE to game the system for their favorite players. Did I just say that? I guess I did. Peace.

A Little Theory First Thing in the Morning...

2009-04-28T08:42:00.000-07:00

First thing for me, anyway, because I'm a bum. It's 11, and all I've done today is buy frozen pizzas. That's what I get for staying out late playing really, really atrocious blitz chess at the Boca Ale House. A couple of lines came up whose theory I couldn't recall, and since I went to the trouble of looking them up and saving them to my desktop, here they are:

Semi-Slav 9.exf6_.pgn

Wild shit there. Why do I play this line? My style is really (to steal a Korchnoi phrase) aggressive positional, not crazy tactics. For some reason though, I really like the Semi-Slav. Frankly, it's pretty unlikely anyone ever plays this much theory against me. I've had exactly one OTB game in the Botvinnik, and my opponent lost to a canned tactic really early, move 15 or so I think. Besides, I get almost all 1.e4 anyway.

This next game was a line I looked at in connection with still another obscure line, the From's Gambit. I like the From's, which is a gambit defense to the rare Bird's opening, but obviously don't get to play it that often. The problem with the From's gambit (1.f4 e5!? by the way) is that white can play 2.e4, transposing into a King's Gambit. So I need some King's Gambit theory. I watched an ICC video on the Falkbeer (1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5!?) and was thinking of playing it, until I saw the following games:

Falkbeer Gambit.pgn

I'll probably just keep declining the King's Gambit. It's really not worth the trouble to learn a good 'accepted' system unless I go back to playing 1...e5.

Still no interviews. Job hunting is probably the most depressing thing in the world. Google 'learned helplessness' for more info. Peace.

Two Out of Three ain't Bad

2009-04-26T08:19:00.000-07:00

That's two out of three losses since I came to Florida coming against a master. The same master, in fact. I suppose that's not so bad for an ~1800 player, though my recent loss was much more painful than my previous loss. I had nothing in the first game, and lost pretty handily. This game was much more competitive, but I failed to take advantage of my chances. Didn't even look for them. Horrible. As I discuss in the game annotations, what bothers me is not missing tactics but rather not realizing the richness of the position and therefore not even looking for them. That's a bigger problem I think. Every game has critical positions and if you cannot recognize them and know when you need to look deeply then you will never be very good at chess, no matter how many chess puzzle books you run through. It's worth nothing that my master opponent spent A LOT of time on four or five of his critical moves, whereas I did not. That was probably the difference in the game. This is not to say Jeff wouldn't have beaten me anyway, but if I had lost because of a miscalculation or poor evaluation of a position I don't think I'd feel so bad. Not looking at all is a more serious problem than not understanding an obscure line in the Budapest. At least I have something to work on. Here's the game:

Rampley-Haskel 2.pgn

A very disappointing game for me. Still gained quite a few rating points for the tournament, drawing two experts and losing to a master. I think my performance rating was right around 2000, which is pretty good for me. Overall I'm happy with the progress of my play.

I've also been doing a bit of theoretical work. Ever looked at the Czech Benoni? It's offbeat, but it isn't so easy for white to prove an advantage. Black just has to be VERY patient. Here's a little analysis I put together, based mostly upon material from ChessPublishing.com. If you're at all interested in theory, then this site is a great investment and I highly recommend it. By the way, if you don't have a good defense to 1.d4 and you don't care for theory, this might not be a bad choice. I hate playing against it, for what it's worth.

Czech Benoni.pgn

I'll be playing in the premier section of the BRCC tournament again next month. My performance justifies it, and I'd rather get better than win $50 or whatever the prizes are in the U2000 section. Also, if you have any questions about any theoretical line after 1.d4 or in the Classical Sicilian, by the way, feel free to ask. I'm always happy to share analysis. Peace.

What's the Deal With Drawing Experts?

2009-04-22T19:38:00.000-07:00

I seem to be awfully good at it for an ~1800ish player. This is the second game in a row in which I've screwed up an ending that I should have won and given up a draw. The only difference (and it is significant) is that unlike my previous effort I was pretty close to lost several times in this one. At the very least, I was much worse for several moves until a tactic came out of the blue to save me. That old saw of Steinitz's about tactics only arising when you have a positional advantage is BS. Sometimes your opponent just makes a mistake, maybe not an obvious one, and you win material. Of course, if one were particularly intent upon being an annoying sophist, then it could certainly be pointed out that once an opponent has made a mistake then you are automatically in a better position, but this is circular reasoning. In that sense, then Steinitz's statement is a meaningless tautology; not meaningless in the formal sense, just useless.

Well, that was a pointless digression.

In this game my opponent played well enough, though he seemed out of theory and on his own pretty quick. I've been playing the black side of a lot of Boleslavskys and English Attacks against my Classical Sicilian. This is probably because the Classical isn't that well studied by most players (unless they were theory hounds in the 90s), and so they revert to safe setups when faced with an unexpected move. I use the Nc6 before d6 move order, and I bet they all expect a Sveshnikov. I always smile when they stop banging out instant moves after ...d6 hits the board. Not one Richter Rauzer yet OTB. This game was a Boleslavsky as well, with Nb3 instead of the more challening Nf3. Here it is:

Perez-Rampley.pgn

I played the following game tonight (4-22) in the first round of the April/May SFCC tournament. Being in the upper half of the draw, I got to player a much lower rated opponent. I drew him the first game I played in Florida, but this game was much more of a route. His opening play was timid, and he gave up a piece early. It's so funny how consistency in the level of one's play is such a hallmark of rating. I've seen John (my opponent) play very well and beat players of ~1900 strength, but then he plays games like this. I really think the main thing that has led to my recent gain of strength has been consistency both from move to move and from game to game more so than any great leap in ability. Something to think about. The game:

Rampley-Haskel.pgn

I got a new book this week, 'Imagination in Chess' by Pata Gaprindashvili. Forgive any possible spelling errors of his name, I don't have the book handy. I bought this book as a tactical puzzle book, but it defied my expectations. Firstly, it is HARD. I can't emphasize that enough...HARD. These puzzles are in many cases beyond me. It's not so much because the solutions are complex, but rather because these are not typical tactical puzzles. Unlike most puzzle collections, the solutions often consist of moves that do not appear forcing but are in fact very strong. Quiet moves that put your opponent in a sort of middlegame zugzwang. Also, the goal is not in every case winning material. Sometimes you are merely searching for a way to get to a much better position.

I guess what I'm getting at is that this is not really a tactics book, but an advanced version of those 'find the best move' volumes that all chess publishers seem fond of releasing. While the introductory commentary to the chapters is interesting, it's nothing that revolutionary. The puzzles are the meat of this book (it contains 700+ or varying difficulty), and meaty it is. If you're strong, stronger than me especially, then this might be worth your time. For me, 3-5 a day could easily take 30-45 minutes and I still don't know if I'd get them right. I'd say the intended audience for this book is probably the same group that actually uses Dvoretsky's works. The puzzles are in many cases really beautiful, but if you're under 1800 don't bother. CT-ART it ain't.

Those are the games and thought from last week. The final round of the April BRCC tournament is this Friday, and I think I may have to play a master. Well and good. Maybe I'll draw him too. Due white, after all. No job yet, thanks for asking. Peace.

Two Game and Some Book Reviews

2009-04-16T07:11:00.000-07:00

Two games in this one, both white piece draws against higher rated players. The first was played a few Fridays back in Boca Raton. My opponent was a young, strong expert. After a theoretical opening, I got a huge advantage that I subsequently pissed away via a series of slight (and not so slight if I'm being honest) inaccuracies. The opening was an f3 Nimzo, which I have studied but not had many opportunities to play OTB. Not so many 1800s seem to play the Nimzo, probably because of the wealth of options white has against it. Also, you have to learn either the QGD or QID as well, and since so many people start out playing the QGD they probably don't bother to learn the Nimzo despite its excellent reputation.

I have vacillated a bit about what to play against the Nimzo. The f3 variation has been a favorite of mine after examining several games in which Shirov rolled some super GMs, but I have dabbled in the Qc2 and Rubinstein as well. The biggest issue for white is that black can often seize the initiative, and while white may have more space black is often calling the shots, while white is primarily reacting. Like all broad statements in chess you can certainly find many examples in Nimzo-Indian praxis that indicate otherwise, but overall my opinion is that black has the initiative. Believing that to be the case, I've settled on a variation where white at least gets a pawn for his trouble, even if it's hard to hold. In addition, the open position favors his bishop pair unlike in the Rubinstein, where the center can often be semi-closed. The fact that Anand played it against Kramnik only boslters my belief that there's something there for white, even if it's hard to prove. This game is a good example of what white gets if black doesn't play with great activity, though I did screw up the ending horribly to let him off with a draw.

Rampley-Goss.pgn

So the ending is an embarassement, but you must admit that white's domination in the middlegame was absolute.

The other game I have is from last night (Wednesday), played in the final round in Margate. It had been a bad day. I was trying unsuccessfully to do last minute taxes, and since everyone else in the US was too the site was running very slowly. I spent 8 hours on it, getting kicked off the disconnected, waiting for the site to process forms, etc, all the while playing really bad ICC chess duing the load times. I was in a shitty mood when I got to the club. So of course I had to play a Benko.

I hate playing against the Benko gambit. My results aren't horrible and I feel that I understand white's aims in the opening more than in many others I play, but white's strategy is very hard for me to stomach. Take your pawn, hold for 25 or 30 moves until black's activity is gone, and then hopefully win in the ending. I've done it successfully several times, but it requires a lot of patience and vigilance which I didn't have last night. I ended up fudging the move order and allowing a knight into c4, after which point only an endgame blunder by my opponent allowed me to draw. It was dispiriting to say the least.

It is funny how critical one piece on the right square can be. The system I play, the Fianchetto Benko, is designed to do one thing and that is prevent a knight from getting to c4. I had never allowed it to happen before, and I will never let it happen again after last night. God, that sucked. You can see for yourself.

Rampley-Sinanman.pgn

Terrible. I was not pleased with this game at all. I was lucky to draw.

And now, a book review or two.

Winning Chess Middlegames, Ivan Sokolov

Great book, if you play d4 or c4. Not so much if you play e4. This book is similar to Soltis's classic 'Pawn Structure Chess', with an emphasis on pawn structures arising from more modern variations, primarily in from the Nimzo-Indian and English openings. Sokolov's annotations are excellent and at times dry and witty as he questions whether or not certain moves or variations are as good as their reputations. The book functions well as a games collection too, with many coming from Sokolov's own praxis (wins and losses). The author's tone is not removed and pedagogical, but very engaging. As you might expect, Sokolov's own games are discussed with added verve. By the way, for those who don't know, Sokolov was one of the best players (consistent top 10) of the 90s, so when he chooses to write a book it's worth getting.

Fighting the Anti-Sicilians and The Bb5 Sicilian, byRichard Palliser

Recently got these two because I wasn't happy with my anti-Sicilian repertoire. For those who don't know, anti-Sicilians are any but open Sicilians. I was unhappy with the repertoire I built using Rogozenko's book on the subject because I always seemed to end up passive (though equal, in deference to Rogozenko). Since I hate playing without the initiative, I wanted a more active approach and so I checked these two volumes out. The two books are very different, but I have found both useful.

FtAS is organized in a tree of variations format, which I usually don't care for but in this case appreciate because there are many variations to cover. The lines are active and fighting, though as such I feel that black takes a little more risk than he otherwise might. d5 against the Alapin with Nc6 and Bg4 to follow is one example. The Nf6 lines are dull IMO, but safer. Another example is Palliser's choice of Nf6 against the Closed rather than Nge7. I will probably try it out, but as I usually end up playing a pseudo-Swedish English against the Closed anyway I don't know if it will make it into my permanent repertoire. Palliser's style is easy and clear, and the book reads well despite its variation tree format.

tBb5S is organized by complete games which I prefer, though the best setup is the Hybrid system with games and an MCO like table ala the incomparable Mihail Marin in 'Beat the Open Games'. In any case, the games are modern and topical and the coverage seems thorough. If you have little experience in anti-Siclians, then these are both good books to start with as I feel they're more accessible and promote more active systems than Rogozenko's classic.

I'll try not to go so long without a blog posting in the future. Still no job, due to recession. Peace.

Well, Once Again, Chess has Pissed me Off.

2009-04-02T11:20:00.000-07:00

Or more accurately, I have pissed myself off. I played a game against a player somewhat stronger than me, and I had the chance to become significantly better early in the game. All it would have cost me was measly pawn. I saw the line, I liked it, but I didn't play it. Why? I hadn't looked at it before. It certainly looked better, but the position would have been very strange. So I didn't go in for it. Pathetic. I was soon worse, and lost shortly thereafter with little fanfare. This cannot happen again. I am usually less experienced than my opponents, and if I start forgoing lines because I haven't looked at them then I'm going to forgo a lot of good lines. I have to have more faith in my judgement. Here's the game:

Muro-Rampley.pgn

So as you can see, Paul did make an error (a difficult to see error, for what it's worth) on move 11. I just didn't have the balls to take advantage of it. In the words of the sage Charles Barkley, "Turruble. Just Turruble. Knucklehead."

A real win. Hurrah!

2009-03-26T08:30:00.000-07:00

So I got paired with the highest rated player in the tournament (~1950). I have beaten this guy before, so I was actually looking forward to it. I had white, and I knew that this player's openings were very weak. This guy relies upon creativity to win, but I was fairly sure that I could get a position I was familiar with. Against d4, you're basically going to play some sort of d4-d5 opening, a dutch, or some variation of a fianchetto with delayed central breaks. I was perfectly happy to play any of those (no Latvian gambits against d4). He played an offbeat, extremely slow variation of the Slav which ended up looking a lot like a Cambridge Springs. Here's the game:

Rampley-Ibarra.pgn

I was very pleased with this game because I didn't make any careless moves. 100% safety checking, which I've often struggled with in the past. It's easy to get too caught up in one specific idea and look past your opponent's play, but in this game I didn't do that. In fact, I saw several strong ideas for him that he didn't even end up playing (such as ...g5, which would have been strong on several different moves).

I also think my opening study is really starting to bear fruit. Even when I don't get a variation I've specifically studied, I almost always end up in recognizable positions with clear strategic themes. In many cases these positions have recurring tactical ideas as well, so I find myself getting caught off guard by canned tactics very rarely. I think consistently getting familiar positions is a definitely a function of acquiring a critical mass of opening (and concurrently, early middlegame) knowledge. This game is a good example. Not a single move of his surprised me, because the ideas of this position are so consistent. After he played Bb4, I knew that Qa5 and Ne4 were coming, with the other knight coming to f6 via d7. It was totally thematic, and it was the only plan that made a lot of sense. I was also ready (from a strategic sense) if he played Be7 and dxc4, with a Caro/Slav type of position. Regardless of what anyone says, I'm really glad I studied all those openings.

Speaking of opening study, if you haven't ever read Pawn Structure Chess by Soltis, then by all means go buy it. I've found that book to be essential in my own career, one of the few that I keep going back to over and over. It's an older book, but I think Soltis's discussion of planning based upon pawn structure is the best treatment I've seen of that crucial subject. On a related note, I have just ordered Sokolov's Chess Middlegame Planning from Amazon. It's similar to Soltis's book, with an emphasis on newer 'standard' structures, in this case more dependent upon specific openings. It's a little more of a specialist volume, covering a variety of modern Nimzo-Indian and English typical pawn structures (though not only those, that just seems to be where the emphasis lies). I can't wait to get it. Some of the doubled c-pawn Czech Benoniesque closed centers you get out of the f3 and Rubinstein variations of the Nimzo are very hard to handle, and I am anxious to see what a player as strong as Ivan Sokolov has to say about them. I realize that's a very technical sentence above, so here's a game to illustrate what I'm talking about:

Navarra-Safarli.pgn

All annotations are mine, by the way. No plagiarism. Navarra handled that beautifully, but it didn't hurt that his opponent made some significant strategic mistakes (what the hell was ...a5 about?). Anyway, looking forward to that Sokolov book. I'll let you know if it's as cool as I'm hoping.

Huzzah. A win.

2009-03-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

So tonight marked my return to competitive chess (if you want to call it that) since my surgery. This game was uneventful. It was the first round of a Swiss, and I was at the bottom of the top half of the tournament. It was patzer time.

Now normally I try very hard not to talk any shit about anyone, and I think 'patzer' is generally a really cruel thing to call someone, because everyone has their own goals in the game, and people also vary into the amount of time they're able to put in, even if they're willing. If you take up the game as an adult when you have a job and a family, it's going to be hard to study. So I try to give players the benefit of the doubt. Tonight though, this guy did one of the things that annoys me more than anything else in chess: he made me checkmate him, using two queens. If it were ICC, I might have suggested (the degree of politeness would vary inversely with how drunk I was) that there was a reason God and the admins invented the resign button.

Of course, over the board you can't do such a thing unless you Kasparov (because he's a jerk, not because he's the best player ever. I just wanted to pick a jerk you all knew. Though IMO, best ever hands down.) So I had to play on and checkmate this guy with my two queens. I thought about doing the Nakamura thing (or so I've heard) and make 4 knights and then checkmate him in some obscene knight net. I thought better of it when I realized he probably wouldn't get the joke. He's probably have just left the table thinking I was an idiot.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on him. The guy is very new, and he did play one or two good moves. He also made several blunders. The hardest part about games like this is forcing yourself to keep concentrating after you're completely winning. Just because a person't rating is low doesn't mean they don't see anything. They may see quite a lot when they look, but looking tends to be rare in the lower classes in my experience. I probably should have told him after the game that it's polite to resign when down two queens to someone 700 points higher rated than you with no hope of stalemate, but again I'm not trying to offend anyone. If that's what he enjoys doing, it's his prerogative. It just annoys the piss out of me. Here's the game:

Lyons-Rampley.pgn

So that's that. I post it only out of habit. If Mr. Lyons happens to read this blog, nothing personal, just resign when you're that far down in material. I know how much it sucks to sit there and know you're going to lose. It's okay to resign. Only little kids make you play it out, because frankly kids are more likely to screw up. Against 'A' players ('B' players too, really) it's just insulting.

In other news, I am leaving Thursday for Colorado. It should be fun. I will soon be 27. That feels much older than 26 somehow. Especially since I'm unemployed. Thanks Wall Street.

A Return to Chess...

2009-03-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

...sort of. This game wasn't rated, and while we both took some time it's obviously different when it's just for kicks. I think my opponent took more chances than he would have in a tournament game, but at least it made the game entertaining.

Cachuela-Rampley.pgn

In other news, I have started looking for jobs in earnest. It's pretty depressing. I blame Greenspan, Wall Street shortsighted greed (as opposed to long term greed, which bothers me less), and Bush. In that order. South Florida has a higher rate of unemployment than the rest of the country as well, though I hope that is mostly unskilled workers whom I'm really not competing with. Construction has been slammed down here, for example. We have more foreclosures than anywhere other than the West Coast.

At least I'm healing well. Went to the gym for the first time today, and it was sad. 15 minutes on the elliptical. It'll come back quickly. This Friday I plan to play my first rated game since my surgery. We'll see how it goes.

Getting back to full strength...

2009-03-07T18:33:00.000-08:00

...chess strength at least. The physical strength is taking a while. The two big wounds still haven't closed, but everything else is healing beautifully. I want to go back to playing tournament chess soon, though I'm somewhat worried about sustaining concentration over a long game. That might still be asking a bit much.

Have you been following Linares? It just finished, with Grischuk and Ivanchuk sharing first, Grischuk with the better tiebreaks. A nice breakthrough for Grischuk whose style I really like, and another amazing performance from Chucky. I love that guy. He's totally crazy. If he ever releases a book of best games, it will have no repeated openings. He plays everything in the book, coming up with significant theoretical novelties in the most varied positions. It's a pity his nerves will almost certainly prevent him from ever taking the World Championship. Of the players who came up in the early 90s, Anand, Kramnik, and Ivanchuk were by far the strongest (Shirov close behind, Topalov's a little younger). I personally think they all were strong enough to win the world title, and in some ways Ivanchuk is the most brilliant. He plays some games that just blow me away with their originality and complexity.

In any case, congrats to both. Just because I like posting games, here's a little blitz effort I put together online tonight after re-upping my ICC membership. I really hate anti-Sicilians on principle (I sometimes play the Grand Prix, and I feel like a bitch every time), so it's nice to deliver beat downs to anti-Sicilian players.

Gotta Watch Out For That Boden's Mate!.pgn

Later.

So Topalov beat Kamsky...

2009-03-03T11:29:00.000-08:00

...hopefully after Anand WHIPS HIS ASS sometime later this year, the blatant FIDE favoritism towards Topalov will be over. Finally. But I doubt it. I also realize I haven't written a proper sentence this post. Deal.

Seriously though, who would have thought that the Tarrasch French would be the opening of the match? The French wasn't exactly a mainstay of Kamsky's repertoire prior to this match (though it does fit his style in my opinion), and I can't imagine that his team spent as much time on the Tarrasch as on the Nc3 mainlines since that is what Topalov has mostly played. For what it's worth, I expected Topalov's team to outdo Kamsky's team and that didn't happen. Kamsky got drawable positions from the opening, he just messed up. Time usage continued to be an issue for him, and lack of time definitely played a role in his errors.

In any case, Kamsky should have been playing Anand directly but since I think he would have lost that match much worse than he did this one, it doesn't bother me so much that he didn't. With FIDE you have to expect disruptions and changes for no reason, and this is just another example of that.

In other news, Mamedyarov has accused Kurnosov of cheating at Aeroflot. If you look at the game (a short and brutal crush of Shak), there were only something like 6 moves out of theory and they were relatively forced. I think a player much weaker than Kurnosov could have found them. I have always thought that Shak Mamedyarov was overrated. Obviously his 2750 rating isn't BS, but he seems to duck the top tournaments and when he does play against Carlsen, Anand, etc, he doesn't impress. I think he'd probably do a Loek Van Wely swan dive if he couldn't play the slightly weaker opens like Aeroflot. His opening repertoire is offbeat which is not necessarily a bad thing, but he's no Morozevich and I think he gets a few points from playing positions his opponents aren't as familiar with. That wouldn't work at Linares. You can probably tell I think this cheating accusation is bunk and that Shak is acting like a child after a brutal loss to a weaker opponent. He should stop bitching, stop accusing people, and reassure himself that losing to a 2600 player is not such a bad thing. 2600 does in fact mean you can play some chess. Though Shak did have white.

On the personal side I don't recall if I mentioned that there was too much scar tissue to do the surgery laparoscopically or not, but that was in fact the case. They had to open me all the way up, and so recovery is taking much longer. I have 30some staples and I don't get those out until Friday. Even after that's done, it will be a while. A bit of a setback, but no serious infections (thankfully). I'll be playing again soon.

The Curious Case of Veselin Topalov

2009-02-23T14:29:00.000-08:00

What's so curious about Topalov? You might well ask this question if you haven't been watching his recent games against Gata Kamsky. Aside from his hideous suits which look like scaled up duds from a 1970s Ken doll and his Rasputinesque facial expressions, his opening choices have been baffling to say the least. He started off somewhat normally with two relatively sharp Gruenfelds and a sharp offbeat Lopez, but the last two games have been so out of character it seems like he's been possessed by the ghost of 1974 Karpov. A main line Closed Lopez and a Tarrasch French? Topalov has ~60 games on the white side of the French in the Megabase 2008, and only 5 are Tarraschs. I expected this match to produce some major theory since Topalov is such a great expert on the white side of the Gruenfeld, but so far I haven't seen much.

So what's going on with these games? Grinding positional battles are Kamsky's wheelhouse, and I don't understand why Topalov would play that sort of chess by choice here. He did win today, but only because of a Kamsky blunder. He didn't have shit out of the opening, and the game should have been a draw. If Kamsky gets to play two more Closed Spanish games in his other two whites, he very well might win both. Has Cheparinov run out of ideas? Has Topalov's copy of Rybka gone on strike? He's probably the sharpest player of his generation, and we've seen no gambits or even the exchange sacs he's so well known for. You can probably tell I'm dissapointed by the match so far. All I can say is that if Topalov goes on to play Anand and continues in this manner, he's going to get eaten alive. Incidentally, this would be fine with me because I'm not big fan. I think he dragged Kramnik through the mud for no reason other than to protect his pride, and I think his manager is the chess equivalent of Don King. I don't assume he will get a shot at Anand however, since Kamsky is scrappy and definitely not out of it yet.

Here is today's game, which Kamsky blundered in and lost. Prior to the blunder it was one of the most boring games I've ever seen at this level.

Topalov-Kamsky.pgn

In personal news, I might have gotten an infection after all. It remains to be seen if it will extend my hospital stay. I dearly hope not.

Notes from the hospital...

2009-02-22T10:10:00.000-08:00

They've switched me to oral narcotics from intravenous. That's good as a sign of progress, but they're much less effective and I'm in a bit of pain right now. To get my mind off of it and to fight creeping hospital boredom, I've decided to post some old games of mine. If you follow this blog you might notice some differences in the annotation style, mostly that I knew a lot less about chess than I do now. It's funny to play through some of these games now because I was such a patzer when I first annotated them, and my standards were so much lower. I may not be a lot better now, but at least now I know how little I know.

This is a game from the Indiana Class Champs in 2007. I had just gotten back from Napa Valley where my fiancee (now wife) and I were vacationing, so I was jet lagged, hung over, and in bad shape to play chess in general. I lost my first two games and I was in a very violent mood. This game is the result of that mood.

1700-Rampley.pgn

I must admit I changed some of the annotations, primarily removing off color language and some of the comments that were a little too over the top. Even though this game isn't perfect by any means, I still enjoy looking over it because it was cute attacking effort.

My recovery is going well, and soon I hope to be out and playing serious chess again. I am healing very well so this is a realistic goal. I also need to get a job, so if you have any friends in banking in southern Florida in need of analysts or project managers, let me know.

I'm still standing.

2009-02-21T13:27:00.000-08:00

My surgery was a success, though their was so much scar tissue from the previous one that they had to open me up (the surgery was supposed to be laparoscopic). I have 20 some staples in my abdomen now, but at least I'll have a bitchin' scar. I'm recovering very well. Thanks for all the support. It's much appreciated. I should be out of the hospital in 3-4 days. On the beach soon after. Playing through Kramnik's Best Games, which is poorly translated but excellent in terms of material. Did you know Kramnik used to attack?

That's a joke. Kramnik spent almost all his career as a much more dynamic player than people gave him credit for. After his loss to Anand he made some noise about revitalizing his game, and I hope we see him bring back the Classical Sicilian or some other lines he used to whip ass in.

That's all from Delotid land for now. For those of you who don't know, that's a strong narcotic flowing into my arm right now. I doubt it's helping my chess, but at least I'm not screaming.

Last game for a while...

2009-02-17T17:40:00.000-08:00

Official game, at least. I may post some ICC games if I play any worth showing. This is the game that put me over 1800. Also another successful outing for the Krasenkow variation (sort of, technically it was an Old Indian not a KID, but very similar play and themes), which I've just picked up. My opponent was game, but he missed the strong 23. Qg5 and after that he was in trouble. This game was also notable for me because I spent about 30 minutes on one move (26. Qf6), which is by far the longest I've ever taken on a single move. It felt great when I got home and Fritzed it and the computer confirmed my OTB analysis. I spent most of the game way up on time, but by the end we were both low and scrambling a bit. Here it is:

Rampley-1615.pgn

So this is probably my last post for a while, at least about chess. My family arrives tomorrow, I have pre-surgical consultations Thursday, and then Friday's the big day. I have to be there at 5:30 a.m, but at least I'm the first one of the day. Shouldn't be any delays.

Hopefully by early next week I'll be eating again. The hospital's very boring, so I may post something in a Demerol haze just for kicks. As I often tell people (truthfully) on ICC, don't judge me; I'm wasted.

It's Official...

2009-02-15T19:06:00.000-08:00

I'm over 1800. I played my first chess tournament in January of 2007. I think that's decent progress. I ended 2008 at about 1700 and my goal for 2009 was to reach 1800. I guess now I just have to maintain it. In fact, I expect that I'll lose some points soon since this point gain was largely based upon favorable pairings and one draw that I should have lost. Even so, I'm playing my best chess ever.

Unfortunately, I have to take a forced break due to a major surgery I have coming up. I'm writing this post on my wife's computer so I can't post my last game from the SFCC tournament, though I will at some point because it had a cute finish. Wish me luck at the hospital. I go under the knife Friday.

Last thing: I have to wonder how much of this is regional differences in relative rating strength. I've basically gained 100 points since moving to Florida.

And So It Goes...

2009-02-04T19:11:00.000-08:00

First lost in Florida. I got into a very tactical position against a teenage master. I'll let you guess what happened. I got to learn me some English theory, because I was in trouble pretty early. I played all right, but I was simply outclassed. It never ceases to amaze me how much more masters see than class players. A large part of this is because they look.

If that sounds trite, it's not meant to be. Just look at the differences in time usage between D players, B players, and Experts/Masters. The higher rated players take so much more time than the lower rated ones, and GMs take even more. It never ceases to amaze me when I read that some GM (Ivanchuk being a good example) is in time trouble on move 25, especially considering that many games at that level are theory until move 15 or beyond. That means that they are spending about 12-15 minutes on average on each move. That's a lot of time. At first I assumed it was because strong players look deeper, but the more GM annotations I read the more I came to think it's that they look more broadly. In my game, for example, I looked 4 or 5 moves deep several times, and then my opponent played a move I hadn't considered. Good moves, too. Moves I should have considered. I correctly calculated the lines I looked at (based on Fritz analysis), but I didn't look at enough lines. I ignored some viable options of my opponent, as well as viable options of my own. Only two or three moves were my downfall in this game, and I didn't even look at any of them. That's not to say I wouldn't have lost anyway, but it would have taken longer. Probably until I overlooked another move. With all that preamble, here the (short) game.

2250-Rampley.pgn

So there it is. My first Florida loss. Bound to happen eventually, and at least it wasn't to another B player, or worse, someone lower rated than I. And hey, now I have some directions for my studies. So it goes.

And by the way, congrats to Karjakin for playing some fighting chess at Corus. Bravo. I hope the invite Dominguez next year as well. And how about our boy Caruana, doing the Carlsen and going from the C group to the A group in two years. I hope he's ready by the time he gets there (though he is higher rated already than all three Dutchmen who performed just fine this year).

The Streak just keeps rolling, sort of...

2009-01-31T20:36:00.000-08:00

I did draw another game at the Boca Chess Club, but I was busted the whole time. Still, i'll take it.

1819-Rampley.pgn

So that was that game. That's some bullshit, frankly, I felt bad for my opponent but what the hell. So it goes some times. As it happened, I went to a quick tournament the next day and went on complete tilt. Lost the same way in the opening in the first round of that tourney as I got busted in the above game. I lost to an unrated guy who lied about his abilities, but even worse I lost to like a 1200 player because I was so frustrated. Horrible. I'm drunk now, so that's fine, and my regular rating went from 1708 to 1772 from the Boca tourney. Not so bad for one tournament. The quick one was a side show, but it still hurts. I hate losing like that. In other news, surgery AGAIN on the 20th, hopefully after that I'll be done with all these intestinal problems. Eventually I'll have to start searching for a job in earnest. C'est la vie. Be well.

What do you know? I won again...

2009-01-23T19:41:00.000-08:00

...against another 'A' player. I was told that both the one I beat tonight and the one I beat Wednesday are both just returning to chess, but I really don't care too much. There are always mitigating circumstances for a loss, right? I'm pretty sure it was Tal who said 'I've never beaten a healthy opponent'.

In any case, after three rounds I'm +3=0-0 in the BRCC tournament. Pretty good stuff so far. This game I played tonight may be the best one I've ever played, and it almost didn't happen. When the King's Indian came onto the board, I couldn't decide if I should play the Bayonet, which I've played unsuccesfully for a while but know pretty well, or the Krasenkow variation, which I've been studying and want to pick up but have never played. I went with the Krasenkow, and it was a beautiful game. Here it is.

Rampley-1856.pgn

So there it is. I feel like I'm playing the best chess of my life here in South Florida. The two long games a week are just the right amount, much better for development than 5 games in a weekend tournament. Being unemployed and studying a lot help too.

Just for a bonus, and because he asked me to post it, here's a game I played at the SFCC a few weeks ago against a dangerous 'C' player. I was lucky to draw this one.

1551-Rampley.pgn

So that one wasn't so great for, but at least I didn't lose it. Keep your eyes on Corus. The games in the lower groups are often more fun to watch than 2700+ guys drawing each other.

The Streak Continues...

2009-01-21T20:39:00.000-08:00

...despite mounting opposition. I am still unbeaten in rated games in Florida. Today I beat a strong A-player rated 1956. I think this is the biggest upset of my short chess career. I played well with only a few major errors. Here's the game:

1956-TR.pgn

So I still haven't lost in Florida. This can't go on, and since I will play players stronger than me in the next round of both club tournaments I don't think it will unless I've made some quantum leap in strength (this is unlikely since I am still inhabiting only my own body. Hah.). Did I mention my opponent tonight was the 1st seed in the tournament? A good victory, though winning on time is not as satisfying as mate or a resignation (though I suppose time wins often are the equivalent of a long, drawn out resignation like tonight's game was). I hope this train keeps on rolling.

Finally, a New Post (with a new game!)

2009-01-17T21:07:00.000-08:00

So guess what? I won a big $10 in Boca Raton playing chess. I sometimes tell people I'm semi-professional, which is technically true since I play for money. That's how I get them to leave me alone when I study at Panera. I did get to play a Cuban guy (at random) who was not bad, we played some blitz and I think it was +2=3-1 for me. I feel like I'm getting better. Lots of studying. It's funny, in most things I find that getting good is not a question of figuring out some 'secret', but rather of taking the time to learn a whole lot of individual aspects of a topic. In chess for instance, there's not some magic prescription for excellence. You just learn a lot of openings, lots of typical middlegames, lots of endgames, and that's how you get good. Music is the same way. You just learn a lot of songs, progressively raising the difficulty, and 'BOOM' you're good. That's what it means to be good. Just like in chess, being good isn't abstract. You learn how to play a shit ton of different positions, and that IS being good. I'm not really good yet, but I'm getting better. Here's a game I played this week in Boca. It was my first game against an opponent of my level in Florida, but I maintained my unbeaten streak in this state. Next week I think I'll get fed to an A player, and that will probably be the end of that little run. Look through the game and you'll see why I was so pleased with myself after it.

Klionsky-TR.pgn

So there you go. I played hard, and even though I blundered and gave away a pawn I didn't give up. I've been a lot better since I started concieving chess as a fight rather than an art. All I have to do is play better than my opponent. Perfection is great, but not necessary. When you stop expecting perfection, you're results improve. Maybe it's just me.

Happy New Year, Corus is Coming...

2008-12-31T07:24:00.000-08:00

And not a moment too soon.  Every super-tournament seems to have a few requisite
tomato cans, but the invited Dutch players at Corus tend to be either pretty strong
(Loek Van Wely used to be good, I swear, or young and on the rise like Smeets and
Stellwagen.  I especially like Smeets' play.  In any case, between the strong A-group
field and Caruana playing in the B-group, this should be another interesting edition
of Wijk an Zee.  Here's the entire lineup from the A-group, cribbed from Chessninja.

Alexander Morozevich (RUS, #2)  Elo: 2787 DOB: 1977
Vassily Ivanchuk (UKR, #3)      Elo: 2786 DOB: 1969
Magnus Carlsen (NOR, #4)        Elo: 2786 DOB: 1990
Levon Aronian (ARM, #7)         Elo: 2757 DOB: 1982
Teimour Radjabov (AZE, #8)      Elo: 2751 DOB: 1987
Wang Yue (CHN, #11)             Elo: 2736 DOB: 1987
Michael Adams (ENG, #12)        Elo: 2734 DOB: 1971
Sergei Movsesian (SVK, #13)     Elo: 2732 DOB: 1978
Sergei Karjakin (UKR, #15)      Elo: 2730 DOB: 1990
Gata Kamsky (USA, #16)          Elo: 2729 DOB: 1974
Leinier Dominguez (CUB, #21)    Elo: 2719 DOB: 1983
Loek van Wely (NLD)             Elo: 2618 DOB: 1972
Daniel Stellwagen (NLD)         Elo: 2605 DOB: 1987
Jan Smeets (NLD)                Elo: 2604 DOB: 1985

So that's a pretty good field, much better IMO than the Grand Prix that just
finished in Elista.  Seriously, how did FIDE dig up so many no-name 2700+ players
for that one?  I would only consider Radjabov, Leko, and maybe Grischuk among the
world elite, ratings not withstanding.  In any case, chess will resume soon here in
South Florida and I'll publish more games that no one will look at or comment on.
Ta.

Comment Allez Vous?

2008-12-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

People are reading (based upon the hit counter) but not commenting, which is somewhat like people coming to your house and not talking to you. There's my hyperbole for the day. In any case, I turned the word verification off so it's easier to comment. If I get a lot of spam it'll go back on, but I'm not popular enough that I think that will be a problem. So comment, dammit.

Ridiculous Chessbase Hyperbole, and Still Undefeated in Florida...

2008-12-21T16:47:00.000-08:00

...for what that's worth. I've played two games, drew one and won the second. Both opponents lower rated than me. Feed me to a few Class A guys and I doubt I'll stay undefeated much longer. In any case, the second game was played at the Boca Raton Chess Club at Florida Atlantic University. I played a young (10-ish) Asian kid, which scared me a little since kids tend to by underrated. I played the Classical Sicilian, and I have to say that it was one of the best games I've played. He made a mistake on move 7, and I was able to squeeze him for the rest of the game. I was proud of myself, because I didn't let up mentally and I kept total control of the game the entire time. I gradually pushed his pieces back with various threats until he was too passive to generate counterplay, and when a tactical chance presented itself I took it and won.

This has to be the most egotistical post I've ever made, praising myself like this, but I promise if I keep playing good chess it will become less pronounced. It's just nice to see work paying off over the board. It's true that I outrated my opponent quite a bit, but what made me happy wasn't the winning, it was that I feel that for probably the first time ever I played 'real chess' (in the Dan Heisman sense) for an entire game. And if you don't know what 'real chess' is (as opposed to 'hope chess') and you're rated under 2000, then you should read this: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/real.txt . In any case, here's the game:

Yin-Rampley.pgn

So that was that. Very clean for me. In other news, Topalov won the Pearl Spring tournament with a performance of just under 2900 (2890). Chessbase asked the ludicrous question in their article (http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5101) if Topalov was on his was to becoming the best ever. I can't tell you how absurd that is. While he is a great player, he's too streaky to ever be more than your 'normal' super GM. He's never won a world championship match (and in my opinion has never been world champ; Kasparov-> Kramnik -> Anand). Look at Fischer and Kasparov. Both were extremely consistent and showed long stretches in which they absolutely dominated everyone else. Kasparov was +55% =38% -7% in his career. Not only did he only lose 7% of his games (most of which were earlier in his career), but he won 55% of the time. That's sick considering the level of competition he was playing against. Fischer was +56% =28% -16%. Topalov is +36% =42% -22%. Not even close to the same league. For the record, Topalov's nemesis Kramnik is +38% =51% -11%. And he held the world title for 8 years. Capablanca was +51% =32% -17%. Laughable is too weak a word for Topalov as the best ever. The streakiest ever, maybe. Unbelievable.

First Taste of South Florida Chess

2008-12-17T23:13:00.000-08:00

I went to the South Florida Chess Club in Margate today. The format is g/90, one game a night each Wednesday for 4 weeks. It's a good system, since it allows you to focus on a single game. I wish the pairings were put up in advance, since eventually it'd be fun to prepare for specific opponents. In any case, I got to play John Haskell, who runs the Boca Raton Chess Club (which I also plan on going to). 2 good long games a week is enough competitive chess to keep improving, I think. In a sense it's better than weekend tourneys, since it's hard to fix things in your play between rounds during a weekender (not the case with weekly games), and the lessons learned are easy to forget by the time next month's tournament rolls around.

I have to say, going to a chess club made me feel much more relaxed and at home. Chess players are similar every place I've been. Contrary to the popular image of chess as a game populated by grouchy introverts, chess players are some of the most social and accepting people I've met. There are of course exceptions, but by and large a room full of chess players is room full of friends.

I've been here two weeks, and so far I've found good chess and Tai Chi, a good gym, and I'm starting to learn my way around. My neighbors have even quieted down, though I doubt it will last. In any case, here's the game:

Rampley-Haskell.pgn

So not a bad effort. I'm pretty good at openings and the early middlegame (perhaps because I've studied them so much?), but I tend to lose advantages going into the ending. Maybe I should play out better positions against Fritz to try and tighten up my technique. Incidentally, that's what I've always admired about GM chess: their technique. The way a player like Kramnik can maintain a minute advantage all the way through the middlegame and convert it into a win even against players as resourceful as Topalov or Leko is just amazing to me. I think if I could improve this part of my chess I'd reach my 2009 goal of 1800 pretty soon.

The Chess Hunger is Returning...

2008-12-16T14:45:00.000-08:00

So I've been playing a lot, working on chess more, and generally wanting to find some consistent way of getting back into chess. I'm having trouble getting responses from chess contacts on websites around here, so if anyone reading is in South Florida let me know.

Here's a cute little game I played recently on ICC. It's in my favorite line, the Botvinnik Semi Slav. I love this line so much that I've even thought about getting a license plate that reads SEMI SLV. Of course, only chess players would get it, and they would consider it nerdy even for chess. Everyone else would just think I was an indecisive gimp.

In any case, this game shows the value of knowing some theory, not because I knew the 'refutation' of my opponent's unusual line, but because I recognized that the line was unusual, knew it was a variation that didn't really permit a lot of deviation from the main lines, and thus knew to spend some time looking for a downside to his move. My reply wasn't perfect, but it wasn't so bad and did in fact highlight a weakness in his position that would not have been there had he played the theory move.

In other news, I'm healing well, learning my way around Florida, and starting to work out again. I've also found a pretty good Tai Chi teacher, which is nice. My neighbors are loud, though. I'm having a lot of trouble sleeping. I really don't care for the culture down here. People are loud and seem rather careless about the concerns of those around them. I miss the Midwest, where people are quiet and very careful about not offending those around them. It will be an adjustment. Seriously though, it's not 'cuturally insensitive' to expect that people will shut the hell up and turn down their music by midnight on a work night. In any case, here's the game.

TF-Peter9.pgn

Getting my Strength Back. Plus 'Starting Out: the Dutch' Reviewed

2008-12-08T06:50:00.000-08:00

So it's been well over a month since my surgery, and I'm really just now starting to get my strength back. Did a little work with a Chen Tai Chi stylist, his approach was very different from the Yang style I'm somewhat proficient in (I'm probably about 1800 in Tai Chi). I might do more.

I'm only now regaining my chess strength too, and I've found that I've lost the ability to play good 3 minute chess. It's crazy, I know, but all those long games have made me fond of thinking about my moves, if you can believe it. I find myself getting good positions and losing on time every game. I know that the clock is an integral part of the game, especially at such fast time controls; this is not an excuse, merely a pattern I see emerging that makes it hard to play 3 minute. 5 is about the fastest I can go, and I prefer 5/3 or even 2/12 or straight 15. Eventually I might just stop playing quick chess altogether. I don't know. I like long games better now. Evolution of a chess player, I suppose.

I was going to post a 2/12 game I played on ICC, but upon reflection I realize that no one wants to look at the fast games of a Class B player. So instead, I'm going to give a brief review of a book I recently bought.

A little background: I hate the Dutch. I find it hard to play against, because there is no set plan that one can employ. It's very flexible for black (a good reason to play it if a draw won't do), and the battles tend towards the positional. It's the opposite of openings I like (such as the Najdorf), where I know exactly what I'm after and can develop my pieces freely with few initial worries about strategy. I've struggled with it since I started pushing the queen's pawn, and I figured it was time to try and learn the basics.

I found Starting Out: the Dutch (by Neil McDonald) to be a good basic text, though the coverage is tilted heavily towards black in all sections. McDonald makes a point of covering white's best lines, but in each case leaves the reader with the impression that they're not really all that challenging if black knows the proper response. I've never liked such statements, because they are universally true. If one assumes chess is a draw from the starting position (a bold assumption perhaps), then all openings are equal if black makes the correct replies for the whole game. I don't feel that McDonald really gives the second player a feeling of which white plans are hardest to counter, which are most flexible, etc. As a d4 player this makes it hard for me to take McDonald at his word that a particular line is strong for white, since he usually undermines his case right away.

Those few issues aside, I do think the book is a good introduction to the theory and strategy of the Dutch. I have changes a few lines that I play against various Dutch setups as a result of reading it, and I have changed the way I play some of my current repertoire as well. I think this book helped me to get a better understanding of how to play against the flexibility of the Dutch, as well as how much patience is required on white's part to make his space advantage count. Since you can get this book new from outside vendors on Amazon for something like $8, it's worth picking up if you are interested in playing or playing against the Dutch.

Finally in Florida

2008-12-05T09:49:00.000-08:00

So I'm finally in Florida and will soon start looking for playing opportunities down here, though from what I've seen so far the chances to play in slow time control tournaments is limited. Back to ICC perhaps, though I've certainly been frustrated in the past with the tournaments held on the server.

Special thanks goes to all the guys in Indiana that I went to tournaments with. You all taught me a lot (easy to do, since you all outrated me by at least 150 points), and I hope to be back in the Midwest within a year or two so I'm sure we'll play chess and drink together again. It was always fun.

The Old Guys Could Play Too

2008-11-20T14:37:00.002-08:00

So I've been doing something that I often see GMs recommend (including Kramnik in an interview on his website, www.Kramnik.com ), but which I've never seen the point in doing. I'm going back and playing through the annotated games of strong GMs from back in the day. I'm actually finding it surpisingly helpful, and I'll explain why, as well as tell you why I haven't done it before.

I've always studied openings in the context of complete games. I thought that by studying complete games in the systems that interest me I'd come to understand the subtleties of piece placement and common strategic themes in those positions. This has been true in many cases, and I have several nice games to my credit where I was able to reach a theoretical middlegame position that I had studied (probably more than my opponent in some cases) thoroughly enough to know where my pieces should be, what I should be playing for, and how to cross up my opponent's plans. When such games arose, it was always a pleasure to be able to point to my studies and say "I knew move A was wrong when he made it because in the Leningrad Dutch black should do B and C in this position or else white responds D and dominates" or some such. I just assumed this was how chess was played, and that better players simply knew more such positions that me. I still don't think this view is completely without merit, but it's certainly not the whole answer to chess skill and it's very limiting as the heart of a chess learning program.

Since I study games based upon whether I played the opening or not, I mostly study the games of contemporary masters. Many systems that were popular in the 30s-60s are not played often anymore, and many positions moderns GMs play regularly would never occur in the games of Alekhine or Botvinnik. As a result, I simply never looked at their games .It's not that I doubted their strength, I just didn't see much point in looking at positions I never intended to play.

What changed my mind was playing through the best games of Svetozar Gligoric. He's not really a household name these days among chess players, but he was one of the best in the world from the late 40s through the 50s and 60s. I don't play many of the openings he played, but I am still finding his work extremely valuable, and here's why: his chess is more natural than the modern chess.

That's quite a statement, since todays players are certainly stronger than the best players of 50 years ago. The problem is, I think that modern GMs are so strong, know so much theory, and have so much of the game already worked out that it can be very hard to understand their moves. So much of what they play is based upon tactical justifications often found with the aid of computers that their moves have little strategic content, in the sense of making plans that might last for 5-6 moves. Certainly they target weak pawns and squares, work to improve the activity of their pieces and all that, but it can be very hard for a 1700 player like myself to see how their moves accomplish these aims. I loved watching the Anand-Kramnik match, but those games in the Meran were way over my head. I get this feeling studying some modern opening systems too. I get to a major theoretical splitting point and I have no idead why some options are better than others. I can't understand the position.

This is not the case with the old GMs. They didn't have computers, they relied more on long term strategy, and they often deviated early from theory because they wanted to execute a certain plan. So many times reading the Gligoric book he makes a comment like 'This move is not regarded as best by theory, but I wanted to play in such-and-such fashion and in that case the move is the best'. Perhaps I'd play better chess if I deviated earlier to start a plan that I actually conceived of myself and understood. Wouldn't it be better to know that your first 6 moves were good and that while the 7th may not be best, at least you know why you played it than to play 8 moves of theory and have a position you don't have a clue how to play?

The other thing is, people don't always (rarely, actually, in class events) give you the chance to play positions you know. I almost never deviate before my opponent. In some ways, I'm actually giving them an advantage because while I can go deeper in theory, they get to choose when to deviate and pick a plan that suits them. I'm almost never dictating play in my games out of the opening.

So I guess the moral of all this is that studying the games of strong players you can understand is probably more valuable than studying the games of strong players you don't understand, even if you may not play that exact system. And who knows? Some of those old opening systems aren't so weak in their own right...

Finally, I may be Getting Better

2008-11-20T12:03:00.000-08:00

So for the past month I've been stuck in medical hell. It's a Kafkaesque place where people's true motives and feelings are hard to discern, events happen seemingly at random at all times of day and night, there is no regular progression of time, and you're confined to a small room and adjacent hallway from which you cannot leave, though the ramifications of trying to do so are never made clear. In fact, I may have been taking part in a more cerebral variation of the Stanford prison experiments. I wish I'd gotten to be a nurse instead of a patient.

I was back in the hospital here in Indy again this week, though thankfully they were finally able to get to the root of my post-surgical infection. Suffice it to say it was very rare and the drugs that treat it are very expensive. I am feeling weak still, but my mental clarity has returned after a month wandering the desert. I played the first halfway decent game since I got out of the hospital today, so I thought I'd post it as a return to blogging.

Post-Surgical Thrillness.pgn

Not a perfect game by any means, but it was fun. I'll be moving to Florida soon, so if you live in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area and a tall thin B-class guy in his 20s who knows a lot of theory starts showing up at your club, ask him if he has a chess blog.

One final note, congrats to Ben Inskeep on winning the U2100 section of the King's Island Open. I think I speak for everyone when I say "Give me some of your money to help pay my medical bills".

Seriously, congrats.

Sick as a dog in Cleveland

2008-11-04T06:11:00.000-08:00

I am now officially two weeks into my unexpectedly long stay at the Cleveland Clinic. Don't ever get your large intestine removed. I don't know when I'll play or analyze seriously again. I'm in a pretty bad way, but it's looking up. Still moving to FL at the end of the month...it's just too much. I hate hospitals.

Indiana State Championships Under Way

2008-10-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

So, Garrett, Ben, and I are at the State champs in Logansport. Nate is also playing, though he's not staying with us. I'll give you a taste of my games. This one was from the second round. I'll post the rest later.

Rampley-Lewis.pgn

And there you have it. Certainly not error free, though not a horrible game. I'm using my time better, though I'm still not doing comprehensive safety checks every move. As usual, I did have a disappointing loss (in some ways the best of the three I've played), and I'll post that tomorrow.

Garrett is rolling the open section, 3-0. Took out GaterNation in the last round, like 4 non theoretical moves in a Dragon. Ben beat Jim Dean on time, after which Jim promptly withdrew. I would have too. Losing on time sucks ass, and I wouldn't have wanted to drive here from Ft Wayne three nights if I wasn't going to win any money. Funnily enough, the field is so weak that Dean probably still would have won 1st. I'll post more about this this coming week, maybe from the Cleveland Clinic. Wish me luck on the surgery.

I drew a WGM in 15 minute ICC chess. Huzzah.

2008-10-06T22:12:00.000-07:00

I assume she was drunk. It was however one of my first successful theoretical outings against the English, against which I have recently learned some theory as I contemplate playing it from the white side.

Not much can be said about a 15 minute game. It wasn't perfect from either side, I should have won, here it is:

WGM Maryana-TovarischFoma.pgn

Standard Fritz annotations. The story of the game is that when I realized I was winning I went a little apeshit, since even in a 15 minute game being much better against a titled player is no small thing for me. I played the endgame (obviously) horribly, but so it goes. At least I drew.

Nate whooped me. Or perhaps wooped me. I'm not sure.

2008-09-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

So Nate won 3 to 1. I should have drawn (or won) the last game, but I got tired (as I often do) and went in for a silly combo that Nate quickly found that flaw in, and I lost. The games won't be posted for 2 weeks, because I'm not going to get them up before my wedding.

In short, I lost the first game on the black side of a Shirov/Shabalov attack in the Semi-slav in like 15 moves. I won the second after a nice fight in a sort of pseudo Ragozin. The third I lost in a Benoni type position that I might have drawn, but I went in for what I the thought was a perpetual check with a rook hanging. It wasn't a perpetual, the rook fell, and I lost. The fourth was another pseudo-Ragozin that I was winning, but as I said I went in for a bad combo and lost.

It was a useful match for me. Good practice against a player still a class (both literally and figuratively) above me. I hope Nate enjoyed it too. I'll get those games up. Let's all wish Garrett some luck in Vegas. Break the bank, don't get your legs broken.

Saturday, Saturday, Saturday!

2008-09-18T12:30:00.001-07:00

Saturday, starting at 9, Nate and I will be playing a match at the Fishers Library. The line is +0.5 on Nate, though that's being a little generous to me in my opinion. +1 to Nate is closer to the rating prediction, which are usually correct (Painfully so. I promise you, you're almost certainly not better than your rating).

I think the games will be 75/15 or some such. We may have to move to Starbucks since the library closes at 5:30, but in any case if you're interested come by.

In other news, I am being severed from my job, getting married, having my large intestine taken out, and then most likely moving to Florida. Really. In that order. It's a big Fall for me.

What's up with all this Parity?

2008-09-15T10:34:00.000-07:00

I have a weakness for chess history. Partially this is because I get very bored at work and reading Wikipedia bios of Salo Flohr and Lev Psahkis is better than doing nothing, but mostly it's because I like the personalities that existed in chess when it was more of an art and less of a science. This is not a rip on current players, because they do what they have to to compete, but as we all know computers (primarily databases) have completely changed the way professionals prepare and play. I think the standard of play is a lot higher now at the highest echelons than it used to be, but I think the intense professionalization of high level chess also makes it hard for some of the unstable, interesting players who used to knock around just below the elite to make it. Tony Miles, for example, would probably have a hard time these days because he would have trouble putting in the study hours on a consistent basis, as well as playing mostly main line, deeply analyzed openings. It's just impossible to have pet systems that your opponents aren't prepared for anymore.

This brings me to my main point in this rambling post. What's up with all the parity these days? only 26 points separate Anand from Carlsen, #1-#6, on the July ratings list. The concentration of players at the top is pretty extreme even as you move down. You have to go down to #31 on the list to find someone (Hikaru Nakamura) 100 points weaker than #1 Anand. This is not normal for top level chess. The usual pattern is that a few elite players dominate everyone else. That was true from Steinitz through Kasparov.

For example, in the July 2000 list, Garry was #1 with a 2849 rating, and #2 was Anand with 2770. Now, we all know Garry was always head and shoulders above everyone (except Karpov in the mid 80s to early 90s), but even going down the list the parity isn't there in 2000. #6 Shirov is already 100 points weaker than #1 Garry with a 2749 rating. Again, Garry's a beast, but looking at #2 Anand, you have to go only to #21 Sergei Rublevsky to find someone 100 points lower than him. The distance between the top and the middle is even greater in the 80s, and increases each decade you go back. In the 30s, the bottom finishers in elite round robins would sometimes have zero points, or only a couple draws. That would never happen at Linares anymore. Even Al Modiahki did all right in the FIDE Grand Prix, and he was very much outrated by the field.

It will be interesting to see if anyone emerges in the next couple years and really starts creaming even the other top players. Carlsen is the obvious bet, and I could see it happening though I must say I don't think we'll ever see another run like Fischer had in the candidates. It may be a function of generation too, because many of the top 50 guys were born in the late 60s to early-mid 70s and may well start losing strength soon, at which time the younger generation might show more variety in strength. My personal opinion is that we won't see that happen, and that because of instant dissemination of chess information future generations will probably show more parity rather than less. There will always be iconoclasts like Morozevich, Ivanchuk, and Nakamura (not that he's in that league just yet, though I hope it comes soon), but I think we'll see less of that style of play and more dogma, especially concerning openings, in the years to come.

It's funny in a way, but some of the most intersting chess is actually produced a bit below the elite level, when players have more freedom in their opening choices since many of their opponents aren't professionals (at least not primarily playing pros, to say nothing of teaching). I think the chess played in big opens like Aeroflot actually looks a lot more like chess from the 60s and 70s than what's played by the big guys, and I rather like it that way. Here's to guys like Ivanchuk who will play anything, and guys like Shirov who will happily go into really irrational looking positions just for the hell of it. I hope chess doesn't pass them by.

90/30?

2008-09-11T11:06:00.000-07:00

Nate, I'll do 90/30 but Sunday I will be hung over since my bachelor party is Saturday night. How about Sunday in one week? We could even do 2 Saturday and 2 Sunday. I don't really care if we rate it or not. I'm down either way.

Match Challenge!

2008-09-11T07:18:00.000-07:00

Nate, I challenge you to a match of 4 unrated games, G/60 5 sec increment.

For those of you who don't know, Nate is a solid 'A' player who will probably wipe the floor with me, thought he is out of practice. I'm interested to see the line on this one. Drew and Garrett are always doing hypothetical matchups, and I'm guessing that they'd have me scoring 1- 1.5. That's about what I'm expecting to do, assuming Nate agrees to it. I'll even add a prize fund of sorts, as if bragging rights aren't enough. If Nate beats me, I'll buy him a bottle of Crown Royal. Or whatever, if he doesn't like whiskey. If I win or draw the match (I have to give myself some handicap, I'm giving up 150 rating points), then Nate owes me that bottle of Crown. Does anyone know what the expected score of a 1700 player playing an 1850 player would be in a 4 game match?

Pain and Suffering at the Ohio Chess Congress

2008-09-09T08:29:00.000-07:00

So the Ohio Chess Congress is finished. It still remains one of my favorite tournaments for its unique 3 day, 2 game a day format (it's always over Labor Day weekend). A lot of chess, but high quality.

This year, my section was 1700-2000. I played 4 players above 1900. In those games, I scored +0 =1 -3. It was brutal. I learned a very valuable lesson, though. If you don't check for tactics on every move, you'll probably lose. It's funny how such a seemingly obvious thing can escape your notice when you play 'B' and 'C' players, because they don't punish you. 'A' players punish you brutally. Each of the 3 games I lost I lost because of simple tactical oversights (well, one I got completely outplayed and was losing in any case). My only goal before the next tournament (IN state champs) is to realign my move selection thought process to constantly be wary of tactics. I think if I do that, I'll be okay.

Garrett made an interesting observation about my play, namely that I've learned chess in the reverse order from most players. I study a lot, but I've only played really serious (i.e. classical time control) tournaments for about a year, with some rapid play before that. I know a lot about openings, middle game structures, theoretical endings, etc, but I have very little actual playing experience. How many 'B' players do you think have studied 10x as much as they've played? My ratio is probably a lot higher than that, actually, because I am pretty studious. Garrett and Ben assured me that once my playing experience catches up that I'll probably get a quick ratings boost, and I can't wait for it to happen. Right now, I'm just trying to play better chess rather than worrying about increasing my knowledge base. Thought process dominates knowledge OTB, and that's where I'm focusing my efforts. In any case, here are all my games from the tournament save the last round, which I haven't analyzed yet (it was a pretty brutal and uninteresting loss anyway).

Round 1

Rampley-Morris.pgn

First round draws with 'A' players don't bother me too much, though I feel if I'd played more energetically I might have had winning chances. This proved to be the highlight of my tourney against 1900+ players.

Round 2

Porter-Rampley.pgn

This game sucked. So drawn. This one hurt me badly psychologically.

Round 3

Rampley-Kulkarni.pgn

I cannot believe I got a draw out of this one. Barely avoided ridicule for losing to a 16 year old girl. I deserved to lose.

Round 4

Wie-Rampley.pgn

My one success. I have to say, I was very pleased with how I played this game. Good energy, no dogmatism. I think I would have won even if he hadn't blundered.

Round 5

Rampley-Wolrath.pgn

I got outplayed every way you could get outplayed in this one. I won't add anything to the copious game notes, but suffice it to say that I'll be ready if I get this variation again.

The last round was another ignominious miniature defeat against a 1900+ player in an irregular Tromp type opening. I didn't have any gumption left after the Wolrath game. Bad chess, good lesson in both humility and the need to consider my opponent's checks, captures, and threats (thanks Dan Heisman) every move. By the way, if you've never read Novice Nook at Chesscafe.com, then do it right now. It's not really just for novices. All players should look at it, because Heisman is unparalleled at revealing useful information on practical play. Next tournament is the IN State Champs. I'll be happily married by then, which is a crazy thing. That tournament will hopefully also be the triumphant (unless he plays me) return of Nate to the Midwest Chess scene. Hopefully I can bounce back and win some good games. In other news, getting married on the 26th in San Diego, got a 730 on the GMAT (class average at Harvard Business School last year: 707), and having my large intestine taken out in Cleveland on October 29th. It's a busy fall.

Chess Tattoos

2008-08-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is posted by the man who got it at chessloser.wordpress.com, but I just felt the need to pass it on. I wouldn't do this, but if it's not going to cost you a promotion then why the hell not?

I did once try to get Garrett to get a tattoo of Lev Polugaevsky, but he wouldn't do it. Then I tried to get Nate to get Mikhail Tal on his ass, but he didn't think it was such a great idea. Maybe it wasn't. Lots of things sound cooler than they really are outside of the Motel 6 in Dayton.

What about game scores? If I guy came up to me at a tournament and was like 'I have the Evergreen game tattooed on my ass', then I'd have to be a little impressed (as long as he didn't ask if I wanted to go see it in the bathroom). It wouldn't be that huge of a tattoo, unless you had this game:

arsovic_nikolic_1989.pgn

Yes, that is the longest official game ever, played when FIDE briefly suspended the 50 move rule. That would be like your whole back, leaving no room for that sweetass tat of Issac Boleslavsky I know you're planning.

Team4545 League round 4

2008-08-25T06:36:00.000-07:00

So play continues in the Team 45/45 league on ICC. My fourth round game came after spending the day with my parents. My fiancee and I went down to Bloomington and saw Bottle Shock with them for my Mom's birthday. Good movie, reminded me of some great times in Napa. Having seen a movie about good American wine, we decided to get some good American wine. Half price wine, as it turned out. So we got some excellent Stag's Leap cab for like $50 when it normally retails for $100, and we also killed a decent bottle of Russian River Pinot. Then Bri drove us back to Indy, and we got back right before my game. I wasn't really drunk anymore, but I was really sleepy and little out of it. My only goal in the game was to play more prophylactically, taking my opponent's plans into account without fail (which is harder than you might think to do every move when you're not in the habit of doing so). I think I achieved that, even though I lost. It was the first time I'd played this line of the Sozin in a long game, and I definitely didn't understand the position very well. I'd never looked at it prior to this game. In any case, my opponent played the middle game well, I over pressed a little on the kingside and ended up with a very passive rook tied to the defense of an over-advanced pawn, and I lost.

Holzschlange-Caissapriest.pgn

Interestingly, that h-pawn advance is not unheard of by any means in this variation as I found out after the game. It's just usually not put under pressure because there's so much going on in the center. I really should have played ...d5 at some point, though as I pointed out in the notes I missed the tactical subtlety that keeps that move from restricting my b7 bishop. Isn't there some adage about meeting a wing attack with central action (that's a joke, I know Steinitz said it, please don't leave me a bunch of forum posts about Steinitz's laws)? Prophylaxis is good, but development is pretty important too. Especially in the opening. A good training game (which is what I think of these 45/45 games as), if I ever face this position for real OTB I think I'll handle it better.

I don't like your opening sir...

2008-08-22T09:55:00.000-07:00

How rude would it be to offer a draw every time an opponent plays the London System? How about the Colle? I realize that these are not completely innocuous systems, but for some reason I just can't buy their right to exist. I know that's a silly viewpoint, but it seems like an affront against chess to me. Lets play an opening so that I don't have to think about the first 7 moves, can play it against anything, and have no diversity of strategic ideas. Just play checkers. It really annoys me in slow games, because I have to spend all this time just holding relatively even position with almost no imbalances. I play the sharpest systems can against these openings, but it still doesn't help much. I should add that I've never lost on the black side of one of these OTB, though I've certainly had many draws (and of course if I played someone much stronger than me in a Colle I'd probably still lose). Am I the only one who gets really dispirited when these openings hit the board? Am I way too concerned with my opponent's opening choices? Probably, but that doesn't undermine in any way the hatred I have for these systems.

I admit it; once, when I was really drunk late at night, I played the Colle-Zuckertort in 3-4 five minute ICC games, and I won them all. Now, I was playing like 200 points below my normal rating level since I had been playing inebriated for several hours, but that's no excuse. I'd like to state publicly that I'm sorry, I've learned from my mistakes, and from that point on I've only played main line openings. I hope you'll find it in your hearts to forgive me. Mea culpa, mea culpa, solus in vinum Colle.

Here's a game for your enjoyment of how I try to treat these systems. I wish they all went like this...

Bryant-Rampley.pgn

Team 4545 League is strange...

2008-08-18T10:17:00.000-07:00

Another odd experience being slightly dissed in the ICC team 45/45 league. I couldn't play at any of my opponent's suggested times, and so we agreed to an unplayed draw. He didn't want to adjourn, and neither captain cared, so there you are. Yet he made a haughty comment about me not posting any replies, after I had already said I was going to be playing OTB Friday and Saturday. These people seem very conceited about their little league. I just want to play semi-serious long games online, but there are apparently strict unwritten etiquette rules that I'm violating, or else the league is full of rude people. I realize that's a generalization based upon only a few experiences, and certainly not every person I've dealt with has been discourteous (or overly legalistic, as I found the TDs to be), but a pattern never the less seems to be emerging. I'll have to think carefully about whether I want to sign up again.

Indiana Class Champs mostly completed!

2008-08-17T14:45:00.001-07:00

So as usual, the tournament started well, then I got tired, which made me lazy, and I started playing poorly. Ben and Garrett also had bad third round games, both of which ended in losses due to time trouble, so we withdrew and went to see 'Stepbrothers', which sucked. In any case, I'm including my 1st and 2nd round games, which were of decent quality. The third round was a a Grunfeld that looked like it was played by two 7 year olds who needed naps. My opponent was much worse out of the opening, then in my impatience and fatigue I went into a significantly worse ending. Then I threw away the draw. On the upside, at least I wasn't hung over. Here are the games.

R1.pgn

Not a bad game at all, though I did have about a 150 point rating advantage. Only one major error, and even it was a few ply down the line. My goal this tournament was to play safely, not overextending due to impatience. I think this game was a good example of that style of play, with the possible exception of Ng5. Here's the 2nd round:

R2.pgn

Not as good of a game from my side, but my opponent was very slightly higher rated than me and this was the first time I'd gotten to play the Classical Sicilian in OTB chess. As I said, the last game isn't worth showing, it was such a comedy of errors. I won't come to this tournament again unless it's expanded to two days. It's too much chess and I can't keep my play up for 4 rounds (or even 3, frankly) of long time control chess. 2 long games/day. No more than that. It's just not worth the money or the frustration. By the way, aren't the Fritz verbal annotations strange? The one about the cat seems like a bad German translation to me, but who knows. Every country has its own weird sayings. What the hell does 'by and large' mean, anyway? What sort of sense would it make translated into German? I'll leave you with that thought.

Maybe I should just play quick chess...

2008-08-15T20:48:00.000-07:00

Well, it's Friday night and I just won the reserve section of the Indiana state quick tournament. 4 games, 20/3, $70 first prize. Covers my entry fee with enough for a few beers. Here's the only game I could remember all the way through. It's an error filled Benoni but it has some cute tactical ideas. I hope you enjoy. Good luck to Nate, I hope you're doing well. Wish you were here. Maybe Kokomo's not so bad after all.

RampleyWycoffe.pgn

So many errors, as you would expect from a quick game, but fun and a good one for me to win.

Team 4545 league round 3 - Crazy Benoni

2008-08-11T20:09:00.000-07:00

This was my 3rd game from the team 45-45 league. This game was infuriating, because I had several chances to put it away and I just played too fast, not looking at enough moves during the critical portions.

team4545 round 3.pgn

So you can see why I was so frustrated. This was a game I had plenty of chances to win or force a draw, but instead I lose. Am I that bad, or is this game just really that hard? Probably both.

IN State Class championships in beautiful Kokomo approaching

2008-08-08T09:55:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know, the Indiana state class championships are coming up, to be held once again in Kokomo IN. That means that Garrett, Nate, maybe Drew, Ben, Quinn, and I will be making the godforsaken drive up 31 to Kokomo. If you've never taken this drive, then let me tell you that the only thing worse than this indescribably dull stretch of highway is the even duller stretch of highway that extends to South Bend. Thank God we're not holding the tournament there.

Which raises an interesting question: why Kokomo? It's not centrally located at all. And as it happens, Indiana does have a large, centrally located city where it might make more sense to hold the tournament. Yet our state tournaments are often in either Kokomo or, even more oddly, Logansport (this may just be because Logansport is the home of former ISCA honcho Gary Fox, whom we all thank for his hard and extremely thankless work in chess). Is this to accommodate the South Bend contingent? Or is it just cheaper?

In any case, I expect a sub par performance on my part, not least because the drive to Kokomo almost forces you to drink once you get there just to stave off crippling boredom. I think if I lived in Kokomo I'd have to be drunk all the time. Seriously, the main reason I'm not predicting a win is that the tournament is a 4 round, g/90 affair conducted in one day. For those of you a little slow in the math department, that's up to 12 hours of chess on a Saturday. That's a shit ton of chess in one day. I bet the average player loses between 100-200 points of effective strength between the first and last games. It's a grueling schedule.

And it's played at a UAW hall. Leaving aside the stale scent of despair the sits on this (or probably any) automakers union hall, the place is fairly pleasant to play in. There are swings outside for Maxx to frolic on, picnic tables for folks to sit on and watch Roger stalk geese, and a pleasant breeze that luckily leaves you upwind from Kokomo proper (just kidding. I really have no particular issue with Kokomo, other than having to take 31 to get there). It's no Sheraton conference center, but it's not bad for what you pay to enter.

So as you can probably tell I'm really looking forward to this one. Last year I locked my keys in my car and lost my last round game in like 11 moves (probably because I just returned from a wine junket in Napa), and just generally sucked ass. Let's hope that this year is a little more successful. I don't want to drive to Kokomo for nothing.

Team4545 League round 2

2008-08-06T10:29:00.000-07:00

This is my second game from the Team4545 ICC league tournament. If you actually like seeing these games, leave a quick comment because they're a pain in the ass to post and I won't do it if no one takes the time to look at them. Thanks

White: frank001
Black: caissapriest
Result: 0-1

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bg5 e6 7. Qd2 a6 8.O-O-O Bd7 9. Kb1

9. f3 Be7 10. h4 h6 11. Be3 h5 is the main line with f3

9... b5?! playing a bit too much on autopilot.

9... h6 10. Be3 Ng4 11. f4 Nxe3 12. Qxe3 =

10. f3 Qb6

10... h6 11. Be3 Ne5 scores best, and is probably the best line 12. Bd3 Qc7 13. h4 (13. g4 b4 14.Nce2 d5=) 13... h5 14. f4 b4 15. fxe5 bxc3 16. exd6 Bxd6 17. Qxc3 Qxc3 18. bxc3 Ng4 19. Bg1 Ke7 20. Be2 Rhb8+ 21. Ka1 Ba3 22. Nb3 Bc6 23. Bxg4 hxg4 24. Bh2 Rd8 25. Rde1 f6 26. Bc7 Rdc8 27. Bb6 Rab8 28. Ba7 Rb5 29. Re3 Ba8 30. Rg3 Kf7 31. Rxg4 Rxc3 32. Rd1 Rb7 33. Bg1 Rxc2 34. Be3 e5 35. Rd8 Re2 36. Bd2 Rf2 37. Rxa8 Rf1+ 38. Bc1 Bxc1 39. Kb1 Ba3+ 40. Kc2 Rf2+ 41. Kd3 Rxa2 42. Na5 Rd7+ 43. Kc4 Be7 44. Rxa6 Rd4+ 0-1 Herrera,I (2450)-Rodriguez Cespedes,A (2555)/Matanzas 1997/CBM 057 ext

11. Be3 Qb7 12. Nxc6 Bxc6

The best recapture, supporting ...d5 at some point in the future

13. Qf2?!

This is a common move in the English attack against the Najdorf, but here it is not as good.

13. g4 Rc8 14. Bg2 b4 15. Ne2 e5 16. g5 Nd7 17. h4 Nb6 18. Qxb4 Bb5 19. Bxb6 Bxe2 20. Rd2 Bb5 21. Qa5 Be7 22. b3 Rc6 23. Be3 Bc4 24. Ka1 Be6 25. c4 1-0 Vasquez,R (2445)-Leon,R (2181)/Chile 2000/EXT 2001

13. Ne2 right away is possible, taking away the tempo I would gain by ...b4

13... b4 14. Ne2 Be7 15. h4

15. Qg3 was a move I was worried about. I was planning to sacrifice a pawn b3 (15...O-O 16. Bh6 Ne8 17. Nd4 a5 is Fritz's choice, with a slight initiative to black) 16. cxb3 (16. Qxg7 bxc2+ 17. Kxc2 Rg8 18. Qh6 Ba4+ 19. b3 Rg6 20. Qh3 Bd7 is assessed as equal by the computer, but I like black) 16... O-O 17. Bh6 Ne8 18. Nd4 Bd7 is about even, but white is definitely doing the pushing.

15...a5 16. g4 a4?!

16... b3 is even better right away 17. axb3 a4 18. g5 Nd7 19. Nd4 axb3 20. Nxb3 Ba4 21. Nd4 Nc5 -+ is Fritz's favorite line

17. h5?! way too slow

17. Nd4 is fine for white, though he's still a bit worse

17... b3 18. cxb3? axb3

18... Nxg4! 19. Qg1 Bxe4+ $3 20. fxe4 Qxe4+ 21. Ka1 Nxe3 is extremely strong, but I didn't see it. This is a problem I have: I see one line of a combination, and I don't take the time to look for a stronger, related continuation. I should definitely work on this.

I love the moment when you see a possible tactic if the opponent just makes natural moves, but I go insane waiting on them to play during that period of time. It's so nerve racking when you know that just proceeding with their plan could get them killed. I was pacing like crazy waiting for him to play, worrying about Nd4 or other moves that would spoil my potential combination.

19. a3? Nxe4!

19...Bxe4+ 20. fxe4 Qxe4+ 21. Ka1 Rxa3+ 22. bxa3 Qc2 23. Rd2 b2+ 24. Ka2 b1=Q# is an incredibly cool mating sequence that I didn't even begin to see.

20.fxe4? the sacrifice should not be accepted.

20. Qe1 Nc5 leaves black in control, but white has play and between players of our levels he's not really at that much of a disadvantage in such a sharp, open position.

20... Bxe4+ 21. Ka1 Bxh1 22. Nd4 Bc6

22... O-O was a move I looked at a lot, and would have been better. I was afraid of white's play on the kingside. I may have a few extra pawns, but that also means open lines and I was worried about them. 23. Bd3 Bd5

23. Rc1 Rc8?? Oh shit! White can equalize with a combination

24. g5?

Thank god for me he missed it. 24. Rxc6! Rxc6 25. Bb5 O-O 26. Bxc6 Qc7 and he's totally fine

24... Bd7 25. Rd1 d5?!

A very hard decision. I used over a third of my time on this move, and I erred. I should have castled. 25... O-O 26. h6 g6 was what I was worried about. I did not want to get mated in the corner. White has no immediate threats, I just hate positions like that and since I'm used to not castling in the Rauzer, it didn't bother me to leave the king in the center.

26. g6 hxg6 27. hxg6 f6

I thought for a long time here as well. I wanted to take it, or castle, but it just seemed to loose 27... Bf6 28. Bg5 fxg6 29. Bxf6 O-O would have been fine too

27... O-O 28. Bd3 fxg6 29. Qg2 Rf6 is a bit risky

28. Rd3 e5

Best. I can't retain the pawn, but this move is the strongest continuation. It opens lines and forces him to move the well centralized knight.

29. Rxb3 Qa8 30. Nb5 d4

This move scared me a little, because of the possibility of the sac on d4. I didn't have a ton of time left, and the complications could have been hard to deal with.

31. Bd2

31. Nxd4 exd4 32. Bxd4 Be6 33. Qe3 Qd5 34. Ka2 Rb8 wins for black

31... Be6 32. Rg3 Qc6

32... Rh1! is stronger

33. Qe1 Ra8?

A very bad mistake. He had the chance to create a lot of problems for me.

34.Ba5?

34. Bg2! Qc4 35. Nc7+ Qxc7 36. Bxa8 is a little loose for black, though he's still winning completely. Doesn't make it simple.

34... Rxa5!

That's that. I found a nice combo early, but gave my opponent a chance to equalize. Thankfully for me he missed it, and I didn't screw up. I love and hate games like this. Black has good chances, but it's so sharp you can't relax for a single move. Very stressful. Still, I'll take winning chances over a dry draw anytime. I did an okay job in this game of taking his checks, threats, and captures into account (Heisman), but clearly I missed a few. I guess I better get stronger.

35. Qxa5 Qc1#

0-1

The False Dicotomy of Tactical vs Positional players

2008-08-03T20:40:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting one, because you hear it all the time. What player hasn't described him or herself as a 'tactical' or 'positional' player? I've certainly done so (tactical, in my case) without really thinking about what it means.

What chess game isn't tactical and positional? These are really just levels of thinking about a position, aren't they? Positional considerations relate to longer term structural and strategic factors, and tactics are the way we execute the plans we form while thinking positionally. Every game, we do both.

What I think the description is trying to capture is whether a given player prefers closed or open positions. Think about it: usually d pawn openings are described as more positional and e pawn openings as tactical. But this is silly. Kasparov cut a swath of rampant attacking destruction opening with either pawn, and Karpov player very prophylactically when opening with the e pawn earlier in his career. What's more accurate (though still questionable) is that e pawn openings result in more open positions, while d pawn openings often create closed positions. Tactical and positional considerations are important in each, but he nature of the play is different.

Perhaps what we should ask rather than 'tactical or positional?' is 'open or closed positions?'. I for one have a strong preference for open positions with easy piece play, and I play closed positions pretty badly (the exception being the King's Indian, which I seem to do pretty well against for some reason). Still, I open primarily with 1.d4 and do just fine in the opening. I just make sure to play the most open lines. I'd be interested to know if anyone else thinks 'open or closed' describes style better than 'tactical or positional'.

Credit has to go to Garrett Smith for pointing out to me that this was really a rather non-critcally accepted false dichotomy.

Chess Explained: The Classical Sicilian, Reviewed

2008-08-01T13:02:00.000-07:00

I bought this book at the same time as the Rizzitano book on the Taimanov, in an effort to figure out which of the two I wanted to play as I struggle to create a Sicilian based repertoire vs. 1.e4 (The Lopez just proved too much to deal with. I suck at closed positions, and the Open I found to be very hard to equalize in). Besides the format, common to all Chess Explained books, what both these titles had in common was quality.

I must admit I may be a little biased for two reasons. First off, I like the Classical Sicilian positions, especially the Kozul Suicide variation lines. They're sharp, open and fun. Secondly, I am a huge fan of Alex Yermolinsky's writing. He writes very frankly with no hint of pretense or attention to form (by this I mean the rather pedantic writing style that characterizes many chess books, seemingly drawn from the annotative style of the early masters like Nimzovitch). That being said, I think I can say that even judged purely on its own merits this opening manual is very solid.

The games are recent, high level, well annotated and explained, and cover the gamut of important positions in the Classical. That is hard to do, because many different systems with different feels can spring from the Classical starting position (Black knights on c6 and f6, pawn on d6, neither a6 or e5 yet played). I think the balance of material is about right, with special emphasis being given to the Rauzer as the most challenging line theoretically. One thing I like about the Classical is that even online and at class level, people (whether by accident or design) often play some of the sharper, more challenging lines. As such, the extra time spent on the Rauzer isn't wasted. Good explanation are also given of the Boleslavsky and English Attack positions, which are highly transpositional with one another, as well as some of rarer lines.

Yermo didn't significantly alter his writing style in switching from a personal games collection and chess history (Road to Chess Improvement, read it if you haven't) to crafting an opening survey, and I 'm happy that he didn't. His dry humor and good pacing, combined with frequent diagrams makes this book easy and fun to read even without a board. Overall, I highly recommend it.

In closing, I must say that for those above ~1600, the Chess Explained series provides a great bridge from the (generally, though there are exceptions) lower level Starting Out series by Everyman and the more advanced opening books published by all the major companies. The topics are more specific than the SO books, but the analysis is not so deep that single sub-variations dominate long chapters or even whole volumes. I'm very glad Gambit is producing this series, and I hope it sells well enough that they don't stop.

Open Comments!

2008-08-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

I have opened the comments so you no longer need a google ID to post. Please keep it chess related, unless you happen to have a knowledge of Judo or Chicago blues in which case post whatever you want.

Are kids really that good at openings?

2008-07-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

This post is in response to a forum comment, that kids are often good at openings and that if you can get through the opening and early middlegame that you have a good shot at winning (given similar ratings, of course). But are kids really that good at openings, or do they just learn a bunch of opening traps?

Having never played scholastic chess, I can't really answer that, but since I've played a lot of double king pawn openings against kids I do notice that they play a lot of romantic systems that contain a lot of pitfalls if you don't know the theory. But is this the same as knowing an opening?

For example, do kids generally understand the power of pawn breaks to increase piece activity, and what pawn breaks generally flow from which openings? Do they know on which part of the board a given opening will generally suggest they play? Do they understand the differences in the value of tempi in closed vs. open games? When I think about knowing openings, those are the sort of things I think of.

I guess the question is, are kids really educated about openings at a higher level than adults, or do they merely know more traps in the openings they play? I do see a difference, and I'm especially interested in the opinions of people who played or coach scholastic players.

The real advantage kids have in chess

2008-07-28T10:55:00.001-07:00

Everyone knows little kids are the most dangerous chess opponents for class level adult players, barring only 'unrated' middle aged men from the former Soviet bloc.

But why are kids so dangerous? Two reasons:

They're never hung over and they usually don't feel pressure to beat adults in the same way we feel pressure to beat them.

If I quit drinking at chess tournaments, I bet I gain 50 points pretty fast. When I look at my results in rounds 4 and 5, I'm disgusted at the disparity with rounds 1 and 2. This could just be a function of playing the better players due to Swiss pairings, but I get paired up as often as down and if I'm going to upset you, it will be in rounds 1 or 2. The second day is murder. Still, I enjoy the social aspects of going to tournaments as much as the chess and I have no plans to change my habits. I doubt I am alone amongst childless (I'm 26) adults in my behavior at tournaments, especially those like me who usually room with friends who also like a drink.

As for their other advantage, if a kid loses to some adult who's been playing for years, it's usually not considered such a big deal, especially by their parents. I think this takes a lot of pressure off them in games against their elders. I for one feel a special imperative to beat anyone significantly younger than me, or at least anyone who can't legally drive. This is a silly feeling because ratings are obviously independent of age, but never the less I get very annoyed when elementary age kids beat me. Never mind my Finance and Psychology degrees, disregard that I play several instruments with performance proficiency, the 1420 on my SATs years ago, this little kid JUST TOTALLY OUTSMARTED ME AND IT PISSES ME OFF!

Little kids have none of these pressures.

So if you ever see me pacing, cursing at 2:00 on Sunday at some tournament, there's a good chance I just hung my queen to some third grade would-be prodigy after a night of pounding Sam Adams, and I'm not happy about it.

Did I mention that kids often play really off-beat but trappy lines? I've never really been caught out in one by a child, but I still hate playing against them because I'm usually not so familiar with the positions (I mostly study main lines).

And I really hate that sometimes, when you beat a kid badly or in an important game, they cry. I'm not heartless and it makes me feel awful, even though it's certainly just part of the game and I would never let them win. It's especially bad if I see their parents berate them later for losing (or for crying). It's just chess. They feel bad enough already.

A quick note on ICC manners

2008-07-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

Since I'm posting my League4545 games, you will all soon know my ICC handle is Caissapriest. Since I have a proclivity to be outspoken online, a few quick notes on my views on ICC manners. First though, let me note that I am very frequently drunk when playing online, and so if I've ever said anything rude to you (especially if you have an automated thank you), then I apologize. Drunkenness is not an excuse (since it's certainly my choice to drink and play chess), I'm just saying don't take it too personally.

In any case, a few things about ICC manners

1. Rematch challenges are fine, but please don't give me any shit if I decline. Playing you once is not a tacit agreement to play you repeatedly. You have no idea why I'm not playing you again. Maybe my girlfriend needs something. Maybe my cat threw up. You don't know. It's not a big deal.

2. Talking shit unprovoked is very bad form. Talking shit when provoked, however, I view as not such a big deal. Provocation includes anything that would be rude over the board, including letting your time run out in a lost position when you have a lot left rather than resigning, playing on in terribly lost positions when there is a lot of time remaining, and so forth. If you're losing, just lose and be done with it. You're not going to swindle me with your knight and pawn when I have three queens or something, at least not when we both have 5-10 minutes left. It's just a waste of both our times.

3. Profanity is still unnecessary in the above cases, because you don't know anything about the person you're playing. When I say talk shit, I mean something along the lines of: "That's really rude to play on when you're totally lost, and I don't understand why anyone would play you more than once. I certainly won't" +noplay +cens. I wish I had a hotkey for this phrase. It's pretty mild as such things go, but it gets the point across.

4. I hate automated thank yous. If it's a really obnoxious one, then I might say something rude, especially drunk. I got censored for this once by ICC administration, probably rightly. The reason I hate them is because they're so fake and impersonal. They come up after truly good games, and after games where I hang my queen on move 8. It's like when you're on hold with AT&T and the automated voice tells you they value your call and then thanks you for your patience. They don't value your call, it wasn't a good game every time, and so I would prefer people reserve their thanks for games that are actually good enough that they feel inspired to reach out and type a real thanks.

That's my ICC rant. Please don't drop me a bunch of messages about what a dick I am. My censor list is big enough already.

Ugly, Ugly team4545 Game

2008-07-28T08:07:00.000-07:00

So I've started playing in the ICC team4545 league, and I just played my first game, and I did not play it well. Here it is. It transposed into an Old Indian defense (which I know nothing about) and I was much worse right out of the opening. I played this game after spending two days at my best friend's wedding, and I had the worst hang over I've had in a year at least. I have to say, it didn't hurt my ability to calculate all that much, but it made me very impatient which definitely showed during the course of the game. Chess is not a physical game, but a deficiency in your physical condition can show up in so many ways in your play. I just didn't have the mindset to play slowly.

Caissapriest (1778)
GambitBandit (2118)
ICC 27.07.2008

1. d4 d6 2. c4

This was my first mistake. There are drawbacks to all white's responses now, and so 2. Nf3 is better, preventing e5. This is not a system I have ever taken seriously, but it scores very well for black in the database. Trading pawns and queens is optically appealing at first glance, but with the queens gone and both sides undeveloped black's loss of castling privileges just doesn't matter all that much.

...e5 3. e4
3. Nf3 e4 4. Ng5 Nf6 5. Nc3 Qe7 6. Qc2 Nc6 7. e3 Bf5 8. h4 h6 9. Nh3 g5 10. Nd5 Qd8 11. Bd2 Bg7 12. O-O-O Qd7 13. Be2 Nxd5 14. cxd5 Nxd4 15. exd4 e3 16. Bd3 Bxd3 17. Qxd3 exd2+ 18. Qxd2 O-O-O 19. hxg5 Qf5 20. Qc2 Qxd5 21. gxh6 Bxh6+ 22. Kb1 Qxg2 23. Qf5+ Kb8 24. Qxf7 Qe4+ 25. Ka1 Rdf8 26. Qd7 Rd8 27. Qb5 Bg7 28. Rhe1 Qf3 29. Ng5 Qxf2 30. Rf1 Qg2 31. Nf7 Rdf8 32. Nxh8 Rxh8 33. Rg1 Qf3 34. Rdf1 a6 35. Qg5 Bf8 36. Rh1
1-0 Lautier,J (2672)-Glek,I (2575)/Corsica 2005/EXT 2006

3... exd4 4. Qxd4 Nc6 5. Qd1

5. Qd2 g6 6. b3 Bg7 7. Bb2 Nf6 8. Nc3 is also an option

5... Nf6 6. Nc3 Be6
6... g6 this move right away is what I expected, and I think it gives white more trouble.

7. b3
7. Nf3 g6 8. h3 Bg7 9. Be3 O-O 10. Be2 Nd7 11. O-O Nb6 12 Nd5 Bxb2 13. Bg5 f6 14. Bh6 Marin is somewhat better in this position.

Bxa1 15. Bxf8 Kxf8 16. Qxa1 Kf7 17. Nd2 Nd7 18. f4 Ne7 19. Nf3 Bxd5 20. cxd5 c6 21. dxc6 bxc6 22. Bc4+ d5 23. Bb3 Nc5 24. e5 f5 25. Ng5+ Kg8 26. e6 Qb6 27. Kh2 Rf8 28. Nf7 Rxf7 29. exf7+ Kxf7 30. Qe5 Ne4 31. Bc2 Nd2 32. Re1 Nf3+

1/2-1/2 Sokolov,I (2630)-Marin,M (2525)/Debrecen 1992/EU-chT

7... g6 8. Bb2 Bg7

9. Bd3
9. Nf3 is a mistake, allowing Nxe4 10. Nxe4 Bxb2 with a huge advantage for black.

9. Qc2 came into consideration as well, but as I was way behind in development I wanted to get the kingside pieces out quickly. I didn't think I'd move the bishop to any place other than d3 anyway, though as it turns out Be2 might have been better in some lines ...O-O 10. O-O-O Nb4 11. Qe2

is all right for black, though it is a little more combative and might have been better.

9... O-O 10. Nge2
10. Nf3 is probably a better move, but I rejected it because I was planning to gain space with f3 or f4 (depending on the situation), and I felt that developing the knight here would
hinder those plans uneccesarily. ...Ng4 11. Qd2 Nce5 12. Nxe5 Bh6 13. Qc2 Nxe5
is about equal

10... Ne5
10... Ng4 is better for him 11. O-O Qh4 12. h3 Nge5 sees all black's pieces very active and white reduced to a slow unwinding

11. Bc2
11. f4 Nxd3+ 12. Qxd3 Nd7 came into consideration, but I wanted to
retain the bishop in connection with playing f5.

11... c6?!
This is slow, and d5 will be hard to play in any case. 11... Nfd7 12. h4 Ng4 13. Qd2 h5 14. Nf4 Bh6 15. O-O-O is pretty much equal

12. O-O after screwing up the opening badly, I've managed to equalize.

...g5?! I assume he was trying to prevent f4, and in fact I shouldn't have played it.

13. f4?? a very bad move. This was me lashing out, because I had grown very tired of my cramped position and awkward piece placement. A little more patience and I might have had real winning chances.13. Qd2 was the other thing I thought of and would have been an improvement. ...Ne8 14.Rad1 Ng6 15. Na4 Bxb2 16. Nxb2 sees white with a slight edge according to Fritz 10

13... Neg4
13... gxf4 14. Nxf4 Nfg4 15. Qd2 Qb6+ 16. Kh1 is similar to the game continuation

14. Qc1
14. e5 is the only move ...dxe5 15. Qxd8 Rfxd8 16. fxe5 Nh5 leaves black better, but white is not in as much trouble as in the game.

14... Qb6+!
I had totally missed this move when I played f4.

15. Kh1 Nf2+ 16. Rxf2 Qxf2 17. f5 Bd7 18. Qxg5 Kh8 19. Bd3?

This is very bad. 19. Rd1 Rg8 20. Qf4 Qxf4 21. Nxf4 Ne8 22. Na4 and black is not a whole lot better, though white has no winning chances against strong play.

19... Rg8 20. Rb1
Now the bishop and rook aren't hanging, but he plays an accurate move and any swindling chances I have vanish. 20. Nd1 Nxe4 21. Bxg7+ (21. Qxg7+ Rxg7 22. Bxg7+ Kxg7 23. Nxf2 Nxf2+ 24. Kg1 Nxd3 is even worse) 21... Rxg7 22. Nxf2 Nxf2+ 23. Kg1 Nh3+ is brutal for white

20... h6 21. Qd2 Ng4 22. Nd1 Qh4 23.h3 Ne5 24. Ne3 Bf6 Fritz gives him about a two pawn advantage, and I agree with it.

25. Bxe5 Bxe5 26. Ng4?? This was simply an oversight played quickly in frustration, though
I was cooked in any case.

Rxg4
Not a good game from me at all. I got confused in an unfamiliar opening and ended up in a position reminicent of a Maroczy bind, an opening I play very poorly. Hopefully my next 4545 league game will be better. 0-1

'Chess Explained: The Taimanov Sicilian' Reviewed

2008-07-24T10:40:00.000-07:00

As I noted in a previous post, I am starting to play the Sicilian again after spending the last year working on the open games. I am a little split as to whether to play the Taimanov or the Classical (Najdorf/Scheveningen, Dragon: too much theory even for me; Sveshnikov: a possibility, but I have worked so much on the white side that I feel a certain 'white pieces bias' towards it, even though it scores very well and is an excellent line; Kan: the diversity of white responses I find staggering; others: I don't really like offbeat variations). I have chosen to research the two concurrently to decide which I like better, and so I bought both Chess Explained volumes on the openings. I recently received the Taimanov book, and so far I have been impressed.

James Rizzitano has been a blessing to chess fans since he picked up the pieces (after a long hiatus) and the pen several years ago, and he's produced several fine works recently. I especially can recommend his book How to Beat 1.d4, which I used primarily for it's anti-main line Queen's Gambit section. He's a thorough writer who provides what is for me a good mix of analysis and explanation.

Chess Explained: The Taimanov Sicilian naturally contains more verbal explanation than analysis, though a quick check on Chessbase shows that the critical lines are covered. I like the way the information is broken up, and the recency of the games is a major plus. I find Gambit books in general to be easier to read than Everyman and Quality Chess, though let me be clear that all three of these publishers regularly produce quality works, and I own plenty of books from all three. I like the two column format, and the text is well sized to get a lot of information on the page (a gripe I sometimes have with Everyman) without being too hard to read (a problem that crops up from time to time in Quality Chess books, IMO). I still don't know if I'll play the Taimanov a lot, but between Chessbase and this book I doubt I'll need another resource for some time even if I adopt it as my main open Sicilian Defense. Overall, a good book.

Adventures in the Anti-Sicilians

2008-07-24T06:40:00.001-07:00

I've recently started playing the Sicilian again, since I got really discouraged trying to find a good answer to the Lopez (especially the exchange variation; even though black is mostly ok I just don't like that sort of chess game, and at my Class B level I get it a lot more than anything else).

In any case, I've been analyzing positions that arise from the Alapin (2.c3) Sicilian, and I found an interesting one that arises from one of the main lines:

It's white's move, and it seems that white can win a pawn with Bxd5 exd5 Qxd5, but there are a number of interesting lines that arise following Nb4, so I think that black has sufficient compensation. I haven't Fritzed this position yet, I'm curious what the computer will think. The game (Rybenko-Ciuskyte 2004) continued 11.Bd3 f5 12.exf6 Nxf6 13.Qe2 Qa5, with black eventually winning after some nice tactical shots.

I have to admit a level of discouragement, as after the game I got on ICC and almost immediately played 2-3 games in the Alapin, and I think I lost each one. None reached the diagrammed position as white chose an early exchange on d5 entering a dual IQP position, which I haven't really analyzed all that much (though you'd think I'd know how to play an IQP considering how many I enter as white). Still, it was a little frustrating. I did win a pretty game in the exchange QGD earlier in the day against a much higher rated opponent, which felt nice as this is one of my favorite systems.

The next round of the Team4545 league starts this week, and I have a game on Sunday against a player ~300 points higher rated than me. I will post that game after I finish it. This should be fun.

Correspondence chess

2008-07-22T12:08:00.000-07:00

What is the value anymore of corr chess? I don't ask this frivolously, as I've just finished my second corr tournament (+3 =2 -1, 2nd place) and am unsure as to whether I should start another one. They are fun in a sense, but there is no practical way to stop cheating and I can't help but feel in some of my games that I'm playing against a computer. As much as I like the analytical practice and the use of very sharp lines, it's very disheartening to think I may be playing Rybka. Since we have the anonymity of the internet, has anyone ever cheated at a corr game, and would you be willing to cop to it? I'm just trying to get a feel for how many people play fair.

Adventures in Chess

2008-07-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Chessgasm, this blog will be devoted to my obsession with chess. Nothing has the power to elate and infuriate me like chess; I'm sure you can sympathize. The title of this blog is indicative of the emotional power chess has, though nothing the least bit racy will ever be posted (not even 'Chessbase' girls). In any case, this blog will contain my observations, trials, and tribulations as I try to reach expert before I get bored and quit. I intend to review books (I buy a lot of chess books), discuss my games (hopefully get comments from well meaning readers), and discuss the frustrations and joys of being a class player in the USCF.

Perhaps you noticed I said expert. Unlike many chess players, I don't really expect to be a master. I think I can reach expert within 5 years, which is about how long I expect to be really interested in chess (I tend to get bored with things after 5-6 years, I've found). Chess may prove an exception however... I can't ever get enough, especially ICC.

I don't have a system for improving. I study often, mostly analyzing early middlegame positions from openings I play. I used to do a lot of tactics, but once I got to about 1600 I found that they didn't really seem to help so much as they used to. I think studying openings is not as overrated as everyone says, and since everyone good spends a lot of time on it they should stop telling everyone below them to give it up. How else am I supposed to learn about positions? Positions come from specific openings, and usually the positional (and even tactical) motifs that recur repeatedly in games in those openings are defined very early by the initial moves each player makes. For example, you could say that the King's Indian defense is a terribly complicated and theoretical opening that class players shouldn't spend a lot of time learning the theory of. However, if I want to play the KID, I better learn that black usually strives for an f5 break, while white will often play for c5 and invasion on the open c-file. I should know that if white plays an early f3 and goes into the Samisch, then he may castle queenside and attack on the kingside and that my best response may well be a gambit. I should know that in some positions Na6 planning to come to c5 after a d5 push is a good way of playing. I should know that against some setups going into a Benoni type position with c5 may be best. These are all opening concepts which will define the strategies of both sides for the middlegame, and studying openings seems to the best way to learn about them. Whew. There's my rant for the day.