Been a long time...

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.

A Little Theory First Thing in the Morning...

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.

The Streak just keeps rolling, sort of...

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.

The Chess Hunger is Returning...

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

Finally, I may be Getting Better

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.

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

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.