Playing in the STC Winter Blues, which is one game per week and had my last round of TL 45 action. 0-2 in STC so far, and pulled a draw in my TL game.
Getting some 5/0 games where time allows (got my bltiz rating over 1000 :p).
Still plugging away at Amatuer's Mind- finding time to just hammer it out is tricky with a family and other hobbies (fishing, Dungeons and Dragons), but I feel like I'm getting close to making a big jump. I have been feeling great when I sit down for my long games, and I enjoy looking over my games win or lose...I just feel potent right now and believe that I will see my patchwork study and practice coalesce into real improvement soon...maybe a steady 1600+ FICS standard rating.
Showing posts with label Team League. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Team League. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Another lesson
Here is the Watchbot for the game: http://mekk.waw.pl/mk/watchbot/game/2989161
Haven't run it through a computer yet, and haven't looked deeper than my notes above. I don't have a whole lot of time at work (:P) right now to add more comments.
I did my best to stay focused and not post a bunch of comments during the game. I stayed cool and focused, until I lost it zeroing in on the false winning of a pawn.
Tunnel vision killed me here. This week, I will go way back to de la Maza's board vision exercise- Concentric Circles. Wednesday and Friday I'll do those. Thursday will be for some reading from Amateur's Mind. Saturday or Sunday, I'll see if I have time to get a Stoyko (sp?) exercise in. Some practice visualizing and evaluating will be useful now.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Rough loss
Dropped a piece on something like move 7 because I was playing like it was G 15/0.
Thoroughly drove home Heismann's point that intermediate length games hurt more than help.
I believe I fought well and vigorously, but my opponent did not make any mistakes and hanging my rook (vs rook and bishop) with ~5 minutes on the clock sealed things up.
In spite of that (or perhaps out of necessity due to a player being wholly unavailable), I will be playing next week.
I will not embarrass myself like that again.
Thoroughly drove home Heismann's point that intermediate length games hurt more than help.
I believe I fought well and vigorously, but my opponent did not make any mistakes and hanging my rook (vs rook and bishop) with ~5 minutes on the clock sealed things up.
In spite of that (or perhaps out of necessity due to a player being wholly unavailable), I will be playing next week.
I will not embarrass myself like that again.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Back to play, so post something
Well, TL 45 is here and I'll be playing a match Saturday morning at 8 am east coast time, and combined with seeing someone publicly mention my blog, that means I have to make a new post.
I've been trying to plug away at The Amateur's Mind, but my father-in-law being hospitalized a couple weeks ago, me being sick for almost a week and now my mother-in-law in the hospital (and looking at a month or more of rehab and then assisted living) I haven't had terribly much time to focus.
I've been squeezing in game of 5/0 or 15/0 and some Chess Tempo when I can.
I think I need to spend a bit re-reviewing good thought process and go into the match playing fearlessly.
An interesting realization I've had is how useless it is to watch a match while running a chess engine at the same time. The often seemingly arbitrary numbers that the engine scores the game at tell nothing of the story leading up to the position and the PV it comes up is meaningless without knowing why those moves are chosen.
I've learned more running the engine on a position several moves back and have realized that what I thought was a safe position was loaded with losing missteps. I've also learned that many alternate paths aren't very different from each other in terms of concrete advantage.
I've been trying to plug away at The Amateur's Mind, but my father-in-law being hospitalized a couple weeks ago, me being sick for almost a week and now my mother-in-law in the hospital (and looking at a month or more of rehab and then assisted living) I haven't had terribly much time to focus.
I've been squeezing in game of 5/0 or 15/0 and some Chess Tempo when I can.
I think I need to spend a bit re-reviewing good thought process and go into the match playing fearlessly.
An interesting realization I've had is how useless it is to watch a match while running a chess engine at the same time. The often seemingly arbitrary numbers that the engine scores the game at tell nothing of the story leading up to the position and the PV it comes up is meaningless without knowing why those moves are chosen.
I've learned more running the engine on a position several moves back and have realized that what I thought was a safe position was loaded with losing missteps. I've also learned that many alternate paths aren't very different from each other in terms of concrete advantage.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Second Team Leaue Game
A bit of a swindle, this one:
Never got around to adding more to that last one, so we'll just burn a little midnight oil to add some thoughts:
5. d5
Feel like this was the novice in me- Ooh! My pawn can attack a piece! Probably a little ahead of myself here. The subsequent exchange of light-squared bishops made me miss mine later in the game.
7. ... f5
Yikes! I thought I was playing myself for a minute- this was aggressive and a thorn in my side (as my in-game whispers reflect)
10. O-O
kosu mentions later that he thinks I should have gone O-O-O, and I considered it. Just felt too loose over there.
14. Be3
I need to look at g4. Not sure that was actually stronger or just better in the moment. When I later recapture with the f-pawn, I was looking for the open file, but think the Queen might have been more stable long term.
17. cxd6
I considered c6, but not hard enough. Need to come back and look at why.
On moving my Queen to the kingside, it was to get my e-pawn up and I was planning on sliding my Queen back to the queenside along e1. I ended up spending a fair amount of time looking for back-rank tactics through the next stretch. kosu was rightly concerned because there were some spots where I think a knight sac would get me in.
Once my knight stole the bishop, I figured two ways to draw, or maybe eek out a win. One was to trade my knight for the b-pawn while not also committing my King. Two was to get my king to the b-pawn and use the knight to trade for the k-side pawns.
Both ended up happening.
Both the king and the knight would need 4 moves to capture on the queening square. Once I had counted that, I was confident I had a draw. On 51. g4, the black king needs 5 moves to get my knight, assuming I don't move it. Like someone observed in game, the knight just pops out to f5 and the king is stymied.
At the end, I was very aware of stalemate possibilities (Hi Pat!) and was very careful, in spite of the appearance of playing quickly here (I think that is where the comment about playing too fast occurred).
A wild game. kosu was very gracious aftewards and we had a great chat. I look forward to crossing swords with him again.
Also- thanks to those who complimented Chess Adventures :) It's been slow around here lately, and the kind words should be helpful in sparking some posting!
Never got around to adding more to that last one, so we'll just burn a little midnight oil to add some thoughts:
5. d5
Feel like this was the novice in me- Ooh! My pawn can attack a piece! Probably a little ahead of myself here. The subsequent exchange of light-squared bishops made me miss mine later in the game.
7. ... f5
Yikes! I thought I was playing myself for a minute- this was aggressive and a thorn in my side (as my in-game whispers reflect)
10. O-O
kosu mentions later that he thinks I should have gone O-O-O, and I considered it. Just felt too loose over there.
14. Be3
I need to look at g4. Not sure that was actually stronger or just better in the moment. When I later recapture with the f-pawn, I was looking for the open file, but think the Queen might have been more stable long term.
17. cxd6
I considered c6, but not hard enough. Need to come back and look at why.
On moving my Queen to the kingside, it was to get my e-pawn up and I was planning on sliding my Queen back to the queenside along e1. I ended up spending a fair amount of time looking for back-rank tactics through the next stretch. kosu was rightly concerned because there were some spots where I think a knight sac would get me in.
Once my knight stole the bishop, I figured two ways to draw, or maybe eek out a win. One was to trade my knight for the b-pawn while not also committing my King. Two was to get my king to the b-pawn and use the knight to trade for the k-side pawns.
Both ended up happening.
Both the king and the knight would need 4 moves to capture on the queening square. Once I had counted that, I was confident I had a draw. On 51. g4, the black king needs 5 moves to get my knight, assuming I don't move it. Like someone observed in game, the knight just pops out to f5 and the king is stymied.
At the end, I was very aware of stalemate possibilities (Hi Pat!) and was very careful, in spite of the appearance of playing quickly here (I think that is where the comment about playing too fast occurred).
A wild game. kosu was very gracious aftewards and we had a great chat. I look forward to crossing swords with him again.
Also- thanks to those who complimented Chess Adventures :) It's been slow around here lately, and the kind words should be helpful in sparking some posting!
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Trying to make a 1400 team for FICS Team League
In joining the FICS Team League, there are a couple teams that might be able to use me as a reserve in the 1600 section, and not many spots open at 1400.
I've messaged some other folks on the interested list to try and get a 1400 team together. We'll see how it goes!
I should probably read up to see if messages on FICS can be sent to multiple people, rather than copy-pasting as I did to each person...if so that would have made sharing info easier.
I've messaged some other folks on the interested list to try and get a 1400 team together. We'll see how it goes!
I should probably read up to see if messages on FICS can be sent to multiple people, rather than copy-pasting as I did to each person...if so that would have made sharing info easier.
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