I am interested in writing my own program, but for now I decided to buy Chess Assistant. Whoah, just installed it, this is the best chess program evuh.

It has everything I was looking for in the Scotch analysis and sidelines. Sheesh, I had been reduced to relying on Crafty’s little DB and the Crafty engine. This one has Shredder, so another point of view, I suppose.

I just won another tournament. hehe. Clear first. I guess I’ll blog about it now.

chesstiger – yes, implementation is the key. You can read a lot of stuff, try something blitz or in correspondence, but unless you do it OTB … So, ideally you should work on your OTB play, every time not just playing the game, but trying to execute your time management, opening, calculation, board vision, etc. ideas.

It has nothing to do with the amount of knowlegde but all with implementing this knowlegde into your thoughtproces, way you play chess.

Which means that the best player isn’t the one who knows the most about chess (theory, middlegame, endgame, trics and traps, …) but the player who best implements all the chess stuff (s)he has learned into his chess play.

It’s interesting that there seems to be different things that we each excel at. You are far better than me at moving quickly, prepare well (I’m improving/trying to there), most likely better than me at closed positions.

Now my mind turns to software or coming up with some system to categorically improve. I definitely want to start codifying opening moves to the Scotch that I can drill-through, things that I’ve learned from experience, which move to play.

I played through a few of your blitz game losses. In every game you lost you were up a pawn except for the lightening game, and were at least even in that one. Every game there was a winning endgame move that you didn’t make, or a saving move.

You’ve got amazing instincts of self-preservation, yet blitz obviously does not reward the endgame.

I feel bad that you outclass your opponents up through the middle-game, and then the endgame becomes a question of who can blitz better. Tragicomedy, and yet as always in blitz, you are just a move away from the win at some point, an endgame move, even if the rest of the games shines by itself.

linuxguy – yeah, b5 was absolutely necessary. Nb4, right, then Crafty suggests Nd3. Still, I kind of don’t like white knight on e4, though exchange gets me also, as chessx noticed, “wide open a8-h1 diagonal” for the bishop. I don’t know. The French, as I found, seriously tests your positional/tactical/memory skills at every move, strange, I kind of like it.
The house of cards – good comparison. A bunch of pieces together could be not good. I remember, I played with 1950 rated guy and he sacrificed his queen right in the middle of my pieces group, then forked me and I was without a knight. Maybe I somehow remembered it on Sunday .

OTH, it does give your other knight the b4 square and a better c-file, but that is often the sort of trade-off that White will give. So, I dunno honestly, but if White doesn’t play b3, it is all sunshine, smiles, and happy-days.

I’ve always wondered about things like that, which move is better, but it sucks if you did get a knight to b4, and it were like Jack Horner in the corner, doing little there. I’ve had that happen before, it’s like a wasted piece if it doensn’t fit into a coordinated plan.

In your game the c8 bishop only makes 2 moves,but what great second move.
You said the “bad” French bishop becomes a very good one.It became a game winner.Wide open a8-h1 diagional why cant i get bishops like this.
This is where a bishop is better than a knight with open lines like that the attack options are great.
The other bishop also had good open line options.If you had needed it.
You are playing good very good solid chess,
and getting results.