.I played yesterday in my new club, G/90. I am not satisfied with my play. I think I wasn’t fully concentrated, also my chronic under-calculating and maybe I played too fast, I had ~25 minutes left when it finished on 52nd move (my opponent actually had more) . Anyway, the result was good – I won. It was another +100 rated guy, it’s like I am playing in U2000 tournament. I was White and it was Ruy Lopez, Classical variation, 3. … Bc5. I never played OTB against this variation , had a few correspondence games that I don’t remember. It showed, as I missed winning a piece at the very early stage and got under some pressure later. At one moment I made a wrong move allowing my opponent combination winning an exchange, but he missed it. Then we got a position where I deliberately allowed his rook on the 1st line (following queens exchange) to relieve the pressure on “d” line. It actually brought me even bigger dividends, as we exchanged both rooks and went into the knight endgame where I clearly had better perspectives. I played pretty well this part, got ”a” and “b” passed pawns. Then I made a stupid mistake losing a pawn, which again he didn’t notice. The pawns eventually decided the game, sacrificing themselves but distracting Black’s knight and king. I posted the game, raw pgn, you can consider it as a tactics exercise, try to find missing stuff. I will post Fritz’s annotations later, Fritz had his day on this one . OK, here is what Fritz says about the game. I could win a piece with 6. d4 and 22. … Nd4 was winning exchange. 46. a5 was losing a pawn due to 46. … Nxa5.
“The winner is the player who makes the last but one mistake” – Savielly Tartakower
October 2, 2009 at 1:48 pm
I have never played or played against a Ruy lopez 3…Bc5.
It looks an active way to play as black.
Better than all that the more common lines.
Lovely endgame very active with your knight,meant your king did’nt have to be.
Just waiting to mop up the last of blacks pawns.
Plus another win against a 100+ player,well done.
October 2, 2009 at 3:09 pm
chessx – thanks. Classical is the oldest variation, it’s still played on the highest levels, see for example:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1544455
I should be definitely prepared better for this if I play Ruy Lopez. I found it was played against me only a few times in blitz, so I would probably play a few games as Black with it, it’s easier to enforce it this way.
Having isolated pawns on the queenside and exchanging the last pair of rooks was definitely his mistake, it’s very difficult (if possible at all) to defend them against knight.
October 2, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Wow, hideous game, but a win is a win.
This seems to add confirmation to my theory that FICS ratings are actually stronger than OTB ones, probably because player on FICS might play more regularly, but take into account that it’s usually little over 15 minutes on FICS, and still up to par.
I didn’t spot all the pawn drops at first either, playing it over quickly, but I could spot that …f5 was probably bogus, right away.
9…f5
10. BxB dxB
11. exf BxN (else g4 fork)
12. NxN Rxf
13. Qe2 or some such and White should have a definite advantage +- (my analysis).
I’ve lost a (blank)load of rating points making those …f5 moves that don’t actually work, in the past.
ChessX, don’t be so impressed by how the line was handled, typical treatment is …a6, then BxN NxB, and not …f5.
Ng4 was an obvious mistake in retrospect, as you needed to play a queen-side move there.
Overall, you played the game very well, strategically, as well as the endgame. He needed to get …a4 and the a-file going at some point instead of trading down major pieces on the d-file, which effectively lost him the game.
If you did anything wrong in this game, I agree that you probably played too fast on a couple occasions. Less calculation and faster play seem to go hand in hand for most of us; it’s almost like we need to train our rythms to spend a certain amount of time on moves. I’ve noticed that kids actually “sit on their hands” on purpose (and usually don’t do much with the extra time in any event).
October 2, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Walter Shipman once played that variation against me OTB as Black. He played the …a6 move, naturally. Of course, he beat me.
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=15598
October 3, 2009 at 1:08 am
linuxguy – Fritz didn’t like f5 too ( BTW, I posted commented game). What was good that I was in the fighting mood. It is difficult to optimize your time spending when your opponent plays pretty fast (he had 15-20 minutes more all the time). Overall I am glad I am playing there, openings are cool and the play is serious. Sure I’ll get a beating soon, as there are enough 2000-2250 players, even one 2300 girl. That’s OK
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October 3, 2009 at 1:26 pm
How funny, looks like all three of us missed the d4 push. I’d say that’s due to his blitzing style, and I’m guessing you didn’t have 2 hours to play the game or anything like that.
Nice opportunity to play some much higher rateds. Seems like people get more serious the higher their rating goes, to protect it. I made Expert! Bye! hehehe. Or isn’t that how it usually goes(?!)
October 3, 2009 at 5:41 pm
I think it’s because you don’t expect to win a piece on 6th move with class “A” player, but it’s actually the second time something like that happens. With another class “A” I missed (also after Bg4 on 5th-6th move) something like Bxf7, Kxf7, Ne5+ and Nxg4, saw it next move, but it was late.
One 2100+ women lost in my old club to ~1700, never appeared again.
October 4, 2009 at 8:35 am
That trap is central to the …Bc5 defense, which goes to show that he probably doesn’t really know that Black opening, just plays it. Even though he’s class A, some people just play stuff, they don’t prepare at all like the pros do, they simply throw it out there and hope that it sticks.
It’s interesting why that trap works. His bishop on b6 stops him from being able to play …a6 Ba4 ..b5. If he plays …exd cxd ..Bb4 a3, then b4 forces his bishop back to b6 because if …a6 after a3, then BxN+ and axB wins the bishop.
The 2100 woman could have simply been not so 2100ish at G/75, which is what I assume the time-control was.
The Bxf7 check is usually a gimme, but that is unusual to win it with Ne5+ and then Nxg4, hadn’t seen that one before. It feels more odd to loose in a trap like I just did in my round 2 game, Ng3+ because it’s not an “openings” trap (where a person may spend gobs of time looking for stuff like that), but rather in a middlegame where I got absorbed by what White should do to attack.
October 4, 2009 at 3:49 pm
linuxguy – exactly, I don’t think he knew that variation, the same another guy. Interesting that on chesslive.de there were 60 games with Bg4 and in 25 White played d4 ( little consolation for me). All 25 were won by White. About 2100 – the control was G/90. I don’t know what happened, I played with her once, and was overplayed – positionally and then tactically. With this guy I have +1,=1.
October 5, 2009 at 12:28 am
Rollingpawns – I think you are on course for reaching A player in short order. You are playing with them now, which will make it even easier to get to that point and beyond.
My round 2 game, I simply decided to play the four pawns attack (I ‘wish’ I knew the theory) against the Alekhine. My opponent played 8…Rf8, and I already had as won a game as I really needed by that point, simply failed to execute the plan correctly.
Openings aren’t the real issue OTB that they are online, though your thoroughness of preparation should hold you in good stead. The main thing seems to be keeping up the intensity for a full game, whether always being amped enough, or refusing draw offers, or patiently finding the way in a technical ending, playing a full game consistently seems to be the most important thing.
The other thing is that I can try to prepare more against specific opponents. So the Alekhine suddenly becomes something worth studying, and playing online becomes irrelevant, even disadvatageous use of time and energy; may as well study tactics, games, etc, instead.
October 5, 2009 at 12:02 pm
I hope your prognosis is right, beyond seems me a long shot now
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I can’t say that openings are issue, but they are important for sure, imagine what would happen in my last game if I knew that trap – winning after 8 moves! I fully agree about keeping intensity and playing consistently.
I think that you must (not can) prepare against specific opponents. Come on, you are playing with the same people, am I right? Beat them in the opening and you will get psychological advantage, confidence, tournament points and more rest until the next round. Online is not useless if you play these specific openings, I played ~100 Benkos and ~40 Marshalls before I tried it OTB. You saw what preparation gave me with Scandinavian – after losing, then missing at least a draw, in the 3rd, last game I had big advantage, just didn’t use it. By the way, one of my games is already published – that 1st one that I badly lost in Scandinavian to -250 guy. He published it on one Canadian site a year ago, I found it few days ago making a search for my last name in Google for completely different reason. The guy was polite enough, but somebody that I know (sometimes he helps to organize tourneys, not sure he remembers me at all) put a pretty unpleasant comment about quality of my play in the opening. Yeah, I sucked, but I’ll never suck again in this @#$%ing Scandinavian.
October 5, 2009 at 1:46 pm
The thing is, nobody knows what another player was going through when playing a game.
Last night I played a game and that fatigue situation hit me again at the very end. All I have to do is play NxR+ and it’s a dead draw, we both have 1 pawn left after he recaptures the knight with his pawn and I take his pawn. If he plays king Kd4 (knight stops Kd3) I will win with Nf2-h3-f4. I simply overlooked that NxR is with check, and thought instead that he would play e2 instead of taking the knight. Interestingly, he blundered on his move right before by playing Ke4, where I could check him, instead of Kd4 which would have won for him.
A person could be worn out, on their second game, etc. How does a person get worn out? Easy, by doing a lot of intellectual activity during the week leading up to a game and then the body naturally wants to take a break. I think mental fatigue definitely affects confidence, and you need to play with confidence at all times, every move.
One thing that surprised me when I found an old game where I was 1300, and up two pieces but lost, the guy wore me down until I blundered the pieces back in situations that are easy to calculate for me now, but were not as straightforward to just move, so I know that I must have gotten tired late back then, too, and that was back like 15 years ago, so it’s not really age related, but player related.
Other people do stuff that I wouldn’t do, like lose in the first round by making simple mistakes. First round I do not make tired mistakes, but rather the rare nervous mistake. I don’t seem to lose to kids, either, like all these other player that do well against me do.
Yes, I am playing with the same people, same openings, and not preparing. How lame is that? I should study those openings chiefly.
October 5, 2009 at 1:49 pm
It was a game on FICS, so no worries, but the same thing situation as OTB, can’t take the end of a game lightly.
October 7, 2009 at 10:33 am
Congrats on the win!
Always fun if you know where you game needs improvement. That way you can search directly in the right direction for a fix.
October 7, 2009 at 10:16 pm
chesstiger – thanks. The most difficult is to force yourself to do what you need
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