I never played with this guy before, it was a 30+ aged man. He played Italian game, here it is. His “novelty” 9. e5 didn’t look good to me and yes, his d4 pawn got under attack.
I saw 14… Nxd4 and decided that it’s better than boring Ne7 and that I probably will be able to defend that spare “d” pawn. He didn’t go for a principal 17. Qxb2, I saw 17. … Rb8 19. Qxa7 Rxb2, he saw that too and probably didn’t like it. I considered Nb4 when played Ba6 and thought that I can answer Be2, d3. Then after d3 I started to see a5, but played Rd4 because I miscalculated and thought that f3 gave him an additional strike on d3 with a king. Anyway he gave me a chance to win the piece, not seeing Rd7 and Bf5 I think, otherwise he would play 24. a3. The game was basically over after that and rooks exchange made a win technical.
May 22, 2012 at 3:55 am
Your opponent didn’t play with any real fire, whereas you did do so.
9.e5 is too time-wasting with just a pawn move to show for it. 9.exd is the natural move.
I like 12…Be6 right away, and then 13..Rad8, since Black also has ..Nb4-d5 as a resource if needed.
14…Nxd4! Great find!
White’s endgame play was uninspired, still playing it as if it were a middlegame.
23…Rd4? didn’t look right, 23…a5, White should have seen this trap coming. I didn’t notice that White could still play 24.a3 either, but White could spend nearly the balance of time remaining on this move, if need be, or else resign.
If White didn’t see 26..Rd7 and 27..Bf5 coming, then White needs to play more speed-chess, which is full of these sorts of mechanical devices such as this one.
Very nice, you played deeper and with more fire and passion than your opponent!
May 22, 2012 at 10:20 pm
linuxguy – thanks! Yes, it went well. I wanted to win, it was a last game of screwed up tournament, after which my rating will go below 1700, so don’t be shocked. But I hope I will be able to raise it back.
It is exactly what came to my mind, that Rd7 and Bf5 probably coming from online blitz.
May 23, 2012 at 3:32 am
Well, we’ll always have FICS … where I just won my pickup game against Capablaca.
http://ficsgames.com/cgi-bin/show.cgi?ID=308133535
My OTB rating has been taking a dive, too, and it’s just as much happenstance of the draw, although I do need to play better at the board.
You are playing far above such a rating, and better now than in the last few months.
I may not play my last two rounds this month, don’t know yet. I want to bonus this month at work, and the only way to do it would be to work on all my days off in order to get the requisite number of calls handled.
May 24, 2012 at 11:18 pm
Yeah, too many White pieces (in your FICS game).
I won today against ~1500, he was ~1800 10 years ago.
He played Schliemann defense in Ruy, it was an interesting experience.
May 25, 2012 at 12:36 am
I should have taken your advice, too many king-walks. I just lost my game this evening by playing another round of “psycho chess”. I don’t intend to do this again, and need to watch my emotions better at the board.
I am glad to hear that at least one of us is on a winning-streak now.
May 30, 2012 at 9:40 am
I’d like to see this Schliemann Defense game, that’s a very exciting opening!
I can’t believe this World Championship came down to Boris making a time-pressure blunder on move 71, in what amounts to a G/35 game. Boris may have had a winning, intermezzo in another game Svidler was pointing out (they could look at engine analysis, of course). I was thinking that Anand would have settled things early in the tie-breaks, but this was not the case as Boris had his chances.
How did you do on Monday?
I am switching back to days at work, so I’ll have the opportunity to play both on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
May 31, 2012 at 6:08 pm
“I won today against ~1500, he was ~1800 10 years ago.”
Right, now you are playing 1500′s who used to be 1800′s, and your rating is reflecting this predicament, not getting so many points for a lot of wins on your part.
Well, I am off to play my game tonight. I am only 1 win 3 losses, bombs away on my rating too!
I should win tonight though, if I get to play.
June 13, 2012 at 1:02 am
I played two rounds in a G/30 tournament this evening. It started at 8pm so I had time to get in a nap before-hand. Check out how I handled the clock.
June 17, 2012 at 4:40 pm
I saw it. When there will be other round or it’s only 2?
June 17, 2012 at 6:53 pm
I Play the last 2 rounds this coming Tuesday. I’ll play against Paul Anderson again in round 3, the one I’ve been losing to in the Trompowsky. He is cagey in that he won’t over-commit and will stick around to create winning endgame chances, but I am “due” as they say in gambling. Sooner or later he is probably going to walk into a tactic and most likely at G/30.
June 24, 2012 at 9:50 pm
It looks like you didn’t get him. I was busy at work the whole last week, worried a lot and played another horrible game on Thursday losing to 1600+.
I am calming down now and hope will play better, but my rating will take another dump.
June 24, 2012 at 10:48 pm
Yeah, I felt upset that we didn’t get paired. He commented on our last game on his blog, and no I don’t have a dog. lol.
http://cschess.webs.com/apps/blog/entries/show/16325641-rook-to-queen-s-pawn-six
I worried quite a bit during both my Wednesday and Thursday games, but even moreso on Wednesday, probably since I had more energy on that day to worry with.
I got the day off today because of a humongous fire in Co Springs is right behind where I work and the police wouldn’t allow us to go in. Got home and slept constantly, really needed to, and it was 100 degrees today here.
This book by Rashid Nezhmetdinov that I have been reading really does have all the answers I have been looking for. He knows what compensation looks like and where to move the queen, etc.
Yes, currently I do play like a scairdy-cat in my games also, AT G/90, duh! hehe.
G/90 means there is less time to weed out making bad moves, this is what it has been doing to us, forcing us to make those 3rd rate moves for sake of time, and it benefits those who have less thought to offer to a position.
I’ve finally done a little more prep for that Danish. No one should play Danish against me after I’ve had a little more (tactical) prep!
I’m starting to see more tactical possibilities, more like my “tactical” opponents, or like Katar-esque.
You probably need a good day of sleep like I just got.
Post your game, or games, and I will analyze them for you and help you out!
Ironically, I have a job now (tech support) where I help solve customers problems all day long, and wow them. 
We are both at that point where we have “been to the mountain-top”, and are trying to get back to where we deservedly belong. I know that I have, and I get the feeling that it has been happening to you as well, been getting screwed out of our rating points for way too long now.
hehe.
June 24, 2012 at 10:57 pm
Once I actuall start to systematically study the openings that I play, I feel it will be lights-out for my opponents. I know my opponents openings so well, what they play anyway, and they mine, that openings are going to really become the prominent concern, who has studied them more. I’m getting close to this point, but have avoided it mostly so far.
June 26, 2012 at 6:15 pm
RollingPawns, I looked at your last tournaments’ crosstable. 2 out of 3, that is very good! and your only loss was to a ringer.
Bumsawin and Manuela are down a hundred points from their highs. They aren’t bumming any wins in that section!
This is proof enough for me that lower-rated players are parasitic to higher-rated players. It’s a no win situation for the higher-rated, and only slacker lower-rateds should not improve when playing up (and many do, but at a glacial pace).
You goal now should be to get out of that section, the section from h*ll!
You can’t even book up against that many opponents, and I know that that is something you like to do.
June 27, 2012 at 6:50 am
I agree absolutely about lower rated players. If you lose against equal it’s OK, but these guys are partly underrated and also just continue to play until you are in the time trouble. My rating losses would be never so high.
If you are in excellent shape, you can go against them like I did a few years ago – 15 games non-losing streak.
But you have to be in that shape.
June 27, 2012 at 7:01 am
Openings are important. I just beat 1600+ in the same Queens Indian as recently, he chose another weird plan.
My quick rating was low anyway, something like ~1350, so I would only gain it.
It was 15/5 team tourney, I was on the first board, so had a long game with 1950, lost, then lost 3 games to 2100-2200, and then that game, at least I got a point.
The funniest thing was when I saw how former Canadian champion, 20-year old guy, and another – 17-year old master, both Russian speaking, played friendly blitz and the younger one, smiling a bit, made a threat of mate, something like fool’s.
I couldn’t keep myself from laughing, the champion smiled too and both continued as nothing happened.
June 27, 2012 at 1:13 pm
Fool’s Mate is funny because it tests which players are simply moving too fast. My buddy Alex got mated against Anthea a couple months back. She played Be2 meekly, so he auto-reply-like pounded out …NxQh5, Be2xNh5++ Fools’s Mate! And that was his own Dutch Def. opening, so he really had no excuse for being overly surprised by it.
IMHO, there are so many young kid 1900 players because they are 1900 on the clock that it isn’t even that funny. Take for example that one person you lost to in the last tournament. Let’s say they are no better than other players, but much faster on the clock. Soon that person reaches 1900 (before you can blink your eyes twice), and they have the same game, but now people are askeered of this player and thus they begin to win yet even more rating points. I find this amusing, I want to play these players because they have turned themselves into “rating-points bags” for people who know better and can somehow keep up with them on the clock (which is the tricky part).
Here is 1894 kid playing an 1839 (Don’t know who this is but I’m guessing kid since it’s all attack).
http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game-replayer.php?id=66707
How many adults would play 12…Nxg4??
White is 13 years old, but notice how once his crazy looking (fast-on-the-clock) attack is over, he turns into a strong positional player. This is what the higher-rated kids do, they freak you out with an attack, then they simply defend well after that.
Attacks win games, but defense doesn’t lie.
And great defense mixes defense with attack, so that really doesn’t lie.
That tourney was a great experience for you, just getting used to moving quickly OTB, even though I’ve never thought of you as one who moves slowly. It improved my mental timer when I played those G/30 games, even if my chess was much worse, as expected.
I’ve been working on middlegames and not on openings, especially as I get so many weak pairings that the time-tradeoff makes it time better spent looking at middlegames or even tactics at the expense of playing worse openings, but I plan to switch over to openings at some point in the near future.
June 28, 2012 at 4:21 pm
I played last night, posted my game.