I played on Monday, here is the game. My opponent was an old guy rated 1674, he had a break for a quite a few years, played just in one tournament afterwards, but unexpectedly didn’t look rusty, quite the opposite. He played very fast, even on d5 he didn’t spend much time. I didn’t feel comfortable until he played 18… bxc6.
I felt that bxc6 wasn’t the best move and after 19. Bb6 thought that I am better. This is a typical move in this line and this bishop is really strong. He started to think more, especially after he understood my intention to occupy “d” vertical. His 28… Kh7 was an already losing move, then Kg6 was a final mistake. I saw that I am better in the bishop endgame and then I realized that b5 is winning.
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October 30, 2013 at 3:25 am
Stunning!
It looked like Black got all he/she could reasonably expect out of the Black pieces in the middlegame, and then (should?) could be a draw, but allowing the rook trade was a bite more than he could chew – I was wondering why you were allowing it until I saw the finish! Nice game! 🙂
It’s amazing how a lower-class player can be beaten in such a (seemingly) simple way. In blitz it would be easy to make this same mistake as Black, requires real though to avoid it. 😉
October 30, 2013 at 3:40 am
He waited too long to decide to force a draw. 23…Kf8, 24.Rd1 Kf8, 25.Rxd5 BxBb6, 26.axb Rxb6, 27.Ra5 Rxb3, 28.Rxa6 would be an example of a draw that I can see. IMHO, he played on too long! (without being sure of the result)
October 30, 2013 at 3:40 am
24…Bd8, my bad.
October 30, 2013 at 10:09 pm
Thanks! I think 23-rd move is already a bit late for a sure draw, White can play 25. Bc5+ in your line and win a pawn.
I think he had to play 18… Rxc6.
He was too confident and too fast and I agree – missed that moment when there was a draw.
November 1, 2013 at 8:12 am
I didn’t play on Wednesday, posted my Thursday game. I showed your game to my buddy Alex, and how the line I posted before loses a pawn (I found the line once you told me). This is a very impressive game, it’s as if you were winning the whole time – he was impressed, too.
What I particularly like about this game is how deceptive appearances can be. It’s not until after the game that someone viewing it not only sees that this seemingly “dry” game turns out to have been a win, and a win for most of the game at that! 😉
November 1, 2013 at 9:03 am
I saw that you posted your game, I will look at it ( not at work 🙂 ).
Thank you my friend, I really appreciate your support and loyalty.
I was in a good shape, strange that it is all you need to play a good game.
The same happened yesterday, I got a guy rated almost 1700 to whom I lost twice last year not playing well (before I won twice) and I, frankly, consider myself a better player. I won two pawns and then in complicated situation he over-thought it and blundered a queen fork. Again he played too fast, having 15 minutes more than me. It will improve my bad results in that tournament (=3, -3) and I will lose only something like 7 points.
Regarding this game as I already mentioned as soon as I played Bb6 I got my confidence back and seeing that I will get “d” line made me feel like I got a stranglehold on him.
November 6, 2013 at 5:01 pm
RollingPawns, you are welcome and you deserve it! 🙂
Just to think, if you were playing in the 19th century you could play at time-controls such as 20/1, or even 16/1. One game could last from morning til sunrise the next day as had happened on occasion!
I don’t know about Morphy, Stenitz, or Anderssen, but I think you could hold your own against most every other player. There were the random strong players like Napier, and Von Bardeleben, and Schlechter back then, but you could go for the draw against those ones if you had to. 😀
November 6, 2013 at 5:13 pm
I forgot about Emmanuel Lasker, but he was basically in the last decade of the 19th century.
November 7, 2013 at 3:14 am
Well, I also forgot about Pillsbury, etc.
Hey, so I figure I’m only going to be playing on Wednesday’s this month.
I played tonight, hope you like it. 🙂 Because of my sleep schedule, I can get pretty pumped up by 6 pm, felt like I was playing stronger.
Unlike myself, I realize that you have to work before playing, so I’ll try to make Expert for the both of us. 😉
I still feel lke you are better than me at spotting threats, playing defensively and positional play. My confidence seems to picking up, and I am playing slightly faster, but that it’s a clock-time improvement in tiny increments.
November 7, 2013 at 12:01 pm
I think I would lose to these guys, but the autograph ! 🙂
By the way, Morphy was my favourite when I started to learn chess and he greatly influenced my style of play then.
I still can recreate his game against vs. Duke Karl/Count Isouard.
I played on Monday with a little girl – Canadian champion under 8, some guys in the club lost to her, I managed to win. 🙂
How about the upcoming world championship match?
You have to watch this video, really nice (in the bottom):
http://www.chessbase.com/post/documentary-magnus-carlsen-s-last-big-title
The time of the start of the games is really stupid – 4:30am EST.
I saw that you posted a game, will comment later.
November 7, 2013 at 3:59 pm
Steinitz is my favorite, but there is only one book on him that has a lot of his games, by Pickard, with brief annotations or symbols. Morphy would be my favorite as well, but I think he just mowed over anybody living back then. hehe. Alex says Morphy has something like the highest winning percentage of all time.
I wanted to get the book on Amos Burn, but it is so expensive. I thought I’d learn defense from at it, and that it would be like looking at your games, but I think you would defend better given all the clock-time they had in those days. You also play more regularly than they did. 😉
Here is an example, I want you to check this out. I’ve played over 100 of Burn’s games on Chessgames.com, and trust me, this is by far one of his better games (which he still should have lost).
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1029151
Read the two brief notes at the bottom, they are awesome. My “blitz move”, I was looking at was 26.Be2 as played in the game, to prepare Rh3 next, but my “tournament move” should be the correct one, 26.Ngxh7 which leads to a winning endgame, or I would admonish myself for not finding it.
This is one of Amos better defensive efforts, IMHO, and he is still letting the opponent get a monster-knight position out of seemingly nowhere.
Sorry to hear that you can’t see the World Championship match live. The start time of the match is perfect for me because I am up til 6am, get off work at 1 am. 😀
November 7, 2013 at 4:51 pm
That was great video. Thanks!
I get a vicarious thrill out of watching Magnus since I am ethnically Norwegian more or less. Well, I am 1/4 Norwegian, but even my father’s side came from the county of York which is where the Norwegians mostly settled/conquered in England.
When I watch this, I am so amused that Magnus’ whole family speaks Englist. I think anyone that can learn English (including you) is a genius. hehe. How do people learn English as a second language? English seems so bizarre in a way. I can’t even learn Spanish after like 7 semesters of it, and it’s a relatively simple language.
I’m impressed that Magnus memory is seemingly such a big factor, yet possibly the secret is like he says that he is alway thinking/struggling to understand positions. A lot of the top GMs also do this, so I am still puzzled at why Magnus is #1. A lot of the diffrerence is probably the involvement of his family. Kasparov’s biggest “assistant” was his mom, Klara. These sorts of factors are “difference makers” I believe. He also exercises a lot, etc.
November 7, 2013 at 4:56 pm
I do like Anand, BTW, so I am torn who to root for, perhaps not rooting for either? I mostly want to see good games, whatever that means. Mostly looking forward to the live analysis, and perhaps post-game interviews as well.
Magnus Carlsen’s game usually seem “boring” to me, but that probably means that he is keeping the intracacy/subtlety level on each move/position at a very high value. In the 19th century they tried to play this way as well, but it mostly seemed they were doing it out of ignorance or were mostly just guessing at ways to bide their time on the chessboard.
November 9, 2013 at 12:12 am
I commented on both your games.
I played on Thursday with a boy, maybe you remember I mentioned him before – I had a score 4:0 and was surprised how he and his parents still talked to me as nothing happened. So this boy became much stronger and now has rating 1900+ and routinely draws with experts and even masters.
Still he didn’t feel very comfortable playing Black against my Rossolimo variation, though somehow equalized later.
It was a pretty drawn position, I got bored, played a sharp move and then made a mistake. I got worse and thought I will lose.
Fritz said later it was not as bad, as I thought at the moment (~-1.5).
Then he let me escape. He got into a time trouble, still refused my draw offer.
Then he offered a draw having maybe 10 seconds (I had ~9 minutes), but we had 15 seconds increment.
I agreed, not wanting to win on time. Then immediately he started to show me that after my last move I could win (that’s why he offered a draw, that’s what the kids do). I wasn’t sure, it was a rook ending and Fritz said that it was a draw. Anyway I was pretty happy with the result.
November 10, 2013 at 6:09 am
That’s rather despicable that kids do that, but yes they do. I’ve offered one draw where I figured I was probably busted down a pawn, but the kid refused and it was obvious to anyone what was going on in the position, I just remembered that he had offered me a draw in an equal endgame once before and might have wanted to avoid an ending (on the off-chance), and so I could at least say I asked (never expected him to accept it, really). Anyway, I was very tired and predictably lost.
These kids have bullsh*t ratings. Not that yours wasn’t a good result, it’s just that they are sort of master BSers in my book. They usually do extreme blitzing well, and often have some pet lines worked out really well, and they can think out endgames where they have winning chances particularly well, but that’s usually as far as it really goes. Bamboozlement!
Today’s World Championship game was a dissapointment. I can hear the guffaws coming from Kasparov now. Is Anand really playing this match to win or is he waiting for the tie-breakers or to see if Carlsen will crack? At some point, there has to be an enjoyment element of relishing a good game, else if Anand loses the match perhaps he retires or just plays on out of intertia?
November 10, 2013 at 6:26 am
That was noble of you to offer or accept the draw, and yes I remember the story about this boy (who speaks Russian also). I would say to play it out and beat them. It’s not about money, rating points, or even if you like the kid or his family, it’s about making him show you what he’s got. Can he play on in an equal position and hold it? I realize that what you said before is very true.
These rating-jumper kids can clobber from a won position, but from an equal position, they more often than not simply can’t hold it together. If they have even a hint of +/- they are frequently beating us, blitz-like, even the 1500 players, they are all geniuses when they are winning, but when they are not winning, they often enough play at a horrible level and start playing for tricks, not positionally at all. This is how all the old men players keep their ratings up. haha. So basically, it’s either one of three things: A. A real chess game. B. A tactical blitz-fest, of no real chessic value, which kids enjoy, C. A boring endgame which the oldsters enjoy.
The only caveat I’ve found is that if I am really tired, none of these three work, I will simply lose one way or the other every time, so it’s worth playing on if you have the time, the energy, and are not losing. 🙂 Don’t worry too much about offending as they will just as likely offend you in some way (by blitzing, bogus draw offers, etc). There is no chessic take-home value from most of my opponents’ efforts, there is just the win-loss column. Most of the value comes from weaker players anyway, not stronger ones.
November 11, 2013 at 1:18 pm
Regarding the World Championship I am sure that the good, decisive games will come, they are just trying to feel out each other now.
I agree with you about the kid. Not only he showed off, but his father said that he missed a win (he actually is not happy with him pretty often).
BTW, I don’t think that 1.5 advantage guarantees you a win.
So, it looks like they respected me more before, with 4:0. 🙂
And I think I really could win it on time. He simply could blunder playing on the increment. So, next time I am just playing, no mercy. 🙂
BTW, I had 1900 rating not so long ago, almost the same as his, so no reason for any of the aforementioned crap.
November 12, 2013 at 4:36 am
I agree about the 1.5. In fact, nothing guarantees a win until either mate is on the board, or the opponent has resigned and signed the papers or stopped the clock.
He _would_ simply blunder on the increment because we all do. When I win on the increment, it’s only because my opponent isn’t taking advantage of my blunders. The “better” players (or chess hooligans or whatever you want to call them) all have that “I’ve got him on the clock, now!” mentality.
When Daniel offered me a draw in our last game, I thought he must be doing it out of respect, but then realized after the game he was doing it more likely out of disdain. Some players offer it because they are suddenly afraid they might lose in some variations. Alex got afraid and offered me a draw. I thought it was because he realized the postion hardly offered any chances to either side, but then I found out after the game it was because he thought I had some winning lines, and then I pointed out that he was looking at phantom variations and had multiple ways of taking advantage of those tries and ending up better.
Even if you see drawing lines, they will see different lines, they will not see what you see most of the time. When in doubt, they are not seeing or evaluating, or preferring whatever makes the most sense to you. I would love to have your common-sense in chess for example, but I don’t have it. Some people wish they had my common-sense, even though I am often taking a dim view of it. We all under-rate our own self-worth.
Regarding the World Championship match, Karpov predicted they would check out each other’s prep, but even he understood it’s a short match. I think Vishy should have been pressing more, trying to create winning chances instead of forcing draws. He has to grab the lead by a game or two or Carlsen’s endurance will simply start to kick in and take over. Carlsen has more in the tank to come back with if he gets behind in the match. Carlsen will go 20 rounds in a boxing match. Anand needs to find a knockout blow.
“BTW, I had 1900 rating not so long ago, almost the same as his, so no reason for any of the aforementioned crap.”
hehe. I wish you were back at 1900 (and I as well) my friend, always at 1900 or higher and never below. 1900 is to Experts what 1700 is to class A players, it’s a place where you spend time “slummin’ it”, but where you know you shouldn’t be when at your best, when trying to win in some particular tournament of higher-rated players for example. I would love for 1999 to be my “sandbag rating” where I could still win class prizes. harhar.
November 12, 2013 at 5:13 am
Interesting game, and quite well played. I’m not sure you should have taken on d7 with your bishop though, as it makes you lose tempo, and gives your opponenent time to develop his queen. Good play in the endgame leading to a win.
November 12, 2013 at 6:32 am
Oh gosh, every game is the same, neither has the nerve for a straight-forward attack. Carlsen could have played Qf4 (even the Bd2 suggestion was interesting), but instead plays a4. Just when I thought Qc1 was brilliant, it became another “eventuality” style of move, controlling the dark diagonals, but with not specific/determining going on.
November 12, 2013 at 6:52 am
BxBd7 is just a line. The real question is “Bo” really the local player, and once Expert rated, Dan A*v*e*r*y? 😀
November 12, 2013 at 9:45 am
Regarding the rating: I won yesterday, got the first place with 4.5/5 (1 bye).
So my rating hopefully goes back to class “A”.
By the way, I played with that boy a couple of months ago, you remember Greco’s mate ? He had ~1600 rating then (and ~1300 half a year ago), now it’s ~1800, can you believe that? Still, has to learn a few things … 🙂
Got a good win, will try to publish it.
I woke up at 6:30am EST and watched the game.
You are right about Anand, he avoids risk, maybe it’s an age.
Though it didn’t affect Korchnoi.
He didn’t take on b2, maybe believed Carlsen’s analysis.
I was relieved when he escaped, it would a real blow to lose with White when the match just started.
November 12, 2013 at 3:45 pm
Well, you were watching the same match that I was then! 😉
He didn’t take on b2 because he’s spending (they both are) too much time to trust his instinct, yet not enough time to see the eventualities follow-up plan/idea.
He said after the game if …Bxb2, then White maybe has Rd1 and Bh3. This looks weak to me because Black has ..c4 coming up. Better would seem to be Re1, but then Black has …Rd6, …Rb6 (White’s Qe4 would only put the queen in front of minors), and after defending, Black has a free pawn to push.
I think that Anand is excessively prudent, but it’s not age-related. He does not show full range of emotion at the board, particulary humor. I might have looked like I wanted to laugh after some of Carlsen’s moves – I just mean drum up the gamut of emotions more like Kasparov, and even Magnus has shown a wry smile in the past. Carlsen’s problem is that he is too nervous/tight.
That’s great that you will make 1800, yay! 🙂 I look at 1700 players now and think to myself “Why you not try hard?” hehe.
Kid’s ratings bounce around because they are a mixture of instinct and engine-like analysis, but they don’t have real feel for what they are doing positionally, only for all of the tactics which are about to occur.
I notice that the people who reach Expert quickly, they can only hold onto that rating by playing up. I can show you Expert after Expert where my track record is much better than theirs against 1600 level players for instance. My “class” is more stable than theirs. Put them in a G/30 tournament against Class A players and they will go to town and boost up their ratings, though.
November 12, 2013 at 4:41 pm
It’s weird how common-sense it not too common (for chess, in this case).
I was watching Daniel King’s video:
But even he sort of glazes over stuff. In the line I showed above, he plays ..Bd4 after the …Bxb2 move, but nothing is threatening the Bb2 and it can stay there until Black has finished organizing his other pieces.
I looked at Anand’s …Bf6 before he played it, but ..Rf8 appears much stronger as in this opposite bishop endgame both sides should be “going for it”. Also, virtually no mention (zsusa at least hinted at it) of White’s possibility of winning the g6 pawn with additional threats on Black’s king. Instead it was like “Ooops, the computer says the queen trade is best, let’s all turn our thanking caps off now.”
I was relieved to see Carlsen not lose in some ridiculous fashion as well, but now I realize what is that saying “One mistake, shame on me (for not busting your position), but two or three mistakes shame on you (for letting me have all these chances).” 😉