Wednesday, August 30, 2017
A crazy game!
Chess.com tweeted a link to a crazy game one of their users, Spektrowski, had posted the other day. Here's a link to the game, with Spektrowski's analysis. I HIGHLY recommend playing through this game, as it is border-line deranged. Just hit the "PLAY" button first, and watch the madness ensue. If you want to play through it more slowly, either to follow Spektrowski's analysis or to analyze it yourself, do that after letting autoplay take you down the rabbit hole.
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Analysis Time
Here's a tweet from FM Carsten Hansen.
The first two or three moves suggest themselves. Then it gets harder. Add your analysis in the comments, and I'll post the correct line later.
ANALYSIS can be found here.
Zivkovic-Kurajica— Carsten Hansen (@CazHansen) August 27, 2017
Teslic 2006
White to move
White played 21.Rd2 and draw agreed - White can play another move to win. #chess #schach pic.twitter.com/guPQUv610D
The first two or three moves suggest themselves. Then it gets harder. Add your analysis in the comments, and I'll post the correct line later.
ANALYSIS can be found here.
Monday, August 28, 2017
A new book coming soon from Quality Chess
Quality Chess has just sent a new book to the presses, Playing 1.d4 d5 by Nikos Ntirlis. They have also kindly presented a 15 page excerpt to wet our appetites. The excerpt can be found here.
Friday, August 25, 2017
Mate in bunch.
If the answer doesn't make you smile, you either (a) haven't found the right answer, or (b) are dead inside.
Most statisfying chess puzzle ever.
— Johan Salomon (@JohanSalomon) August 23, 2017
White to move and win! 😎 pic.twitter.com/FiMnXCSYKn
Friday, August 11, 2017
Product Review: Internet Chess Club
The tl;dr version is: Skip this product.
Longer:
Issues that had been seemingly resolved 20 years ago are making this site unplayable now. Lag is a big problem for online gaming, and has always been so. Chess sites, back in the early days, developed time seal or time stamp programs to solve this issue. The idea is that moves are stamped with the time of sending, so that if one player is lagging, his clock shouldn't run unless he has received his opponents move, and a corresponding signal would be sent back to the server. Thus the problem was solved for ICC back in the day, or at least ameliorated.
That no longer appears to be the case. I am watching my clock either suddenly lose time when my opponent's move finally gets "delivered", or I am watching my clock run for a LONG time. This even occurs after premoves. I once saw my clock run for 45 seconds on a pre-move. One a #$%ing pre-move!
Needless to say, this is making the site unplayable. There are many other good features on the site, including instructional videos and training programs, but such things are ubiquitous these days. I just don't think it is worth the money to get such things when the actual main feature of the site is [redacted] worthless. I've contacted support, and gotten no actual help on this issue. Perhaps other sites also have this problem, but I haven't PAID other sites, either. Save your money, and don't buy it.
...
It's a real shame to watch the early chess playing sites go completely down the toilet. But they haven't kept up, and their actual coding has gotten worse with experience.
Longer:
Issues that had been seemingly resolved 20 years ago are making this site unplayable now. Lag is a big problem for online gaming, and has always been so. Chess sites, back in the early days, developed time seal or time stamp programs to solve this issue. The idea is that moves are stamped with the time of sending, so that if one player is lagging, his clock shouldn't run unless he has received his opponents move, and a corresponding signal would be sent back to the server. Thus the problem was solved for ICC back in the day, or at least ameliorated.
That no longer appears to be the case. I am watching my clock either suddenly lose time when my opponent's move finally gets "delivered", or I am watching my clock run for a LONG time. This even occurs after premoves. I once saw my clock run for 45 seconds on a pre-move. One a #$%ing pre-move!
Needless to say, this is making the site unplayable. There are many other good features on the site, including instructional videos and training programs, but such things are ubiquitous these days. I just don't think it is worth the money to get such things when the actual main feature of the site is [redacted] worthless. I've contacted support, and gotten no actual help on this issue. Perhaps other sites also have this problem, but I haven't PAID other sites, either. Save your money, and don't buy it.
...
It's a real shame to watch the early chess playing sites go completely down the toilet. But they haven't kept up, and their actual coding has gotten worse with experience.
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
Chess is funny
Taking a break from housekeeping today, I reached the following position as Black, with the move. My question is, how would you evaluate the position?
The position arose from a French Exchange variation. I felt pretty good about my prospects here, as I was threatening to win the pawn on d4 in a few moves, and White's play felt too slow on the kingside.
After the game, I backed it up and looked at it to see where my opponent went off the rails. It turns out, it was the move 19 g4. He is now down about the equivalent of a rook! Here's the thing, and the reason I'm posting this: Black doesn't have a big knockout blow here. It's just that his play is very, very easy, and even with the sub-optimal 19...Nf4, I won when my opponent resigned on move 31 with a mate in one on the board. Black looks better, but who would think it was a crushing advantage?
The position arose from a French Exchange variation. I felt pretty good about my prospects here, as I was threatening to win the pawn on d4 in a few moves, and White's play felt too slow on the kingside.
After the game, I backed it up and looked at it to see where my opponent went off the rails. It turns out, it was the move 19 g4. He is now down about the equivalent of a rook! Here's the thing, and the reason I'm posting this: Black doesn't have a big knockout blow here. It's just that his play is very, very easy, and even with the sub-optimal 19...Nf4, I won when my opponent resigned on move 31 with a mate in one on the board. Black looks better, but who would think it was a crushing advantage?
Sunday, August 6, 2017
Orlando Chess at the Sinquefield Cup
Yesterday I saw this tweet from @LiChess and thought, "Don't I know the person sitting next to Rex Sinquefield?"
Today I got confirmation that it was someone I know. Lars & Jen Hansen's Orlando Chess House twitter account tweeted out the following:
It turns out there's quite the Orlando crowd up there!
Man of the people Rex Sinquefield can often be found in the front row of the crowd watching the live broadcast at the chess club. pic.twitter.com/Ufc6xliDG1— Lichess (@lichess) August 5, 2017
Today I got confirmation that it was someone I know. Lars & Jen Hansen's Orlando Chess House twitter account tweeted out the following:
At #SinquefieldCup in St Louis pic.twitter.com/oewKwHn3Ie— Orlando Chess House (@OrlandoChess) August 6, 2017
Enjoying chess with old and new friends at #SinquefieldCup in St Louis pic.twitter.com/KQvppKcJSQ— Orlando Chess House (@OrlandoChess) August 6, 2017
The Orlando crowd hanging out at #SinquefieldCup in St Louis pic.twitter.com/BO1z8gMYDI— Orlando Chess House (@OrlandoChess) August 6, 2017
It turns out there's quite the Orlando crowd up there!
If you're ever looking for a chess shop in Moscow, Russia...
... the ChessOK headquarters might be the place for you! Here's a blog post from Dylan Love at Chess.com about the store. I remember an early version of Chess Assistant on floppy disks being my first data base. The search speeds on CA have alway blown ChessBase out of the water, but CB has had the more popular interface.
Anyway, if you're in Moscow, look 'em up!
Anyway, if you're in Moscow, look 'em up!
Friday, August 4, 2017
Tactics Time at the Sinquefield Cup
In round one of the Sinquefield Cup, Sergey Karjakin smashed Peter Svidler. In his recap for the Internet Chess Club, GM Ronen Har-Zvi spotted an incredible tactic that COULD have occurred. Here's the position, with White to move:
Take a look at see if you can work it out. I was able to spot the relevant ideas, but couldn't put them all together. I really enjoyed this combination, and hope you do as well. You can follow along with the video from the correct time here.
Take a look at see if you can work it out. I was able to spot the relevant ideas, but couldn't put them all together. I really enjoyed this combination, and hope you do as well. You can follow along with the video from the correct time here.
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