Something to Blog About

On Friday night I played in the DC Chess League against "Chess Xtreme" Star Kevin Wang. He's high school student rated 2331 and a pupil of GM Larry Kaufman, who may end up being my next opponent in the league. I equalized out of the opening, but gradually got into trouble during the middle game. My position was bad enough that the other team consulted and decided to take a draw on the next board, assuming that I would lose the game and the match. Things turned around in a bad knight ending, when he failed to take advantage of a better structure and let me eliminate his last remaining pawns. I haven't done an exhaustive analysis of this game yet, but I did pull out a few interesting positions, which can be used for training. These aren't necessarily tactics, just "What's the best move for white or black?" type puzzles. Please put answers in the comments. I will post solutions on Tuesday.

I had black in the position below. I played Qc8, eyeing h3 and protecting b7. This move is OK, but still leaves white better. There’s a more active try that I didn’t even consider. Can you find the best move for black?

Virtually everything about this position favors white. He has the safer king and better pawn structure. What’s the best move for black to get some saving chances?

White has a substantially better pawn structure in this endgame despite black’s more centralized king. This should be a close to decisive advantage, but my opponent’s next move might have thrown away the win. Can you do better for white?

At around one in the morning I reached the following position. What should black play?

Nasty Blitz Tactic

Black to move...

I feel kind of guilty, but I won the game on time later.

Fun Blitz Game

After a tough week at a chess camp, I've spent too much time this weekend playing blitz on ICC. My last game was pretty fun, so here it is with some short annotations.

King's Gambit RIP

Bobby Fischer claimed to have busted the king's gambit 50 years ago. His analysis had some holes in it, but according to Rybka run with some ridiculous amount of computing power, he was mostly right. Is this the end of the King's Gambit? You can see the full article here: http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8047.

I grew up playing the King's Gambit until around the start of high school. Here's my most fun tournament win with it including my brief annotations circa 2003.

Good Times With the Traxler

I've mostly given up this opening because half of the lines end in perpetual check with black down three pieces, but there have been some good times.

Meeting the ICC Stars

Yaacov Norowitz is a New York based Senior Master who has ridiculously high ratings on ICC and a bit of a cult following among East Coast chess fans. His website is here: http://www.yaacovn.com/ . I've never met him, but we did play an interesting game on ICC recently. He outplayed me throughout, but I followed my typical ICC strategy of bailing out into a lost rook ending and looking for chances. Even against one of the top players on the net, this strategy worked out when he played (is there a rule that all chess websites have to use the word "uncorked") Re5?? in the position below, allowing a nice tactic.

Considering the time control, I still had to be somewhat careful to draw, even ahead in material.

A Sicilian Exercise

Although I started my chess life playing sharp e4 openings, like the King's Gambit I never bothered to learn the main lines of the Sicilian. I played the closed Sicilian at most opportunities and occasionally tried out 2. c3. In high school I mostly switched over to closed openings and left the Sicilian behind except for an occasional experiment with black (I drew FM Andrew Karklins, but also drew a seven year old). Nowadays I'm usually afraid to venture into these waters in high stakes games, but I occasionally use the Sicilian to get some calculation practice in training games. This was the case today when I played a G/30 against a friend. As one might expect from someone without Sicilian experience, I got a good position out of the opening, but had no feel for how to play the attack and made an unsound sacrifice. With both players getting low on time, I reached the above position with white to move. Before scrolling down you may want to ask yourself, "What would you play and What's the evaluation of the position"

Did you try to figure out the answer?

No, seriously... Did you?

I figured that I was probably lost thanks to the extra material and some issues with the back rank. Fortunately, there weren't a lot of choices for this move so the decision wasn't too hard. I had to prevent Qf1+, which would trade into a winning endgame for black. This left the only playable move as Bxb5+! I was actually able to win after 1...axb5 2. Qd7+ Kxg6?? 3. Rg2+ and black resigned due to an upcoming checkmate. The most interesting variation occurs after 2... Kf8 (although Kf6 is even playable. I think black should be better with precise play, but it's a complicated position after 3. Qxd6+ Kg8 4. Qe7 (threatening Qh7+, g7) Rf1+ 5. Nd1 Bxe4! Black can combine attack and defense. 6. Qh7+ Kf8 7.g7+ Ke7 8. g8=Q+ Bxh7. The resulting position is better for black, but I'm not sure whether it's actually winning. Either way, I'm glad that my opening usually don't make me solve this sort of problems. Doing this every day would just be too much stress.