I was observing a class yesterday while students were playing games throughout the room. One girl was bragging because she had captured material and was counting up how many more points she had then her opponent. The coach asked the class, "What's more important than points?" Most of the students responded as he had intended, "checkmate." Yet, before that answer came through, one of the smallest kids in the class confidently ventured the answer, "Having fun!"
The coach had to admit that both answers were more important than points.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Sunday, May 19, 2013
DC Chess League Playoffs
Last Friday was the playoff for the DC Chess League Title. I played board 2 for the Arlington Kings against the Arlington Argyles. We enjoyed draw odds thanks to having an extra half point in the course of a 48 game regular season, a reminder that every single game counts.
I was set to play white on board two against Andrew Samuelson, a very active local Master and two time Virginia State Champion. Until a few days before the game I had planned on playing my normal openings, but someone warned me that Andrew was extremely well prepared. I remembered trying to prepare for a game with black against him last year and having to suffer after my opening prep got me into trouble. (You can see my summary of that game here: (http://minorpieces.blogspot.com/2012/03/chess-is-hard.html) To avoid an opening argument I decided to play 1.Nf3 for the first time in my chess career. I figured that we would get a position where we would both be thinking on our own and could just play chess.
The plan worked exceptionally well as he made a couple of mistake early on to give me a very pleasant position out of the opening. By move 18, I had a clear advantage, but failed to find the right path forward. Instead of 18. b4 (probably winning), I sacrificed a piece with 18.Nb5 Bxb5 19.Bd4. I completely missed his strong response, 19... Nxc4 and we ended up in a very unclear position, where each move was critical. The game was essentially decided by errors on moves 21 and 23 which let me escape the complications with an extra exchange. I soon reached a winning endgame, where I played safely, but not very precisely and forced his resignation on move 70 as I was about to queen a pawn.
The end of our game brought the match score to 3-1 in our favor with two games left to play. Thanks to our draw odds, the match was decided in our favor (we eventually won without tie-break, 3.5-2.5). Congratulations to everyone on the Kings for a great season.
You can see my game below:
I was set to play white on board two against Andrew Samuelson, a very active local Master and two time Virginia State Champion. Until a few days before the game I had planned on playing my normal openings, but someone warned me that Andrew was extremely well prepared. I remembered trying to prepare for a game with black against him last year and having to suffer after my opening prep got me into trouble. (You can see my summary of that game here: (http://minorpieces.blogspot.com/2012/03/chess-is-hard.html) To avoid an opening argument I decided to play 1.Nf3 for the first time in my chess career. I figured that we would get a position where we would both be thinking on our own and could just play chess.
The plan worked exceptionally well as he made a couple of mistake early on to give me a very pleasant position out of the opening. By move 18, I had a clear advantage, but failed to find the right path forward. Instead of 18. b4 (probably winning), I sacrificed a piece with 18.Nb5 Bxb5 19.Bd4. I completely missed his strong response, 19... Nxc4 and we ended up in a very unclear position, where each move was critical. The game was essentially decided by errors on moves 21 and 23 which let me escape the complications with an extra exchange. I soon reached a winning endgame, where I played safely, but not very precisely and forced his resignation on move 70 as I was about to queen a pawn.
The end of our game brought the match score to 3-1 in our favor with two games left to play. Thanks to our draw odds, the match was decided in our favor (we eventually won without tie-break, 3.5-2.5). Congratulations to everyone on the Kings for a great season.
You can see my game below:
Thursday, May 9, 2013
A Simple Puzzle
Today in chess club two of the students reached this position with black two move. It's a pretty straightforward position with a huge material advantage to black. I have two puzzle questions?
1. What is the best move for black?
2. What did black play?
Should the day come when I ever get around to writing and publishing a book, a free copy goes to the first person to correctly answer both of these questions correctly in the comments.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Lots of Good Chess at the Moment
The US Chess Championship is taking place this week and next week in St. Louis. You can watch live coverage (starting 2 PM Eastern each day) at uschesschamps.com. It's also being aired live on Fox Sports Midwest. I'm guessing that there isn't much to compete with on weekday afternoons. You can see a commercial here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXrGSfqLOV4
The highest rated player in the US, Hikaru Nakamura, is skipping the US Championship to compete in an even more prestigious event in Norway. That tournament includes the World Champion and his next challenger, so it's an impressive field. Those games can be seen live with commentary in English here: http://live.norwaychess.com/
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Excitement in the DC Chess League
This season I'm playing for the Arlington Kings in the DC Chess League. They have been great to me every season that I've played with them, with a break in the middle to play for a company team last year. Last November, after being reintroduced by my team captain as someone whom he had had never seen lose, I promptly blundered away the first match of the season and we get killed 4.5-1.5. Neither the team nor I haven't lost since. Going into last night's match I had scored 4.5/6 on the season and the team's record was up to 5-2 and a 4 way first place tie.
I was set to play board two against the Passed Pawns (there aren't a lot of non-cheesy chess team names). Their top board two, Sabina Foiser is currently playing the US Women's Championship, so I figured that I would play one of two Masters and prepped accordingly. At this stage in my chess career preparing for an opponent mostly means checking their recent games on chessgames.com and a database of DC area players, then finding something I'm comfortable with against their common systems. This method works because I never have time for serious analytic opening preparation and because sharp new systems can backfire if the opponent has found improvements since their last game in my database.
I noticed that my opponent, Steve Greanias played non-theoretical Grunfelds as black, so I passed on my usual lines and prepared by reading a short chapter in GM's Alex Yermolinsky's book "The Road to Chess Improvement" where he discusses the question "What Good are Central Pawns Against the Grunfeld." He illustrates strategies for white when black misplays the opening, so it ended up being excellent study material, when we got out of theory early on.
Being the first time that I'd played this variation, I didn't find an accurate set-up against his unusual double fianchetto in the opening. I managed to gain extra space, but he had a great opportunity to make the position double edged and Grunfeldy (maybe not a word) by undermining my big center on move 15. Instead he spent three moves with his queen to capture my a-pawn. At that point, I had a big center and his king was the only black piece right of the c-file. I set up a piece sacrifice and by move 20 black has to walk a tightrope to equalize. He missed the clever defensive maneuver 20...Qc2 21.Nxf7 Qc3 (I missed it too) and I was able to tear apart his kingside. Overall, a fun and educational game. To make things even better, the team won 5-1, sending us to a one match playoff to decide the league title. I'll let you know how that goes.
The full game with comments is below.
I was set to play board two against the Passed Pawns (there aren't a lot of non-cheesy chess team names). Their top board two, Sabina Foiser is currently playing the US Women's Championship, so I figured that I would play one of two Masters and prepped accordingly. At this stage in my chess career preparing for an opponent mostly means checking their recent games on chessgames.com and a database of DC area players, then finding something I'm comfortable with against their common systems. This method works because I never have time for serious analytic opening preparation and because sharp new systems can backfire if the opponent has found improvements since their last game in my database.
I noticed that my opponent, Steve Greanias played non-theoretical Grunfelds as black, so I passed on my usual lines and prepared by reading a short chapter in GM's Alex Yermolinsky's book "The Road to Chess Improvement" where he discusses the question "What Good are Central Pawns Against the Grunfeld." He illustrates strategies for white when black misplays the opening, so it ended up being excellent study material, when we got out of theory early on.
Being the first time that I'd played this variation, I didn't find an accurate set-up against his unusual double fianchetto in the opening. I managed to gain extra space, but he had a great opportunity to make the position double edged and Grunfeldy (maybe not a word) by undermining my big center on move 15. Instead he spent three moves with his queen to capture my a-pawn. At that point, I had a big center and his king was the only black piece right of the c-file. I set up a piece sacrifice and by move 20 black has to walk a tightrope to equalize. He missed the clever defensive maneuver 20...Qc2 21.Nxf7 Qc3 (I missed it too) and I was able to tear apart his kingside. Overall, a fun and educational game. To make things even better, the team won 5-1, sending us to a one match playoff to decide the league title. I'll let you know how that goes.
The full game with comments is below.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Fun Blitz Game
I was messing around on ICC and played a game I was proud of in the I can play cool tactics against weak opposition kind of way. After the unusual Nimzo-Larsen opening, we reached a position that could be described as a Nimzo-Indian with colors reversed. While I had planned on applying positional pressure to black's doubled c-pawns, he blundered, giving me a tactical opportunity for a quick knockout. What would you play for white in the position below? I think there are two answers that are about equally good.
Monday, April 22, 2013
America's Newest Master
Congratulations to Silver Knights Coach, and now National Master, Justin Burgess. Last weekend he beat a 2500 rated IM, but modestly decided to send me another game to share with everyone. He claims that he has had three quick wins very similar to this one in the last year. White develops aggressively, and it only takes one or two mistakes for black to fall into a lost position. My personal reaction is that this is why I don't play the Sicilian very often as black.
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