Thursday, November 29, 2007

G/90 Double Quad - Rounds 4,5,6

I finished 4.5 /5.0 My rating will be ~1893

Round 6 - Dec. 12 Me vs JOSEPH H HETZEL - I won

Round 5
Me vs STANLEY T GARVIN this game will not be played.

Round 4 - Nov. 28

Arlen Walker (1813) vs Me - Draw

I couldn't maintain my 100 percent record. For the first time in tournament play, I was faced with trying to find the Bishop and Knight mate and failed. It didn't help that I only had about 2 min. (with 5 sec. time delay) .

I tried to use the following method.

1) Force the king to the edge of the board
2) Then to the wrong corner - If he doesn't wan't to go to the right corner:)
3) Then to the right corner

It took me too long to complete step 2. (more then 30 moves) By this time I was down to my last 2 seconds and had to concede the draw.

I was talking about this to my friend Jose about this and he was telling me that there has been at least one case where a GM could not find the mate, so I don't feel too bad.

Here is a great link that talks about several methods.

I had never heard of the "Deletang's Triangles" before reading this.

Quad 1 -
2215 WILLIAM P WILLIAMS 4.0
1962 SOUVIK ROYCHOUDHURY 3.5
1916 ALEXANDER VELIKANOV (#2 Age 9 in the nation Oct 2007) 4.0
1904 JAMES J COONS 0.5

Quad 2
1890
STANLEY T GARVIN 3.0 / 5.0
1852 Me 4.5 / 5.0
1813 ARLEN P WALKER 3.5 / 6.0
1697
JOSEPH H HETZEL 0.0 / 6.0

Thursday, November 22, 2007

G/90 Double Quad - Rounds 1,2,3

Click here for games in pgn.

I am playing in a double round robin quad at the Waukesha Chess Club. One game a week on Wednesdays.

I am 3-0 see Round 3 below

Quad 1
2215 WILLIAM P WILLIAMS 3.0
1962 SOUVIK ROYCHOUDHURY 1.5
1921 ALEXANDER VELIKANOV (#2 Age 9 in the nation) 1.5
1910 JAMES J COONS 0.0

Quad 2
1890 STANLEY T GARVIN 2.0
1841 Me 3.0
1813
ARLEN P WALKER 1.0
1697 JOSEPH H HETZEL 0.0

Round 1 - Nov. 7
Hetzel vs Garvin : Garvin won
Me vs Walker : I won Click here for game

I have a nice bind. Black played Qa5 here and Bc3 would have won easily for White, but I played h3 and still had a big edge.

Round 2 - Nov. 14
Walker vs Hetzel : Walker wins
Garvin vs Me : I won Click here for game


Here I have Bxd4+ and I win a pawn, but I decided not to go into this line since it leaves the White rook very active. I spent about 15 min here and got myself into bad time trouble. In the end I was down to my last 12 seconds(vs over a min.) and offered a draw in a pawn up position, but my opponent declined. In the end I was able to win his queen 0-1


Round 3 - Nov. 21
What I concentrated on for this game is not getting over confident. I was 2-0 going in and my opponent was 0-2 and was the lowest rated in the quad, plus I had 3-1 record against him.

In the following position with Black to play, I thought I could trap the White queen, but it turns out that I can't.My Knights are very well placed in the following position Hetzel vs Me : I won Click here for game
Walker vs Garvin : Garvin won
Round 4 - Nov. 28
Garvin vs Hetzel
Walker vs Me

Round 5 - Dec. 5
Me vs Garvin
Hetzel vs Walker

Round 6 - Dec. 12
Me vs Hetzel
Garvin vs Walker

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Interesting cross table

I was looking around MSA and happen to see the following cross table. What do you make of it?

http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?200307063100.9-12877777

A 300 point gain in one event, where one player plays one game against several opponents.

Friday, November 16, 2007

This and that

Chess Position Trainer
There is a great free tool called Chess Position Trainer that can be used to maintain an opening repertoire. Not only can you easily maintain a repertoire, but there are great tools that can be used to test your knowledge.

FICS
I recenly joind Free Internet Chess Server . My handle is ivanw, lets play chess! For those having both, how does your USCF rating compare to the FICS rating. My FICS rating is more than 300 points less.

Chess Tactics Server
I am frustrated that after more than 20,000 tries I can't make much progress as far as rating goes. I got upto around 1600, but am now about 100 points less. It probably makes more sense to go for accuracy rather than rating, as it better represents over the board play. Handle : iwijetunge

USCF Data
Here is a great tool by Wayne Zimmerle. Ever wondered who you have played the most, the highest rated player you beat etc? It's all there.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Learning from a Loss

Click here for game

This is my last round loss against Anthony Parker(1982) from the 2007 WCA Veterans tournament. My record against Anthony is now a dismal 0-5. I am sure that the fact that I had lost every previous game against him had some effect on my mental state during the game.

I went into the last round with 3.0/4.0 A win would have put me at a respectable 4.0/5.0 and a tie for 3rd place, but like many times before I lost an important last round game.

It has been a while since I got into a IQP game (with either side). The most important thing to remember is that the person with the IQP needs to be on the offensive and make use of the extra space in the middle game, since going into an endgame will favor the other side.

I was happy when Black played h6 and g5, I knew that in the long run this weakening of the king side pawn structure could be exploited. In response I moved the my bishop to the b1 diagonal got my queen to d3, and attacked the g pawn. (with the wrong pawn)



When I developed my last piece, the queens rook to the c-file (17 Rac1), I was very happy with my position, but it all fell apart quickly after Black played 23...f5.

I think that the move that lost the thread of the game for me was 20.h4?! I really wanted to play 20.f4!?, and after the game I realized that this would have given Black the most trouble. The reason I played h4 instead of f4 is that I thought that f4 would loosen my king position, although this is true, I could have caused more trouble for Black since f4 also threatens f5.

Some interesting IQP links:

IQP: Exeter Chess Club

IQP: Bangor Chess Club

Interesting IQP games from chessgames.com (Many losses by Karpov!)