First OTB loss of 2008

By Steve | January 4, 2008

My fellow Metrowest Chess Club members and bloggers BlunderProne and Globular beat me out in making their first 2008 posts. Here’s my Round 1 loss in the MCC New Year Swiss.

Capsule summary:

Happy New Year everyone!

PS. I’m back to using Palview, because I don’t like the ugly pieces in the Chess Publisher diagrams, and Polly’s comments about possible Chess Publisher oddities made me nervous.

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The mysterious fading tactic

By Steve | December 4, 2007

Unfortunately I turned in a rather uninspired performance for the last round of the T35 tournament in the Team 45 45 League. What bothered me most was the way I just suddenly forgot about a tactic that I’d been watching carefully for several moves.

Here’s the position after White’s 6th move.


After 6.Bg2

For my next 6 moves, I paid close attention to the h1-a8 diagonal, with White’s bishop on g2, my pawn on b7, and my rook on a8. We get to this position after White’s 12th move:


After 12.cxb5

So what do play now? Of course. 12…b6? 13.Nxe5.

I realized my blunder literally as soon as I let the piece drop with my mouse.

BDK recently commented about a similar kind of tactical fade in one of his games, although he had the excuse of being in time trouble.

This is a very frustrating kind of blunder.

2 Responses to “The mysterious fading tactic”

  1. Rich Dailey Says:
    December 5th, 2007 at 11:12 am

    In 30 years of blundering thru chess, I continue to have these moments. It’s the thing that makes me un-good as a chess player. But I enjoy the game anyway.

  2. Blue Devil Knight Says:
    December 9th, 2007 at 11:04 pm

    Ah yes, the forgotten tactic. I do that a lot.

    I had a score of 4-0-0 out of five last year in the U1200 section of a big tournament. My final game I was up the exchange. For most of the game I was thinking, I’d like to put my rook on b8 so I can take that file, but her Bishop is on f4, so don’t do it! What do I do about 3/4 into the game? Just put my rook right where she can capture it. I went on to lose the game and take second in the division. My oh my was I mad at myself.

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Team 45 45 T35 - Round 5

By Steve | November 22, 2007

Capsule summary: Outplayed in the opening, misjudged the significance of a protected passed pawn, mismanaged the clock, and panicked unnecessarily in an almost even position. If I had held the draw, my team would have won the Round 5 match point. (See the end of the post for a replayable game board.)

Let’s start with the opening. After White played 6.c4 in the Portuguese Scandinavian, I found that I had forgotten how to proceed. Actually, I can’t remember the last time any White opponent followed a main Portuguese line so far against me.


After 6.c4

When I’m trying to decide what to do in a future game, it helps me to look forward a few moves, to see how the opening turned out and whether I was satisfied with it.

Well by the time we get to 18.c5, things look just nasty for Black, possibly lost already.


After 18.c5

So now I’m ready to start looking up lines in opening references. I noticed right away that Black never lets that white pawn just sit there on d5. It certainly did play havoc with my own attempts to develop my pieces. Usually Black plays …e6 at some point.

But I’m not sure really like any of the main lines for Black following 6.c4, so I’m strongly considering dropping the Portuguese variation.

But White let up on the pressure. Eventually I regained the pawn and equalized. Here’s the position after 28…Rad8.


After 28…Rad8

The position looks pretty solid on both sides. White’s protected passed pawn gives him the edge, but it is thoroughly blockaded. I did not realize, however, that if all the heavy wood gets exchanged, that pawn becomes much more of a problem. In particular, Black will never be able to successfully attack its protector, the pawn on b4.

So I did allow the heavy piece exchanges, not fully realizing the problem until sometime around here, after 36…Nxd8.


After 36…Nxd8

Now either Black’s king or knight is stuck permanently in the vicinity of White’s c5 pawn in order to prevent its advance. White has no such problem. But it’s possible that Black might have been able to hold the game with stubborn defense. Instead, I let my clock time run down and then panicked. After 47.g5, with a minute left, I thought my position was lost.


After 47.g5

So I played a desperation move: 47…Nxc5 48.bxc5 Kxc5. That was just silly. I should have stuck with stubborn defense and make White prove something.

Here’s the replayable game board. I’m trying ChessPublisher for the first time. It’s certainly more convenient and quicker to use than Palview, which I’ve been using for a while. It doesn’t look nearly as good, though, because of the aliased piece graphics. I wonder if the creator would let help him with the piece images?

3 Responses to “Team 45 45 T35 - Round 5”

  1. wagstaff Says:
    December 6th, 2007 at 3:53 am

    I’ve just discovered the ChessImager and it’s very nice. Great work. I’m also using ChessPublisher for replayable games and agree with you that it doesn’t look as good as it should - it’d be marvellous if you guys could get together and make it all prettier.

    By the way, I’ve also raised an enhancement request (since you invite us to do so…) saying that a player-to-move indicator would be nice.

    Keep up the good work…

  2. Steve Says:
    December 6th, 2007 at 7:08 am

    Wagstaff—Thanks for your comments. I’ll look into adding a player-to-move indicator.

  3. Trevor Says:
    January 9th, 2008 at 8:25 am

    Hi Steve, I hope you don’t mind me contacting you, but I am trying to write a blog on the Fischer-Spassky match of 1972..and I have managed to create game one on Palview…and I was wondering how I post it into my blog (as you have above). I am using Wordpress and was wondering if you could give me any advice…thank you in advance….Regards, Trevor

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Which rules of chess offend you?

By Steve | November 19, 2007

Although I’m not a big fan of blitz, I sometimes have a spurt of playing a lot of 2 5 games on ICC. I guess it’s when I need a change of pace.

Most ICC players are polite and friendly, but every now and then you run into an exception. What puzzles me the most are the players who get offended when you force a draw by repetition. This happened to me again last night. I faced a complicated position with four rooks plus passed pawns plus mating threats on the board, with relatively little time left for calculation. I saw no winning chances and lots of losing chances, and I saw that his king was fairly open to checks from my own pair of rooks. I went for the draw and got it.

A few seconds after the game ended, my opponent informed me that I was “censored” from playing further games against him. I hadn’t said anything at all to him, and he offered no explanation. I can only assume that he doesn’t like to play against people who know and use the repetition-of-position rule.

Sheesh. I think you should find a different game to play, fella.

2 Responses to “Which rules of chess offend you?”

  1. Polly Says:
    November 19th, 2007 at 4:24 pm

    I guess some people hate to not win, so they think your forcing a draw by 3 fold repetition is just as bad as losing to you. Fortunately there are enough people in internet chess world that you don’t need to deal with idiots like that. His “censoring” you is the action of a rather pathetic control freak.

  2. Wahrheit Says:
    November 21st, 2007 at 5:35 pm

    Hehe, I got censored by someone once for playing out a lost position–in a 3/0 game! I had about 20 seconds to 8 and he was like a rook and piece ahead, and he just stopped moving, wrote some nasty message and then READ MY PROFILE!!! or whatever as his time ran out…I found that he had some long screed there about not playing out lost positions. Sheesh, first I don’t read everyone’s profile before I play them and second, it’s 3/0 (I wrote back). More trash talk.

    I told him he was pretty funny for playing 3/0 and expecting people to resign if they were ahead on the clock. He then not only censored me from playing him but SHUNNED me or whatever it’s called.

    I didn’t stop chuckling for awhile. As Polly says, it’s a big world out there.

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Updating links

By Steve | October 27, 2007

Robert Pearson’s recent post about updating his blog links reminded me to do the same on mine.

Secrets of Grandpatzer chess just recently posted a very informative series on how to use the opening repertoire feature of ChessBase. I’ve already started to try it out with one of my White openings.

Castling Queen Side is one of the most enjoyable blogs I’ve read in a while. I particularly enjoy her humorous tournament descriptions.

Links on the right.

3 Responses to “Updating links”

  1. erik Says:
    October 30th, 2007 at 7:06 pm

    steve: i’d love to get in touch with you and talk about the FEN image parser - i couldn’t find your contact info anywhere on the site!? :)

  2. Steve Says:
    October 30th, 2007 at 8:53 pm

    Erik - I sent you e-mail.

  3. Farbror the Guru Says:
    November 7th, 2007 at 7:35 pm

    Steve, the ChessImager is just what I have been searching for! Thanx for sharing.

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