The everything CHESS thread

[Superfraggle]

It will probably show up under Completed Tournaments for you (maybe not until the finals are completed?). In the meantime, this should still get you there, i think: https://www.chess.com/tournament/the...-tournment-iii

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by FireGilbert

Haha Chess.com throwing shade by not showing the tournament in my list because I've been eliminated.

Thanks for the fun tournament! Good games all. Big learning for me was on focus. Concentrating on a 20 minute rapid game is one thing, trying to concentrate on multiple games over multiple days is a whole different animal.

With 2 players battling for 1st place could we also arrange individual games for 3rd to 8th place? IFF, I think you finished 2nd in your pool so could play me for 3rd place?

I’m good with whatever format—and we can always have an unofficial game too—I always have at least one going with Slava, so what’s one more?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

I’m good with whatever format—and we can always have an unofficial game too—I always have at least one going with Slava, so what’s one more?

Same here. I will be off for a lot over the next few days, but I will make my moves whenever I’m able!

[Superfraggle]

Game one of the final just ended without satisfaction for either side. The game started out in fairly generic fashion. Mrkajz44 was fairly aggressive in pushing his b and c pawns, which became the main focus of the middle game, as allowing them to remain connected and that far advanced in an endgame seemed like a recipe for disaster. I thought a couple times that I had found a way to win both pawns and save my own b pawn, giving up my bishop pair in the process, but my opponent always had the answer and I ultimately had to settle for equal trades

Move 25 is where things got really interesting, as mrkajz44 pushed his pawn to e4. This took away the extra tempo I need to protect b2, so I resigned myself to having to take on c5 to protect my knight, giving up the b2 pawn and ending up all even at the end. But after Qxb2, I didn’t like that the queen would be adding an attacker to d4, so I want to look at kicking the queen out right away. I could move my rook to b1, kicking out the queen cutting off the entire b-file, and thought to myself, “That actually looks close to a queen trap. Wait, might that actually be a queen trap? After Rc1, the queen actually only has one safe square – A3. After it goes to A3, I can go Rd3 and it’s a real honest-to-goodness queen trap! This could be exactly the break I need. I just need him to take that hanging pawn. Take the pawn. It’s only natural. I captured. You want to re-capture. It’s undefended. “Oh no, my pawn”. Please take the pawn?”

Around this time, I figure he had gone to bed, as it was pretty late. It wasn’t until 10 hours later that the cliffhanger was resolved and my glorious queen trap was declined with exd4. Devastating. One of the great things about chess is playing against strong opponents to challenge you, but one of the worst things about chess is when your opponent is just a little too strong and all of your best ideas are refuted before you even get a chance to let them out of the box.

So after exd4, I went Rxd4 and he got the pawn back with qxb2, which no longer traps the queen. I really wanted to work out a line with Nb3, daring mrkajz44 to take my queen and threatening all kinds of back rank issues for him. Unfortunately, I was not able to figure out how to refute Qxd4, as my own back rank was equally vulnerable. If I took his queen with my own, he could go Rxc1+ first, forcing Nxc1 and leaving my queen undefended when the rook finally takes it back. If I took with the knight, he could take my own queen back and I couldn’t recapture his rook without allowing Nf5, winning my knight because moving it would allow Rd1#. Another nice idea I got really excited for, which ultimately just didn’t work.

I then had ideas of Rf4, threatening the nasty check on f7, but if he responded with Rd5, I didn’t see a good way forward and would likely lose my knight at minimum, since I always had to be extremely careful to guard the rook on c1 with my queen.

Ultimately, I went for the safe route, with rxd8+, forcing rxd8 and created an escape square for my king with g3. I wasn’t thrilled that this made the game look very draw-ish, but my more creative ideas all seemed headed for disaster and the back rank weakness absolutely had to be resolved in order to make progress.

The queens were quickly traded, and thus commenced the jockeying for position between the remaining rooks and knights for each side, fighting over the two remaining A pawns. Mrkajz offered a draw partway through, which I thought was totally reasonable, but I also felt like I was still making a bit of progress, so I declined and worked my way up until the pawns were touching on A6 and A7. Here, Mrkajz presented a knight trade, which I accepted, but rather than retake his pawn with my rook and find myself stuck on the 6th row and heading toward what I figured would be a draw, I advanced my pawn with the idea that I would be forced to trade the pawns eventually, but could turn the 3v3 into a 3v2 in the meantime. We worked our way all the way up to move 57 when, as Willywyatt put it for our previous game…my brain broke.

I felt like I had the advantage and an idea that seemed very promising. It was all worked out, and was going to head for, if not victory, at least some challenging questions for mrkajz. I very confidently advanced my g-pawn and immediately realized that I had missed the first, most basic step and given up my whole advantage. Now down to equal material against an opponent too sharp to blunder checkmate on the 8th row. I offered the draw and it was accepted. Apologies to my opponent for the big waste of time after his original draw offer. I haven’t looked at the analysis yet, and am very interested to see what Stockfish thought at the key junctures, but also a little leery to see what I might have thrown away.

https://www.chess.com/game/daily/497436893

[mrkajz44]

Great write-up for a great game. I'm likely in the minority here, but there's nothing wrong with a well played draw and given how things were going at times, I felt pretty happy walking away with a draw. A few of my thoughts:

I played the Indian defense, which I'm not overly familiar with, but thought that maybe I'd catch my opponent off guard since I hadn't seen it played against me since I started playing again. This resulted in trapping my light squared bishop, forcing me to fianchetto it, which I pretty much never do. That's what lead to my aggressive b and c pawn play, but I didn't mind where things were going by around move 15.

After bouncing the queen on 15. Qd2 I had the chance to trade my knight for the bishop and leave some pawns handing out alone on the fourth rank. I seriously toyed with the idea for a while but ended up bring my other knight into the action instead. After 16. Bg3 I really kicked myself for not taking the trade. I think I spent hours here trying to decide what to do. I didn't mind my position but any sort of attack was too weak and left me vulnerable. I probably should have activated a rook at this point, but decided on moving the knight again with eventual plans to move them over to the open king side.

Things did get interesting at move 25. I offered a queen trade with 25...Qb6, but it was declined and all the focus was on those pawns sitting on the fourth rank. I think both my opponent and I had the exact same issue - we could start a set of captures that would net us winning material, with the small downside of giving up a bankrank checkmate. I will admit that I did eye that b2 pawn but was afraid of getting caught upboard with the d4 pawn in the way of a retreat. Stockfish says "go for it!" (taking b2 when Supperfraggle wanted me to in order to trap my queen) since I could put similar pressure on their queen with Rxd4. Needless to say, I didn't see that, but played the safe game only capturing b2 after my retreat diagonal was no longer blocked by the pawn.

After 30. g3 I considered opening up an escape route for my king as well, but thought this might be my opportunity to go on the offensive (finally). I saw I could force a queen trade and took it with the hopes of being able to capitalize down the road as I was the aggressor. Plans did not work out as hoped. Quickly I had to give my king an out with 33...h6 and we started the dance in the endgame.

I believe I offered the draw after move 38, but can't quite remember. The engine gave white a 0.23 pawn advantage as this point, so I'm glad to see it was a reasonable offer. What I found most interesting was how the engine hated 45. Rxf7 where my opponent picked up the free pawn. They had worked up a nearly 2 pawn advantage to that point by outmaneuvering me using their pawn very effectively, but taking the free pawn removed all that advantage. Perhaps it was at that point the critical mass of pieces left was passed and it was going to be too hard for either of us gain the edge we needed. I'll admit that while the engine thought things were fine for me, I was pretty sure I was slowly playing a losing game as the white pawn march commenced. I suppose that even though I was down a pawn, the power of my rook and the fact that I had my king to block at least one of the remaining pawns was enough to prevent white from getting a promotion. I felt very fortunate when the draw was re-extended to me and I was glad to take it.

No hard feelings at all with the declined draw - after that point I felt like I was playing from behind the whole way. It's also a bit fun to play the endgame out a bit since the trend for most seems to be resigning before we get to that point.

Anyone want to let us know how to post a gif of the game? I was able to download it, but can't seem to figure out how to get it into this message.

[Superfraggle]

Originally Posted by mrkajz44

Things did get interesting at move 25. I offered a queen trade with 25...Qb6, but it was declined and all the focus was on those pawns sitting on the fourth rank. I think both my opponent and I had the exact same issue - we could start a set of captures that would net us winning material, with the small downside of giving up a bankrank checkmate. I will admit that I did eye that b2 pawn but was afraid of getting caught upboard with the d4 pawn in the way of a retreat. Stockfish says "go for it!" (taking b2 when Supperfraggle wanted me to in order to trap my queen) since I could put similar pressure on their queen with Rxd4. Needless to say, I didn't see that, but played the safe game only capturing b2 after my retreat diagonal was no longer blocked by the pawn.

Good write-up. Always interesting to see what the other side was thinking. I didn't mind the idea of a queen trade at move 25, but didn't like that it would end with my knight being forced to move. I wanted to wait to do it on my terms.

With respect to the queen trap, it's funny how an idea gets stuck in your head sometimes. When I worked it out initially, the e pawn hadn't been moved to d4 yet, so I didn't see Rxd4 as a threat. After the move was made, it didn't register with me at all that this was no longer the case.

The game review shows things as ridiculously even throughout, aside from a couple blips. Both of us got a 92.6 accuracy rating overall, broken down as:
Opening 93.5 - 93.5
Middlegame 88.6 - 88.7
Endgame 95.4 - 95.5

mrkajz44 does get credit for 5 great moves, to my 0, but I'm telling myself that it's just because I gave him hard choices where he had to make exactly the right move.

The engine was so unconvinced of my advantage in the endgame that 57. g5 is given a rating of excellent, despite hanging a full pawn. The eval goes from 0.12 for white to flat 0.00, but I think anything that doesn't straight up hang my rook probably would have gotten the engine's approval there.

[Superfraggle]

Originally Posted by mrkajz44

anyone want to let us know how to post a gif of the game? I was able to download it, but can't seem to figure out how to get it into this message.

[img] url [/img]. The chess.com one anyway just puts it on a webpage when you generate it, so you can just use the link to that page.

[FireGilbert]

Congrats Superfraggle! Was following your last game and thought your were in trouble but great comeback. You are good at grinding a tiny weakness into a winning advantage. As of now you are the only one to beat me on chess.com so are officially my nemesis. Well done to mrkajz44 too for keeping things exciting until the end. Keen to see how I stack up with you sometime.

The tournament was a lot of fun thanks! Really enjoyed the slower format and seeing some different openings than usual. Felt I was evenly matched versus Superfraggle but he was just a little bit stronger when it mattered. Also just played 2 very competitive games against IFF. Good games against Scornfire and IM too, especially our last ones that were very sharp and could have gone either way.

Think the entire experience helped my game as I just beat my highest ranked opponent on lichess and achieved my highest ever classical ranking. Was good to get back into the habit of always checking for checks, captures, and attacks before doing the same for your opponent's potential moves. Will definitely sign up for the next one!

[Superfraggle]

Originally Posted by FireGilbert

Congrats Superfraggle! Was following your last game and thought your were in trouble but great comeback. You are good at grinding a tiny weakness into a winning advantage. As of now you are the only one to beat me on chess.com so are officially my nemesis. Well done to mrkajz44 too for keeping things exciting until the end. Keen to see how I stack up with you sometime.

The tournament was a lot of fun thanks! Really enjoyed the slower format and seeing some different openings than usual. Felt I was evenly matched versus Superfraggle but he was just a little bit stronger when it mattered. Also just played 2 very competitive games against IFF. Good games against Scornfire and IM too, especially our last ones that were very sharp and could have gone either way.

Think the entire experience helped my game as I just beat my highest ranked opponent on lichess and achieved my highest ever classical ranking. Was good to get back into the habit of always checking for checks, captures, and attacks before doing the same for your opponent's potential moves. Will definitely sign up for the next one!

Thanks. I was in trouble, for sure. I had a good long hard look at Qxb7 before the capture sequence that left it undefended on move 20 and was once again sure I had found a nifty trap for an overextended queen which likely wouldn't win the queen, but would leave me up an exchange at least. The one thing I miscalculated was that my pawn on C6 would become undefended after Be6, allowing him to make a clean escape having decimated my queenside pawns.

On his way out, I attacked the queen a couple times with the intention of just encouraging it not to stick around, but i got lucky that he made a mistake on move 26, lining up the skewer of his queen and rook. That allowed me to equalize on overall material and puts the analysis close to even, but it's generally easier to press for advantage when you have the stronger piece than the extra pawns.

A bit more work to clear out his queenside (including several tricky, trappy tactics that he just refused to bite on), and I forced the trade of the bishop and knight for my rook, leaving me up a bishop (less one pawn), with both queens still on the board.

The effectiveness of my bishop was extremely hampered by my decision to blockade my king away in the corner, as it needed to stay near to protect against any perpetual check ideas mrkajz44 might have had with his queen. This made it extremely difficult to make forward progress using primarily just my queen. I had a the clear material advantage, but stalemate felt like a significant risk at this stage.

I eventually managed to bully his king into a tough position by move 46, with plans to try to break it open with Be6 and h5, but it was still defendable and I got lucky with his second big mistake, 47. Qg3, leaving the d4 pawn undefended and allowing me to make my own D pawn passed. At this point, I had a strong advantage and, when I pinned the queen to the king a couple moves later, it became just a matter of converting.

That was two extremely tough games against mrkajz44, which could easily have landed the other direction. The two games of the finals were also the longest two games of the tournament, and it felt like it. Great tournament once again. Thanks for organizing. Lots of fun.

https://www.chess.com/game/daily/499255545

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Congratulations, Superfraggle. This makes you the current World Global Champion of CalgaryPuck chess. And strong showings in all 3 chapters, so probably the player to beat in CalgaryPuck Chess IV.

We need like a trophy or something.

[TheIronMaiden]

Should we set up a new one?

[TheIronMaiden]

Nepo took the boots to Ding this AM. it is currently 1.5 Nepo - .5 Ding.

[Scornfire]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

Should we set up a new one?

Once I'm less hung over plz

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

Should we set up a new one?

I think it’s time. Superfraggle needs to defend the title.

[MoneyGuy]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

I think it’s time. Superfraggle needs to defend the title.

His chess handle should be Fraggle Rook.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

It’s Doozre, which is actually almost a fraggle-themed name too…

[TheIronMaiden]

https://www.chess.com/tournament/cal...iv/join/fe3273

I made it groups of 3 one advance, but I will change this if it makes for sense to have groups of 4 - 2 advance based on the number of participants.

1 day to move, same rules as before.

GL HF

[TheIronMaiden]

I set to it start Wednesday to give time for folks to join, all abilities welcome.

[TheIronMaiden]

We are still looking for a few more players. 3 more would be ideal.

[ah123]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

We are still looking for a few more players. 3 more would be ideal.

I wouldn’t mind joining