Thanks for the explanation! I never would have thought about giving the bishop a little hole to hide in the pawn ranks. I suppose I've never actually seen it used because the other player sees that its available and doesn't make the move that forces it. Clearly I have some work to do to get to this level.
In this case, it's purely studying the opening. I use the London a lot, so I have been hit by that stupid knight many many times and paid attention when I saw somebody explain a way to deal with it. I initially learned the London from a Gotham Chess video, but more recently learned a lot more of the later ideas from this series Aman Hambleton did on Chessbrah:
Particularly in the earlier videos he does a good job of explaining why he is doing certain things. I'm pretty sure somewhere in the first few you can find him explaining the pawn move almost exactly the way I did in my post.
Aman Hambleton has great entry level chess videos. One thing I love is that he isn't obsessed with the optimal move. He is happy to play inaccuracies as teaching moments.
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Just a heads up to the tournament players - I am going on a ski vacation starting tomorrow until Sunday. I'll still have time to make my moves in the allotted period of time, but there will be long stretches with no action.
Apologies! (I originally thought the tournament was just the one round when I signed up)
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Just a heads up to the tournament players - I am going on a ski vacation starting tomorrow until Sunday. I'll still have time to make my moves in the allotted period of time, but there will be long stretches with no action.
Apologies! (I originally thought the tournament was just the one round when I signed up)
I hope you break a hip
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Just a heads up to the tournament players - I am going on a ski vacation starting tomorrow until Sunday. I'll still have time to make my moves in the allotted period of time, but there will be long stretches with no action.
Apologies! (I originally thought the tournament was just the one round when I signed up)
Yeah, that was my bad on the consolation tournament having a second round. If all six people had joined, it might have made sense, but I didn't think to change it when we only had four.
Really interesting endgame in the second round of the main tournament between 72UCI and ShadowB0205 (Iowa_Flames_Fan). Shadow got himself a decent positional advantage out of the midgame with the black pieces (although with equal material, a 3 point advantage from Stockfish only counts if you find the right moves.
Trading down to queens and rooks with a passed pawn two squares from promotion swung things even further in Shadow's favour, but converting the position still requires very precise play and a couple inaccuracies on moves 27 and 28 led to a queen trade and evening up of the position, as 72UCI's rook was able to defend and his king was closer to offer assistance.
After a pawn trade, Shadow has another passed pawn back on its home position, with his king close by to support, but white's rook owns the B-file, preventing the king from getting there. One more inaccuracy on move 42 gives a tempo back to 72UCI and allows them to create their own passed pawn halfway down the board and take over the initiative and the advantage, but rook vs. rook endgames are HARD. Inaccuracies on moves 47 and FIFTY create a situation where Shadow gets to trade off the rooks and his king is in time to prevent the queen.
At this point, the players agree to a draw, but looking ahead this game could have taken another 30 turns to reach that conclusion. With black's passed pawn on the A file, white's king would have been in time to catch it only by abandoning its own pawn, and then it's down to a 2v2 pawn battle on the opposite side of the board. I actually thought at this point that Shadow would have been in time to block white's king and take the pawns, but Stockfish is giving it only a 0.8 advantage to black, which suggests that a draw would very likely have been the outcome regardless.
I was watching this one with a lot of interest as it progressed, and the wild swings of advantage did not disappoint. Both players had opportunities to win which required very precise play and slipped away quickly to seemingly innocuous inaccuracies.
This was an intense game. 72UCI actually offered me a draw on about move 34, and it was a reasonable offer at the time I thought… except that having dropped 2 games to Superfraggle, I knew that a draw would eliminate me from contention.
Then, a few moves later I offered a draw, and 72UCI declined. I don’t remember the move, but I did check stockfish after and he/she was right to decline as by then I had played a bit inaccurately in the endgame and white was winning.
That brought us to the last position, when 72UCI offered a draw again, probably realizing that my king was in time to stop the passed pawn and white probably can’t play for a win after the rooks are traded. I thought about it for a while, and eventually concluded that it would be drawn after his king captured black’s a pawn.
According to stockfish I could have played for a win but it would have required extreme accuracy. The winning idea — apparently — is not to race your king toward the g and h pawns but to move it toward the white king and try to trap it on the edge of the board. Then stockfish finds a way to win, but like…. 20 moves later. I would not have found that idea—I was calculating whether the king could make it to the other side first and support the pawns. But that idea actually doesn’t work because black’s king makes it back in time and then the draw is basically inevitable.
That game was intense thanks for sharing. Thought white had it with that passed pawn move but think they needed to keep their rook on the c-file to block the black king instead of offering a trade. Then thought black had a chance but looks like you need perfect play.
Interestingly, every end game with 7 or less pieces on the board has been solved by an engine.
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The main tournament is down to its last game, between 72UCI and Doozre (Superfraggle). I won’t post any analysis until it’s over in fairness to the players but suggest anyone interested go and have a look. This one is for all the marbles: 72UCI can win the tournament with a draw or a win, while Superfraggle needs a win. Both very strong players — and this game does not disappoint. https://www.chess.com/game/daily/484427135
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So I've started to dabble in the rapid and blitz games and wow, it's a very different game. Wondering if anyone has any tips for a newbie there? My normal style of game is to keep looking for those small edges and always be on the attack, striking at an opportune time. However, this approach has basically opened me up to blunder city with the short time controls. Is it better to just play safe chess and wait for them to mess up? Or keep up my style and just develop a better sense of avoiding the really bad plays?
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So I've started to dabble in the rapid and blitz games and wow, it's a very different game. Wondering if anyone has any tips for a newbie there? My normal style of game is to keep looking for those small edges and always be on the attack, striking at an opportune time. However, this approach has basically opened me up to blunder city with the short time controls. Is it better to just play safe chess and wait for them to mess up? Or keep up my style and just develop a better sense of avoiding the really bad plays?
It depends on your rating. until 800 or so I would focus on the same defense and same opening every time even if it isn't optimal. You'll learn the patterns that come from these positions over time. You should never resign in blitz, or rapid games with less than 3 minutes remaining. At some point you need to pick the fastest safe move and try beat them on the clock.
After 800, you'll need to learn common opening theory, even if its just trial and error. As a rule I try do my "learning" in blitz and try use what I learned in rapid or daily chess.
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I think rapid and longer time controls are better if you're trying to learn and get better at chess in general, because it gives you time to think about what you're doing and why.
Blitz is good fun, but the quality on both sides goes way down because of time pressure. Like TheIronMaiden said, learning your opening lines will be huge, because you can get 5-10-15 moves into a game without needing to take time to think. It definitely lends itself to wilder, trickier tactics and attacks, because people don't have time to calculate and find the right move.
I'm way worse at blitz because I haven't figured out the balance to time management yet. Recognizing when to play a safe move quickly even if it isn't the most accurate vs. spending precious time working out a tactic or double-checking for blunders is a whole new skillset in short time.
If you're playing more passively, rather than going for a big attack, I think it's important to keep track if any of your pieces aren't directly defended or if one piece is defending two things. Where in a longer game you might move a piece to a safe square, knowing you will need to move it if it gets attacked, that's easy to forget when you're making moves quickly on a different part of the board.
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