I had two swift wins this week on both Chess with Friends and chess.com.
The Chess with Friends match was looking pretty dismal until I opened up the middle of the board. Down by I don’t know how many points, I mated on move 15. Check it:
My play was much more clean on the chess.com matchup. I took a symmetrical approach to controlling the center, and then strategically traded pieces to open up a rank right down the middle. I positioned my queen and bishops appropriately to secure the checkmate on move 14.
After seven games, I won one by checkmate and two by time, and lost four against better players or by being a complete dumbass. Actually, it was probably a mixture of the both.
First I’ll start out with my victory. After 10… f5, sbo69 overlooked the challenge to his/her queen and played 11. Bxd5, taking my knight. That was pretty much the end of the game as I scooped up their queen on my next move.
A useful beginner tip that I read today is to delay development of the queen. Aside from the obvious blunder of not protecting their queen, that would have been a good one for sbo69 to follow.
And here is my worst loss. I played a much superior player, my buddy DiamondTrim. I came out swinging, bringing both of my bishops way out in the first 5 moves. That was probably my first huge mistake. When DT played 7.c3, I had to backtrack my bishop twice, losing early development opportunities.
Next, I offered a sacrifice with 10… Ne4 without justification. Yeah.
With 12.Ng5, he moved his knight into striking range of my king-pawn line. I then castled straight into it. What was I thinking? He proceded to then destroy me as I made a bunch of amateurish indecisive moves for no reason. Terrible.
He took advantage of my terrible moves and tore me a new one by taking swift and decisive action. I hope to learn a lot from the Trim.
In reality, only [chess] has the ability to improve all aspects of my life.
I’ve decided to stop reading chess articles on wikipedia and instead learn basic tactical strategy. I need to develop those abilities here, not mindlessly follow sequences. Once I’m comfortable with all the pieces and basic strategy, I’ll go back to common openings. I was stepping way ahead of myself this entire month.
I lost another chess.com match this week, this time against the 1407 that I discussed in my previous post. I’m not at all ashamed about this match. I made mistakes here and there, but the fact that I remained in the match to the end game is a quality achievement against an obviously superior opponent.
My opponent described the match as “wild.” The latter half was mainly filled with my attempts at mating, and his attempts at pawn promotion and fending off my offense. Smart, tactical play on his part ultimately led to my demise.
Note that I forfeited on move 54 when I was convinced that I had no hope of preventing his pawn from promotion. At over 50 moves, this is by far my longest match to date.
I was slaughtered last week by a 1671 ranked player and I might lose another match against a 1407. Regardless of being a novice, 0-3 in correspondence chess is very disappointing, so I’m fighting to the last move.
I was in pretty good shape against the 1407, but I’ve failed to deter his pawn promotion in the corner. I need to mate him in a few moves before he gets double queens. I have my night and queen battling it out against his king; however, it is not looking good to be honest.
I read somewhere that playing “speed chess” is what kills beginners. I fall into this trap all too often. I make quick moves before considering all my options and as a result, I get forked all regularly. Also, I should have read up on this checkmate maneuver weeks ago. If I had, I might not be in this tight position against the 1407.
I’ve won my first online Chess game! I gave the live chess option a go and it was pretty fun! I haven’t played enough matches to establish an accurate ranking, but this is definitely a good start.
I am currently playing in eight chess.com games. I play mostly on my phone, which helps pass the time on my commute. My opponents vary from level 998 to 1515 and I can tell already that their skill levels vary dramatically.
The 998’s play is extremely unorthodox. The 998 starts out the match with d4, a standard opening. I countered with Nf6, to which the 998 replies with d5- very strange indeed. I could easily take d5 with my knight, but I don’t want to pull his queen out so fast. So I go online and research what to do. Ozzie on http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/1-d4-nf6-2-d5 says:
I like …e6
Of course, reached also by transposition: d4 Nf6 c4 e6 d5?!
In this case, black has a pretty pleasant game. e.g. he can play …Bb4+ or …Bc5, castle, and overall has a pretty easy game. The two advantages of d5 for white are cramping of black’s queenside knight and space gaining. The thing is, black often tries to get white to play d5, and can respond with a d6/e5 pawn structure, once the f8 bishop is outside of the pawn chain. So, here is my recommendation:
d4 Nf6 d5?! e6 c4 Bb4+ Nc3 Bxc3+ bxc3 d6 e3 e5 which I evaluate as better for black. Of course, white doesn’t have to play Nc3.
I guess it could be confusing to a black player (oh my gosh can white just play d5? does this totally bust the …Nf6 side of the queen’s pawn defense?! What the heck??)
My other matches are against players that tend to follow standard openings and defenses. Being a complete rook-ie (lol), I always search on Google before proceeding with my first four moves. I typically take the main line of a common variation if I find one. I’m not messing around at this stage as I don’t want to open myself up to disaster so soon in a match. What kind of experience would that be, anyway?
Unfortunately, disaster seems to have struck against my buddy from university. I made a desperate attempt to sway play to the middle after he cornered me in the bottom right. If his rating means anything, I have already lost. Have a look at our match here: http://www.chess.com/echess/game.html?id=40211599.
I just completed the first three rounds of a successful Sicilian Defence, Alapin Variation on chess.com. I am very proud, even though I have no idea what it really does or how to follow it up. I’ll probably read the wikipedia page on it for a bit. Afterward, my opponent will probably surprise me with some move that Wikipedia doesn’t discuss. At this point I will predictably exchange my queen for one of his worthless pawns in a flustered blunder of a rushed move that could have easily been avoided had I any idea what the hell I was doing.
I’ve got two other chess.com games going at the moment. The first opponent is some random person who took five days to make their first move. The other is my buddy Peter, who was in the chess club in high school and will most likely double pawn me hardcore.
I’ve been reading a bit and playing game after game of Shredder Chess for iPhone. My rating is currently a 1250 or so against the noob Shredder bot, but that is sure to fall as I stop using the hint- i.e. “crack”- button. The Shredder also warns you after you make a bad move, which is cool with me since it will eventually teach me to be more patient.
Challenge me on chess.com. I’m “weberwithoneb”. You’ll probably get a free win out of it.
I learned a few new terms today from the Learn Chess app on iPhone: Back Rank Mate and Pawn Storm.
Back Rank Mating seems like something that I might actually be able to accomplish. If you play me on chess.com and my rooks are on an open file, watch out!
Pawn Storming seems a bit more challenging to me. I can’t say that I’ve ever successfully pawn stormed anyone before. A line of pawns moving towards promotion is definitely something to be concerned about in the end game. I’d be scared to leave my king unattended; however, I read elsewhere that bringing the king out near the end of a match is actually advantagous given the king’s unique movement, giving him the edge in close quarters against many enemy pieces.
I made a few costly mistakes while changing trains and it cost me the match.