Turn Based Chess

Well I started playing turn based chess at: chessworld.net and playchess.de I am not sure if it will help my chess but I think it will be fun. I will get to explore new chess openings and take time to plan. I am in the early stages of my games and have largely played main lines out of MCO and NCO. I am also using a chess database to look at how various lines develop and statistics for various lines. I don't know if my oponents are consulting the same resources or not but at least one is. We are 10 moves (each) into Fisher's defense to the kings gambit. At the very least I think this will help me learn to play in new positions I do not normally reach playing online blitz. Or even OTB at chess club.

Beer, Darts, & Holdem

I went out yesterday and played darts with a friend/co-worker. The last time we went out we played 2 sets (301 double in double out, cricket points, 501 free in double out) against a couple of guys who brought their large dart cases with them to the bar. We won 5 of 6 games in the two sets... and won the first game of the next set and they left. This time we played 9 total games: some cricket and some 501 double in double out. We won 8... After too much beer we went back to my friend’s house... (I drove) When pulling into his driveway he made a flippant remark about the last time we played heads up holdem. He killed me two games in a row... We were just practicing but he really bullied me around. I fired back at his comment with... "ya want to play now... “He agreed and then the banter about how much to play for started. After we agreed we divided up some chips (about 40 big blinds) and started. The first hand he went all in on the flop (3 9 K). I had K 10. He had 9 7??? We played two more times. The second game he was still pushing me around a bit. I moved in on him after he reraised me the first time with second pair and an outside straight draw on the turn. He called and I hit my set on the river (he had top pair). The third game was just good poker with no bully tactics. We both made some plays but not the crazy plays of the first game. After 20 minutes or so I finally got him to call me all in and it was an interesting hand. The prior two hands I laid down... the first one after a small bet on the flop... the second to a small bet on the flop and a pot size bet on the turn. I am dealt A 4 of diamonds I call and he checks. The flop is A 9 3 rainbow. Check Check. Q... he checks... I bet 2x the big blind... He called. River was a K no flush possible. I bet 2x the big blind again he raised me to 8 times the big blind... I thought for about a minute. Replaying the last 5 or so hands in my head. Replaying this hand. I am certain he thinks I bet the Q or two to flush that didn't hit. I am certain he either has the K or is bluffing the K thinking I bet the Q. He could have hit two pair and against most players I would have folded here but most players don't play so aggressive all the time and this big of a raise would either be nuts or a complete bluff. I decided I tricked him and he has no clue I have the A... I say calmly "all in." He instantly calls... I flop my A over and shrug my shoulders like, "you got me!"... He turns over his K and then throws a hand full of chips across the room... game over! Good nite!

Remove the evil in blitz

Why is it when I don't try to improve my chess (except for stuying tactics) and I just play tuns of blitz... my blitz chess ability soars... lots of tactic problems and blitz... and when I start to focus on real chess improvement... and play some slow games... I cannot play blitz anymore... at all... I think I have a hard time transitioning from quickly analyzing threats and possible treats to long term planning... I think I forget that when playing slow (real) chess I should do the same things as I do when I am playing good blitz but take the time to be sure... not just feel good, hope chess. My realization is that when I am playing good blitz is when I first consider my oponents threats first... and last... When I am playing good blitz I first figure out what he can do to me... then check to see what I can do to him... you know ... can he mate me or take material.. oh he can... can I do it to him worse by ignoring his threat... if no... how do I deal with his threat... can I... if the situation is hopeless is there a good tricky trap I can set... When I start playing slow chess I stop doing that for some reason... and start planning first... then check to make sure my plan works... I think this is good... but I think I need to try playing blitz... as real chess... BUT... just before making my move... 1.) make sure it is tactically sound in the short term 2.) make sure it doesn't create other weaknesses 3.) check the resulting position for bad tactics or the seeds of tactical destruction... The transition back to quick chess will simply be to believe my gut and quick tactical checks... to transition to slow chess will be to not hope... but make sure... I think this will remove the evil of blitz.  Blitz is bad becuase it messes up your real chess thinking pattern... so if I make them almost identical then playing slow chess will not hurt my blitz and vica versa.  By the way... I got smoked at blitz (4 games in a row) last night after spending 25 minutes analyzing a position of a corespondence game... all games I should have won and had a superior position/attack.  I dropped all of them to stupid one or two move tactics.  Slow chess puts my blitz in slow motion... I actually think that blitz doesn't hurt my slow chess but slow chess hurts my blitz... ?  BUT I do know that blitz does not improve my playing strenght where slow chess does.  The reason is a slow game I remember the moves after the game and can then analyze the moves and decide if they were good or bad... and at least for a week or two recall that information... blitz I have little or know retention...  I think really really strong chess players have the ability to remember many sequences of moves and therefore can chunck more info.  The chucking process allows them to think about more info and faster than one who is not chunking significant sequences of moves. Ok enough... goal play slow chess like blitz but slow down... goal get top candidate in under 15 seconds.. then stop... and look... Blitz... get top candidate...check it... if I feel it is a critical move... check clock see if there is time to keep looking... look for x time... if no move make top candidate...  

Memorized Fisher game

ok I did it... I memorized my first GM game. I love move 28. My next task is to look at the response to 28. ... dxe4. 29. N3xe4... my computer chess software (crafty & fritz) don't see a forced mate. I wrote Mr. Pandolfini at Chesscafe.com to get his opinion. In his book he said N3xe4... Nf6+ with subsequent mate. I don't see it and neither does Crafty or Fritz 8. [Event "?"] [Site "Buenos Aires"] [Date "1970.??.??"] [Round "8"] [White "Fischer,Robert J"] [Black "Panno,Oscar"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B40"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d3 Nc6 4. g3 g6 5. Bg2 Bg7 6. O-O Nge7 7. Re1 d6 8. c3 O-O 9. d4 cxd4 10. cxd4 d5 11. e5 Bd7 12. Nc3 Rc8 13. Bf4 Na5 14. Rc1 b5 15. b3 b4 16. Ne2 Bb5 17. Qd2 Nac6 18. g4 a5 19. Ng3 Qb6 20. h4 Nb8 21. Bh6 Nd7 22. Qg5 Rxc1 23. Rxc1 Bxh6 24. Qxh6 Rc8 25. Rxc8+ Nxc8 26. h5 Qd8 27. Ng5 Nf8 28. Be4 Qe7 29. Nxh7 Nxh7 30. hxg6 fxg6 31. Bxg6 Ng5 32. Nh5 Nf3+ 33. Kg2 Nh4+ 34. Kg3 Nxg6 35. Nf6+ Kf7 36. Qh7+ 1-0

not sure

Well I have managed to do chess problems (tactics) most every day for at least 15 minutes. Not quite enough but I do believe the nearly every day a little bit is better than 2 hours once a week... It is to keep the brain thinking about chess. As for my improvement plan... I have not selected a game in the italian. I cannot find any good ones or at least any in the line that I play. I am considering beginning to play at http://www.playchess.de/playchess.shtm which is like "it's your turn" but just devoted to chess. I feel as if I am jumping around... I don't want to follow through with my improvement plan. Why? I dunno... Perhaps the focus on my opening the italian is not as important. I really like the one game that I have looked at numerous times from in "Bobby Fisher's Outrageous Chess Moves by Pandolfini" Game 61 Bobby Fisher vs Oscar Panno, Buenos Aires 1970. Perhaps that is what I will do. I will start with a Fisher game. Perhaps I will memorize one of his games as black against the king's gambit... I just got trounced the other day in that opening in a 12 minute blitz. Real bad...

Back to chess

Ok after a 5 month vacation from chess, it is time to resume. The problem is I really like chess. Poker is fun but I just don't get the same level of satisfaction from it. Yes it is more fun when you are tierd and just want some intertainment. Chess is fun but it is work. I have devised a new learning plan. This time I am not going to focus on openings as much as I did in the past, with one execption. I am going to learn the main line italian. People rarely play 3. Bb5 against me... but when they do I should at least know what I am doing. So the plan is:

• Do chess (tactic) problems minimum of 15 minutes a day 5 days a week.
• Find games from the openings I play from skilled players in that opening. A couple italian, a couple petrof, a french, a cambridge springs defense. Memorize them.
• Memorize main line italian, main line 2 knight, main line fried liver

Since the majority of my games will not be played in the italian (at least online) I will not initially spend any time on the opening. If I were to resume play at chess club I should be well prepared in my white opening. The focus of my improvement plan is on building pattern recognition and strengthening my tactics. Therefore the games I select for memorization shouldn't just be "grind em out" games where the loser made a mistake. They should be games the winner won though a superior plan or tactical brilliance. (note to self... like that game from the Fisher collection that after playing though 5 times still couldn't believe it worked out.) There should be a game with the "classic Bishop sacrifice". Goal this week... find at least 2 games. Must be italians... I will start by looking through a collection of Morphy's games. BTW... I have done chess problems for about 20 minutes the last two days in a row before going to bed.

Draw poker is dead

I played a 7 card stud tourney at poker pages over the weekend and finished 30th out of 268. Not bad. After the tourney I started rereading Doyle Brunson's Super System. After finishing a section on 5 card draw, I decided to go on-line and play some. Where can you find 5 card draw? Googled... installed 4 or 5 card room software... only one actualy had draw poker. The one that did had about 50 people total using the software and none were playing anything but holdem. So I ended up playing "high stakes poker" at pogo.com It is 4 people with spread limit betting (kind of). Ante 1, first round betting of 1,2, or 4. Second round betting of 2,4,8. Max raise of largest bet 1 time and betting for any round capped at 2.5 times the biggest bet. Wierd... I found the play to be boring at the first table I played at. Although I was increasing my stack there was little skill require. The table had one guy that raised the max the first round and would bet max in the second round if checked to him. So I folded unless I had a good hand pre-draw. And check to him with a monster and reraised. The room I was playing in had $25 ante and the pots were in the 800-1200 range. If I could slip in a raise after everyone called the 1st bet the pots were 1500+ So it payed to wait for a good hand. In 1 hour I doubled by stack of $5000 to $11,400. I played again on sunday with mixed results. I added $1000 a few times but lost $1500 at one table. The table I lost at I lost because I started calling when I figured I was beat but wanted to see what the other guy had. Bad even if it is play money.    read more...

Doyle Brunson is a Genius

I started the night (pokerpages.com) with $133K and finished with $159k (free play money). I dropped $8k to start and slowly got it back. I bluffed so much at the beginning to set my image that I couldn't push anyone out when I had top pair. I kept getting beat at the river. For example I had AK and limped in. Flop hit K 8 4 rainbow. I bet 2x the pot and got 2 callers. 3 on the turn and Q on the river. Lost to a guy with Q 8 in his hand. Lost a bunch on that one. Well it all came around because I hit a couple straights on the flop and everyone thought I was full of it. So much so that one hand a guy went all in over the top of my bet on the flop (789) with pocket 7s vs my 10 J. I think loose is good but not so much that you loose you ability to close people out when you have a good hand. Enough so they call when you hit. Enough so they are scared to come over the top of you with top pair when there is a draw out there. Although I won back the money I invested, I donated too much. I need to try for more balance next time. So that well timed bluffs are still profitable. I have learned through forcing myself to play hyper-aggressive that FBS (fancy betting syndrome) hurts you more than straight forward aggressive play. I know because I am now on the other side of the FBS plays. Once in a while I get taken but I have drawn out against a set from pocket pairs slow played to know that if you hit your set and there is a draw out there and someone bets into you... you should try to win the pot right there. Otherwise you are going to give some other guy the proper odds to chase. I thought Doyle Brunson was crazy the first time I read his book and tried to apply it. Now I am beginning to realize he is a genius!    read more...

Good night but PNG strikes again

I played poker at pokerpages last night. Started with $108k. I took 5 days off from playing! I did ok... I took a big 15k (play money) loss early on a hand I should have known better than to play the way I did. I had AK and the flop came K Q 8 with 2 hearts. I check the guy next to me bets 1/2 pot... folds to me. I call. Next card comes 10 of hearts. Guy bets small and I move in on him figuring he does not have the straight or flush and cannot call the bet and if he does have the king I have the kicker. This was a dumb play because he should not call me if he is beat and if he has me beat he will call. I was bluffing alot up until then and was starting to get some people to make dumb calls... well this time the guy called with a flush and straight sitting there with KQ... so I lost... Not a good play by me. A raise ok... but all my chips... silly. I managed to rebuy at 18k and work that up into the mid 60's so all in all it was an ok night. BUT... I played PNG heads up again . I can't figure this guy out. He took me for $3800. I must have given him close to $20k now. I think he bets when he any overcard, any pair, or any draw. If he happens to hit 2 pair or nuts he checks and calls to the river... If he checks or calls preflop he will most likely give up the hand easily. His way of backing off just enough not to pound you to death. To beat him I am going to have to be willing to drop my stack a few times... I tried playing super tight against him but he just beat me down a blind at a time...    read more...

I love chesspad

Chesspad is my favorite free pgn viewer.  I often download games from TWIC (this week in chess) and play through them.  This tool is also good if you play online and you want to play back over your games and make some notes.  Unfortunately yahoo.com does not provide the games in pgn format.  I have written a converter that works for most games and will post it here if I ever get around to fixing the bug that results from promotion.

Chess Kids

chesskids.com has some really good tutorials. It has a decent intro to the Italian game. Highly instructive. Hope they continue to update the site. The tuturials all have a bunch of javascript errors in them but if you have the notify on all javascript errors turned off (default) then it isn't too anoying.
I often think of downloading the pages and fixing the errors and contacting them to put them back up... but I never have...
Tutorials located http://chesskids.com/kidzone/index1.shtml