Me vs Fritz 8 (1540)

Yesterday I played a slow game against fritz set to 1540. I did move a bit fast and got myself into trouble by not looking more the 4 ply ahead (or so I thought). I think I often evaluate my position as inferior when I actually have a pretty good position. Rob pointed this out to me the other day and I spent 3/4 of this game thinking I was loosing and well for a good portion of it I had a slight edge.

The next step is to analyze the game myself.

Below are 3 version of the same game:

1. Just the game with timestamps
2. Fritz blunder checking with evals
3. Fritz full analysis at 20 seconds per move

NOTE: this viewer doesn't work with IE but it does with Chrome, Firefox, and safari

Time management

I have an alarm clock in my head that yells at me constantly to speed up. This alarm clock was created from playing hundreds of G15 games online and loosing on time from WON positions. I would inevitably reach a point in the game and find the need to calculate and spend 3-5 minutes on a move and loose.

Today I read on TWIC that (and I quote)

For some reason Aronian thought for over an hour about this move, time which he could really have used later on.

That was the note after his 15 move! An hour? Wow. Now consider that he was in the first 40 moves in 2 hours section of the game. That was a huge amount of time. This brings me to a question I really hadn't quantified. How much time SHOULD you alot for a tough move at any time control? There has to be a formula somewhere?

REALLY at 2 hours for 40 moves that is about 3 minutes per move... so spending an hour roughly cut his time in 1/2. BUT is that a big deal? Maybe? Maybe not. I don't know and that is the point.

Here are some things I found

• (in g/90) you would like to have 45 minutes left at move 20⁽¹⁾
• In a sudden death time control, speed up a little if the game is very even and it looks like it is going to be a long game. You may need that time later if things get complicated or it does become an exceptionally long game.⁽¹⁾
• For instance, if you have 60 minutes to make all of your moves, plan to use enough time per move to use nearly the whole hour at the end of a normal game. It's good to generally plan for a 40-move game;⁽²⁾

⁽¹⁾http://www.chesscafe.com/text/time.txt
⁽²⁾http://chess.about.com/od/tipsforbeginners/qt/TimeManagement.htm

Tactics suppliment

I ran across this website in the past week. http://www.chesstactics.org/

It is on the basic side for what I have looked it but the way it presents the ideas and the shortcut thinking pointed out for just the knight forks was quite valuable and I have seen an immediate increase in my ability to see knight forks and pieces that are on knight forking squares.

On top of that my rating at chess tactic server has been static for a couple weeks after peaking at 1377. I have been bouncing between 1340 and 1360. Today I had a nice session and I flirted with 1370 for the first time in a long time.

I really think that the combination of slow play and tactical training will bring about improvements in my play. Somehow I need to get over my fear of the opening and just accept that I really am lost at times and to just play good opening principles and the middle game will work itself out... all the time spent on openings will do me no good if I am dropping pieces...

I am going to start playing slower games at a wed night chess group (not uscf) about 2x per month.

One more thing... I read that (I think Dr. Dave wrote it)... G15 games are ok to learn an opening... so if I want to work on learning my new openings that is an ok time control...

French defense Advance varation 4. c4?!

I played 2 games today in blitz and both I played the french which I have been dabbling with after accidentally ending up in one when intending to play the Tarrasch defense.

Both games started with ..

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c4 cxd4 5. Qxd4 Nc6

Strange... one was on pogo.com the other was at FICS. There is nothing that amazing about these two games just that they started with the same moves which I believed to be bad for white. Not a mention in MCO-13 or play the french... but I didn't look that hard either. Fritz give me -0.35 so I am already and after Qxd4 -0.69 so it is just strange that two people would choose something that appears counter intuitive and not good.

here are the two games

Play chess online!

This game was just a giant who stinks less game... at around move 39 I started counting reserve moves trying to determine who would have to give up opposition... and I figured I might be able to pull of a win... and at the very least I should be able to draw now... I went on to win despite the pgn viewer not being able to show the pawn promotion?

Play online chess!

Beat the thinking machine

I played the thinking machine today. I am not sure how good it really is but I was able to sac a bishop for a strong attack and then succeeded in getting back the piece to reduce to a rook and pawn ending up a pawn plus he had doubled H pawns... so it was ABC FGH vs ABC HH... I was able to get the rooks off the board at the cost of my f pawn... get the pawns locked on the abc side... with opposition with me on the 5th rank. Then I was able to get him to have to go around the abc pawn chain on the back side...and I could take out the back H pawn and advance my G pawn with an eventual gxh and hxg... and queen... and I queened before he could do any damage on the abc side... :-)

I wish I had the game score to see how bad/good I really played. It was solid chess. The entire game took 45 minutes which isn't super slow but it was thoughtful.

here is an image from the second to last move!

White gets greedy and gets swindled

I played this game today after work. It was a 15 minute game against someone rated 150 points higher than me (147 to be exact). I played the opening well enough to be rated by fritz at move 15 as equal but my 15th move popped out of the blunder checker and the best move would have put the score -0.81 in my favor. I also followed that up with another not so good move...

He returned the favor on move 25 and I promptly refused the chance at equality, giving him back the advantage... at this point I was in big trouble. However on move 31 he blundered badly as he got greedy.


Here is the entire game.

Damiano Defense

I found this game to be most enjoyable... The game was a against an someone with no rating so you never know what you might see. Well I got a Damiano Defense and 9 times out of 10 I see Be7 or Ne7 and then Qxh8 but this time I got a bit more intersting game.

whoops I forgot to set it to move 1... sorry
And it should be noted... I finished the game with 1 second on my clock... so I was glad he walked into the mate in 4 and didn't make me play it out the harder way ... with 37... Ka5 of course that just drops the knight.. but it was more than 4 moves to mate... but we were both in time trouble by then... me much worse... note: for future reading

Play chess online!

Why the goring gambit

not sure? Well here is my thought process.

Before I took a near 2.5 year break from chess I was playing....

as white e4

• e4 with the italian... with c3 and against the 2 knight I played the fried liver attack when given the chance instead of d4.
• played for the alekhine chatard attack in the french.
• Against the sicilian I punted... but tried a few things... nothing to my liking but honestly I didn't see much of it where I was playing (chess club and pogo)
• Against the caro-cahn I played the advance varation and just guessed as I didn't have much beyond e4 c6 d4 d5 e5 known

As Black

• Petrov but hated playing against the kings gambit and 4 knight stuff so I experimented with the caro-kahn and was having better luck with it!
• Cambridge springs defense but since I was playing alot of games where that whole line was taken away from me I had experimented with the budapest gambit. When I got into a Cambridge springs I did well and event got some folks with the traps... the problem was I really didn't like being so defensive when I didn't get into that defense and ended up playing some variation of the orthodox QGD.

Against everything else... PUNT!

So back to my point... (did I have one)... oh yeah... anyways I wanted my focus to be the study of tactics for a bit. I was decided on hitting ct-art hard for a bit and doing the de la maza style cycles BUT.. I happened upon the chess tactic server and I really like it. So I have been doing that instead... why it is so engaging is a topic for another post...

Well now why change openings? Well for one I decided I wanted to break old thinking habits so one idea was to scrap my openings all together and thus make my mind start learning new stuff. In which case it would exercise my brain more! Also it is my belief that my thinking is corrupt in those lines I have played 2000 blitz games at... I figure a stint into another opening would not allow me to reuse bad thoughts and ideas.

Why the goring gambit? I don't know. I looked at the evans, and the scotch, and for some reason I discarded the scotch and thought the goring looked like fun.

why a gambit? well with tactics being my focus I figured they would go hand in hand. Force me to make aggressive moves because I have to fight being a pawn down. Study tactics and play games where they are likely to occur. (OPEN)...

Ok now my black problem...

Is the caro kahn really a good opening for me to be playing right now? who knows... I think I am better off playing e4 e5 as black and accepting my lumps to learn... but I could also consolidate my black study eventually by going the e4 french and d4 tarrasch route... BUT for now I will focus a bit on my white game and when I get that shored up I'll work on black... but the reality is I don't know what I am doing on either side... !!!

study... openings..

Ok... I spent allot of time once upon a time learning my openings... and I got to around 1600 on pogo... which is about 150 higher than I am hovering now. I am just getting trounced in the opening... and am just not converting enough WON positions when I do come out of the opening ok... URG... I played a couple games today and I am now sufficiently introduced to the Goring Gambit to begin serious study of it. My plan is to at least understand the main line and choose the responses I will play...

I figure it will take me several days of compilation to put together my choices of lines... BUT if I am going to play this opening I have to at least learn to take the initiative when my opponent plays out of book. Especially when they play out of book and ?! of just ?.

So I will hammer this thing down the main line to understand it... then... down the sidelines I totally expect to see. I have learned that Bxc3 followed by bxc3 is something I am not handling correctly. Hence my poor results.

Btw I am keeping up my tactical studies and I am getting better in that regard. but as much as tactics are opening doors to new wins... I am also missing things as well... where I though I saw a tactic ended up backfiring... part of the learning process.

Here is an example of a game where I had a won position and couldn't find my way... and also missed a tactic to win a piece...

I got stuck at this point where the difference in the move I made vs what fritz says is a whole 3 points or the difference between slight advantage and winning... Well here is where I paused for over a minute in the game... I just didn't see the correct continuation... I suspected I need to get my black bishop involved but for some reason didn't see how... oh well.

+ fritz suggestion

13. Bd2 Nf6 14. Rac1 Kb8 15. Bxa6 +-

Later I missed this tactical spot and made the wrong move again... I should have seen this... !!!!!

+ show solution

10. Bxe6 fxe6 11. Qxb7 Ra7 12. Qxc6+

Here is the entire game urg..

Play chess online!

Chessville newsletter intersting tidbit

Really found this little thing intersting...

http://www.professorchess.com/chess_vision/chessville/

It came in the chessville newsletter http://www.chessville.com/



it is almost like find the best move but instead it develops chess vision by having you find all the legal captures and checks... nice stuff

My current white repertoire (WEAK!)

Wow I almost know nothing about what I am going to play. I know about 4 moves in a few lines... and that is about it! I really should flush this out a bit and know what I am going to do against each major defense...at least a bit!

Wow... Very Very Very weak!

Well at least this is a start. Now I can find a hole and plug it. Except I have no foundation! Ok 1st order of business is to learn more of my primary opening. At least get my response to the major lines down pat. Then I can fill in the gaps against the major defenses I will see. Specifically flush out the Philador and for now plug the French gap by determine a basic line in the exchange. Then I can fill the glaring hole against 1. e5 Nf6