Down with the chessness – I cracked 1400 on RHP!

Woot for me! A lot of my 2008 championship tournament games on Red Hot Pawn are wrapping up, and I am ending up on the winning side most of the time. This has pushed my rating on the site to 1413.  Hell yeah! I’ve never been rated over 1400 on any site at any time, so this is a big thing for me.

In fact, I’ve won seven games in a row. We’re broken up into groups of 9 for the tourney, and I am currently leading my group. I’ve got 9 wins, 3 losses, and I’ve got 4 games still in progress.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to pat myself on the back, because everyone should toot their own horn every now and again. Now that I’ve done so, I’m fully expecting to go on a twenty-seven game losing streak, because that’s how Caissa is.

Red Hot Pawn back up!

After two long days of downtime while they upgraded their servers (some sort of issue forced their upgrade to happen before they were quite ready I think), Red Hot Pawn is back online. I was very happy to see the site come back up, because most of my games in the 2008 championship tourney are approaching the end.

So far, I’ve won three and lost three. Of the remaining 10 games, I think I stand to win at least 6 or 7 of them. It’s been fun, but 16 simultaneous games is a bit much I think.

Hopefully the server upgrade will help the site perform better and provide a solid platform for years to come. I still think it’s the best correspondence chess site on the ‘net.

Exploring another opening

If you’ve been following my chess odyssey at all, you probably know that when it comes to openings, I’m currently a one-trick pony. As white, I play the King’s Indian. As black, I play the King’s Indian. So far, it’s worked pretty well for me. I love these openings.

However, as I play more T4545 tournament games, and these games are recorded on the T4545 site for all to see, future opponents who do their homework will know exactly what I play, and will be able to fully prepare against me and my King’s Indian.

So, I’ve been shopping around for another opening to add to my repertoire (well, I don’t suppose I can really call it a repertoire until I have more than one option, eh?). I’ve been looking at various opening books at the bookstore, and I think I’ve finally settled on my next opening. I’m gonna learn to play the Ruy Lopez. It’s a classic, and it’s a strong opening when played well. Fischer played it. Kasparov played it. Petey’s gonna play it.

My fellow chess player at work plays that opening almost exclusively, so hopefully he will impart some of his wisdom to me.

Like with the Barcza/KIA, I plan to play a bunch of games using the Spanish, so that I can see the most likely responses, and learn how to react to those. The Ruy Lopez is a far more complicated opening than the KIA, with far more variations, so I expect it to take me a lot longer to learn and become proficient using.

And then I’ll be a two-trick pony. Neigh.

Cheerio! Another win!

I had to play my T4545 round 3 game early today, because my opponent was 8 hours ahead of me in the UK. Here’s the game:

[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[White "PeteyDaddy"]
[Black "OldBoy"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ICCResult "Black resigns"]
[WhiteElo "1133"]
[BlackElo "1498"]
[Opening "Réti: King's Indian attack (Barcza system)"]
[ECO "A07"]

1. Nf3 d5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 e6 4. O-O Bd6 5. d3 Nc6 6. Nbd2 O-O 7. e4 dxe4 8.
dxe4 e5 9. b3 Qe7 10. Bb2 Bg4 11. Qe1 Bxf3 12. Bxf3 Rad8 13. Nc4 b5 14. Nxd6
cxd6 15. Ba3 Nd4 16. Bd1 Qb7 17. f3 Qb6 18. Rf2 Nxf3+ 19. Bxf3 Rc8 20. Rc1
Rc3 21. Qxc3 {Black resigns} 1-0

I was happy to see him let me develop my King’s Indian fully. We were playing fairly evenly through the middlegame. After my move 14. Nxd6, I was hoping that he would retake with his Rook and thus allow me to pin his Rook to his Queen with Ba3, but he saw through that and retook with his c pawn. At that point, I thought that I was in for a long battle to the bitter end.

Then he started pushing his Knight up the board, and in his eagerness to check my King, he ended up trading his Knight for a Pawn. This took me by surprise. I thought that surely I was missing some tactic that would allow him to take control, so I looked at the position for a bit but could find nothing.

Two moves later, he leaves his Rook completely unprotected. I thought for sure that there was some counterattack that he would mount to destroy me, but I couldn’t find one. So I took the Rook, and he promptly resigned. I guess his move was just a blunder. I’m not really sure what he was trying to do.

Usually I’m the one doing the blundering, so it’s kinda refreshing to see someone else do it.

I got friggin’ SCHOOLED.

Ouch, that smarts! Ouch! That was embarrassing. Like, 18 moves to checkmate embarrassing.

Here’s my T4545 round 2 game:

[Event "ICC 45 45"]
[Date "2008.02.02"]
[White "PeteyDaddy"]
[Black "fredd"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1136"]
[BlackElo "1563"]
[Opening "Réti: King's Indian attack (Barcza system)"]
[ECO "A07"]

1. Nf3 d5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 Bg4 4. O-O Nc6 5. d3 e6 6. Nbd2 Bd6 7. e4 e5 8.
h3 Bd7 9. b3 Qc8 10. a4 Bxh3 11. Bxh3 Qxh3 12. Nh2 h5 13. Ndf3 Ng4 14. Nxg4
hxg4 15. Nh4 Be7 16. f3 Qxg3+ 17. Ng2 Bc5+ 18. Rf2 Qxf2# {White checkmated}
0-1

I totally blew it on move 9. Move friggin NINE. The really crappy thing is that up until that point, I was feeling good. He let me develop my King’s Indian without a problem. So I got complacent. I was a bit surprised when he pulled 8. .. Bd7. I thought he might want to keep my N pinned with Bh5. So I turned my attention to the Queenside pawns. I was planning to use them as the front line of my flanking maneuver. So when he does 9. .. Qc8 I was like “huh, that’s an odd move.” But instead of noticing that he had formed a battery against my weak h pawn, I dismissed it and continued planning my Queenside assault.

Oops.

Even after he moved 10. .. Bxh3 and I realized his plan, I wasn’t terribly worried. I had actually seen a similar strategy executed before, and it ended up being my attacker’s undoing, because he hadn’t properly deployed his supporting forces before initiating the attack. Hmm. Not so this time. I guess that someone rated close to 1600 knows how to close the deal.

Oops.

The frustrating thing is that if I had one more move before his attack, I would have taken out the Bishop that ended up being the necessary supporting force. Oh well.

I will certainly learn from this one, and won’t let it happen again.

I put the Patzer in PatzerBoyz tonight. Sorry guys.

T4545 Round 2 tonight!

The wife was nice enough to give me a few hours off this afternoon. She took the kiddos to a birthday party, so I have the house to myself. This is the perfect opportunity to get ready for my T4545 game tonight. I don’t think I’m gonna play any games – I’m just going to relax and get myself into a chess frame of mind (whatever that is).

My opponent is rated 400 points higher than me, but I’m feeling good. This time I don’t have the additional pressure of being the last game for my team in the round. I’m just going to try to avoid making any blunders and see what develops.