RHP 2008 Championship update

Round One of the 2008 Championship has finally been completed for my bracket, and I’m very pleased to say that I have come out on top, with 39 points out of a possible 48. I won 13 games and lost 3.

Round Two will likely begin soon, as most of the other brackets are nearing completion. I expect to get thoroughly thrashed in the next round, but I’m quite happy with my performance thus far. My rating has climbed to 1464, the highest it’s ever been (by far).

And in conclusion, I’d just like to say… WOO HOO!

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.

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.

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.

Good Luck, fellow Patzer Boyz!

T36, Round 1 of the Team 45 45 League Tournament starts tonight, and the Patzer Boyz are in the hizzouse!

Good luck to my fellow teammates: Wang, Chessaholic, and seldredg. Let’s play some good chess, and have some fun!

Bobby Fischer is Dead

Does anyone else find it ironic that he died at age 64?

I certainly didn’t like the man, but I know that I wouldn’t be playing chess today if it wasn’t for him. Chess would probably be just another board game on store shelves, next to Parcheesi and Monopoly. Tournaments would be few and far between. The USCF would be non-existent.

I appreciate what his accomplishments did for chess in this country and around the world. So long, Bobby.

Clawing my way outta the basement

After my brilliant 0-5 start on ICC, I’ve managed to dig my fingernails in and gain a bit of a hold for the time being. After sliding to a rating of 912 (912?!?!) I managed to win my last two games. My last game was against a 1305, and I totally pulled a checkmate outta my ass to win. My rating is now back in the 4-digit range – at 1099.

Here’s the game that I pulled outta my butt.

[Event "ICC 10 12"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2008.01.04"]
[Round "-"]
[White "PeteyDaddy"]
[Black "catamaran1"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ICCResult "Black checkmated"]
[WhiteElo "993"]
[BlackElo "1305"]
[Opening "Réti opening"]
[ECO "A04"]
[NIC "QP.11"]
[Time "21:06:56"]
[TimeControl "600+12"]

1. Nf3 Nc6 2. g3 d5 3. Bg2 Bf5 4. O-O e6 5. d3 Bc5 6. Nbd2 Nf6 7. b3 O-O 8.
Bb2 h6 9. e4 dxe4 10. dxe4 Nxe4 11. Nxe4 Bxe4 12. Qxd8 Raxd8 13. c4 a6 14.
Rad1 Rxd1 15. Rxd1 Rd8 16. Rxd8+ Nxd8 17. Ne5 Bb1 18. a3 a5 19. Nd7 Bd6 20.
c5 Be7 21. b4 axb4 22. axb4 c6 23. Bd4 f6 24. Bf1 Kf7 25. h4 Be4 26. Nb6 e5
27. Be3 Ke6 28. Nc4 Kd5 29. Nd2 Ne6 30. Bc4# {Black checkmated} 1-0

I think I came out of the opening down a pawn, and so my opponent was quite happy to trade pieces with me for a bit. Yes, let’s get those pesky Rooks and Queens out of the way. He managed to lock his Bishop in, while mine were still fairly mobile, but he started jockeying for position. I cast about desperately for a plan. Since this game was 10 12 time controls, I felt rushed, so I started just trying not to do anything stupid.

Then he brought his King into play. I’m still not quite sure why – I guess he wanted to have an extra attacker to help push his pawns up the board, but with my knight and both bishops still on the board, he was asking for trouble.

After I made my 29th move, I saw it. Checkmate. It didn’t look like your standard mate, but nonetheless it was there, illuminated by a beam of warm sunshine.

He didn’t notice it… Checkmate. Whew!

I’ve still got 13 rated standard games to play so I can register for the Team 45 45 tourney as one of the Patzer Boyz. Gotta get busy!

It’s really quite depressing

I’ve played four games since I joined ICC, and I’ve lost four games. Does ICC have such high-caliber players that I suck even more than I thought I did?

This is not good. I’m finding myself in time trouble in nearly all my games, which leads me to make hasty decisions. Perhaps I should try longer time controls and see how I do. I think I’ll try that tomorrow with some 20 10 time controls or 30 10 or something like that.

Tomorrow…. because I’m done with chess for tonight. I’m gonna go turn on the boob-tube and try to forget about my bad baaaaaad chess.

Oops – I did it again

Booyah! I just beat the guy from work again. That’s twice in a row. His rating was 1694, and so my rating on RHP has climbed to 1316.

It’s a pretty even game until move 24, where he blunders away a knight and immediately resigns. I guess he respected my game enough that he considered it an unwinnable position for him. He should have kept playing – I’m sure I would have blown my advantage at some point…

I’ll take the win though, that’s for sure.

Here’s the game:

[Event "Challenge"]
[Site "http://www.redhotpawn.com"]
[Date "2007.11.09"]
[EndDate "2007.12.01"]
[White "PeteyD"]
[Black "GuyFromWork"]
[Result "1-0"]
1. Ng1f3 d5 2. g3 c6 3. Bf1g2 Bc8g4 4. O-O Nb8d7 5. d3 e5 6. e4 dxe4
7. dxe4 Ng8f6 8. Nb1d2 Bf8c5 9. b3 Bc5d4 10. Ra1b1 Qd8a5 11. a4 O-O
12. Bc1b2 Bd4xb2 13. Rb1xb2 Qa5c3 14. Rb2b1 Nd7c5 15. Qd1e1 Ra8d8
16. Rb1d1 Rf8e8 17. h3 Bg4h5 18. Nd2c4 Nf6xe4 19. Qe1xc3 Ne4xc3 20. Rd1xd8 Re8xd8 21. Nf3xe5 f6 22. Rf1e1 Rd8d1 23. Re1xd1 Bh5xd1 24. Ne5d3 Bd1xc2 1-0

It’s tough to find a chunk of time

The reason that I’ve been on a book reviewing craze here on the blog lately is that I’m finding it hard to set aside a block of time to play a game that’s not blitz. Since I’ve gotten my journal all ready to go, I’ve been eager to break it in, but alas, I’ve not yet had the time. So instead of writing about my experiences over the board (virtual or otherwise), I’m writing about my chess library.

Not very exciting I’ll grant you, but I did want to get the book information into the blog at some point, and now’s as good a time as any.

The only chess that I’ve been playing for the last week or so has been on RedHotPawn. I’ve just drawn a game with my opponent from the Netherlands, which was a victory of sorts, since I salvaged a game in which I was down a fair amount of material halfway through. Perhaps I will use that as my first analysis game. The game that I am playing against my buddy at work has stalled – he hasn’t moved in two or three days now. I’ll have to bug him about it tomorrow.

I enjoy playing on RHP, but I’d like to be able to sit down and play an entire game with decent time controls – at least 30 0. It’s tough to do that though. Once the kids are in bed, I’ll jump on the computer and try to get a game going, but on WorldChessLive it seems like everyone wants to play blitz. While I wait for a game, I’ll usually end up getting distracted by blogs or email or something, and then the wife will want me to come hang out with her.

Now I love my wife, but we definitely do not share the same interests or hobbies. She doesn’t believe that playing chess with someone I don’t know over the internet is at all interesting. Actually, she just doesn’t believe that chess is at all interesting. She gets her fix from knitting. Holy crap, does she love knitting. You would not believe how much friggin yarn is in my house. Maybe if I got her to knit me a chess set or something she would start to like chess.

I think I need to be disciplined enough to take advantage of the small opportunities I’m granted. If I have an idle hour, I need to turn off the email, ignore the call of the blogosphere, and get into a game. And I need to join a community where getting a game with standard time controls is easy. I need to join ICC. I’m gonna do that this weekend, I think.