There’s something wrong with me

I woke up at 5:30am on a SATURDAY for a 6am chess match with someone in England. I’ve found that I’m definitely at a disadvantage in the T4545 tournament, scheduling-wise. I prefer to play in the evenings, after the kids are asleep, and being in the PST timezone means that nearly the entire world is ahead of me, and by the time evening rolls around for me, everyone else is nestled snugly in their beds.

Despite the ungodly hour, I’m pretty satisfied with the way I played. I think I even had a slight advantage at one point in the middlegame. However, I got greedy, and on move 30 I played Bxa7. I immediately regretted this blunder, and never recovered from it.

[Event "ICC 45 45"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2008.05.10"]
[White "PeteyDaddy"]
[Black "john-beebs"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1168"]
[BlackElo "1543"]
[Opening "Réti opening"]
[ECO "A05"]
[Time "08:58:01"]
[TimeControl "2700+45"]

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. g3 Nc6 3. Bg2 e5 4. d3 d5 5. O-O Be7 6. Nbd2 Be6 7. e4 d4 8.
b3 Qd7 9. Nc4 Bg4 10. Qd2 Qe6 11. Qg5 Nh5 12. Qd2 h6 13. h3 Bxh3 14. Bxh3
Qxh3 15. Ncxe5 Nxe5 16. Nxe5 Nxg3 17. fxg3 Qxg3+ 18. Qg2 Qxe5 19. Rf5 Qe6
20. Qxg7 O-O-O 21. Qxf7 Rhg8+ 22. Kf1 Qg6 23. Qxg6 Rxg6 24. Bb2 Rdg8 25.
Bxd4 Rg2 26. c4 Rh2 27. Rf2 Rh3 28. Ke2 Rgg3 29. Rd1 h5 30. Bxa7 b6 31. d4
Re3+ 32. Kd2 Rc3 33. e5 Bb4 34. d5 Rxc4+ 35. Ke2 Re4+ 36. Kf1 Rxe5 37. Rc1
Rh1+ {White resigns} 0-1

My opponent commented that my play was far above my rating. This is not the first time that such comments have been made. The problem is that Standard time controls include any games that have time controls of 15 0 or longer. When I had to establish my rating for the T4545 tournament, I had to play many games over the course of a few weeks. This meant that I was playing a lot of 15 0 games. And I suck at shorter time controls. I’m absolutely horrible. My brain does not like to be rushed. So my rating for faster games is low. When I have time to think thing through, I’m not half-bad

ICC really needs a separate rating for longer games. Something for games 30 0 and longer, I think. My rating for such games is probably in the high 1300s, or possibly even in the 1400s. I don’t know. I wish I did.

I’d like to play some longer games over the course of the next few months, outside of the T4545 tournament, and get my rating up. I don’t like feeling like a sandbagger.

Luckily for the PatzerBoyz, Wang won his game, as did our first board. It’s all up to you, Chessaholic. No pressure!

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!

Hot Streak

I am on a bit of a tear on RHP these days. The guy at work told me that he can’t seem to climb to the 1700 mark. Every time he gets close, he loses a game. Last time he neared the mark, he dropped two in a row to me, which caused his rated to plummet.

As of Monday, he was at 1696, so I challenged him to a game, telling him that I would be a spoiler again. And indeed, I was. Check out my mad skills with the King’s Indian:

[Event "Challenge"]
[Site "http://www.redhotpawn.com"]
[Date "2008.02.28"]
[EndDate "2008.03.06"]
[White "PeteyD"]
[Black "GuyFromWork"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. Ng1f3 d5 2. g3 c6 3. Bf1g2 Bc8f5 4. O-O e6 5. d3 Ng8f6 6. Nb1d2 Bf8d6
7. b3 Nb8d7 8. Bc1b2 O-O 9. e4 dxe4 10. dxe4 Nf6xe4 11. Nd2xe4 Bf5xe4
12. Qd1xd6 Nd7f6 13. Qd6xd8 Rf8xd8 14. c4 Rd8d3 15. Nf3e5 Rd3d2 16. Bb2c3 Be4xg2
17. Bc3xd2 Bg2xf1 18. Kg1xf1 Nf6e4 19. Bd2e3 f6 20. f3 1-0

He really wanted to prevent me from pushing my pawn to e4, so he loaded up his pieces around that square. I was able to maneuver equal forces into the area, so when I pushed e4 I knew I would come out of the resulting melee no worse off than even.

However, he played 10. .. Nxe4 instead of Bxe4, which set him up to trade a piece for a pawn. I clung to my two pawn advantage for dear life, and when he saw I wasn’t going to give up the advantage, he resigned.

I am just playing out of my mind lately. I’m sure I’ll be going on a massive losing streak sometime soon, but I’m obviously really enjoying the winning streak for now.

BTW – my RHP rating jumped to 1440 after this game.

Round one of RHP 2008 Championships heating up!

And I’m neck-and-neck with another player in the bracket. Only the player or players with the highest score move on to the next round, and it looks like I may have to win my last two games in order to do so. I think if I win both, I will at least be assured a tie for first in the bracket.

So my last two games are a bit more tense, but I currently hold slight advantages in both. I’ve been playing very good chess (for me) recently, and confidence is high. Sometimes, I think that’s half the battle.

In other news, the PatzerBoyz are wrapping up our first T4545 tournament, and we may actually go out with a win! Good luck to Chessaholic this weekend! No pressure, buddy.

If you’re interested in the tournament standings, you can view them here. Personally, I finished the tournament with 2 wins and 2 losses, and I’m pretty happy with how I played. One of my losses was pretty ugly, but it taught me a lesson I won’t soon forget, so it was probably worth it in the long run.

I look forward to getting the team together for a go at T37. There is talk of a U1400 section for the next tournament, which would be totally sweet. We were the perpetual underdogs (way, way under) in T36.

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.

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.

My first T4545 game: a WIN!

This afternoon I played my first Team4545 league game. It was a well-fought game. My opponent and I were well-matched, but I managed to pull out the win. Here’s the PGN:

[Event "ICC 45 45"]
[Date "2008.01.27"]
[White "fuzzface"]
[Black "PeteyDaddy"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Opening "Queen's pawn game"]
[ECO "A45"]
[TimeControl "2700+45"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. g3 g6 3. Bg2 Bg7 4. Bg5 O-O 5. c3 d6 6. Qd2 c5 7. Bxf6 Bxf6 8.
e3 e5 9. Ne2 cxd4 10. cxd4 Nc6 11. O-O exd4 12. exd4 d5 13. Nbc3 Be6 14. a3
a5 15. Rad1 Bg5 16. f4 Bf6 17. Qc2 Rb8 18. Qb3 b5 19. Nxd5 Bxd5 20. Bxd5 Qb6
21. Bxc6 Qxc6 22. Qc3 Qxc3 23. Nxc3 b4 24. Nd5 Kg7 25. Nxf6 Kxf6 26. a4 b3
27. Rd3 Rb4 28. Rfd1 Rd8 29. d5 Rd6 30. Rd4 Rb8 31. R1d3 h5 32. Rc3 Ke7 33.
Rc5 Rb4 34. Rxb4 axb4 35. a5 Ra6 36. Rb5 Kd7 37. Rxb4 Rxa5 38. Rb7+ Kd6 39.
Rxb3 Rxd5 40. Rb7 Ke6 41. b4 Rd1+ 42. Kg2 Rd2+ 43. Kh3 f6 44. b5 g5 45. Rb6+
Kf5 46. Rxf6+ Kxf6 47. fxg5+ Kxg5 48. b6 Rb2 49. b7 Rxb7 50. Kg2 Rb2+ 51.
Kh3 Rb3 52. Kg2 Kg4 53. h3+ Kg5 54. Kf2 Kf6 55. Kg2 Ke5 56. h4 Rb4 57. Kf3
Rg4 58. Kf2 Ke4 59. Kg2 Ke3 60. Kh3 Kf2 61. Kh2 Rxg3 62. Kh1 Rg4 63. Kh2
Rxh4# {White checkmated} 0-1

It looked like he would be able to push his pawn on the queenside, but I pushed my pawns on the kingside and managed to get him into a mating pattern at move 44. Well, he did have one out. He could choose to lose his rook instead. I figured that he would resign, since being down a rook so late in the game is a nearly insurmountable disadvantage. However, he chose to battle it out until the very end. It took me a bit, but I was able to get the mate.

This was a huge win for me, and for my team. As a result, the Patzer Boyz pulled out a draw against a team with much stronger ratings. Go Boyz!

I really enjoyed the 45 45 time controls – I didn’t feel rushed (most of the time) and as a result was able to think more deeply about each move. The game took about 2 1/2 hours to play. Finding time for such games is really tough, which makes them a luxury for me. It’s something that I can look forward to each week.

I’ll take a little while to savor this win, and then I’ll start preparing for next week.

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!