Diary of a Patzer

Valmont

My second season of club chess will be starting shortly and I think it would be interesting if I post the games up as I play them. I'll be studying Yusupov's first book this year also, and I'm hoping that in March there will be a noticeable difference in my play. I'll start by posting my 'best' game - a draw at the Leeds Chess Congress last July. I consider it my best game because I didn't do what I usually do and blunder away a decent position. In fact after this game I notched up a few wins in my old club's summer tournament and have been playing slightly better overall. My ECF grade is a very paltry 67 and this game was against a 102 (I have the black pieces):

The Boring Immortal

EnPassant

I copied the game into Rybka and it thinks you are winning if you play g5 on move 29 instead of Rg7.

White's rooks are completely stuck - the a2 rook has no moves and if the a1 rook moves then the a2 rook is en prise, and white cannot even try to swap off queens because after c x b3 then the a2 rook is lost.

Rybka's idea seems to be to
- swap off the black g and h pawns for the white f amd h pawns, leaving a white pawn on g3
- swap off the bishops
- double rooks against the g pawn
It's hard to see how white can defend against this plan - white is completely passive.

Good luck in the league!

Valmont

I've just finished the second chapter of Yusupov's Build up your Chess 1: The Fundamentals which was on various mating motifs. I'm finding the examples and quizzes very difficult but I've scored 'Good' on both so far. I haven't played any competitive classical games lately but I've been able to apply these motifs in a number of blitz games, so I suppose that's evidence I'm learning something. The trickiest question on the second test was from this game played between David Bronstein and Paul Keres, white to move.

Ciaran

Valmont wrote: »

The trickiest question on the second test was from this game played between David Bronstein and Paul Keres, white to move.

Does Rf4 win? With Rh4 and Qh6 in some order to follow.

namenotavailablE

My guess of the correct move from Bronstein-Keres:

White plays Rf4 (intending Qh6 Rg8; Qxh7+! and Rh4++). It doesn't look possible for Black to play Qc2 (in response to Rf4 since the threat to the rook is ignored by playing Qh6 anyway). Similarly, Black doesn't get anywhere with Qc6 as e5 protects the pawn and the Qh6 threat remains

Valmont

Rf4

would have got you the full three points (and after which Keres resigned). I had the idea but wanted to play

Qh6

beforehand; I had anticipated

g5

but didn't see far enough ahead that f2 would become fatally weak.

EDIT: I have my first club game this Friday coming so I will be studying as much as possible this week.

Valmont

My first win of the season! Our team won by one point and if you look at the game I was extremely lucky. I was up on material but when my opponent lost on time the tide had turned in his favour. I haven't played against the King's Indian Attack before and I have to say I found it uncomfortable.

Lucena

Congrats on starting your diary, hopefully it will help you become a little less patzerly.

Regarding the game you won (congratulations!), I just had a quick look through it, so take what I say with a pinch of salt.

You took a lot of time to castle, maybe this could've been done earlier, perhaps ...Be7 instead of ...d4 and then 0-0. I think you mentioned that your ECF rating is in the 60s, and I've noticed that a lot of beginners/low-rated players get into all kinds of trouble by not castling earlier. Of course, there will be exceptions, but until you get stronger, concentrate on getting the king out of danger.

On average, on what move did you castle in your last five games?

Valmont

I've looked at my last five competitive and I castled on average at move 14. Psychologically, I know I start thinking 'if I castle now I will lose the initiative and give him the opportunity to mount an attack'. The other problem is that my king is never in too much danger when I should be castling but it just makes problems for me sooner or later. I will make a resolution to castle before move 10 on my next league game (Nov 3rd).

Lucena

Just had a quick look at my 5 most recent games available in an online database (my computer I use for chess is playing up) and I castled, on average, on move 6.4

In one game I waited until move 10 to castle, but that's because I was waiting to see what my opponent would do, and when I castled on move 10 I had the option of castling short or long.

Generally speaking, you won't lose the initiative by castling as your opponent has to do likewise. Generally speaking.

I'd imagine if one did an analysis correlating number of moves before castling and playing strength, there would be a dip as the players got stronger, with possibly a small rise towards the GM end of the spectrum (vaguely U-shaped)

Valmont

Another win on board four tonight. It was an extremely ugly game where I should have really lost twice but my opponent failed to convert their advantage in the middle and end-game. My competitive record since July is now five wins, two draws, and zero losses.

As usual I have been frightened into studying more - I sort of gave up on chapter 3 of the Yusupov book. The questions are just too hard and too time-consuming but I will get through them tomorrow evening hopefully.

eclipsechaser

Valmont wrote: »

Another win on board four tonight. It was an extremely ugly game where I should have really lost twice but my opponent failed to convert their advantage in the middle and end-game. My competitive record since July is now five wins, two draws, and zero losses.

As usual I have been frightened into studying more - I sort of gave up on chapter 3 of the Yusupov book. The questions are just too hard and too time-consuming but I will get through them tomorrow evening hopefully.

I think you played that one very well bar move 28 which was a giant clanger. 28... Nc3 looks like the natural continuation. It forces him to trade his bishop into a completely lost endgame. You have to give up d2 but pick the pawn back up straight away and you're a piece up. Since the pawn on d2 is dead anyway, that's a good way to use it.

Other than that, it looked very nice. Well done.

Valmont

28...Nc3! That was the move - Thanks.

Valmont

I am having a dreadful week of chess. My blitz rating is down one hundred points, as is my chesstempo rating. I am also into the third week of the chapter three of the Yusupov book and for the first time ever I experienced a strong urge to flip my chess board over and fling it out the window. Yusupov says the test at the end of the chapter is difficult but there are so many lines to consider for each position it is taking me an eternity to get even close to what I think might get me two or three points at the end. I hope to finally finish it off tomorrow but I have a mysterious headache that develops just when I sit down to analyse. I may just do my best in an hour or two and move on regardless of my score - rereading the chapter is no use because it is just a mind-bogglingly complex sequence of variations from a very sharp game played by Morphy.

Lucena

I understand your frustration, Valmont. Working on Chapter 8 ‘Centralizing the Pieces’ and so far I’ve only got one problem correct out of eight!

For the first few problems, I looked at the board with no idea what to look for, nothing for my mind to grab hold of. It reminded me of trying to study maths for my Leaving, and not even being able to start on the problems, not even being able to have a stab at it. I definitely understand your frustration!

I think the problem is the subject matter, which is very broad. If you look at the tactical chapters, it’s all fairly straight-forward, you work on (say) the pin, and then you solve some problems related to that. Ok, there might be some difficult calculation involved, but you know what you’re trying to do, even if you don’t manage to do it.
Other chapters, which are more strategic in nature, such as Chapter 3 on openings and Chapter 8, can’t really teach the player all they need to know on that theme in one short chapter. So failing the end of chapter test isn’t really a sign that the player didn’t study the examples properly, but a sign that the subject is complex. Therefore, I’ve decided to ignore Yusupov’s advice (study the chapter again) for these strategic chapters.

What I will do, however, is come back to do the problems again when I get to the end of the book. Even looking through the answers I got wrong so far though, has been interesting, and I feel I’m learning, but like learning a foreign language, it’s going to take a loooooong time before I see any real progress.

Valmont

It's gone from bad to worse this week but I finally have a game worthy of the thread title. Valmont's patzer challenge of the week: I was playing white and resigned after my next move which was extremely stupid - can you guess what I played?

eclipsechaser

Valmont wrote: »

It's gone from bad to worse this week but I finally have a game worthy of the thread title. Valmont's patzer challenge of the week: I was playing white and resigned after my next move which was extremely stupid - can you guess what I played?

My guess would be Bxd6 but I wouldn't have resigned after c4.

Valmont

No my move was even more startlingly stupid that that - I inexplicably played Bxb5 and resigned once I realised how crap it was. I could have played on but I'm sick and tired of grinding out games that are difficult only because my own blunders! My rushed calculation had me picking up four pawns for the bishop but god knows how I came to that conclusion.

Although I set the chess.com blitz setting to find players who are sub 1000 so I feel better after whooping a bunch of super-patzers for the last hour.

Valmont

I finally finished chapter three of Yusupov's Build up your Chess 1: The Fundamentals. Despite the pain and suffering I absorbed studying this chapter I scored a tidy twenty one points out of a possible thirty one on the end-of-chapter test. Considering one of the best hallmarks of real learning is struggle and difficulty, I think I've picked up a proper appreciation for punishing an opponent who leaves his king out too long, and to generally ignore going too out of the way to win a non-central pawn.

Here is the problem I took longest to solve but what is interesting is that one of Yusupov's winning lines is in fact losing. The line I predicted from the game is

1. d5...Bxd5 2. Nxd5...Qxd5 3. 0-0-0...Kd8 4. Be4...Qxd1 5. Raxd1+...Kc8 6. Bf5+...Kb8 7. Rd8#

.

However the best response to the correct answer of

1.d5

I properly found to be

1...Bg4

and I think Yusupov's reply to this is way off (of course I could be wrong, what do you think?): after

1...Bg4 2. Qe1+...Ne7 3.Ne5+-

. I don't see how white is ahead in this variation at all.

Valmont

Cycled half way across the city tonight only to find out at the venue (after a pint was purchased) that I had been given the wrong date for the league match. :mad:

EnPassant

Valmont wrote: »

I finally finished chapter three of Yusupov's Build up your Chess 1: The Fundamentals. Despite the pain and suffering I absorbed studying this chapter I scored a tidy twenty one points out of a possible thirty one on the end-of-chapter test. Considering one of the best hallmarks of real learning is struggle and difficulty, I think I've picked up a proper appreciation for punishing an opponent who leaves his king out too long, and to generally ignore going too out of the way to win a non-central pawn.

Here is the problem I took longest to solve but what is interesting is that one of Yusupov's winning lines is in fact losing. The line I predicted from the game is

1. d5...Bxd5 2. Nxd5...Qxd5 3. 0-0-0...Kd8 4. Be4...Qxd1 5. Raxd1+...Kc8 6. Bf5+...Kb8 7. Rd8#

.

However the best response to the correct answer of

1.d5

I properly found to be

1...Bg4

and I think Yusupov's reply to this is way off (of course I could be wrong, what do you think?): after

1...Bg4 2. Qe1+...Ne7 3.Ne5+-

. I don't see how white is ahead in this variation at all.

I think

after Ne5 forking the Queen and Bishop, the threat is that after the queen moves to c8 to stay protecting the bishop, then after N x g4, Qx g4, white can play Q takes e7 mate with the B on a3 protecting the queen. Or instead of N x g4 maybe white could play B x e7 and if K x e7 .. Ng6 double-check with Qe7 mate next move no matter what the king does. And if black plays K d8 after Q e1+ then Ne5 attacks the queen and N x f7+ will be on the next move

Valmont

My reign of terror on the bottom board in Norfolk's third division continues unabated. My loss last week was in an internal club competition. I played the Caro-Kann because I have not lost any of the four games when I used it (3 wins, 1 draw). I'm particularly happy with this game because I won my first rook and pawn end-game (I've lost the three I've entered on equal footing). I knew I had a slight advantage after 20...Rc3 and my opponent guided me towards the point with a number of blunders but there you have it.

Valmont

I just calculated my ELO: 1352 up from 1003 this time last year. So I'm all set to beat Carlsen in about four or five years.

Valmont

Sitting down across from a ten-year old who says 'I've been playing chess for five years!" is enough to strike fear into any player. However, we're both sitting at board four in division three of the Norfolk club league for a reason.

My opponent played dreadfully and allowed me to build some nice winning tactics, which I feel are definitely improving from all the chesstempo.com puzzles I play. At one point he put his hand under his armpit and actually made a fart noise, to the delight of his friend on board three (who was also smashed). He didn't seem too interested in the game after move ten and I suspect it was more of his parent's desire that he play chess.

If I win my final game on board four tonight (playing as white) I suspect I should really be bumped up to board three but the ordering is strictly by rating only. I think I'm getting ahead of myself though, we're playing the club's own junior team tonight and my opponent beat me in a rook and pawn end-game friendly in October. I've almost finished Chapter four of Yusupov's book but I've been playing through Logical Chess: Move by Move again which I really enjoy a lot more so I'm not feeling too guilty.

Lucena

As you're playing in England, the gradings come out twice a year. The new list is in January, so if your results have been decent, you should be able to move up a board, assuming your board 3 isn't 100 points above you.

On chesstempo, what's your standard rating?

Having had a quick look at your game:

Regarding White's 'backward' pawn on d4, for it to really become backward, you should have taken on c4 straight away. Otherwise White can play either c x d5 or c5.

Couldn't you just have taken the white Knight when it moved to g5?

On White's Qd6, you should have played ...Nxf3+. Ok, in either case (...Nxf3+ or ...Nd3+) you win the queen, but the advantage of ...Nxf3+ is that you force the exchange of a further piece, as generally speaking the side ahead on material should exchange. White didn't have to play Bxd3.

Regarding Chapter 4 of Yusupov's book, stick with it. I find the endgame chapters quite tough, but luckily they're broken up by other chapters which are easier. Chapter 5 should be easier for you.

Valmont

I can't believe I missed that hanging knight! I supposed I assumed my opponent wouldn't have made a such a blunder so early on.

My rating in January would have been 115 but I lost to a much lower rated player (a nemesis who has somehow beaten me twice this year already) on Tuesday evening so I will be officially ECF 101 - still not enough for board three but I don't mind now that I was whooped on Tuesday.

I've done half of the chapter four final test and I'm not finding the simple pawn endings too much trouble. I'm back on the 'auld sod now for the Christmas season of playing various family members so I'll be back to it in January. All in all, a productive year of chess with a lot more work to do.

Lucena

Back to the aul sod meself tomorrow, only one week unfortunately. Enjoy the rest away from chess (not that it's work!) and make the most of Christmas.

I'll certainly not be taking Yusupov with me, he deserves a rest as well, and chess and food+drink don't really go well together.

Nollaig Shona!

Valmont

Well I shook off my rust last night with a draw against an opponent with an identical rating. I took advantage of his poor opening defence to gain a very strong position but after a series of wasteful moves and brainless end-game I frittered away my advantage. I find that often I'm playing my end-games with so little time I can't analyse the positions properly but I guess that is something to work on.

I haven't been doing any training other tactics puzzles as I'm very busy but I've another game tomorrow night against the local vicar who is double my rating so it should be interesting.

Valmont

Here is my game from last week against an opponent almost twice my rating (I'm 87, he's 150). I had a nice position out of the opening but took too long examining a lovely sacrifice that just didn't work and then missed a brilliant tactic along the lines of the one I thought I had the option to play a few moves earlier.

I finally finished chapter four of the Yusupov book which I failed and then passed but I'm happy I do actually understand the basic principle of the opposition in basic king and pawn endgames. I also finished chapter five on double attacks and the test was quite easy really.

Here is one of the tougher king and pawn puzzles - can you find the solution? I couldn't. White to play.

brilliantboy

12. Bxh7+ doesn't work but 12. dxc5 Bxc5 13. Qxd8 followed by Bxc6 picks up the e5 pawn. Note that it's important to trade queens before Bxc6 otherwise Black will trade and your f3 knight will still be pinned, this time to a rook.

No harm done though, those Bxh7 sacrifices come up a lot and the more you spend analyzing them the quicker you'll get at recognizing when they do and when they don't work.

Valmont

Suspiciously, while playing lots of online blitz since last October, my chesstempo rating slowly dropped 100 points to 1400. I'm sure it's subjective but I really find playing blitz damages my analytic capabilities - thinking and playing quick becomes reflexive and it takes a strong effort to slow down and play properly. I've cut back severely on blitz games and only play chesstempo now when I feel a blitz urge and surprise surprise I'm back at 1502! Does anyone else dislike blitz? When Botvinnik was asked if he ever played blitz, he said 'yes, once, on a train'.