been a nasty week - profiles I used to be able to beat in Chessmaster regularly are now consistently pounding me. It comes down to a refinement of my blunder issues where I'm now not hanging pieces, I'm just getting checkmated in 15-20 moves by a Q sacrifice on the back rank or a N/Q pounding thru my king's defenses.

so strange - it's like I lost 50% of my brain or something - totally incapable of handling even average opponents right now though my FICS is ok - but I probably only played 15% of my games on there.

Very scary - like a month's worth of work went away for no reason - what a bummer.

RB

Hi RB,

Most of us have experienced something like that at some time or other. I'm not sure why, but many folks (myself included) have speculated that when you're in the process of rewiring your thought processes you go through a "this part of your brain is intermittently off-line" phase until the rewiring is complete -- and the practical result is you play worse for awhile before you get better. Don't get discouraged, you haven't lost a month's worth of work. Just keep at it and this too shall pass.

Good luck!

=wild=

been an ok week - trounced a coworker about 3 times which I expected - LOL - finally got my groove back on the the ol' Chessmaster or else my software turned the blunder feature back on (think it was the latter) - Figured I'd write an update while waiting to take my truck in for shocks.

FICS - 1372 (+33)
CTS - 1215 (-30)
Chessmaster - 1268 (a new high from a 200 point downswing)

also started playchess.com - won one out of three games, and I was 20 seconds from dying on the one I won, but for once it wasn't me with time trouble. When I get a rating on that I'll enjoy it but most of those games feel like blitz games - clearly I'm gonna have to start my blitz training - I just don't feel comfortable in any game under 15 min.

I'm still weeding my way thru Seirawan's tactics training - truth is I know a lot of it, I just can't spot it in 9 seconds for CTS - I've been locked in the 1220's more or less for 2000 problems now, so I'm just not making progress yet there - maybe a few hundred more - While it hasn't paid off vs. most opponents except amateur ones, it has kept me from getting trapped in as many as I used to. I find myself playing a game, setting up analysis, and reading a few pages while it finishes, and moving on.

I want to focus on the KIA/KID and have a book coming in as well as Skylark's book that tries to focus on it as a complete system. Spent a few hrs putting all the games in that book into a PGN file for later review, but it's mostly other GM's games so I'll be reviewing a lot of pro's games, which is good, and I have about 12 hrs of Nigel Davies training on the Pirc/d6 for black that I'm going thru - that'll probably be it for openings for now as I just want one or two I feel really comforable with is all.

Still trying to learn finer points of Fritz software, but I'm not impressed with chessbase's database searching - I found 90 percent of the KIA's book games online at the 4.2 mil online database, so that saved me a few days of punching in moves manually - but I'll wait a few days for that.

rb

Hi RB,

A big trick to doing your best on CTS is how you use those three seconds after you see the new position and the computer moves. If you spend the time looking at the rating of the problem and how your rating changed after the last puzzle, you're costing yourself maybe 100 points off of your rating. As the song goes, "You never count your money while your at the table; there's time enough for counting when the dealing's done."

What I've found to work best is go get into a routine where you quickly go down a mental check list: Can I check him? Can he check me? Are any of his pieces undefended? Is any opposing piece the only thing protecting two other pieces? Are there open files and diagonals my pieces can use? Is his king position weak or attackable? Are any of my pieces under attack?

Now that's quite a lot to go through in three seconds, but the stuff I started with is the most important since you know there's a tactical shot out there that will do something nasty to your opponent. The value is that once that routine becomes second nature, you can use it in real games to see (or avoid) tactical shots.

If you find the frenzied pace at CTS too annoying, you could try chesstempo.com (CT). You can play rated either with (standard) or without (blitz) a time limit and get a rating for each mode. Or you can just solve problems unrated. The problems on CT tend to be more ambiguous in that the answer may be a mate in three and there's a more obvious mate in four or an easy win of a queen out there (that's how I get 95% of the ones I miss wrong), but they're gathered from real games (including a lot of amateur games) and the positions feel more like real game positions than the ones on CTS do. I do most of my puzzle solving there unrated since I'm more interested in working my mental muscles than in worrying about ratings or speed.

Good luck!

L8erz...
=wild=

I make it a point not to look at the challenge rating, either, when I do CTS. I also click every problem as my last. I'm not interested in chasing an exponential curve, I want to fundamentally understand the position and glean as much from the puzzle as I can. So if I don't solve it I have the option to review the puzzle again, and if I do solve it I often replay the puzzle, examining it in more detail to make sure I understand fully what's going on. True, I don't blow through as many puzzles as some, but that's okay.

Like I said, this is probably just me, but I'm really not interested in chasing that rating. I see a lot of posts where players obsess over their CTS rating. That's okay for them if they like doing it, but as for myself I'm really more interested in understanding what I'm learing than obsessing over rating. Just me, I guess....

The downside is, if your rating on CTS doesn't go up you don't get to see the more interesting problems. The nice thing about CT is that they throw the whole range of problems at you.

I got about 20 points today on CTS - Something I never used to do that I did is that I've sorta been looking at the cost/effects of the problem instead of it's rating - see how much I get if I win or if I lose -

if it's a BIG point gain/minor loss, I just try to find the answer and go - if it's very little point gain and massive loss, like within 9 seconds, I know to look for a fast fork or checkmate or be sure I get out of check. It actually gives me a direction to start looking in.

lately if I fail I've been redoing it unrated about 4-5 times - I swear I've had a couple repeat on me - ah well.

and in my head I'm going "White to move, black to fail"

RB

been a few days - got into a poker swing (4 cashes in a row in $10 tourneys and counting) - but I got thru the core of the tactics book I was reading (Seirawan's book) and have started his Winning Chess Strategies -

FICS - 1405 (+33)
CTS - 1301 (+76!)
Chessmaster - 1256 (-12) - went on one of those chessmaster streaks again but a lot calmer this time - got to 1295 before losing and halted it about 1236.

not enough games on playchess.com yet to get a rating - I am also playing a coworker in a correspondence game that I finally gained material on - (he sacrificed to ease his position, and where his pieces were I couldn't see any way to continue the attack) - I will post a replay of that when I get done with it, but what has struck me so far was my ability to hamper a couple pieces (or rather he hampered them) and I was able to bring all available units for attack - studying some of this attacking chess is getting me more comfortable with attacking in the middle stages instead of grinding it out to the endgame and trying to get a favorable edge thru material.

strengths -

1. - better at piece development - with the openings I've been using, I tend to get the B/N's out there decently, but often the queen and connecting the rooks tends to be secondary, but I have definitely made a little progress, even with the little opening theory I've studied.

2. I guess my tactical sight has improved - a lot of times now if I miss the puzzle, I can safely get it the 2nd time with no effort as I'm usually on the right track but out of order in my moves. - Got to 1300 three times and couldn't get past it but this time I got to 1301 and signed out - nice new benchmark anyways after grinding at 1220-40 for so long - and thanks to Wildman for the tips.

Weaknesses

1. - My blitz chess is horrendous - still at 900 give or take and unless I'm in a 14 min. game I have no decent way to really improve the rating all that much, but I'll hold off right now on looking for blitz books.

2. - Still can't beat Fritz 11 on it's lowest rated mode (1475) and can only beat it in handicap mode - boooo

3. - Still can't figure out half of Fritz's features or how to tone things down enough to figure them out - starting to figure out game analysis though.

4. - I don't know at what point I should seriously start to work on specific openings, but I've been struggling to get that started - maybe after the strategy book. I had one game the guy crushed me - and he opened with 1. e3 and just moved all his pawns to the 3rd rank as he was developing - very unusual opening and I couldn't handle it.

anyways - had some progress - more to report next week, I hope. oh yah, it's friggen -15 degrees right now - grrrr..

RB

That sounds like the hedgehog or hippopotamus. Those openings shouldn't be underestimated. They remind me of the rope-a-dope strategies of Ali. For the first few rounds it looks like he is losing but he is just waiting for the opponent to tire himself out.

Don't worry too much about having an extensive opening repertoire yet. As long as you have a vague idea of what is going on and you follow the opening principles (Develop pieces, control center, protect king), you should be fine.

As far as your opponent's silly opening, those can be tough (as Crash said). Openings like this are obviously not best, and will probably hurt the person's long term results, but that doesn't mean you're always going to win because they played 1.e3.

I have a lot of trouble when my opponents play funky openings like that. I even have trouble in games where I know my opponent is doing the wrong thing and I am trying to punish him for it. For example I had a hell of a game the other day where he never castled and used his King very actively in the middlegame after a queen exchange. He managed to restrict my pieces so bad with his king Knight and rook that it was unbelievable, I was baffled the whole time that I wasn't just crushing his "terrible" play. I have to say though the guy was good coordinating his King and minor pieces and might have won the game had he used all of them (left his rook on h1 for 90% of the game).

As far as openings, I'm not really the best person to talk about it, but I've found that for me it's best if I don't study openings too extensively, but I picked something I liked and learned a few key ideas behind it and then learn a little bit after every game because I'll look up where the opening went and what the most common replies were in chessbase through the reference section. (The Chessmaster Opening Book is alright and I use it sometimes, but I don't trust it as much as I do the GM games on Chessbase)

finally beat Fritz in a rated game - lowest level, that is - lowest I can put Fritz to give me a decent game is 1475 - (the handicap modes are crap) but 1475 seems tougher then I remember from CM or FICS - took me 8 tries to get it right -

had a bad week at playchess.com - I seem to be playing too fast - so I let my time run down to 2 min. vs his 8 - but tried to think thru any bad decisions a bit better.



rb

another week gone by - on my way to Vegas for 3 days so chess will be lighter - started two new corrospondence games on Gameknot.com and I'm already up two pawns worth in one with a guy who plays 40 games it's interesting to note how I now pay attention to which bishop I took and potential weaknesses for him down the line.

I absolutely have to study my KIA/Reti and Pirc when I get back - I've virtually finished winning chess strategies and will be going thru "How to Reassess your chess" for the club.

no certain scores - pretty sure I'm around 1400 on playchess and FICS with 500 points lower for blitz, and got up to 1315 on CTS with a new high of 1319 - but mostly I lost the last couple days but I don't think my head was totally there.

seeing as how I'm wanting to learn attacking chess better instead of just grinding/trading to a material advantage in the endgame, I thought this was a good replay to post and salvage from the end of another thread I made -



6. Nc3 - plan is to play Bg5 and e2-e4 to put pressure on d5, possibly trade queens, and knock out his chance to castle
8. Ne4 - this time, I immediately noticed the weakened square (strategic) and then the tactical possibilities (the fork) - guess he had a chance to withdraw the bishop but he didn't see it - whiskey gets a piece early -
12 dxe4 probably (and 11. Ne4) made me feel a bit queezy - e4 is pretty undefended though moving the knight fixes it, but nothing can immediately hit it, so I let it go - Fritz later told me Nxb7 was weaker and I didn't even consider it - I didn't want to open up a hole on that side for the rook and leave my Knight that far undefended
14 Nh4 is a setup to go the hole on f5
16 Nh6 - at this point I considered Qb3 and Nh6 going for a checkmate - I felt like playing more aggressive in this situation instead of the usual trade pieces to the endgame. downside is I'm only using two pieces and giving up the d file to the black rook - upside is I get a free rook on the d8 retreat, and a potential checkmate possibility further down, with most of his attacking pieces on the wrong side of the board to get me
21 bxc3 - screw passed pawns
22 Rad1 - my plan was to trade rooks and move the N up to f7 - once he moved his rook I saw the mate after looking closely for about 40 sec to confirm it

valentine's day is tomorrow - humbug - cancelled the vegas trip three hrs after my flight was delayed and another 10 hrs till I could get there - got full refunds, came home, and traded poker for chess and warmth for -5 degrees.

well, a picture is worth a thousand words...so here are some pictures - first from CTS - went thru about 80 problems tonight and I'm pretty much losing any problem about 1440 right now so I'll work harder on solving those without worrying about the time crunch



and then from Chessmaster X



playchess has me in the 1300's as well, though my blitz rating is back down to 1250 or something - but I feel confident that I might squeeze a few more points out of the upcoming "Reassess Your Chess" discussions that will be starting in the CV book club. Since this is essentially a middle game book, and my middle game is
my weakest link, I should make some nice progress - I think it's safe to say I was about an 1100 player when I started and I have added about 200 points to my overall rating.

Certain ideas that seem new to me I'm writing out for notecards as reminders - (like the 7 imbalances in a chess game to look for, conditions need for a combination)

made my first game analysis video - http://www.chessvideos.tv//forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2154, and I'm playing correspondence chess now on gameknot.com, which has a lot of opponents and works out ok for me.

I have GOT to get more then 4-5 moves of my chosen openings down, so I will work on that next week as well as continuing to keep up with the book club and I plan on being active in the discussions - I should go thru more videos for KIA and Pirc as well as I haven't really taken advantage of the videos we have out here.

I'll end this with a game I've played with my first gameknot opponent, who happens to be a 1500 rated coworker - officially, it's not done, so no advice posting on how to finish, but as of this morning it was essentially finished, though I'm still waiting to run a computer analysis until I get the resignation.



9. Nxc6 - truthfully, this may not be a good move - I wanted to remove some pieces off the board right away, seeing as my opponent really likes the Sicilian and I know virtually nothing about it. And looking back, I see only one potential defender I can bring into play so it may not have been the time to fight for d4

13. Nd5 - I was sorta angling for e7 and a bishop fork - any capture on d5 allows me to recapture with the pawn and bring another piece (the rook on e1) in - this was the plan

16. Rxe4 - the knight capture caught me off guard - not to say I hung it, but I didn't think he'd trade for it right now - at this point I saw a nasty combination of 16...c3 17 bxc3 Bxc3 and a fork that leaves me down the exchange - my only saving grace was to give up the pawn on b2 and block with my rook, which lost less material. I then drew up a tenative 9 move attack for checkmate on the K side which may or may not come to pass, but I had to try something to make up the deficit and it would involve trading dark square bishops and moving pieces over to the h file.

18. Qd4 - I was totally surprised at my opponent's moves - he has accidently locked his bishop in the corner with the pawn - this was his key mistake, and though I'm down a pawn, I've taken that bishop out of the game for now and I'm looking at a serious Kingside attack with my freed up black bishop which I was getting ready to exchange for his to free up space kingside

21. dxe6 - my opponent later said he thought he had a better defense for the e.p. move then worked out - in any case material is now even, but it was another whoops that helped me out a bit. Looking at tearing a hole in his protection and bringing the rook over from b1, while being careful of the potential pin on d4-g1

23. bxf8 - I think I had a fairly decent attack plan in my head (kinda fuzzy now, this was weeks ago) but his willingness to sacrifice material for space seemed like a decent trade to me - with his bishop still out of the picture, it would be like gaining both his rook and bishop for my bishop, so I took it - I then decided to create my kingside pawn chain (potentially locking the kingside but preventing black moving to f5) and moving forces over

28. Qd5 - I prevented the Q/K pin but not the R/K. However, preparing ahead of time, I anticipated this as a potential issue and saw I could move my Q up to defend and possibly get a trade now that I was up in material

30. Ra5 - In retrospect I wanted to go to b5, which worked ok because I ended up there after the rook and bishop danced a bit

33. Rxc5 - I saw where I could maintain a material advantage and clean out the queen side for my extra pawns, so I took it - meanwhile, I've really created a monster on the kingside, and I see if I can get to the back rank, the king is in serious danger while I could then advance e6 - I kept looking for a reason to push it, but it would be undefended and by staying there, it virtually immobizes black's counterplay

34. Rxc5 - not Rxc3 Rc8 hurting me in the exchange.

37. Rd8 - K has to go to g7 - if the K stays on the g file, I've got my Q - it looked a bit tricker with Kh6, but after dancing with the enemy rook and losing the c2 and a2 pawns, I still had my Q and if he stays on e8, I have a clear file for the c2 pawn and optimal placement of my rook

40. That should do it, methinks

Wow, based on this post it seems like you're making a lot of improvement. Congrats!

I like your annotations in the game you just posted. Shows you're thinking about your game a lot, which means rapid improvement down the road. Anyways, some general thoughts about the game:

I don't know a whole lot about the opening, but you played it fairly logically. I'm not sure about Nxc6 for the same reasons you listed.

I'm curious what your reasoning was behind 10.h3. I wasn't sure where you were going with that (I'm not saying it's a bad move though).

13.Nd5 was an interesting idea although you might need to watch out for 13...Bxd5 14.exd5 Nxd5, when you have pressure on e7, but black has a lot of pressure on the queenside (and I'm not sure if you can actually win the e7 pawn...but if you can, that would give you a great position).

You make an excellent point about 17...c3. While it looks like a decent move, it's actually terrible. It puts the b2 bishop out of the game, making your dark squared bishop a powerful attacking piece.

20.g4 was a great idea.

After you take on e6, you're just crushing. Also, black makes it easier when he gives up the rook for a bishop.

You played a very solid game, and taking on c5 on move 33 was an excellent decision. Nice work!