I won my CVTV tournament game against Krimi, being better in the opening, then winning, then time-trouble hit him, then me, then I was losing and then I won.

I played some 5-minute chess and my rating plummeted about 150 points in 1 session. Terrible! I just picked a few points back up today. Here's a cool tactic I spotted- can you find it?



Here's the full game.


Actually, after the 'tactic' (when my opponent resigned), he could easily play on with 10...Rh7. If 11.Nxf8 then 11...Nxf8 defends the rook.

It's been a long time since I last wrote here and much has happened.

I've had a recent run of bad results. I've dropped around 50-80 elo by a few different metrics (chess tempo, and various ICC ratings). I think the reasons for this are mostly related to me allowing outside factors to affect my performance. I've had a lot to occupy my mind from my personal life and have been tired becasue of these things too. Still... on the plus side most of those are dealt with now and it's onwards and upwards!

I'm trying to improve my mental attitude and toughen up but it's not easy. In my last CVTV game (against Detroitman) I recovered well from a bad opening, got a winning position but wasn't able to recover from a blunder, going on to commit more errors. In my defence, I think my negative attitde to the blunder was extinguished quite quickly. The problem was more the clock in a worse position. I didn't realise how exposed my king was and paid the price. A bigger question is: why did I make the blunder? I actually did a quick check before playing my move, but too quick! I missed a simple 2-move tactic from my opponent and the reason for this was time-management.

So I need to continue to work on my attitude and add time-management and speed of thought to the list. Again, on the plus side I think all of these are moving in the right direction but it's going to take time and effort for it all to pay off.

Next up is MoeJoe in CVTV 6 (in 2 days) and I've also entered for the next Team 45/45 league on ICC which I will again treat as "serious" tournament games- researching opponents beforehand and analysing the games in detail afterwards. That begins in about 2 weeks. In the mean time, I want to spend more time on ChessTempo and also study my endings. This year is all about working on the basics and building myself a strong and stable chess foundation.

Good luck Mate, Glad you're personal stuff has been dealt with, I would love to see some videos of your 45-45 analysis.

The analysis of the previous tournament can be seen here on CVTV. My wiki (http://www.chessvideos.tv/wiki/index.ph ... %27_Videos ) has the details. I will of course be making new videos starting late-February.

I've started my job as physics teacher at the same school in China. The pressure and workload has shot up since when I was teaching English so I'm going to have much less chance to play chess. However, the 45/45 league starts next week so I am commited to playing at least 1 LP game per week for the next 6. I played a couple of games on FICS today, and am happy with how my chess is progressing, at least in terms of the opening: I'm getting at least equality with both white and black in most games. See here for my latest 2 games (25 min + 7 sec/move) viewtopic.php?t=10054

Been watching a few chess videos, but not many. Not done any study at all- too busy with school and social appointments. I want to work on tactics and the endgame, and also to do some analysis of (very) classic games. I have an idea to do a series profiling some of the old greats, starting all the way back with Greco! Whether I'll ever get round to it is another thing!

Having stolen many ideas from Katar/come up with them independently, I'm going to steal another!


Online Rating (ICC/FICS): 1900
Openings : -50 (this used to be -150 or something!)
Tactical Ability : +50 (this is another area where I've made big strides in the last year or so)
Positional Play : -50 (particularly in closed positions)
Endgame Technique : +50
Speed Chess : 3
Consistency : 1
Tenacity : 2
Overall Aggressiveness : 9
Against Strong Players : 7
Against Weak Players : 3

Strengths: When I play well I am a match for players who, at least by rating, should be far too strong for me. This has lead to tournament victories in the past. The endgame is also one of my strengths. I generally follow sound principles and play Classical chess although I'm not dogmatic. My simple, direct and aggressive play often makes opponent's uncomfortable.

Weaknesses: Where to begin!? Although I can play well, sometimes I play horribly! I particularly become overconfident of my position and neglect my opponent's ideas (both tactical and strategical.) My results are also heavily affected by my mood. I went through a very rough patch in my personal life last year and results suffered badly as a consequence. In addition, I tend to "fold", rather than fighting like a devil when I get a bad or "lost" position and need to defend!

Overall: "When he was good he was very very good and when he was bad he was horrid!"

Today I shamelessly wasted my day playing blitz. It felt good! Like the pot Noodle ads say back home "It's dirty and you want it!"

Work life has been very stressful lately, with my pupils facing their first set of exams. My work life is still doing quite well, but I'm very tired and my chess is in a serious slump. I've gone from ~1920 on ICC to ~1770 in the space of about 6 weeks. In serious games I have lost my last 6 45/45 games, 5 of which were team games in a proper league. I feel pretty bad for letting my teammates down and pretty down about my chess in general. Going to take a break from it (barring remaining CVTV tourney games) and come back to it when I have more time/inclination.

I miss OTB games and human contact when it comes to chess. I do have some motivation to read books/watch videos, but none to play online.

i predict a reversal of your fortunes after our game tomorrow!

Don't let China get you down too much! I've found that the winters bring a bit of a funk, but when the sun comes back things start to get better. It's also tough when the schools want you to add a different subject than what you get used to with the English classes.

Anyways -- enjoying watching your progress. You're inspiring me to stop with my blitz addiction and start studying for real!

加油！

p.s. What part of China are you in, if you don't mind my asking?

Well folks, it looks like I'm back in the game (already)! I have watched a couple of chess videos over the past week or so and have played a bit of online chess too. I was a bit rusty to start and lost a lot of games. Again, I've played far too much blitz but today I re-passed 1600 in the ICC 5-min pool and believe me, that's tough to do. I also played a couple of long games today and won them both convincingly. Having said that I lost 2 or 3 in the past week or so- so perhaps it balances out? Anyway, today was a good chess day.

Things are going okay outside of my chess but really I still have some things to do to really cement my teaching and make sure I'm really on top of things. I'm keeping my head above water but I feel it's not long until I make a real breakthough and start being organised enough to really have things planned out. I feel like it's a bit week-to-week and day-to-day. Other than teaching, I've been spending quite a bit of time with mates (especially drinking and eating!) also, I've been doing plenty of cardio workouts at the gym and am on my way back to fitness. Well-I'm already fitter than average, but I have high standards for what I call "basic" fitness and I'm not there yet but am on my way. I'm also progressing well with my Chinese studies although no Chinese girlfriend to teach me the fun way yet! Yet...

Okay, I just broke 1700 in the 5-min pool- WTF!? Even though it may not reflect my true strength that's a ridiculous rating to reach after 840 5-min games of hanging around 1500!

Started looking at some Staunton games- all from 1840, before he was quite at his peak. Good, fun games and not all wins for Mr. S.

I have wasted quite a lot more time playing 5-min blitz and have hit another new high- 1778. Clearly, having an agressive opening repertoire that I'm beginning to get to grips with is helping my play. I'd like to play more long games, but it's very hard to play slowly on the internet! I have some bad habbits.

I'm happy with how my chess is going despite some clear gaping holes in my knowledge, technique and tactical play. I think I am steadily closing those gaps and improving. These 2 games illustrate that I'm no longer in the class of my opponent (rated 1670). We were playing 30-minute games on ICC, but both played way too fast (another problem in my chess).



In the game above I completely outclassed my opponent. He got caught out in the opening tactically and tried to attack with too few pieces. I had my whole army ready but didn't need it and obliterated him.



In the second game my opponent sprung a surprise opening on me. I played against it with far too much contempt, no doubt with a bloated head from the first game. My opponent could and should have had a better position. +/- Despite this, his poor move Bc4 allowed me a big advantage and I simply developed and won the game easily, again giving mate in less than 25 moves.

I feel ready to hit 1900 again on ICC very soon, and thence to that 2000 magic target! Tally-ho!

I am currently in Germany visiting a friend but he's fallen ill so we've delayed our trip to the Alps. Since he's recovering, we played a bit of poker and he's currently leading me 2 games to 1. Today we played some chess- but he hasn't played much before so I played blindfolded. I was white. The game is included below.



What can I say? I'm very happy with my play!

My first FM...



[Event "ICC 5 0"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2012.08.27"]
[Round "?"]
[White "IshanR"]
[Black "Killabeezonatak"]
[Result "1-0"]
[BlackElo "1705"]
[ECO "B06"]
[ICCResult "Black checkmated"]
[NIC "KF.06"]
[Opening "Robatsch (modern) defense"]
[Time "22:37:51"]
[TimeControl "300+0"]
[WhiteElo "1638"]

1. e4 g6 2. Nc3 Bg7 3. f4 f5 4. exf5 d5 5. fxg6 hxg6 6. Nf3 c5 7. d4 Nc6 8.
dxc5 d4 9. Nb5 a6 10. Na3 Nf6 11. c3 dxc3 12. Qxd8+ Nxd8 13. bxc3 Ne4 14. Bb2
Bg4 15. Bd3 Nxc5 16. Bxg6+ Kf8 17. O-O-O Na4 18. Kc2 Nxb2 19. Kxb2 Rc8 20. Rd3
Nc6 21. Nd4 Na5 22. h3 Bd7 23. Nf5 Be6 24. Re1 Nc4+ 25. Nxc4 Bxc4 26. Rde3 b5
27. Nxg7 Kxg7 28. Bf5 Rcd8 29. Rxe7+ Kf6 30. Bg4 Rd2+ 31. Kc1 Rd6 32. Ra7 Rhd8
33. Ree7 Bxa2 34. Rh7 Kg6 35. h4 Rc6 36. h5+ Kf6 37. Rh6# {Black checkmated} 1-0