Played 3 more games yesterday. 2 of them were against players significantly weaker than myself and I really had no problems at all. Just mopped up the material and won both games. My last game was against a Master...which I lost. So i went 2-1. not so bad.

I've been working through Silman's Complete Endgame Course. I continue to marvel at Silman's work. He is an amazing writer. In order to test myself on the various concepts, I set the positions up against Deep Fritz (yes, my superpower multi-processor computer makes fritz quite the nemesis) and I play them out against computer. I figure if I can draw the philidor position against fritz, I can do it against anyone. So far it has worked out very well and I am feeling more confident in my endgames.

7 games today. I actually played pretty well. Had some really interesting endings. 2 of which I played exceptionally well. (Thank you Silman's endgame course) I only scored 2.5 but all the players were atleast 200 rating points stronger than me. So i consider today a success.

Here is the final position from the draw I had with an 1850 player. If you can find a way to win, i'd like to see it.

White to move.

EDIT: I was white.

just broke 1600 USCF this past week. yay

Congratulations and Merry Christmas!

not a bad day at the club on thursday. 3 wins 2 draws and 1 loss. back up to my all time high of 1614 uscf. Even better though is I feel my quality of play is increasing. I'm really starting to fight hard and give all my opponents really tough games regardless if they are significantly stronger than me or not.

This week just keeps getting better and better. My game was featured on Chesslecture.com!!!! I was the first winner of the "Learn from your fellow amateurs" series. I feel like a giddy school girl.

Wow, that is really something. Congratulations!

thanks. it was really exciting to check the site and see that my game was made into a video. it is very cool.

All you had to do is play Kg2 and then Kf3 and slowly push his king back and then you just snatch off his pawn and win

Kg2 is met with Kg4 and f3 is still unavailable. Kh2 is met with Kh4 and I still can't see how white makes progress

That's a really frustrating position.

For white anyway. Its always different with rook pawns. I think in the Dvoretsky book they show the position where an extra bishop doesn't win even when the bishop covers the right corner if you have opposing rook pawns and the weaker side has his king in position. Dvoretsky says that you can add an extra two pawns to each side and in each case the verdict is the same. Draw.










Of course in the last position 1.Kf6 Kf8 draws while 1... Kh8?? loses to 2. Kf7 # mate.

played 5 games at the club yesterday. All G/30. played 2 different 1700 players with each color and played against an 1800 player. A pure split today. split with the two 1700 players and drew the 1800 player. I really should have gone 3-2, I had a crushing position against the 1800 player. oh well, I'll get him next time. My play is getting much much better.

So February 18th was my 1 year chess anniversary. The club didn't meet because of Presidents day (more or less) but we did meet today. And I played quite well. I went 4-1 today which will push my rating over 1700!!!

Alright, I haven't updated this in a while so here we go.








I still suck at chess. The End.