Thanks rob, I can't wait!

Still haven't had a chance to look at it yet, sorry. This job is taking up a LOT of time.

Here is a game I've just finished on a correspondence chess site. According to my opponent he is 2085 USCF rated thus I am rather proud of beating him, although he made his moves rather quickly which lead to a quick victory in 20 moves. Nevertheless I'll try to analyse it
I'll continue analysing ALL the games I play and try to put them here, however my PC doesn't work at the moment thus I don't have access to my Fritz10 so computer analysis is more than welcome!
thanks for the comments



The first critical position where white has a choice. The usual ruy lopez move c3 would allow the famous Marshall gambit which honestly I don't really want to go into! Thus I've been playing the so called a4 anti-marshall. The idea is to reduce the effect of it, mess up black's queenside a little bit, and give the rook on a1 some play as well


8. ...b4

Black decides to release the tension and gain some space. And although this gains space it does give up the c4 square which could be used by a white bishop to attack a6, a knight on c4 in some cases wouldn't be bad either. Personally I don't like it for black as it just doesn't seem flexible and neccesary.

10.a5!
A common idea in positions of the kind. Preventing Na5 and fixing the pawn on a6 as a weakness while the b4 pawn is also seperated and easier to attack. The drawback however is my a5 pawn although it gains space could turn out into a weakness

10. ...Bg4
This seems a little bit odd although it makes sense as black counters the c3 d4 plan and intends the freeing d5 as now since my knight is pinned there is not enough pressure on e5. Black also has ideas of playing Nd4. Another option worth considering seems to be Be6 to oppose my strong bishop

11. c3
This is the move I really wanted to play as I didn't really like neither Be3 nor Nbd2. It stops Nd4 gives my bishop a retreat square on c2 and prepares and eventual d4 once white is ready for it. The problem though is that the d3 pawn might become weak after black opens up the d file. Actually from here on I think black should have gone d5, he would get some space in the center but white would have the c4 square

11. ...Rb8
This might have some ideas of messing up my pawn structure as my queen would be overloaded. Bxf3 for example and I would have to take with the g pawn as my bishop would be left hanging otherwise. Still I didn't really mind that as then my e pawn would be rock solid, I would have two bishops and an open g file. I didn't really see how could black attack me

12. ...Re8
Initially I thought black is trying to get an improved version of the d5 advance as now his rook would defend the e pawn. But from here on black plays a slightly odd manouver Re8 Bf8 which is common in ruy to support the e5 pawn but here I am not entirely sure it's any good as i didn't play d4 yet.

13. Bc4
This looks like an awesome square for the bishop. I was just wondering how good for white is h3 g4 idea. But I think after h3 black's best is to oppose my strong lightsquared bishop with Be6 thus it seemed like h3 is a pointless move. My intention was to remove this bishop from the line of fire by the black rook and force black to make a move he doesn't really want to play. If Ra8 then his rook is no longer on an open file and if Qc8 then he can't play d5 anymore, at least he has to prepare it

15. Bg5
eveloping my bishop to an active square. In fact white is threatening to mess up black's kingside as my knights would get easy access to the f5 square. I think black can't allow this

16.d4
Finally! I think white has a clear advantage now

16. ....exd4?!
I think an inacuraccy as if black wanted to trade here he should have taken on c3 as well just to get the b4 square for his pieces and open up the b file. Besides Now my queen could hide on b3. So bxc first seems to be more accurate way of accomplishing this idea. Moreover, now I have a mobile pawn center. One might argue that black can put pressure on it and that now the Re8 Bf8 is justified but still I think white has a clear edge here.

17. ...Bxf3?
This is certainly wrong. White has a center thus black has to brake it down! So Bh5 to g6 seems like a reasonable idea to pressure white's center. Actually white doesn't mind taking on f3 with the g pawn as it would only solidify white's center. Moreover, white has the bishop pair now! Truth to be told I didn't see that I can take with the queen here but I liked white a lot after gxf3 as well. Once I got this position Qxf3 looked like a crushing reply, thus I went for it. I think white is just winning after that

Although pretty short I put a lot of effort in this game, I really liked it. It seemed that black was just pushing his pieces around without a clear plan in mind, although I might be missing something that's my impression.

I decided to take a chess break. 1month or so... I think I really need that and I'll miss this site for sure, see you later

Have fun! We'll miss you, but we'll be here for you when you get back

Thanks Josh I am kind of back. I didn't manage to make one month though but four days or so did the job

This is a position from a correspondence game of mine


It was probably the first time when I sat down and seriously analysed a position. After pushing wood for some time I made a conclusion that most likely (unless there is a fantasy like variation I missed) white is just winning here

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Thus I've just realised how important such analytical work is. One can learn so much

Actually I was inspired to try this sort of stuff after checking our NM Dennis' blog. Here is a sample
http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/files/b ... draft1.htm
That's how true correspondence chess should be played!

I decided to get my butt kicked by Fritz11 every once in a while. Here is the first game


30min per side with 10second increments although the silicon brain played with an opening book
Here is the pgn analysis if anyone is willing to copy that to their pgn readers

I decided to add training questions where I went wrong or could have played better so that I could solve them later. So far 2 training questions in this one

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If it is black to move either e3 pitching the pawn at white or Kh7 with the hope of getting the f8 rook into the fight (from h8) or Nd7 getting developed suggest themselves as the best practical tries. White's king is not that secure either.

Crash

Thanks Crash
Yes, white has to be careful. Luckily it's white to move thus I took on c4 and blocked any e3 ideas with Be3

With white to move black does seem just dead. The pawns on e4 and e5 block black from mounting any kind of defense with his pieces. If they were just to disappear off the board black would be better off.

You seem to notice that so quickly. I guess that's why you are a NM and I still have a long way to go

It turns out I can print books at my mom's job! Awesome. All it takes now is to get the pdf version and I have the book

And today I figured I would study a master game. I wanted something from ruy lopez thus picked up "How to play dynamic chess" ( which was lying among other books for ages as it was a bit over my head ) and just picked up Smyslov's game against Reshevsky.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1125562

Damn good game by Smyslov. There are a lot of instructive moments both in the middlegame and the endgame.
Another thing I started doing is putting critical positions into a chessbase file and adding training questions so that I can look up the games later and solve the ! and !! moves and remember the patterns. Here is the pgn

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If you are going to look it up I advice you use a chessbase reader or something of the kind so you could see the pretty arrows

We all have a long way to go unless our name is Anand or Kramnik.



Here are some pgn files to get you started.

http://www.gambitchess.com/semi/db6.htm

I have been creating a binder of ECO type tables for openings that I am interested in, generated using SCID/ChessDB's Opening Report feature. I just gave away half of my book to the high school teammates of one of my students who were interested in learning the lines from the Queen's Gambit and the English.



A very interesting game. (I looked it up in the Beim book which I also have on my shelf.) My recent study has concentrated on games in particular openings but I have to learn to work in some study of games from books such as this one. Fortunately I have a large pile of very good books waiting for moments when I am ready for such study. I do need to start doing more reading and less buying of such books or make a bargain with myself that I must read one book before I can buy another one. The problem with making such bargains is I know that I will break it as soon as I run into another good book.



Off to Easter lunch with the family!

Crash

Thanks! I'll have to check that out


Happy easter!

Well I haven't written in here like a million years but I figured I would post my games now and then in the hope to hear some suggestions. I think I won't post my analysis as people just don't have time to go through every single thing in the forum. What I am hoping for are some general ideas, themes I could have used in my games.
Finally, I have a 15min team tournament coming up on september yeah it's a long way of! But I'll start preparing for it in real small steps and in such a long time I should be in decent shape having in mind I can't spend as much time on chess as I used to. So I'll mostly play 15mins to get the feel of the time limit and some 5mins to get the feel of my new opening repertoire ( I am trying to switch from 1. ...c5 to 1. ...e5 and d pawn openings as well). I am also still playing my cc games

So I've just finished this 5min exchange ruy lopez which I have to admit I wasn't very happy about. At first it just didn't feel right then somewhere in the middle I was really happy about my position and finally at the end I just totally blew it. Comments more than welcome!

Rather than 16 Be5 what about 16... c4 17. Nd4 Bd7 where you can try to ram that doubled c pawn down his throat to tear open some files on the Queenside? Or even 16.. f5 which is faster and simpler? I haven't looked at any of it, but a Kingside "pawnstorm" might have caused some interesting things to happen as well since his Knight can't do anything over there it'd like your a piece up on that half of the board. Seems like your Bishop pair needed some breathing room to take over the position.

It just seems like your position was good to me until you played 16... Be5 and your Bishops never really got any "fresh air" so to speak to show their Bishop pair crime fighting powers. (And by crime fighting I mean open position dominance of course )