2nd RCC vote chess game

An interesting benoni like King's Indian Defense, where we played white.

Knight Moves

Chessgames.com puzzle of the day for October 20th, 2012 was very interesting. It was from Lewi vs Adamski at the 1969 Rubinstein memorial. It is black's 18th move.

There are a lot of interesting things about this position.

• f3 is potentially weak if the e2-pawn is removed. Black ...f3 safely locks in white's light square bishop.
• h3 is a weak square
• White's queen and rook are in a knight fork geometry
• White's king and the c3-square are in a knight fork geometry
• The key e-pawn is only defended by the Nc3

It is a hard problem, but try to solve it before you look at the game here.

A club game, of a sort

Our local chess club has a presence on Chess.com, where we recently played a very interesting vote chess game. We made lots of comments, so it was more of a consultation game.

TCCL 2013 first round

Rochester brought three teams to this years Twin Cities Chess League. We have arranged the teams according to rating, so we have good, better, best.

We were lucky in that a team dropped out of the gold division, so we have a team in each of the three divisions gold, silver, and bronze. This will allow us the maximum flexibility in substitutions, as a player can play on teams in different divisions.

I am 4th board on the team in the Gold division. I pulled out the Pirc against another class A player, and he chose the 150 attack. It ended up in one of those opposite castling pawn storm races, and I managed to get my attack in first. I should be facing some stiff opponents, but probably not as difficult overall as last year. (when I was playing 1st board on a team in the silver division)

All three Rochester teams won their first match.

Here is a problem position from my game, black to move and win. Tthere are several good moves that maintain black's advantage (including the one I played), but only one that puts the game away.

highlight to see solution: 23...Nbc4 24.Qa4 Na3+ 25.Qxa3 (25.Kxb2 Qc3+ 26.Kc1 Nec4)

Funny

It's been a busy month and I have neglected the blog.

I have been writing about chess almost daily, but it has been commentary on ongoing vote chess games on Chess.com. The local chess club has a group there, and the discussion has been fun. I think both games will form blog posts when they are done.

I have been playing a lot of online turn based chess, and the games have not been interesting. I am climbing up the rating ladder. I am currently in the Sept tournament on Chess.com in the 1600-1800 section.

I have learned that the light square bishop is important to keep in a KID exchange variation. I was definitely missing the piece in an online correspondence game that is almost finished.

I did not play well in the Noel Skelton Labor Day tournament. I was low on sleep and had a lot of allergy problems. I need to pay more attention to feeling well at a tournament.

I have finished the first handful of games correspondence mode on chess.com. For the most part, they have been pretty straightforward: play well and wait for the big mistake. Most of those have come early.

The Rochester Chess Club group match against the "Galactic Empire" put me on fifth board (out of 5), because I was still unrated. I am playing black against an experienced online player rated in the 1600s, and he is playing very strong. I think I made a mistake early. I gave up my light square bishop for a knight, and he went into a line like the KID exchange, but better for white (the c-pawn is not already committed to c4). I wonder how he feels about the game, as my rating has climbed from 1200 (starting) to 1608 in my first five games.