Chess Game on ICC - Quick win against Philidor Defence

For your entertainment, here is a rather Quick win against Philidor Defence

Poisoned pawn in a rapid game

PUUNTUUPPAAJA- DDT3000, 2015
Black just played b7-b5, setting up a trap.
Question: can White take on c6? Why not?

Basic Tactics in the opening

Here is a simple combination that I overlooked in one of my blitz games, but a computer was quick to point out when I ran the game through lichess blundercheck:

DDT-Michael-player, ICC 2015

 White to move (Black just weakened f7 square, so there should be a way to take advantage of that!)
Solution is here: http://en.lichess.org/CgQFr5pf#24

5 Passed Pawns

How often do you find a chess endgame with 5 passed pawns running up and down the board and most of them being on the verge of promotion? Both kings fight for stopping the pawns and also fall prey to random checks upon pawn promotion, as well as discovered checks of a lone black bishop that also tries to bring some method to this madness and support its own pawns while constraining the opponent’s passers …

An analysis of an ICC game led me down the odd path with this super sharp position being the culprit and Black’s defense relying on some study-like computer–style precision.

analsyis of DDT3000-hell, ICC 2015

8/8/2P3P1/8/P4p2/1kb2K1p/8/8 b - - 0 57

 Black to move and make a draw (the variations are not trivial for either side, so I suggest you analyse it for a few minutes to find the best moves)

Simple Chess Tactics – Loose Pieces Drop off

DDT3000 – sargonlives, ICC, 2015
 White to Move Solution

Online Chess Servers – How to Download your Own Games

Different online servers provide ability to download your games, which is useful if you want to analyse them yourself, add a game to your opening database, etc.

Lichess gives you a link like this:

From what I recall, PlayChess automatically stores all your games locally, which is convenient, unless you use several machines, I am not sure  how it handles this case.

ICC, at least the Blitzin interface, makes you download each game one by one, which is ridiculous, time consuming, and must be done very frequently, as this is only possible for the last 20 games you played.

Is there a better way to get your games on ICC, or on other servers? I’d like to hear if you have experience with other systems.

ICC Rating Graph

I only recently learned about this feature available at https://www.chessclub.com/cgi-auth/web_dev_perl/graph-rating.pl 

Here is my graph for games played with time controls 15 minutes and slower for the past few months. The feature is fairly limited in options, but fairly useful nonetheless!

Playing Chess online – Game Pools with Increments?

I am continuing to play 15 + minute games online in my quest to play 100 “Standard” games online this year, and I prefer games with small increment (15 +2) to avoid being flagged in ridiculously trivial positions, and also to emulate what it’s like to play in real tournaments, which also use increments. I mostly play on ICC, but I am occasionally struggling to find a game with my preferred time controls.

ICC has game pools with 3, 5 and 15 minutes per game, where it’s often easier to quickly find an opponent.

But there is no 15+2 pool or anything similar, which I think is a shame.

I’d be curious to hear if there is a playing site that has such a feature.

UPDATE: as of July 30th, 2015, it seems that ICC heard this request from many other users as well, and added 25 + 10 and 10 + 5 pools, which roughly is what I was looking for! Here is their newsletter.

Best Place Online for Playing Rated 15 minute Chess games at the expert/master level?

Question for the readers - I am in the low 2200 in my national, FIDE, and ICC standard ratings, and I want to get a few 15 minute games a week on ICC to meet some of my yearly goals.  However, lately am finding I have to wait for a long time to get a game against opponent rated above 2000 on ICC. Otherwise the quality of games tends to be lower than what I see in the local chess tournaments, so this is a less than optimal situation. Is there a better option in terms of other playing sites?

In addition to ICC, I am open to looking at ChessPlanet, Lichess, PlayChess, newly launched Fide playing zone, etc, but want to hear if any of the readers have better experiences with getting slower games?

Double Piece Sacrifice in a Blitz Game

Roman – Monchess, 2001

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bg5 e6 7. Qd2 a6 8.O-O-O h6 9. Bxf6 Qxf6 10. Nxc6 bxc6 11. f4 d5 12. exd5 cxd5

 White move

Hint, the initial piece sacrifice to open up the center is easy to spot, but the follow up involves another sacrifice – for the sake of getting both of White’s rooks into the game as soon as possible.

SCID Feature – Personal Chess Rating Graph

I have always been wondering why many commercial chess programs don’t let me visualize my rating progress from my own database of games, and was glad to find that free chess database software SCID has this feature. Here are a couple of my charts:

My ICC rating for games with “standard” time controls (15 min+):

The drops usually correspond to times when I had to re-start my ICC account and gradually grow the rating from scratch.

My CFC/FIDE rating:

These graphs not only shows periods of rating rise and fall, but also periods of declined activity, not bad at all for a free program! My CFC rating clearly shows that most of my chess growth happened in 1998-2001. That time range coincides to lot of data points, confirming that to improve – you need to play more!

History of Chess on The Internet

Just for fun, I decided to compile the record of how I experienced Internet chess, your mileage will of course vary!

1998 – free internet chess club (FICS)allows to play games on the internet any time
1999 – chess databases like on sites TWIC get updated on a regular basis and people can get access to them on a regular basis
2000 – major tournaments are broadcast on ICC with thousands of people following and commenting on games
2000 – chess portals like Kasparov Chess begin to publish regular articles
2001 – online 4 and 5 piece Endgame TableBases such as Nalimov are accessible
2001 – online chess lessons become as popular as the ones in person
2004 – instructional chess videos begin to get published by companies like ChessBase on a large scale
2005 – even non-major tournaments like Canadian Open get broadcast over the internet via DGT
2006 – YouTube allows regular chess amateurs like myself to share their analysis with others
2009 – commentators like Sergei Shipov switch to video format for sharing their analysis
2010 – playing online chess on a mobile device such as IPhone becomes a viable option
2010 – live chess ratings get updated on the nearly daily basis
2011 – websites like whychess.org broadcast major chess events with live engine analysis
2011 – Live, multi hour HD full game broadcasts of events like World Cup are streamed live with up to date commentary
2011 – Fritz 13 is released, allowing users to upload and share chess analysis via their online database
2012 – What is coming ahead??

Tactical Themes in Sicilian Defence

DDT3000 – perikitosax, ICC, 2009, 15 minutes per game

Black to Move. Can Black take on ‘e4’ with the pawn?

I posted several days ago a great game by Tiviakov, where the rook sacrifice on the ‘f’ file was the winning idea after White played ‘f4-f5’ in Sicilian Scheveningen. I then remembered having played something similar myself on ICC not that long ago. Well, such games do stay in the chess player’s memory and warm his heart at night, so that’s indeed what has happened, and I was easily able to find that game.

Black made a similar mistake in my game, underestimated White’s initiative and captured with 23…fxe4?? (23…Nc2!? 24. Rxc2 Qc4! was correct). After 24. Rxf7! he had to resign on the next move.

White won after 24… Kxf7 25. Qxh7 1-0 with mate to follow.

Black really has to watch out for this theme in this line of the Sicilian, if it works, it is usually quite deadly!

Strategy for Gaining Rating on Internet Chess Club

Internet Chess is mostly for entertainment, but most players today play more games online than over the board. So it is something we need to treat rather seriously if we want to improve from online games. Well, I am not a very good blitz player, and I am not in very good chess shape, but I noticed recently that I played quite a few blitz games on ICC without losing or drawing any. In fact my winning streak lasted so many games that there is not a single loss or draw in my ICC history, which spans 20 last games. Bobby Fischer’s winning streak in 1971 was 19 straight wins, but I had a couple of aborted games here, so his streak probably is still more significant. In the process my Blitz rating went up from 2052 to 2192.

Not to over-celebrate, I wanted to make a few observations to explain how this could possibly happen:

1. I had lower rated opponents than myself in all of those games. This is not too helpful for gaining rating, but surely helps to make the streak longer
2. I only played 1-2 game each day. I tend to lose focus/motivation if I play many blitz games at once.
3. I used a convenient mouse, which helped with concentration
4. I played these games not at my home, but rather at a place where I have very few external distractions
5. I was lucky in a couple of those games
6. I played my regular openings with both colours
7. I played most of those games with the same time control
8. I did not surf the web or listen to music while playing, minimizing self-induced distractions
9. I did not play in tournaments during these 3 months, so again, I got used to the time controls
10. I started to particularly care about the outcome once I set the goal for 20 games without a loss

Now that I got this blog entry out of my system, I can go and lose a game with a clear consciousness!

The Importance of not Giving up In Chess

Here is a blitz game where I was losing, but was able to come back to win. This only goes to illustrate that in online blitz games, having a winning position in no way guarantees a full point, and tables typically turn many times. It is thus important to stay focused till the very end.
DDT3000-ERADICATOR, ICC, 2011
Black to move

Black played 26… Bxe5 which seems to be winning, but since White can’t recapture it because of back rank mate. I was about to resign, when I realized that I can stay in the game a bit longer by playing 27.g4

Black continued with winning two pawns, but because of opposite coloured bishops, the position is not so clear.
27… Bxh2+ 28. Kxh2 Bxg4 29. Re8+ Kg7 30. Bd4+ Kh6 31. Be3+

 Black to move. White has some counter play, but after 31… g5 Black can continue to play for a win

Instead he blundered twice with 31… Kh5? 32. Rh8 Bf3? 33. Kg3!

Black to move. Rxh7 is a mate threat, and he has to give up a piece and went on to lose.
Checkmate in the endgame is rare, so the irony is that on the first diagram White seemed to be forced remain down a piece to avoid back rank mate, and only several moves later – Black was in the same boat, except for this time there was no way to save the piece.

Pawn Structure Chess – when your Opponent Surprises you

DDT3000 – sgilroy, ICC 2011, 20 minutes per game
Black to move.
Here I expected 25…b5-b4, fighting for ‘d4’ square in the typical fashion for the Spanish game. But my opponent surprised me with a different pawn move, as he instead chose to fight for ‘d3’.
25…c4 I thought “Oh no, I’d better stop Ne6-c5-d3”, so I played
26. Bxe6
Black to move. Which recapture is best? My opponent surprised me again, and I must admit, I was so shocked that I blundered immediately and resigned within a couple of moves. Several positional considerations need to be considered:

• Black is eyeing f3 with his queen and knight, but for now it is well guarded
• White may later transfer his knight to ‘d5’ via ‘e3’ so ‘d5’ needs to be covered
• Black’s rooks currently don’t control any open or semi-open files, but they obviously would like to!

How would you recapture on e6?

Crushing Attack – Splitting the Chess Board into Two Parts

In his books and videos – Garry Kasparov has often emphasized the skill of splitting the board into two halves. After that - an attack on the side where you have a numerical advantage is very likely to succeed, even if you are temporarily down in terms of overall material on the board. Once I was taught a good lesson in a blitz game, that illustrated this thesis.

aggro-Garryncha, ICC, 2003
  White to move. Black just played 18…Nb4. The White pawn on e5 prevents Black’s Queen knight and Rook from taking any part in the action on the kingside. White quickly took advantage of this situation.

19. Bxh7!! Kxh7 20. Re4 (20. Bf6!! forces mate even faster) 20... Qxc2 21. Bf6!

Black to move. He is completely helpless even though he can grab the second extra piece.
21… g5 22. Rh4+ Black resigns 1-0

It is interesting how White delivers attack on the dark squares, as Black’s bishop and queen are uselessly guarding the light ones.

Online Tactics – Find the combination

Garryncha – slipperyfish, ICC, 2004
White to move. White has a powerful battery on the g file, but Black controls the center. That control however is fragile – the Queen defends the ‘d7’ rook, which defends ‘d5’ pawn, which in its turn defends the ‘e4’ rook, which also defends the ‘e5’ pawn. This sounds like a house of cards – and it is, White just has to find one precise move!

PrezAcc – Garryncha, ICC, 2004
Black to move. The goal of the rather unexpected combination is to lure Black king into a mating net. I am glad that I was able to find this trick in the blitz game, and not sure if it would have occurred to me today.

Tactics – Attack with Opposite Coloured Bishops

BONO-Garryncha, ICC, 2004
Black to move. White has weak spots on light squares on d3 and b3, so the tactics shots are in the air

garcikrespo - Garryncha, ICC, 2004
Black to move. Again - the powerful bishop on the long diagonal is aiming at the exposed White king, and it is the matter of destroying the pawn protection…

Blitz Tactics – Find the Combination – Black to Move

Dirk – Garryncha, ICC, 2004
Black to move. Black has a positional advantage, as White has a weak pawn on d4 and his king is exposed

Garryncha – Styxon, ICC, 2004
  Black to move. White had just protected the pawn with Re1-g1, missing a powerful shot

ghost-buster – Garryncha, ICC, 2004
 Black to move. Black has a positional advantage, and White’s pieces are a bit uncoordinated. How to take advantage of it?

All 3 positions are examples from my online games that played a few years back. Players rarely find deep strategic plans in their blitz games, but simple tactical shots take a second or two to spot, so players found the best move in all 3 of these games.