Good Old London

A TL Game from last night

First Thing First: Bragging

Another lucky win in the TL and a new All Time High ICC rating. No major achievement in itself but any record calls for bragging!

I will start looking at the game and post some notes!

The Gospel of Evaluations

I have recently been playing a certain UCO Opening as Black which Mr Fritz frowns upon (+0,95 +/-). This very opening have been quite good for me as Black in semi serious games vs Shredder's iPhone App. Over the last ten games, I have had an performance of 1500+ which is much higher than my ICC rating.

How much should one humble patzer care about theory and evaluations?

Another interesting aspect is the "Blunder Distribution" for players of different strengths. Looking at the changes in Evaluations in any ordinary game by yours truly, you find the evaluation dropping but about a piece every twenty moves or so. That is indeed scary!

So, if I find an opening that I enjoy playing and the opening (as far as I know) is free of traps or wild forced tactical lines. Is that a cure or remedy for Opening Phobia? You often hear or read that you should stick to validated solid lines that will that will be your guide and support throughout your chess career.

Well, my career might find a peak and a plateau at 1700ish some years down the road (loosely guesstimated by a quote from Pandolfini(?) claiming that anyone capable of thinking three moves deep is able to reach 1700) and I think that any opening that avoids donating wood and glaring positional sacrifices should be OK for a 1700 future me.

So, Evaluations are funny stuff. What does it really mean to be down by almost a full pawn (according to Mr Fritz) in a position that in no obvious way is doomed to loose a pawn? I guess Mr Fritz is betting on Soft Values such as "more space" and perhaps "superior control over the center" but these are features not forever and is it absolutely sure that someone capable of dropping a piece every 20 moves is capable of cashing in on "more space"?

Dear Reader, Have I cured my Opening Phobia? I Dare not Say but I will keep playing Weapon X for a while. I hope to be able to post some interesting game with the stuff in action pretty soon.

The second game of the season

Right, the first league game got censored! I had to play it with a 3y0 running wild in my room. A friendly attention seeking "Daddy-Daddy-push" made med drop a piece on an unplanned square and it was all over before move ten. My flirts with UCO will have to wait for their fifteen minutes of fame. I have another TL game on Sunday and another game as White (I think?)

More to follow!

To Caissa

Dear Caissa, Yes, I have been a good patzer wasting time reading opening books and watching Opening DVDs. Thank you for assisting my practice by inducing a fair amount of Opening Phobia into my limited brain.

I have come to the conclussion that there are semi solid reasons for walk down randomly along a new set of opening lines.

As a humble token for my devotion to patzerhood, I have also donated a few coins to the chess book industry.

My first Team4545 League game is scheduled for Sunday and I just might try the new scary stuff in the very first game.

UCO, here I come!