Cannon Fodder

After being typecasted as cannon fodder on the ICCF Web Server for quite some time, I can finally brag about some success.

Here is the game with some notes:

And the companion game:

Lessons Learned --- Again!

My Name is Paddy. I'm a Blunderer!

Sometimes I overcome blunders easily! Yesterday I  played a training game and blundered badly. After just nine hours playing with the kids, watching a funny movie and enjoying a glass of wine with some great cheese, I was able to see some interesting moments in the game.

As part of my new approach to playing, I will go for sharper games. Of course I missed a lot of good moves both when playing and when analyzing the game but there are great learning experiences in that as well.

How? Well, the idea of annotating your own games often feels overwhelming and too demanding. "How on earth am I going to find all the errors in my games? I'd better spend the time on shopping for opening books instead!" Totally off the target! You annotate your own games in order to improve you own chess. That is the main purpose and not primarily to make perfect annotations (whatever that is?).

My ambition to play a completely new repertoire had a fairly short lifespan. I decided to make some changes before trying the stuff in a single game. Embarrassing? Not really! It was a sort of well researched decision and furthermore just a minor change.

The training game had a few interesting moments and offered a few nice insights. I think I tend to overestimate the winning chances for the side with the initiative. After working for some hours with the game, I asked Mr Houdini for a few evaluations and they were not as optimistic as my own.

To read useful advice cannot hurt but quite often the full, if you like, force of the advice is hidden until you can apply the advice in a for yourself relevant situation. Sometimes two or more "advice" have to fertilize each other. Take for example Lasker's "when you see a good move then look for a better" and "the best way is not always the fastest". Let's try to tie all loose ends in this post together with one curious observation from the training game.

Look at the position after Black's 19th move (see below). White has to regain material but how? Qxc7 is obvious but look at the sneaky Qc6! A pretty neat move and it all comes together! One single discovery made the whole annotating effort to a soothing experience and I just might have transformed a few pieces of knowledge to something remotely similar to a skill. Something to be used in a future game!

(How do I set the initial diagram position using Aquarium?)

Another Grinding Affair

Another morning work-out grinding affair and another fine example of my weak endgame skills. Please note that you can make the moves with the arrow keys after making the first move.

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H

WeakDelfi - Farbror

0-1, 2011.11.06.

[#] 1.e4 b6 2.Bc4 Slightly surprising as the bishop often is needed to defend the pawn center 2...Bb7 3.Nc3 e6 4.Nf3 Bb4 5.O-O Bxc3 6.bxc3 Bxe4 =A pawn and a slightly messed up pawn structure should compensate for the bishop pair 7.Qe2 Nf6

[7...Bxc2 8.d4 Ba4 = Another won pawn but at the cost of many tempi. The pawn defect will not go away easily and could be used as a target after finalizing development.]

8.Bd3 Bxd3 9.Qxd3 O-O 10.Ba3 A few tempting alternatives. Unclear which to choose. 10...Re8 A natural looking move as Re8 is likely to be played soon anyway

[10...c5 Restricting the bishop and grabbing space;

10...d6 Increasing control over the center and clearing the d7-square for the knight.]

11.Rfe1 c5 12.Qd6 Qe7 13.Qg3 Nc6 14.Nd4 Nxd4 15.cxd4 d6 16.dxc5 dxc5 17.Bb2 Red8 18.Bc1 ?! Hiding the Bishop? 18...Qd6 19.Qxd6 Rxd6³ Better pawn structure, a pawn ahead and better activity adds up to an advantage for black 20.Bb2? Rxd2µ and Black has a won game. 21.Rec1 Nd5 22.Rab1 Nb4 ? Misscalculation. The c2 pawn can not easily be won right now 23.a3 Nc6 24.Bc3 Rd5 25.Rd1 Rad8 26.Rxd5 Rxd5 27.Kf1 Nd4 28.Rb2 Re5 29.Bxd4 cxd4 30.f4 Rc5 31.Rb4 Rd5 32.Ra4 a5 33.Rc4 g6 34.Rc8 Kg7 35.c4? Rc5 36.Rb8 Rxc4 37.Rxb6 Rc5 38.Rd6 Rd5 Not as strong as I thought. White's King is a little to close to the doubled pawns 39.Rxd5 exd5 40.Ke2 Kf6 41.Kd2 Ke6

[41...Kf5 Stronger! 42.Kd3 Kxf4 43.Kxd4 h5! ]

42.Ke2 Kd6 43.Kd3 Kc5 44.g4 a4

[44...h6 Control over g5 is important]

45.g5 Kd6 46.Kxd4 Ke6 47.h3 Kf5 48.Kxd5 Kxf4 49.h4 Kg4 50.Ke5 Kxh4 51.Kf6 Kh5 52.Kxf7 Kxg5 53.Ke6 h5 54.Ke5 h4 55.Ke4 h3

[55...Kg4 ]

56.Kf3 Kh4 57.Kf2 g5 58.Kg1 g4 59.Kh1 Kg5 60.Kg1 Kf4 61.Kf2 Ke4 62.Kg3 Kd3 63.Kh4 Kc3 64.Kxg4 h2 65.Kh5 h1=Q 66.Kg4 Qf1 67.Kg5 Kd4 68.Kh4 Qg2 69.Kh5 Ke5 70.Kh6 Kf5 71.Kh5 Qg5# [0-1]

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