blonde poker forum
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 28, 2024, 12:32:32 PM

Login with username, password and session length
Search:     Advanced search
2272476 Posts in 66752 Topics by 16945 Members
Latest Member: Zula
* Home Help Arcade Search Calendar Guidelines Login Register
+  blonde poker forum
|-+  Community Forums
| |-+  The Lounge
| | |-+  Chess thread
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic. « previous next »
Pages: 1 ... 11 12 13 14 [15] 16 17 18 19 ... 164 Go Down Print
Author Topic: Chess thread  (Read 340665 times)
AdamM
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 5992



View Profile
« Reply #210 on: September 03, 2012, 08:09:31 AM »

Lurker in the thread coming out.

I'd really like to start playing a bit more seriously, but there's never time Sad
I used to play as a kids, then after a break, had a regular game with a close friend of a similar standard.
I never really studied the game at all, rather, was aware that I was supposed to plan ahead and so worked it out as best I could.
Pretty much entirely self taught, so there'll be massive holes in my game.
That said, I don't think I'm terrible. Just uncultured Smiley

When I get time, I'll pick up a few of the books recommended and do a bit of reading.

One thing spurring me into action to improve, is I've taught my 7 year old how the pieces move and the rules, but I don't want to fill him with the bad habits I've doubtless got.
Logged
Tal
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 24352


"He's always at it!"


View Profile
« Reply #211 on: September 03, 2012, 09:13:44 AM »

Lurker in the thread coming out.

I'd really like to start playing a bit more seriously, but there's never time Sad
I used to play as a kids, then after a break, had a regular game with a close friend of a similar standard.
I never really studied the game at all, rather, was aware that I was supposed to plan ahead and so worked it out as best I could.
Pretty much entirely self taught, so there'll be massive holes in my game.
That said, I don't think I'm terrible. Just uncultured Smiley

When I get time, I'll pick up a few of the books recommended and do a bit of reading.

One thing spurring me into action to improve, is I've taught my 7 year old how the pieces move and the rules, but I don't want to fill him with the bad habits I've doubtless got.

Hi Adam

Welcome to the thread.

The chess season is just about to start. There will be at least one club local to you (if you are in or near a city, there will be a few) and that club will have at least one club night a week. League matches tend to be every 2-3 weeks and last one evening (7ish to 10ish). Most are in licenced premises these days.

A club is a great place to start. Much as a bricks and mortar casino is a bit daunting but within 10 minutes you realise it isn't full of cowboys in ten-gallon hats that call everyone "boy", a chess club will welcome anyone with a basic knowledge of how the pieces move and be glad to have some friendly games with you.

You can take your 7 year old with you for an hour or two if you like. There are plenty of people his age playing chess in the UK.It's a great time to learn the game, while the brain is still developing.

As I have posted before, see if there is a tournament local to you on the English Chess Federation's website and pop along to watch. All ages, all abilities on view.

We all started somewhere.
Logged

"You must take your opponent into a deep, dark forest, where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one"
AdamM
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 5992



View Profile
« Reply #212 on: September 03, 2012, 12:26:23 PM »

I did think about a club.
Trouble is, my week already looks like this (on top of a stressful job):
Monday - Junior Cricket
Tuesday - U8 football training
Wednesday - bit of Web dev for UK Poker Calendar ( Wink )
Thursday - Pub poker night
Friday - glass of wine or three Smiley
Saturday  - U8 Football training in the morning / DIY in the afternoon / Gigging with a band (starting this month)
Sunday - U8s match in the morning / Band practice or DIY in the afternoon

I might do a bit of research though and if there's something Mon / Wed when cricket finishes, I might be able to shuffle stuff around.
I think it's good to balance the physical stuff he's doing with more cerebral activities like reading / Chess / Poker (he's a killer heads up)

Wish I could get my daughter interested in any thing, but she's 12 going on 18 and sliding into teenagerness at a rate of knots Smiley

Logged
Tal
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 24352


"He's always at it!"


View Profile
« Reply #213 on: September 04, 2012, 12:52:42 AM »

There are always hight attrition levels in junior chess at about that age for girls and a couple of years later for boys.

It likely wouldn't be every week, but maybe one night, if you do get a free evening, it might make a nice change.
Logged

"You must take your opponent into a deep, dark forest, where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one"
Tal
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 24352


"He's always at it!"


View Profile
« Reply #214 on: September 04, 2012, 01:04:34 AM »

Quick one for you all: the new international ratings are out for September (currently come out every two months, but shortly every month).

Magnus Carlsen extends his lead and is getting closer and closer to the magic number Kasparov peaked at.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8451

England now has 4 players in the top hundred men for the first time I can remember. Michael Adams has been as high as 4th I believe, but is now one of a group of players from about 15-35 in the rankings that swap around regularly, as form spurts and slumps come along.

You might enjoy - or rather not - the ages of these people. Scary.
Logged

"You must take your opponent into a deep, dark forest, where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one"
Tal
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 24352


"He's always at it!"


View Profile
« Reply #215 on: September 04, 2012, 10:48:30 PM »

Hopefully I have got this to work...here is a game I played last night. Details to follow. I have the white pieces.
« Last Edit: September 04, 2012, 11:07:22 PM by Tal » Logged

"You must take your opponent into a deep, dark forest, where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one"
Tal
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 24352


"He's always at it!"


View Profile
« Reply #216 on: September 04, 2012, 11:06:34 PM »

I don't have the technical wizardry of many of the people who access this forum, so, if you are more skilled, by all means convert this to a more accessible format and reattach it. It is simply a copy of the scoresheet I took last night in the game, lifted from a Print Screen into a Word doc.

You will need to understand basic chess notation, but I hope it's reasonably self-explanatory if you aren't sure. Capital letters denote pieces moving; lowercase are the coordinates of the square it moves to. If it is just a coordinate, it is a pawn moving to that square. If there is an "x", it is denoting a capture, so BxB would be a bishop taking a bishop.

o-o is castling kingside (remember that, Millidonk Smiley ). o-o-o would be castling queenside.

The game itself was the annual friendly our club, South Birmingham, plays against our local rivals, Olton. It is used as a warm-up for the league season, as most people haven't played over the summer. I was on board 9 yesterday and played a player who was a little below me in rating, but still competent enough. I played pretty well, if a touch rustily. He made a number of basic positional errors, which made my game significantly easier.

Take a look at Black’s pawn structure after the first 4 moves. He has put the pawns on Black squares and, as they are fixed there, the light squared bishop is the only one likely to get any room in the game, so that’s the one he wants to keep. He would be quite happy to swap the dark squared bishop off, because conversely I want to keep that one of mine. So, when he plays 5.Bg4, he plays right into my hands. As the game progresses, you will see that I am able to take advantage of his weak white squares.

There was nothing flamboyant in this game, really. I essentially keep him cramped and slowly come forward with my pieces. When he draws all his pieces to the kingside, I have positioned my queen to hit those lovely white squares on a diagonal and his pieces are a bit stuck. So, when he exchanges queens to free his pieces up on move 23, I capitalize by opening the queenside and taking advantage of his lack of defence over there. This was a theme of Alekhine’s games: he dragged his opponent’s pieces over to one side of the board and, because Alekhine had all his pieces well placed, he was able to switch his attack to the undefended side.

On move 30, I play a nice tactic of swapping a pawn of mine on d6 for one of his on g5. The idea is that I open the d-file for my rook and he is cut in two. He eventually resigned, although he played on for a little longer than he needed to, as the position was lost after about 35 moves. I wasn’t going to lose it from there. 

Better pieces made all the difference in this game.

If you want a bit of fun, by all means put the game into a computer and see what Mr Shredder, Mr Fritz and any others you have think of how I played. You will see that I don’t play all the best moves, but I generally maintain an edge from pretty early on. At even a decent level, that’s often all that is required. It is easy to look at how amazingly Carlsen and the others play the game, but there aren’t many out there who can get to that level!
Logged

"You must take your opponent into a deep, dark forest, where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one"
Tal
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 24352


"He's always at it!"


View Profile
« Reply #217 on: September 06, 2012, 02:10:39 AM »

Playchess.com now has a version for Android. I have just downloaded it and am very pleased with it.

It is an excellent site in desktop for playing online. The mobile version seems absolutely fine, too.

The software is free but it costs £7 for a 12 month subscription to play (so it's £7 then!)

It automatically saves your games and keeps score for you. You play with a clock in full sight. Nice and straightforward stuff.
Logged

"You must take your opponent into a deep, dark forest, where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one"
Tal
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 24352


"He's always at it!"


View Profile
« Reply #218 on: September 06, 2012, 08:21:24 PM »

While the rest of the world is playing in the Olympiad, Magnus Carlsen has other engagements. He has been in New York, causing as much of a stir as the world's number one chess player causes in New York.

The Huffington Post has been keeping an eye on proceedings and has written this report: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/lubomir-kavalek/magnus-carlsen-storms-new_b_1855241.html?icid=hp_search_art

You might like the story of Kenneth Rogoff, a chess Grandmaster in the 70s of some repute. He didn't pick up a piece for 30 years after that, becoming an elite economist. Part of Carlsen's visit involved a friendly game against Mr Rogoff.


Logged

"You must take your opponent into a deep, dark forest, where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one"
Tal
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 24352


"He's always at it!"


View Profile
« Reply #219 on: September 09, 2012, 12:13:40 PM »

The last round of the Olympiad has started and it could barely be closer, with three teams level on 17 match points in the Open section. China have a slight edge on tie breaks, but have the toughest game on paper today, against a strong Ukraine side.

Should they fail to win, or should they not win well, this would open the door to Armenia (led by the top rated player in the field, number 3, Lev Aronian), who play Hungary or top seeds Russia, who would expect to beat Germany, especially on the bottom two boards.

In the women's event, top seeds China are ahead by the tiniest of margins of Russia and both will expect to win their games today comfortably, so the question is how much they win by.

England has disappointed a little this time around, with losses to Vietnam and the Philippines spoiling an otherwise solid (if unspectacular) tournament.

Scotland and Ireland have held their own, while Wales are a little below their seeding.

Bottom of the table (apart from Congo, who withdrew after one game) is Burundi.

Here is the full list: http://results.chessolympiadistanbul.com/tnr77681.aspx?art=0&rd=10&lan=1&flag=30&zeilen=99999

Logged

"You must take your opponent into a deep, dark forest, where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one"
Tal
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 24352


"He's always at it!"


View Profile
« Reply #220 on: September 09, 2012, 04:31:35 PM »

http://www.chessolympiadistanbul.com/en/component/content/article/2-news-en/274-armenia-russia-win-gold-medals-in-the-40th-chess-olympiad.html

The results are just in...

China, going into the round marginally in front, lost to Ukraine (losing on boards 1 and 4; the other two drawn). Meanwhile, Russia and Armenia both managed to win their matches and, despite Russia winning 3.5-0.5 and Armenia winning 2.5-1.5, it was Armenia who claimed the Gold medal, by virtue of a complicated tie-break system.

In the women's event, China could only manage the silver again, after a storming 4-0 victory by the Russians over Kazakhstan.

A possible caption comp to follow...
Logged

"You must take your opponent into a deep, dark forest, where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one"
Tal
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 24352


"He's always at it!"


View Profile
« Reply #221 on: September 09, 2012, 04:39:45 PM »



Lev Aronian and his Armenian team getting overexcited



Part-time poker player, Alexander Grischuk, was unable to triple-rangemerge Germany's Igor Khenkin and had to settle for a draw.


Logged

"You must take your opponent into a deep, dark forest, where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one"
Tal
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 24352


"He's always at it!"


View Profile
« Reply #222 on: September 09, 2012, 04:46:34 PM »



Wang Hao and Vassily Ivanchuk (known by his friends as Chucky), avert their gaze from a pretty standard Nimzo-Indian (Nimzo short for Nimzowitsch; Indian refers to the first pawn move being only one square)

Not a great caption, I agree.

Please come up with better!

Logged

"You must take your opponent into a deep, dark forest, where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one"
Tal
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 24352


"He's always at it!"


View Profile
« Reply #223 on: September 10, 2012, 09:47:46 PM »

A silly little one for you.

Opening theory sometimes means you have to move the pieces in a specific order, else you fall foul of a cheeky trap.

The openings that start 1.e4 have more of these than 1.d4, largely because the games tend to be sharper and more open (you have exposed the king slightly more, after all).

This is a trap in one of the most common openings in the playbook: The Ruy Lopez. It is quaintly called The Noah's Ark Trap

Logged

"You must take your opponent into a deep, dark forest, where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one"
Jon MW
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 6191



View Profile
« Reply #224 on: September 10, 2012, 10:00:40 PM »

 Grin

Email Notice at 20:31 "Your opponent MrSayNoMore has offered you a draw"
Email Notice at 20:32 "Your opponent MrSayNoMore has offered you a draw"
Email Notice at 20:33 "Your opponent MrSayNoMore has offered you a draw"

Email Notice at 20:52
"Game Over!
Your game with MrSayNoMore has ended.
...
[Termination "beloved_ltd won by checkmate"]"

ironically when he offered the draw I think it really looked like the draw was the final outcome, but when it swung decisively to me - he completely refused to resign and made me do all the boring work of finishing him off
Logged

Jon "the British cowboy" Woodfield

2011 blonde MTT League August Champion
2011 UK Team Championships: Black Belt Poker Team Captain  - - runners up - -
5 Star HORSE Classic - 2007 Razz Champion
2007 WSOP Razz - 13/341
Pages: 1 ... 11 12 13 14 [15] 16 17 18 19 ... 164 Go Up Print 
« previous next »
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!
Page created in 0.232 seconds with 21 queries.