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Thursday, November 11, 2010

Clever Dog ? (chess jokes)

In a park people come across a man playing chess against a dog.
They are astonished and say:
"What a clever dog!"

But the man protests:
"No, no, he isn't that clever. I'm leading by three games to one!"

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Thank you Chess Odyssey!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ilham from 2010 Chess Odyssey for enlightening me with the website where I can generate my game and publish it to be replayed on my blog.
I can put more games there now so that I can look at it again later.. maybe even 20-30 years from now.

The method that I use is as below:

1. Download Chesspad: http://www.wmlsoftware.com/chesspad2.html

2. Replay my game there.

3. Click Ctrl + C to copy the moves in PGN

4. Paste it here: http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game-uploader.php

5. Add details, and click Convert!

6. Copy and paste the iframe to blog post.

Voila!

Blunder in Sicilian Defense

I've got lucky today while playing on Chess with Friends
As usual, I don't know who's the player, don't know what's the rating,
and thus don't know what trick does he or she has up his/her sleeves.

1.e5 c6 2. Nf3

and then
2. ..f6 is unusual but i played the normal 3.d4
4. ..Qa5+ is normal for someone who would like to test the opponent's strength

I can play Bd2 or c3 or Nc3 or even Qd2 if I'm lazy to think further.
Queen exchange would leave me OK since I can control the center and I don't have to take with my King and I can still develop further from there.

I don't know how could I miss the simple trick Qb6-b2 to take the Rook but I recovered back with a few simple maneuvers - and thanks to his/her mistake 8. ..d3 the Queen is safely captured with the cost of 2 pawns, 1 Rook and 1 Bishop.

I will offer him/her draw in the next move because this is not a game I would be proud of even if I win. Simple blunders like this should be avoided at any cost.


Tuesday, November 09, 2010

vs. Surfside6 on iPhone

I love this App.
I can play with friends or whoever is there to play.
And I can play for a lengthy time - meaning I can play even though I don't have much time to spend in a day.

Here's the link

Or you can click on the logo below:


Recently I played against Surfside6. Not sure who he or she is.
It's fun!
I started to play on Friday when I downloaded the App and finished it early this morning.
I woke up at around 6 and saw that he/she played a wrong move and checkmated him/her.
It's a lost position anyway.

If you are reading this, please comment on any bad moves made.
I think there must be a lot.
I was playing black.


Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Chigorin Tournament

Chigorin Memorial tournament is taking place right now in St Petesburg.
I was always hoping that there will be a tournament which require the participants to use the same opening bearing a legend's name.

For example, players have to use Chigorin Defense (d4 d5; c4 Nc6)

or any of the Chigorin's variation, for example in Ruy Lopez
1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 O-O Be7 6 Re1 b5
7 Bb3 O-O 8 c3 d6 9 h3 Na5 10 Bc2 c5 11 d4 Qc7 12 Nbd2 cxd4 13 cxd4

Simpler variations would be:
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O d6 5. d4 Nd7

There are some other openings too:

French
1. e4 e6 2. Qe2
or
1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Bb4 5. e5 h6 6. exf6

Dutch
1. d4 f5 2. e4 fxe4 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 c6

Petrov
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4 d5 6. Bd3 Be7 7. O-O Nc6 8. Re1

Queen's Gambit
1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 c6 5. e3 Nbd7 6. Bd3 Bd6

It's hard to achieve in a huge tournament though.
Maybe a Round-robin of 6 people would be a nice number.

More study of the openings will be developed throughout the tournament.

All draw positions might also be the result of it though.
Hehehe

Monday, November 01, 2010

Chessgames 011110

Even though in the USA the date should be 110110, it looks nice writing it down as 011110.
The puzzle on Chessgames today takes some time than the usual 10-15 sec to figure out.
One can see the right attack right away though, only that it might takes some time to figure out that the continuation will work out.

Check it out for yourself.

Magical Square

I haven't been updating my chess blog for a while, but that does mean that I left the chess world already. I kept following up with the progress of the wonder kid (you-know-who) and kept myself updated with the Malaysian team's performance.

I loved this game too much to leave it behind.
However, at this point of time, I'm just too far behind.

Anyway, I read an article today on the chess world of Kasparov and Karpov.
Looking at their game in 1990 (20 years ago from today) I was stunned at how complex is the game and when the writer starts writing about the 'magical square'. See below:



I just could not understand how the mind of Kasparov works.
How did he see such a thing? Was it really in his mind?
Did he really see that the square will work?
Or was it just his instinct based on his experience and calculation?

Until someone develop such an instinct, it's hard to say that someone can bypass Kasparov's ability. He's getting older and the memory might run him down.
I think he did the right thing to resign early and show the world how good he IS just by coaching someone who, later on, becomes the world no. 1 (Carlsen).
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