Before I went to bed last night I blew off 20 or 30 rating points trying to beat a computer rated a few hundred above me with overwhelming attacks. It almost worked the first time until I blundered, didn't even come close the rest. I wasn't even trying to play good chess, I was just tired.
So I came into the day at 1305.
Below is my first game of the day. I don't have my copy of MCO in the living room, and I don't want to go into the bedroom and risk waking up my wife who just got done with about 22 hours of baby duty, so I'll do without that for tonight.
I am as proud of this game as I have ever been. In a 45 45 time limit, I was down below 40 minutes before the game was lost and I just made quick moves to let him play out the checkmate (which he then proceeded to take a few moves more than I expected to do). I took my time, thought out my moves, and lost quite thoroughly. But that's more fun than a quick win with blunders on both sides (not that I played all that great.)
[Event "ICC"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2009.09.14"]
[White "gonia"]
[Black "KyleMayhugh"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "1416"]
[BlackElo "1294"]
[ECO "C50"]
[Opening "King's pawn game"]
[TimeControl "2700+45"]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 d6 4. d4 Bg4 5. Be2 Bxf3
I'm able to win a pawn by force here with removal of the guard, but I give up serious development to do it, and that ends up costing me.
6. gxf3 Nxd4 7. Be3 Nxe2
In retrospect, I'm not sure how great it is to give up my only developed piece, but I break up his bishop pair and take one of his good pieces of the board as well, so I guess it wasn't that bad.
8. Qxe2 Ne7
Here's where I think things started to get bad. I was kind of thinking this knight move would help shore up some key middle white squares without my white bishop around. But really, this just cramped my already cramped bad bishop and made development impossible. This is probably where the game was lost.
9. Nc3 c6
c6 is the best move of my chess career to date. Why? Because I spent 93 seconds on it, and I used the right thought process to get there. I sifted through candidate moves and was leaning toward the break with d4. But I then checked out his responses, and Qb5+ just seemed to put me into too awful a position.
10. O-O-O d5
11. exd5 cxd5 12. Bc5 Ng6
Bc5 really caught me off guard. I had no idea how to react to it. I took a full three minutes to come up with Ng6, and even then I only played it because I had spent enough time examining that I was fairly certain I had no better options. The possibilities of Nf4 or Qg5+ at least gave me some sort of counterplay to his overwhelming attack.
Crafty feels like Nc6 kept me in the game and held my pawn advantage, but I'm not so sure white plays the moves Crafty thinks he would.
13. Bxf8 Qg5+ 14. Kb1 Nf4
I ended up using both those moves, but they bought me nothing at all really and this game is now completely out of hand.
15. Qb5+ Kd8
At this point I could have resigned but decided to just play it out to let him enjoy his well-earned win. Not sure why he dallied a bit in thrashing me from here, maybe just being careful.
16. Bxg7 Qxg7 17. Qxb7 Rc8 18. Nxd5 Nxd5 19. Rxd5+ Ke8 20. Qd7+ Kf8
21. Qxc8+ Ke7 22. Qd7+ Kf6 23. Qd6+ Kf5 24. Qd7+ Kf4 25. Rd3 Qg2
26. Qxf7+ Kg5 27. Qg7+ Kh4 28. Qxg2 Rd8 29. Rxd8 a5 30. Qg8 h5
31. Qg3#
1-0
New rating: 1294
Update: Lost another badly because the baby woke up and it's hard to focus on chess when feeding him :) He'll fall asleep again soon enough. In the meantime, looking into his eyes is more fun than any tactical combination :)
In the words of Lord Voldemort, I confess myself disappointed. After a couple of nothing games (one where the opponent made the fatal opening mistake of 1. e4 e5 2. f4 Nc6 3. f5?? and then resigned after the inevitable rook loss), I found myself in this game with, interestingly enough, an opponent rated exactly the same as me:
I'm doing a better job of ever on the thought process, which is not saying much. I'm taking more time, I'm examing candidate moves, I'm considering my opponents' reactions and I'm considering checks, captures and threats while looking for a better move even after I find one I like. I'm just not doing any of those things very well. But you have to fall horribly and comically before you can walk, I guess?
I won this game, but it did not feel particularly good, unlike that loss earlier in which I felt good about it.
[Event "ICC"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2009.09.15"]
[White "Kotov"]
[Black "KyleMayhugh"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1270"]
[BlackElo "1286"]
[ECO "B32"]
[Opening "Sicilian defense"]
[TimeControl "1800+10"]
1. e4 c5
I really need to learn some e4 defenses. I'm comfortable with my d4 responses for this level, but I have no clue what to do with d4. I have nothing but the barest understandings of the sicilian, just that it involves pushing the c-pawn and trying to create asymmetry as black, so I just relied on opening principles from here.
2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 e6 4. Bd3 cxd4
What is it with opponents offering me pawns in the openings lately at the expense of development? I'm almost at the pointw here I'll just decline them.
5. O-O Bc5
6. Bd2 Nf6 7. b4 Bxb4 8. Bxb4 Nxb4 9. Nxd4 e5 10. Nf5 O-O
11. Bc4 Nxe4
I took 1:15 on Nxe4 and I still didn't realize what he was trying to threaten. Weak, weak, weak on my part. If your opponent has a piece covering one of the squares around your king, consider that a threat to be considered in your thought process.
12. Qg4 Qf6
49 seconds to reply, I could have taken longer. Should have taken longer. I accept the loss of the knight and will now be down a piece for two pawns.
13. Qxe4 g6 14. Ne3 d6 15. Bxf7+ Qxf7
16. Qxb4 Be6 17. a4 Rac8 18. c3 Bc4
The last four moves combined took me about a minute, which is atrocious.
This was supposed to be the start of a particularly clever combination. But I moved so quickly I got the move order wrong!
It was supposed to go 18. ... Rc4 19. Nxc4 Bc4!! I could have miscalculated, but it seems to me he'd be forced to move the rook or lose it, but either way Qxf2 would be coming and blowing up the game.
19. Nxc4 Rxc4 20. Qxd6 Rf4
This didn't turn out all bad. I drop the pawn and am now down a full piece (a knight, incidentally). But activity matters. His queen is attacking but not defending. One rook is defending. His knight and his rook in the corner are doing nothing. In the e-h files where all the real action is, I have a temporary material advantage and am threatening all kinds of bad things.
21. f3 e4 22. Nd2 e3 23. Ne4 Qf5 24. Rab1 Qc8 25. Rfe1 Qf5
26. Rxb7 Rxf3 27. Ng3 Qc2
I am still nowhere where I need to be in terms of thought process. I still play chess like a bad chess player. But at least now I am a clever bad chess player. I can come up with some nifty tactics that complicate the game for opponents of my own level.
Qc2 is a nice example. I've swung the queen around into attacking f2 instead of f1, making his defending knight almost worthless and making the pawn on e3 very relevant. If his reponse is Re2, we have a perpetual I think. Or maybe not, it's complicated. Ne2 seems to be his best response in playing with the board just now.
But anyway, he doesn't do any of those, and I don't blame him because it was a complicated position.
28. Qe5 Qf2+
As Crafty confirms, Qe5 loses the game by offering me mate in 3, which I take.
29. Kh1 Qxe1+ 30. Nf1 Qxf1#
A win is a win is a bad win.
0-1
New rating: 1286
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