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OFFICIAL FFA Chess thread; The queens we use would not excite you (1 Viewer)

SacramentoBob

SacramentoBob

Footballguy
It was mentioned that general chess discussion needs its own thread instead of using the Chess Time app thread. So here it is.

Carlsen won the classic portion of Zurich 2014 after Aronian lost to Caruana in the last round. Carlsen is 19 points away from the first ever 2900 elo rating.

http://www.zurich-cc.com/

Nakamura continues his nosedive that started @ Tata Steel.

 
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SacramentoBob said:
It was mentioned that general chess discussion needs its own thread instead of using the Chess Time app thread. So here it is.

Carlsen won the classic portion of Zurich 2014 after Aronian lost to Caruana in the last round. Carlsen is 19 points away from the first ever 2900 elo rating.

http://www.zurich-cc.com/

Nakamura continues his nosedive that started @ Tata Steel.
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Very interesting game in Round 3, where Nakamura as white has Carlsen dead to rights and makes a critical mistake that I dare say most of us wouldn't have caught (I certainly wouldn't have):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RITqLBWq0Y

 
SacramentoBob said:
2014 Candidates tournament starts March 13th.

http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/7688--candidates-tournament-2014-announcement.html

Anand

Kramnik

Andreikin

Topalov

Mamedyarov

Aronian

Karjakin

Svidler
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Anand had a huge win in the 1st round over world #2 Aronian. Everyone else drew that round.

Round #2 saw 2 of the top 4 seeds winning (Kramnik, Aronian) while Anand drew Topalov.

Anand the sole winner of round #3.

Round #4, Aronian beat Svidler.

Here's the elo world rankings for the players heading into the tournament:

#2 Aronian 2830

#3 Kramnik 2787

#4 Topalov 2785

#8 Anand 2770

#9 Karjakin 2766

#11 Svidler 2758

#13 Mamedyarov 2757.1

#42 Andreikin 2708

Anand is leading after 4 rounds with 3 points.

Aronian and Kramnik are tied for 2-3 with 2.5 points.

Svidler and Topalov are tied for 4-5 with 2 points.

Round #5 is a big one, with Aronian and Kramnik are playing for a chance at clear 2nd place. Anand has the black pieces against tournament punching bag Andreikin, so he should secure at least a draw there.

Anand has the best quality win so far, while Kramnik has the 2nd best beating Karjakin.

 
After 9 rounds, Anand has this all but wrapped up. Aronian and Kramnik both lost. Barring a meltdown from Anand or Aronian playing out of his mind, a rematch with Carlsen is happening. Which is kind of funny because Anand almost decided not to play in the candidates tournament.

 
SacramentoBob said:
Mr. Pickles said:
SacramentoBob said:
Carlsen is 19 points away from the first ever 2900 elo rating.
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No way this doesn't happen. I'm thinking 3000 isn't completely absurd.
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Current World Chess Federation Champion, Stan Vaughn, has a rating of 4326. :lmao: Fischer clocks in at a close second with 2897. Eat your heart out Magnus.
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Nice update here.

WCF announces new ratings policy

WCF has announced a new ratings policy. This policy is that since “God” is said to be rated 3000, no official WCF rating may be published higher than 2999. Players may have a higher unofficial rating but for official publication on official WCF rating list no player may exceed 2999.
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Carlsen blows an endgame against Karjakin and has to settle for a draw, followed by back to back losses to Caruana and Radjabov. Might be time to get Finless in here.

 
Played my first blitz game in years tonight. 10 minutes +20 second increment. Won in a pretty even position I think. I was up a little bit of material (up 1 minor piece, less 1 pawn) but my opponent had just blundered away a second minor piece and resigned immediately.

He had around 11 minutes on the clock and I had like 5 minutes.

What's the etiquette here? Do you try to bludgeon your way to a draw while down 2 minor pieces if you've got that much of a time advantage? He could've probably ground it out for at least a draw with quick moves. I really didn't have any good ideas to lead to an immediate victory.

 
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You're up two pieces, he should resign. You may not have a forced win in 5 moves, but you should be able to easily beat him with those kind of material odds, especially with a 20 second increment.

 
SacramentoBob said:
Sinquefield Cup starts today. World #1, #2, #3, #5, #8, #9 in a round-robin. Should be good.

http://2700chess.com/live
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Fabiano Caruana CRUSHES the field... running off 7 straight wins before Carlsen finally holds him to a draw.

Check out the ratings chart for he and Carlsen going back ten years. If you shift Caruana's to the left 20 months (to reflect the age gap between them), they're nearly identical.

Carlsen-Caruana could be a thing.

 
wdcrob said:
SacramentoBob said:
Sinquefield Cup starts today. World #1, #2, #3, #5, #8, #9 in a round-robin. Should be good.

http://2700chess.com/live
Click to expand...
Fabiano Caruana CRUSHES the field... running off 7 straight wins before Carlsen finally holds him to a draw.

Check out the ratings chart for he and Carlsen going back ten years. If you shift Caruana's to the left 20 months (to reflect the age gap between them), they're nearly identical.

Carlsen-Caruana could be a thing.
Click to expand...
Caruana followed up with a great performance at the European Cup. Today was the 1st round of the FIDE Grand Prix and he won with the black pieces against Karjakin. He's only about 15 points away from Carlsen right now.

 
Running into a few Caro Kann variation issues:

I have 2 goals when playing the Caro Kann as black that I guess I'm too stubborn to abandon.

1 - Getting my light squared bishop outside of the pawn structure - to f5 hopefully and usually kicked back to g6 (as in the main line)

2 - eventually play the c6 pawn to c5 and develop my dark squared bishop to c5 pawn takes pawn

The first issue I'm having is what to do when the center is left while white continues to develop...

i.e.

1. e4.....c6

2. d4.....d5

Now - instead of taking or advancing, white simply plays Nc3...here's the first point where I'm left wondering what the hell do

I don't want to play e6 and blind my bishop. What happens is, I play stupid passing moves like pawn h6, praying my opponent exchanges or advances.

Any good games I can study this line with? Or any advice?

 
3. Nc3 leads to the classical mainline. Play continues dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5. This is a well-trodden line with theory out to move 15 or 16 at least.

Black can deviate with the Karpov/Smyslov system 4. Nd7 or 4. Nf6 which leads to the Bronstein-Larsen variation after Nxf6 gxf6!? exf6 is the Korchoi variation.

Your "hero" to emulate in the classical mainline is probably Alexey Dreev. Grischuk, the current world #3, plays it on occasion.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1241386

 
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SacramentoBob said:
3. Nc3 leads to the classical mainline. Play continues dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5. This is a well-trodden line with theory out to move 15 or 16 at least.

Black can deviate with the Karpov/Smyslov system 4. Nd7 or 4. Nf6 which leads to the Bronstein-Larsen variation after Nxf6 gxf6!? exf6 is the Korchoi variation.

Your "hero" to emulate in the classical mainline is probably Alexey Dreev. Grischuk, the current world #3, plays it on occasion.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1241386
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Boom

Was looking for an actual game to study - always works better for me than opening up the book. Thanks.

I'm on ICC, play blitz only, for anyone whomever wants a game (PM me). Rating isn't great. Fluctuate between 1175-1325 or so depending on how much I've been drinking.

Anyone here play the Pirc regularly? I was watching a Yasser Serawain lecture on it the other day, and although his lectures usually put me to sleep, the defense was pretty interesting.

 
I know it Sac. Lay and pray is horrible.

Unfortunately I have been taking lessons with an LM who refuses to actually study my games and instead has spent 6 hours having me solve end game puzzles.

I know opposition like the back of my hand now, but can't even get to an endgame to use it vs anyone over 1500

 
Reginald Cornsilks said:
I know it Sac. Lay and pray is horrible.

Unfortunately I have been taking lessons with an LM who refuses to actually study my games and instead has spent 6 hours having me solve end game puzzles.

I know opposition like the back of my hand now, but can't even get to an endgame to use it vs anyone over 1500
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You're wasting your money. How is he going to know what your weaknesses are if he doesn't look at your games. Then again, if you only play blitz you don't have any worthwhile games to look at. Play in ICC's weekly G60 tournaments or join T4545.

And like you mentioned, knowing endgames is worthless if you can't reliably get through the middle game.

 
SacramentoBob said:
Reginald Cornsilks said:
I know it Sac. Lay and pray is horrible.

Unfortunately I have been taking lessons with an LM who refuses to actually study my games and instead has spent 6 hours having me solve end game puzzles.

I know opposition like the back of my hand now, but can't even get to an endgame to use it vs anyone over 1500
Click to expand...
You're wasting your money. How is he going to know what your weaknesses are if he doesn't look at your games. Then again, if you only play blitz you don't have any worthwhile games to look at. Play in ICC's weekly G60 tournaments or join T4545.

And like you mentioned, knowing endgames is worthless if you can't reliably get through the middle game.
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Yeah, I discontinued lessons last week.

I guess I could work on some standard games instead of being married to blitz

 
Reginald Cornsilks said:
I know it Sac. Lay and pray is horrible.

Unfortunately I have been taking lessons with an LM who refuses to actually study my games and instead has spent 6 hours having me solve end game puzzles.

I know opposition like the back of my hand now, but can't even get to an endgame to use it vs anyone over 1500
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Tactics puzzles can be a great tool to increase your rating, especially in the 1200-2000 USCF range. That said, exclusively endgame puzzles is probably not a great recipe. Middle-game puzzles have to be a large component. CT-ART is a good software option.

http://www.amazon.com/1001-Winning-Chess-Sacrifices-Combinations/dp/0879801115 is a good basic tactics book.

http://www.amazon.com/John-Nunns-Chess-Puzzle-Book/dp/1906454035/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419411207&sr=1-1&keywords=john+nunn%27s+chess+puzzle+book is really good, but generally much more advanced.

 
Interesting experience at a local chess "club" tonight. My 2nd time in attendance

It's in a rough neighborhood/suburb of Philly and there were some crazy looking folks in attendance along with a good dozen 80 year olds.

The oldest gentleman in the club is a legit 1900 and apparently hasn't lost in years in the club.

During my first match with a local landscaper someone kept farting loudly. I guess it's no big deal as no one seemed to care or say anything. It was a bit distracting though.

The guy I was playing was terrible but kept telling me how he had some tricks up his sleeve. Usually proceeded by me forking his queen and rook, which happened in every single game.

No big deal, I'm not grandmaster myself. About halfway through out 2nd game he starts to twitch his hand like he is psyching himself up to throw a punch at me and stating how angry he is getting. I debating just tanking on purpose and losing so he wouldn't kill me.

I survived.

Observed another match that was just about over. When the 2nd best player in the club made a winning move, his opponent punched himself in the side of the head as hard as one can. The thud was audible and seemed pretty severe. They end up screaming at each other as I decided it was time to go.

Oy.

I need to find something more "professional" in the Philly area and perhaps look into getting myself rated so I can play in a higher end club I guess.

Anyway, not feeling great about my d4 defense. I've always played Nimzo-Indian or Kings Indian type defense but struggle to get my pieces to dark squares after trading off my dark squared bishop for their Knight (in the Nimzo-Indian that is)

I'll take any suggestions on a d4 defense to research vs intermediate players that might cause confusion at that level?

 
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