| Sep-22-05 | | GreenCastle: 4...♗b4+ is weak. White wants to put his king on f1 anyway, so forcing him to do it is not an accomplishment, considering the Bishop is just headed back to c5 anyway.
Simply 4...♘c6 is much better, as in Mittelbach - Zaynard, Vienna, 2003. Here's a link to the full game, where White gets crushed: http://www.jeremysilman.com/chess_b... |
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| Sep-22-05 | | aw1988: <4...b4+ is weak.>
These are chess politicians. Except they can't play to save their lives. |
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| Sep-24-05 | | GreenCastle: <aw1988> True that. I read on the internet somewhere that Sam Sloan was dead. Guess not. |
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| Sep-24-05 | | RookFile: Well, you're probably right about Bb4+ being weak. I'm really intrigued by the Grob, it may not be obvious to players defending against it, that Kf1 is no problem for white. |
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Nov-24-05
 | | offramp: Book of the match available here for free:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WAW8J0CH |
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Nov-24-05
| | offramp: I must add that the above book CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE and is really R-rated! Sorry about that! I hope nobody has been offended! It's those ICC logs and Newsgroup posts! |
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May-24-15
| | offramp: 18.g6 looks like a good move. |
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Feb-15-16
| | offramp: One of the great things about the match was this: often one reads on the internet a squabble between two guys. Eventually one of them says, "Why don't you come up here and we'll settle this man-to-man?" That décantation never occurs - except in this case. Brock must have been very unhappy to lose! |
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Feb-15-16
| | offramp: This is the position after 9...Bf8.
click for larger view
Well, Brock outrated Sloan, but he has obviously started very badly. He has not a single developed piece. |
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| Feb-14-17 | | zanzibar: Black could have played many other moves at many other points in the opening, but the clear opening advantage Black has is just given away on the 8th move (8...Nxd4): (Black to move after 8.Nf3xd4)
click for larger viewThe queen roars into play with a dangerous fork after 9.Qxd4. Much better is the natural looking 8...Nge7, which supports the c6-knight, keeping the bishop in play, and develops the K-side. An engine move would be 8...h4, which is very playable, but not so natural. 8...Bd6 and 8...f6 are also playable. |
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| Feb-14-17 | | zanzibar: Here's some other moves suggested by SF8
13...Nf5 vs the played move, 13...Qc7
17...Bb4 vs 17...Qd7
22.g6 should be losing for White, even with Black's 22th move 22...Rh6 vs 22...Qd3+
25...Rh6 vs. 25...Rhe8
26...Qe2 vs. 26...Qe1+ (the Q wants to go to g4) 29.Be5 is a White misplay, 29.Rf1 is better.
30...Rd4 vs. 30...Rd3? (now the R wants to go to g4, Black is drawing at best) 31...Rdd8 vs 31...Qe3?? (now Black is lost, Black skewers the Q to capture an essential defender) Not sure how informative this breakout is, but it does show that both sides played grobbishly imprecisely. |
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| Sep-10-18 | | piscine2000: Agree with several of Zanzibar's comments. This game showed me how much I needed to work on my calculation (not that I ever did). Both 8...Nxd4? and 30...Rd3?? make me wince today. I was of course playing for the cheap trap 5.Bd2? Qxg5 and totally missed 5.Kf1 and the Bb4 looks stupid. Even so, Black is still much better until 8...Nxd4? 15.Bh3 (Stockfish) is interesting, but it's not very human to trade for the undeveloped Bc8. The move works because it inhibits ...Nf5. There is a cheap trap involved with 15...Nf5. I expected Sloan to play 16.Re1 (idea 16...Nxd4?? 17.Nf6+ Kd8 18.Re8#). But 16.Re1 Be6! and Black is better. 17...Qd7 was a perfectly good move for Black.
So how did White go from slight edge (or at least =) after 14.e4! to a lost position seven moves later? 21.c3 may be the culprit: 21.Bc3 takes better care of entry squares on the d-file. 22...Qd3+ and 25...Rhe8 are both very human moves that maintain a completely winning position (arguably, 25...Rhg8 is even more human: sacrifice the e-pawn but maintain total control). Zanzibar is right that 26...Qe2! is much stronger, but it's because the Rd8 needs to brought into the attack. Finally, while 30...Rd4 is the most precise, the pedestrian 30...Rg8 is (once again) the most human way for Black to convert. In sum, I richly deserved to lose. :-) |
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Sep-11-18
| | offramp: Details of the book of the match T S Sloan vs W Brock, 2005 (kibitz #4). |
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Sep-11-18
| | offramp: Time Controls for the three games of this match were G/75 (+ 5" Bronstein). - Black resigned this game with 9 seconds left on the clock. - Arbiter Vince Hart and Official Scorekeeper Larry Cohen awarded the
Best Game Prize, which was a copy of Benko's <Life Games & Compositions>,
to Sam Sloan for Game 3, for having delivered the best entertainment
value. |
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Kibitzing
sac: 24.Rxe6