holland oats Member since Jul-08-07 American I&C engineer. Hobbies include guitar, photography, electronics (mostly music effect pedals), and chess. My best chess memories so far have been attending a WCC game between Anand and Gelfand (Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, good choice!), playing the field at Washington Square Park, and of course triple B's (blindfolded bar bets). My favorite players include the new guard (Magnus, Levon, Fab, Nak, etc.) and some older (Moro, Chukky, Grischuk, Kramnik). I believe chess fans are already witnessing the popular new trend in sports of young guns rising to the top (a la Lionel Messi, Wayne Rooney, Lebron James, Ben Roethlisberger, Mike Trout, Rafael Nadal, etc.). Nothing to do but sit back and enjoy!

holland oats has kibitzed 126 times to chessgames   [more...]

Mar-31-13 Kramnik vs Gelfand, 2013    holland oats: Or maybe a medium spirit, e.g. sherry      Mar-21-13 Svidler vs Carlsen, 2013    holland oats: After two king's pawn games through five rounds, we have three today. I have a feeling There Will Be Blood...      Feb-17-13 Huebner vs T Luther, 2002    holland oats: I agree with <An Englishman>. Black wants to avoid Qc5+ from white, so he needs something forcing. What's more forcing than a queen sac with check? Follow up with a couple of knight checks and white has to give back the queen (keeping the king on the e-file on move 20 ...      Feb-10-13 Adams vs Caruana, 2013    holland oats: <SteinitzLives> Isn't e6 a real threat from Adams?      Jan-30-13 C Sandipan vs Shirov, 2013   holland oats: Plenty of back in forth in this one, and hard to judge who had the initiative coming out of the opening. I think Shirov went wrong early with 15...dxe4 instead of 15...e5. He lost it when he moved the rook to the wrong square on move 27 (see Ra8).      Jan-30-13 Adams vs Ehlvest, 2013    holland oats: <Yourang> Thanks for sharing. As Mike Lange would say while ending a broadcast, "Ladies and gentlemen, Ehlvest has just left the building!"      Jan-30-13 M Vachier-Lagrave vs Kamsky, 2013    holland oats: I'm not sure there is anything wrong with it. 37...h5 seemed suicidal, but he was running out of moves long before that. I'd call it a nice strategical win by MVL. He had it from the cradle to Lagrave.      Jan-20-13 Aronian vs Anand, 2013    holland oats: Certainly Levon had nerves of steel for venturing into Vishy's vaunted Meran. He was really just lobbing softballs, though.      Jan-20-13 N Grandelius vs A Ipatov, 2013   holland oats: Gotta love the courage by both players here. My man Nils Boar found an improbable safety zone for his king!      Dec-09-12 A Rodriguez vs G Timoshenko, 1998    holland oats: Got this one without much effort, and it made me double-check the day of the week. Feels more like a Wednesday, where the mate in 2 jumps out at you but you have to make sure there are no swindle chances. White is even short on those chances in this position. Lazy Sunday :-P

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Mar-26-09    zanshin: Congratulations on winning the chessbookie contest! It was fun to watch the contest between you and <Touch of Knight> ;-) Mar-26-09    holland oats: Thank you <zanshin>! It was fun from this side as well, albeit terribly lucky (e.g. Radjabov vs. Smeets draw at Corus when Radjabov was flagged with a winning position and the arbiters convinced both to draw because of offsetting rule violations). Mar-26-09    chessgames.com: Hello "holland oats", very well done. We assume that you want your prize, the $100 Amazon Gift Certificate, made out to the email address you have on file with your Chessgames account. If that's not right (e.g. if you are already registered at Amazon under a different email) then please visit your Chessgames Preferences Page and update your email. If you have any questions just contact chess@chessgames.com. Thanks, and congratulations! Mar-28-09    holland oats: I think the most beneficial tool for progressing my chess skill has come from solving chess puzzles. Through puzzles I learn new tactics and enhance calculation skills. Eventually playing a game of chess has become akin to solving a puzzle for me. Getting to those positions is another question, but its surprising how the strategy seems to progress proportionally with tactics. I think this has a lot to do with the calculation skills gained in solving puzzles. Anywho this is an interesting one I found in a 15 minute game today: White to play and win (medium difficulty): click for larger view Mar-28-09    holland oats: And the solution... 1.R6d4! f4 2.Qh5 Rce8 3.Qg5 Ne3+ 4.fxe3 fxe3+ 5.Kg1 Rf7 6.Qe5+!! and Rxe5 fails against Rd8+ with checkmate to follow Alternatively: 1...Qxd4 2.Rxd4 Rf7 3.Qe5+ Kg8 4.Qe6 Rf8 5.Rf7 also: 1...Rf7 2.Qe5+ Kg8 3.Rd8+ Rf8 4.Qxb2 and finally: 1...Rc5 2.Qd6 Ne3+ 3.Kg1 Kg8 4.Qe6+ Kh8 5.Qf7! and again the queen is immune to capture due to Rd8+ Mar-29-09    zanshin: I had a look at your puzzle and got the first move as I wanted to cut off the Black Queen in order to play Qe5+. But then I got stuck after seeing that Black did not have to capture the Rook and could play Rfe8. That's when I gave up and cheated ;-) Mar-30-09    holland oats: I forgot to mention for that puzzle a few of the other possible defenses for black that fail: 1...Rf6 2.Qe5 Rf8? 3.Qxf6+! Rxf6 4.Rd8+ Rf8 5.Rxf8# 1...Rce8 2.Qc7 Rg8 3.Rd7 1...Rfe8 2.Qd6 and impending doom on g7: click for larger view I think this pretty much covers everything. Mar-30-09    ketchuplover: 54000+ in the chess bookie game!!!!! Apr-05-09    ketchuplover: priceless indeed :)		Times Chess Twitter Feed

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