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| Sep-27-22 | | areknames: <It's 19.Qe3!> Great resource,didn't get that one. |
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Sep-28-22
 | | Fusilli: <areknames> I totally agree with your assessment of the tricky queen + knight vs queen endgame... Even with the black king nearly cornered, it's not easy to win! You are right that the winning variation is Qe1+. And, yes, Qe3 was a good resource in the other puzzle. Lucky me my opponent had a lapse there. |
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| Sep-28-22 | | areknames: <the winning variation is Qe1+> For the sake of completeness: 1.Qe1+, if 1...Kh2 there follows 2.Qf2+ Qg2 3.Nf3+ and mates. Black must thus play 1...Kg2 2.Qe2+ Kg3 (2...Kg1 is again met by 3.Nf3+) 3.Ne4+ Kh4 (3...Kh3 loses the Q) 4.Qf2+ and wins. Almost impossible to execute with 30 seconds left, let alone with three! |
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Sep-28-22
| | Fusilli: <areknames> Thank you for spelling it out! |
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Sep-28-22
 | | OhioChessFan: <It's 19.Qe3! It threatens the bishop AND the pretty Rb8+! followed by Qa7+ and Qa8 mate. Black has to give up the bishop.> A nice pattern to learn. |
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Oct-03-22
| | Fusilli: 5-min blitz on chess.com. I am white.
Black just responded to 29.Qe3+ with Kh5? (29...Kf6 was the right move, and it'd be equal.) 
click for larger viewWhite to play. |
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| Oct-03-22 | | areknames: Took me longer than it should have, but the solution is 30.g4! Kxg4 31.Rd4+ Kh5 32.Qh3+ and mates. If 31...Rf4 then simply 32.Qg3+. |
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Oct-03-22
| | Fusilli: <areknames> That's right. |
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Oct-06-22
| | Fusilli: I got to use the old trick of hiding behind the enemy's pawns! 5-min blitz on chess.com. I am black, in this hopelessly lost position: 
click for larger view30...Rc4. The right blitz move! Then, if my opponent plays the unnecessary, though still winning 31.g3, then there is a glimmer of hope. And that's what my opponent played. 
click for larger view31...Rc2. Now it's the right time for this.
32.b3 (how timid! Why not b4? Who knows.) 32...Kf5. Let's go! 
click for larger view33.Rxf7+ (though the best move, not wise in blitz) Ke4 34.Rxg7... blunder! 
click for larger view34...Kf3 35.h4
click for larger viewDo you see the draw? |
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Oct-19-22
| | Fusilli: Follow up on my own previous post, which was, admittedly, too long. The question that matters is this:
click for larger viewBlack to play and draw. It's easy, but it is also easy to forget the principle that sometimes all you need to do is threat something. |
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| Oct-19-22 | | areknames: At first glance it seems that 35...Rc1+ does the job: 36.Kh2 Rc2+ 37.Kh3 Rc1!, threatening mate in perpetuity. If 38.Kh2 then Rc2+ and we start again. |
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Oct-19-22
| | Fusilli: <areknames> Exactly. White was careless to let the black king get behind enemy lines. |
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| Oct-20-22 | | areknames: <Fusilli> I only play (rarely) online these days but I always played a lot of blitz in my active years and I suppose that having an active king, especially in inferior endings becomes very much ingrained in your style. Well done on a good save! |
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Nov-17-22
| | Fusilli: Blitz game on chess.com, I am black. White just played 11.b4
click for larger viewI like the Botvinnik system against the English, and I usually play ...b6 and ...Rae8, so that b5 closes the position, and if bxc5, dxc5 and I can play on the kingside. But here white played an accelerated version. If I play 11...b6 12.b5 wins the exchange. So, what to do? One option is, well, let white get the exchange. After all, it's the LSB, he will be weak on light squares around the king, and the position is fairly closed. So, I played 11...b6 12.b5 Nd4 13.Bxa8 Rxa8
click for larger viewThe computer says +0.72. Fair enough. And good for blitz, since all the pressure is on white, and given the chance, black can generate dangerous threats. I won the game (against a player 100 rating points above me). I assume this sac has been played before. Maybe by Botvinnik himself, who was no stranger to positional exchange sacs. Can anyone point to an example? |
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Nov-17-22
 | | perfidious: <Fusilli>, none comes to mind, but this is an example of how computer evals are not always terribly helpful< especially when the play is unclear. At Stockfish v Rybka level, Fishie snatches the material on offer and brute-force grinds out a full point, and quite possibly also at super-GM level, but this ordinary mortal has, quite often, found such positions easier to play for Black--though more than once I played material-grubber and took home the bacon. |
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Nov-18-22
| | Fusilli: <At Stockfish v Rybka level, Fishie snatches the material on offer and brute-force grinds out a full point, and quite possibly also at super-GM leve> I agree. I play much more speculatively in blitz (not to say with reckless abandon) than in slow chess. For example, in this old, sharp line of the Two Knights: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Na5 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 8. Qf3 
click for larger view...lately I've been trying the absolutely lyrical (and inferior) 8...cxb5. I got my butt kicked but I also kicked some butt. I will note that 4.Ng5 is becoming rare, with 4.d3 being the solid, preferred choice of most players nowadays, in both blitz and slow. And in that case, in blitz, I play the inferior 4...d5, again with ups and downs. I even got away with it in slow chess (K Gulamali vs M Sana, 2014) but got my butt kicked by Kudrin. Too reckless! |
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Dec-07-22
| | Fusilli: I just joined the executive board of the Nashville Chess Center: https://www.facebook.com/NashvilleC.... I feel honored, and I am very excited about contributing to chess in Nashville from that post! |
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Dec-07-22
 | | moronovich: Congrats <fussilli> ! |
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| Dec-07-22 | | stone free or die: Ditto. |
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Dec-07-22
| | perfidious: Thumbs up! |
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Dec-13-22
| | Fusilli: <moro> <stone> <perf> Thank you all! |
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Dec-13-22
| | Fusilli: Five new games of mine have been uploaded. One from the Tennessee Open and the other four from the Music City Open last weekend. Thanks <stonehenge> for the quick uploads! |
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Dec-22-22
| | Fusilli: 5-min blitz on chess.com. I am white. Black to play.
click for larger viewInstructive position. The instinct is to go kill the b3, but in all variations Black needs to play Bf8, to avoid the position where white (with the h-pawn on h5) plays g6 and responds to hxg6 with h6. When I was a kid, my teacher liked to say "make first the move that you will make in all variations." So, the best move is 49...Bf8. It turns out that white wins anyway, the computer says, but it's complicated. 49...Kc2
click for larger view50. h5... and this is a mistake! The computer says 50.Bg7 is the winning move... Because White can't allow Black to play Bf8. 
click for larger view50...Kxb3. Black returns the favor. Now white wins. 
click for larger view51.g6 hxg6 52.h6 etc. 1-0 in some more moves. |
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Dec-22-22
| | perfidious: <Fusilli>, it is clear that Black can snatch the morsel on b3 at leisure, but as you say, must play ....Bf8 to prevent the simple winning idea you noted. |
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Dec-29-22
| | OhioChessFan: It's not too hard to figure out that Black must get the Bishop to f8, and White should try to stop him. But in a 5 minute game, the players are usually thinking in terms of the next move or 3, and 50 moves in, there's not time for "idea thinking." |
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