So why did you stop playing blitz? :)

<I may have accidentally caused a life change, though -- there were three chessplaying brothers, and both #1 and #3 later got over 2300 and played olympiads. #2, reputed to be just as good, lost a game to me and walked out in disgust. He didn't play much after that ...>

If it wasn't you, it woulda been somebody else. Everybody loses to opponents they thought they should have beaten sometimes, and a personality that can't take that, won't stay in chess for long. You're not responsible.

<I certainly gave up 1.e4 soon after.>

Too bad, sounds like you could have been very good with it... ;)

<Well, none of 'em wrote 'Entropanto'. That's something.>

It sure is, and that's the spirit! :)

<Speaking of chemistry, isn't that the Carbon Dioxide variation? As in ECO code C02...>

Heh - no objection here...

<Very nice game, btw. I would have no chance of playing anything remotely as good inside 5 minutes.>

Thanks, but you wouldn't have had to - I don't play 5-min blitz either. That game (as are all my other games) was <[TimeControl "600+0"]>. That's 10 minutes. Per side. :)

I rarely use up more than 6 or so of my minutes, but my opponents usually use up most of theirs, and I can think on their time too. ;)

<hms> thanks, and interesting suggestion... but I can't quite figure it out. In the position you show, I'd say the best shot would have been RxQ - unfortunately, it was Black's turn just then. ;)

In this position (before Rc2 was played):

click for larger view

If <25.fxe5> then <25....Qg4+>

click for larger view

If <25.Be6 Ng4>

click for larger view

click for larger view

25...Ng7 26.Qxd7

click for larger view

But I'm amazed that anyone plays to such a level at such a speed -- and gets a rating in the 1400s ...? Seriously, masters often don't play blitz so well.

Ratings seem increasingly meaningless, though. One guy plays incessantly online, has a 2200 rating on his website of choice, but plays just a handful of rated games OTB and stays stuck at 1300. Somebody else never plays online and jealously guards a dubious OTB rating of 2002. Too many variables.

Not counting unrated players, the guy I lost to at the weekend (rated, uh, 1032) was the lowest-rated person I've ever *played*, never mind lost to. And he played very well, with a speculative piece sac in an unclear position. My mistake was thinking I could win the ending easily, and exchanging Queens - only to realize too late that his pawns were better than my bishop. But it's the kind of play you normally expect from somebody above 1800, say.

I also played a couple of good 1500s, and came dangerously close to letting an 1180 get a perpetual. And I would've had to do better than 5/6 to break even in rating terms.

How come Carlsen loses all those games and stays at the top? Do they have secret tournaments in Norway where he always scores 100%?

One factor, in the FIDE system, is that rating differences of more than 400 are treated as being 400 - so you can't lose to anyone 800 points lower, as I seem to do every so often.

*survive the <immediate> mate threat, that is. But his game falls apart from there.

<Dom: <But I'm amazed that anyone plays to such a level at such a speed -- and gets a rating in the 1400s ...? Seriously, masters often don't play blitz so well.>>

The FICS blitz pool is <really> tough, and underrated - that's a known fact. :) At other sites, my blitz rating is around 1800, and my OTB rapid rating should be somewhere around that number too. <Kingscrusher>, against whom I've played many OTB (untimed but rapid-style) games, including several wins and almost as many draws as losses, said he considers me a strong club player, and he was NOT trying to flatter me. :p

But I am better at blitz/rapid than at classical - mainly due to confidence-level differences, that I haven't worked out yet.

<Ten minutes, five minutes, there's a difference? I stopped cos I stopped being a teenager.

Well, in *some* ways.>

Heh. I would suggest resuming blitz, and trading certain other "teenagerisms" for it! ;)

I can play reasonably well if I get into time trouble, but that's different. And I prefer the kind of zeitnot with a time control on move 40 to the sudden death variety. I've never played in anything where increments were used.

30 mins - aka 'rapid' - is my absolute minimum. And even there ... in the 1980s they introduced a separate rating system for rapidplay, and I was 200 points lower on it. Lower than my 'real' rating, I mean.

Although now that my 'real' rating is down in the mire as well, I suppose I shouldn't woory about it. I still think I can get back over 2000 if I can stop losing to much lower opponents.

Well ok, I <also> played 1.e4 in the same game, but, um, it's the thought that counts? ;)

<It may simply be a matter of taking them more seriously.>

Yup, I had that problem with little kids at first... :s

I know some of these categories of vituperation are mutually inconsistent, but hey, I'm like that.

Lo and behold, after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bf4, up pops a quote from DeFirmian ... "a safe way to play for the initiative", or something. I *knew* that, I just hadn't got round to trying it.

It's also difficult when your 1st move is 1.Nf3.

Looking over old scoresheets from the 1975-89 period, when I mostly played 1.c4 and tried to play 'positional' chess -- ahh, the curse of Nimzo -- I saw that most were positionally horrible, but there were occasional nice tactical flourishes.

In a sense, this was part of the plan. I liked to lull oponents into a sense of false security with a 'dull' opening, then let rip. Which is why I played the Benoni, Dutch, Lisitsyn Gambit (1.Nf3 f5 2.e4 ... unfortunately, 2...e5 transposes into a Latvian, which has happened to me a few times). And all kinds of crazy lines in the English and French. I still know this stuff.

I re-evaluated everything for my comeback, and seriously considered playing things like 1.e4 and the Morra Gambit, Belgrade Gambit (in the Four Knights - I have a soft spot for it). But I finally decided to broadly stick with openings where I had experience, but to sharpen up the lines I played. Like the SWARM (5...Ba5) Winawer, and the Chistiakov (...Qxd5) in the French Tarrasch.

I recall playing a series where the winner lost one minute on the clock for game 2. It started at 5' each, then 5'-4' and so on. I would win the first four games, until I reached one minute vs five - and then I'd lose 5 in a row, because I simply could not play one-minute chess. This sequence played out many times.

Doodling around with computers, I've noticed I tend to take 4 seconds over obvious moves, 10 to 15 over semi-obvious ones, and up to 45" in critical positions. It has taken me 15" to find a mate in one.

Oh, been there, done that... but then I missed you... ;s :p

<Uh, pardon my inexcusable ignorance, but when did the CG Opening Explorer acquire built-in comments?>

A couple of years ago, I think, just a few openings. I love the comments on the Two Knights, with 4.Ng5. ;)

Come to think of it, I think I prefer having smoke blown in my face to playing any kind of chess ... though it may depend on the source of the smoke.