Second Rapid Game

My second rapid game (10 minutes with a 5 second increment) ended disastrously but I had a dominant position until I ran into time trouble. Figure 1 shows the situation before I lost my rook. I only six seconds remaining.

Figure 1

As can be seen, I'm a rook up but two pawns down. All I needed to do was to protect my rook but when seconds remain you do silly things. My opponent had the luxury of 2 minutes and 27 seconds and that made all the difference. This loss cost me a hefty 119 rating points, which seems rather excessive. and took me down to 1608 which is embarassing but it shouldn't be too hard to work my way back up provided a learn to manage my time better.

My response to White's initial e4 was the Pirc Defense characterised by d6. I quite like this response but need to research it further. The YouTube channel Journey to Grandmaster is promoting it heavily via a playlist of 11 videos. See Figure 2.

Figure 2

Shocking Chess Defeat

Yesterday I suffered one of my more humiliating chess defeats, losing four games in a row to an over-the-board player. In my defence, I was playing someone who makes a habit of playing 5 minute blitz games online and so my opponet was well practised. In contrast, I was not. I occasionally play online games against a computer with no time limit but rarely play humans online in any format.

I don't like defeats and so it seems obvious that, if I'm not to suffer further defeats (and my chess partner has threatened to return), I must raise the quality of my playing through constant online practice. To that end, I'll need to resume using lichess.org and choose a suitable time format. I think the 10 minutes with a 5 second increment is probably the best format for me. the 5 minute games I find too stressful.

I'll give it a go anyway and see how it works out. It's the best and quickest way to improve my playing and it's something that I should have done years ago. I'll use this blog site to report on my progress. I'll play on my laptop initially as I find the small screen on my phone difficult to use, although I guess this is something that I need to overcome as well. This constant play also gives me a goal, namely to improve my rating. In some ways, it's no different to playing Wordle and trying to improve my statistics for that game.

Chess Puzzle

Wow, it's been a while since I last posted anything on this blog. In fact it was July 23rd of this year when I posted about a new image file format. Today I was presented with a chess puzzle that took me a few minutes to work out. See Figure 1.

Figure 1: White to move and mate in 2

The key to the problem is Black's lack of mobility. Only the rook or the pawn on a7 can move. White must make a move so that, whether Black moves the pawn or the rook, mate must follow. The necessary move is Qd5, obvious enough once you see it.

Recently I started solving some of the puzzles on lichess.org as an alternative to playing full games which I usually lose (playing on Fairy-Stockfish 14 level 6). See Figure 2. I always play classical chess with an unlimited time control as I don't enjoy the stress of timed games. I've tried playing 5 minute games against online opponents but found that too tense. I only play against the computer nowadays. For this reason I don't have a rating as it's only games played against online opponents under time controls that count.

Figure 2

My current level in solving puzzles is 1967 and in general I hover around the 2000 mark, sometimes a little above and sometimes a little below.

 
Figure 3

It's a relaxing alternative to playing full games and I should do it more frequently as one means of keeping my brain active.

Lichess: Another Win

After several defeats by Stockfish 14+ (set to level 6 ≅ 2300) on lichess.org, I had a surprisingly quick and easy win today. Here is the game:

Black overextended on the king side with a pawn advance and paid the ultimate price. I invariably advance the queen pawn when playing white and this game was no exception. When I have the black pieces, I usually play some variation of the Sicilian Defence against an opening e4 from white but I'm becoming disenchanted with it. Perhaps I should try the Caro-Kann Defence? Alireza Firouzja has been using it recently in some of his games so it must have some merit. On lichess.org there are a variety of studies and one of them deals with the Caro-Kann defence. Figure 1 shows a screenshot. The study is well-presented and I should investigate more of them.

Figure 1: link

I haven't actively tried for a rating on any of the online chess platforms, preferring to play unrated games as this puts me under less pressure to perform. Maybe I should because it's very rare that I get to play anybody over the board these days. I'm making slow progress on ChessPuzzle.net and am currently rated at 1842 as of Monday, 8th November 2021.

Of course, there's nothing like over-the-board play but it's hard to come by these days.

While I was searching for chess clubs in my local area of Bintaro Sektor IX, I noticed that Utut Adianto, the famous Indonesian grandmaster, has set up a chess training school very near to where I live. Unfortunately however, it's now permanently closed. I was surprised to learn that, on May 9th 2009, Utut Adianto was elected to the People's Representative Council, the lower house of Indonesia's bicameral parliament. He became deputy speaker of the body on 20 March 2018.

Born 16th March 1965
Wikipedia link

Stored Games on Lichess

I only realised today that Lichess saves all the games you play, provided you are registered. This is of course quite useful in analysing what went wrong. Figure 1 shows a position from a game I played last night and ended up losing, even though I thought I could win it or at least draw. Black has just captured, with a pawn, the white bishop on g6 that had previously captured the black bishop with check. It is now move 33 with white to play. 

Figure 1

I played my rook to e2 and lost ignominiously after 33...c7 c1+. The engine is recommending that I play 33 f1 g1 but even my 33. d2 e2 move all is not lost. The position is judged as equal. The critical position was reached in Figure 2, when it's white's turn to move and I played 33. b2 b1 and after 33...c8 c5 I'm finished. The recommended move is 33. b2 a3 and white has at least a draw.

Figure 2

I've embedded the game in this website:

I've been setting the lichess computer to level 6 which is apparently about 2300 level which is certainly strong enough for me. I've been playing at this level for my past few games now whereas previously I'd set it to the level 5. I'd won some games at that level but level 6 is certainly more challenging.

I'm reminded of that how many free resources are available now for improving ones chess prowess and I should be more active in taking advantage of them. Talking of which, I played my first rated game today and won easily. However, I'm sure that I'll meet much stronger players if I continue. Figure 3 shows a screenshot:

Figure 3

If you play 30 rated games, you get an official lichess rating so I should continue and try to get one. Of course, I should try to learn some of the more common opening traps that are about or else I'm bound to fall prey to some of them. I now have 88 games stored on lichess.

LICHESS.ORG

I need to keep practising how to embed chess games into my blog. I've done it before using chessbase but recently I played a game on lichess.org and I'm hopefully going to embed the game below:



At first I was disappointed because the game wouldn't display but then it clicked. It was a problem with the browser. I was using the Brave browser and when I switched to Chrome there was no problem. Even though I like supporting Brave, this is not the first little glitch that I've noticed with this browser.

One can also download the game as a pgn file and open it in another program like ChessX (that I have installed on my computer). Another interesting alternative offered by lichess.org is to turn the game into a gif (see Figure 1):

Figure 1

There is quite a good computer analysis offered of the game. A screenshot is shown in Figure 2:

Figure 2

One can also posts studies that lichess.org provides. Here is an example of one such study involving the fried liver attack that I have discussed in an earlier blog (Chess: The Fried Liver Attack).



These studies are a valuable resource and one that I should take advantage of. 

In the past, I've posted on chess a number of times but I hadn't really realised how much until I decided to collate them. The links to these posts are:

• Chess: A Personal History
• Toroidal Chess
• Chess: An Unlikely Win
• Chess: The Fried Liver Attack
• Chess Diagrams
• CHESS: Ding Lirin - China's highest ranked player ever
• CHESS: HOW TO EMBED A FULL CHESS GAME IN A BLOG
• CHESS: The Budapest Gambit
• CHESS: FISCHER versus TAL
• CHESS: THE ELEPHANT GAMBIT
• CHESS: THE MARSHALL ATTACK
• CHESS: Nodirbek Abdusattorov - 2nd Youngest Chess Grandmaster in History
• A Win Against Fritz
• An Historical Win
• CHESS: A BUMBLED DRAW
• CHESS: The Rules for Drawing
• CHESS: Holding On
• CHESS: More Master Mauling

I should play online chess more frequently. I watch one or more of agadmator's Chess Channel videos most days but often go for days without playing a game. I should try to develop a rating on one or more of the available chess sites so that I can set some rating goal for myself.