Ideal time control

Simple question: What do you think is the best time control to use in order to improve our game?

Certainly not blitz, but the point is, how slow should we play? In fact, that's exactly my problem, being slow. I can play reasonable well a G/45 using most of my time but get much weaker playing anything faster than this.

At first I thought about playing even slower games or stick with the G/45 but now I'm inclined to switch to G/30 and see If I can learn to play with less time.

Master games

I've been reading the "Logical Chess Move by Move" lately, I'm about half way through the book and can say it's helping me a *lot*. The games are not too complicated, the victories are usually built on simple plans, and the "move by move" explanations help to get the ideias even more clearly on my mind.

So far I've finished the games on Kingside Attack(16) and will now start the ones on the "Queen Pawn Openings" section. I'm sure this is gonna be great, as I have(at this time) no ideia what to do on queen pawn openings. I never play them, and when people use it against me I just go on developing my pieces as If i were playing a king pawn opening. Most of the time I just feel my game is geting "clumsy", so there must be something I'm missing.

I didn't memorize anything from the book but it certainly brought more "harmony" to my game. It's interesting to see how masters can get all pieces to cooperate so well.

Knights Tourney

Pawnsensei, I've posted a comment to you on RomaLavrn's blog, don't know if you saw it. Anyway you may drop here the days/times that suit you better. I don't use ICQ for a long time(just msn now), maybe you could switch the ICQ group to the forum that is about to be opened. Would be an easier way to get everybody connected. (besides our blogs, sure)

Step 2 is finished

Today I've finished Step 2 of TCT. I liked the software, althought some exercises(at least for Step 2) are so easy that leads to a blitz like mentality. When solving a lot of easy problems in a row you tend to go for the first thing you see because most of the time the answers *are* that simple.

I had a 91% success for this Step and will now start Step 3.

Not yet the circles...

... but definitely the start of my tactical training!

I decided to use the TASC Chess Tutor but without a schedule, at least for now. TASC has a huge collection of problems(2150) and a lot of text. I think I can get more if I go the first time through it from "cover to cover", reading the instructions carefully.

Another point is that TASC is divided by themes, what, as stated by other Knights, maybe a better aproach for a begginer.

I'm already half the way through Step 2, although I've skipped Step 1 because it's too basic(even for me!).

Time!

[Event "rated standard match"]
[Site "freechess.org"]
[Date "2005.05.08"]
[Round "?"]
[White "knightwizzy"]
[Black "Talmaster"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteElo "1504"]
[BlackElo "1667"]
[ECO "C30"]
[TimeControl "2700"]

1. e4 e5 2. f4 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. fxe5 Nxe5 5. Nf3 Nxf3+ 6. Qxf3 d6 7. Bc4 Bg4 8. Qg3 Qd7 9. O-O O-O-O 10. d4 d5 11. Bxd5 Nxd5

Here Crafty wants me to play 12. exd5 followed by 13. a4 and 14. Bf5 which of course, I didn't. I didn't want to double my pawns and this pawn center with a centralized knight(at least for some more moves) looked good for me.

12. Nxd5 f6 13. Bf4 Bd6 14. Bxd6 cxd6 15. Rae1 h5 16. Re3 Kb8 17. Ra3 Be6 18. Nc3 Rhe8 19. d5 Bg8 20. Qe3 b6 21. Qd3 Bh7 22. Re1 Qg4 23. Qa6 Rd7 24. Qc4 f5 25. Ra4 Rde7 26. Qc6 Qf4



Crafty gives me +4.81 with 25. e5! followed by 26. e6. The discovered attack on the queen gaining a tempo to advance the e pawn futher into black's camp would be nice, but I didn't see it.

27. Rf1 Qe3+ 28. Kh1 Qc5 29. exf5 Bxf5 30. h3

h3? I left my c2 pawn without defence to the bishop's attack.

30. ..., Qxc6 31. dxc6 Bxc2 32. Rh4 g6 33. b4 a6 34. Nd5

I had about 5 minutes on the clock against 25 to my opponent. Had to play the rest of the game under time pressure.

34. ..., Re1 35. Rxe1 Rxe1+ 36. Kh2

Crafty wants 36. ..., Be4 when I think Black could at least get my passed c pawn.

36. ..., b5 37. Rf4 Bf5 38. g4

The ideia was to get my rook into the 7th or 8th rank as soon as possible and play to queen the c pawn.

38. ..., Re2+ 39. Kg3 hxg4 40. hxg4 Rd2



Black offers to trade his bishop on my knight. After 41. gxf5, Rxd5 42. fxg6 I'd get one more pawn for free with two passed pawns on g and c files, so I thought the trade was pretty good. Crafty agrees with me, but he wouldn't play 42. fxg6, instead 42. f6, advancing the pawn in a file already controlled by my Rook.

41. gxf5 Rxd5 42. fxg6 Rd1 43. Kf3 Kc7 44. Rg4 Rf1+ 45. Kg3 Rf8 46. Kh4 Rg8 47. Kh5 Kxc6 48. Kh6 Kd5 49. Kh7

Black can't prevent the g pawn from from queening. The rook is sacrificed.

49. ..., Rxg6 50. Rxg6 Ke5 51. Rg4 d5 52. Kg7 d4 53. Kf7 Kd5 54. Kf6

Don't know why I played this moves with the King instead of going to the remaining pawns with the rook. Maybe because I had just some more seconds on the clock.

54. ..., Kc4 55. Ke5 Kxb4 56. Kxd4 Ka3 57. Rg2 a5 58. Kc3 b4+ 59. Kc2 a4 60. Kb1 b3 61. Rg3 Kb4 62. axb3 axb3 63. Kb2 Kc4 64. Rxb3 Kd4 65. Kc2 Ke4 66. Rd3 Ke5
{
knightwizzy ran out of time and
Talmaster has no material to mate
}
1/2-1/2

This is the first game I annotate so don't expect much. The main lesson I got from it was: I need to work on my time management! From a total of 45 minutes I used 40 to the first half(34 moves) and 5 to the other half(32 moves) which is, certainly, not a wise aproach.

A day of good games

Yesterday I played some good games on FICS, lost most of them, but I don't really care as long as do *learn* something from them.

In one of them playing against the "Italian Opening" I got caught in a trap(the "Fried Liver Attack") and all of a sudden I was a pawn down with my king in a very vulnerable position. It took me a lot of time trying to "fix up" the position, but at least after the game Harmless showed me the correct line(Although I was not playing him). Thanks =)

I have also finished the micro drills but didn't start the circles yet. I'm still in doubt wether to use a set organized by themes to get the basics, or to use problems without knowing the specific theme as in a real game there will be no "hey, look for an x-ray!" or "time for a double attack!".

I should start the circles soon, just need a while more to decide exactly what to do.

What's next?

I've finished the "Chess For Dummies" book and the micro drills this week. I'm looking now to start the circles, probably with the TASC Chess Tutor, just need to find a way to break it in parts as the 2150 problems seems way too much for a traditional circle.

Another thing I have in mind is to keep reading while solving the problems so I don't become too biased toward 'tactical play'. My 2nd book will be "Logical Chess Move by Move" by Irving Chernev. It has 33 master games commented "move by move".

Knights on FICS

As suggested by other Knights I created an account on FICS recentely. My main objection to this was due to the winboard+telnet interface which I found really confusing, but after somebody pointed me the Babas Chess interface I decided to give it a try.

Before it I was playing on Yahoo! Games, but now I can assure FICS is *much* better. The people are more polite, you get a chance to talk(yes, I like talking about the games also), it's possible to put people on a notify list, get a list of your recent games and much more, besides the fact that I found it's rating scheme more reasonable(you get a different rating for lightning, blitz, standard etc).

I'd like to +notify all you Knights(and possibly non Knights), so, if you hang there, please let me know. =)

My handle there is "knightwizzy".