Czech Mate

Excuse the bad pun.

I'm still wrapping my head around using Chess Publisher and am loving it. This was a team match correspondence game played this year.

I've never understood the Czech Benoni (I doubt I ever will). I ran this through Fritz. My own comments are in bold.



In the game above, I find I didn't have to make any mistakes. My one worry was castling Queenside right into his Bishop pin. But I took a look around the board and couldn't find anything threatening and went ahead with it.

I'd noticed that certain openings can be played based on general understanding, and for other lines, move memorisation is required. I'll be honest, I've never remembered any line beyond the 6th or 7th move so I do not play lines like the Najdorf and the Slav because the amount of theory is too mind boggling.

At my level (which I estimate to be around 1200), I just need to understand concepts and general ideas, practice on my tactics and perfect my endgame technique. Until I get to at least 1800 level, I do not intend to bother with deep move memorisation. However, what I do also want to acquire is knowledge about pawn structures and ideas behind certain openings. I feel this is an invaluable knowledge tool to any aspiring chess player.

How Not To Play Vs The French Defence

I've finally decided to take the plunge and have a go at Chess Publisher instead of constantly loading my games to Fritz and then copying and pasting the images to the blog.

ChessPublisher is still a little temperamental at times but overall, the change has been very positive and I am very pleased with the results. I would like to give my utmost thanks to Andrew Ooi for giving the chess blog world a terrific way to present chess games. His contribution cannot be any more understated.

Here's a game I just played in FICS. I decided to vary my repertoire a little and play the French Defence. I have not added in a lot of game comments as the game was simple from start to finish.



Incidentally, because of studies, I have also forfeited my remaining 5 games at my chess club. I have to take 4 Module exams and 2 Finals exam within the next 7 days (it's just not funny). I was running in 3rd place. Oh well, it's only a Rapid competition anyway and it was fun while it lasted.

Getting to the chess club on Wednesdays is fast becoming a huge hurdle to overcome. I finish work at 7pm and the competition starts at 7.30pm. This means, I have to get to my office garage, hop on, blaze full speed to the club (it's about a 15-20 min drive away), park and run up to the club.

I do notice one particular habit forming.

I ALWAYS lose my first game. Without fail. It seems that by the time I get to the club, I'm so hurried that I started to make mistakes. Mistakes I would not normally make (like not seeing a mate in 1 for instance!).

However, usually after my first game, I find that I am much settled down and will start to play at a much improved level and I win more often than not. I guess I have to rethink about joining another chess club soon after my studies. I can't keep doing this week after week.