Is It Necessary To Play Till The Death?

I played 3 rapid games last night at my chess club. My last game was against Vincent. I ended up in a hopelessly losing position. And rather than choosing to resign, I chose to play on till near checkmate. Vincent wasn't happy with me after the game saying it was not a gentlemanly thing to do. He refused my handshake after the game and I didn't realise that he would get so upset over that.

Well, a couple of players at the chess club have a notoriety of playing till checkmate and I didn't see why he had to get so upset with me when other people are doing the same. I didn't like it but that doesn't mean they don't have a right to do it and I acknowledged that.

Which brings me to the question? When do you resign? Do you resign when you're a piece down?

In any other game, I would've instantly resigned in a hopeless situation and would have done so. I felt a bit lousy after the game for making Vincent go through the motions. I won't do that again, that's for sure, at least not against him or Alan.

FYI I did apologise to him much later and he was more receptive.

The Lighter Side Of Chess

This has to be one of the funniest chess clips ever.

Kasparov makes a humongous mistake against Anand.

Watch his eyes as Anand's hand hovers over the piece and his realisation of his error.



Special thanks to BCMChess.

Another Day, Another Plan

I just got off FICS and this was a win against 1500 rated player.

We arrive at this position on move 10 as shown. I am Black. White had just played 10. a3 (see diagram on left).

What should Black do in this position? I thought over this for a long while. Black has a terrible weakness at e5, so I must secure it first and take control of the b8-h2 diagonal.

10...Qc7 was the natural move. I could have considered Bd6 as well but I'm not worried about White's response Bf4 or Ne5.



11. b4? (see diagram on right. I thought this move was premature as it allows me now to gain the initiative) b5 (stopping counterplay on the Queenside)
12. Be3? (a weak move but where else can White's Bishop go?) Bd6 (continuing development)
13. Qc1 (doubling on the dark square diagonal to try and take control of the dark squares)

I paused to consider Black's response for a possible dark-square invasion by White but I could none. Bg5 aims at nothing and my Knights are doing a fine job protecting each other.

However, I smell blood and immediately hit on the a-file break with
13.... a5!
14. Ne2 axb4
15. axb4 Bxb4 (winning a pawn)
16. c3 Bd6
17. Rxa8 Rxa8 (it does not look like it but White is now in a very dangerous position. I control the a-file and White tries to break down my kingside)
18. Bf4 Bxf4 (the more minor pieces coming off, the stronger my passed b-pawn becomes)
19. Qxf4? (this was unnecessary) Qxf4 (exchanging all the pieces)
20. Nxf4 (see diagram on left)

This line makes me think the longest. There are 2 possible problems Black has here.

I first consider 21. Ne5. This move simply forces me to recapture with ....Nxe5 22. dxe5 and my response Nd7 (threatening the e5 pawn) is good for Black.

So that leaves White with another likely response and that is to play 21. Nxe6 fxe6 22. Rxe6 winning the e-pawn and threatening my backward c5 pawn. I must find a way to stop this.

I've got a few ways of defending this.

I first looked at the defense of the c5 pawn with my Knight 22... Ndb8. I thought this was a very ugly move. If 23. Re7! My goose is cooked as I've no way of defending with a Rook on the seventh rank and no way to extricate my Knight.

I think to myself, maybe I can play Re8 (defending the Bishop) or Rc6 or even Ra6. However, I was extremely unhappy with the passive nature of the Rook. Surely there must be something better.

What weaknesses does White have? Very easy. The c3 pawn and the Bishop on d3. And to tie up things even more nicely, once my Rook takes on the pawn at c3, it protects the c6 pawn. Nice!

So I played 20... Ra3 (see diagram on left).


White as expected eliminates my Bishop and now, Black is winning.

21. Nxe6 fxe6
22. Bf1 Ne4 (now I just steamroll White's position with my b-pawn and White resigns shortly after).
23. Ne5 Nxe5
24. dxe5 Rxcee 3
25. Ra1 b4 (see diagram on right)

A nice win. IMHO I think White's mistakes were:
a. he was slow to react
b. he started trading off pieces.
c. rather than activating his pieces, his pieces started to withdraw.
d. the b4 pawn move was premature and in the end, it proved costly for White.

Fritz11

Chessbase is sure releasing lots of new chess engines of late.

Shredder 11 is out and Fritz is arriving soon on Nov 22 and my wallet is going to be a lot thinner if I yield to the temptation.

But should I really upgrade my Fritz10? I don't really see the need to at the moment and I'll probably defer buying it until I can pick it up dirt cheap when Fritz 12 comes on.

At the current moment, I don't really need a super duper powerful chess engine that I use only for post mortems because my chess skills are nowhere near master level.

Thanks but no thanks, chessbase.

Is Chess Dead In My Club?

My rapid games last night at the chess club were ordinary. I lost 2 and won 1.

My opponents were Uno, Grieg and Thereza. I loved playing against Grieg, an absolute gentleman. He was in time trouble and I blundered in the end.

However, Uno has a penchant for playing moves by slamming his pieces down on the board so hard to make a point (especially when he is winning). Today, I made a mistake and rightfully lost but I congratulated him for his win nonetheless.

Thereza played horribly against me. She arrived late. I asked Thereza if she wanted the clock restarted (it's of no loss to me anyway) and she said no (I had only started the clock after more than 10 minutes had elapsed and I didn't feel it was fair to have others wait for me in the later rounds unlike a certain fella at my club who would start asap - not giving even 1 second). She had lost something like 3-4 minutes by then. That was nice of her anyway. Our game was weird, I ended up with a winning Q+K v K endgame and our clocks were ticking down. And Thereza did something unexpected. With 1 final move before I checkmated her, she declared,"Stalemate!" (which caught me by surprise as her King wasn't in stalemate) and I replied,"What stalemate?" She looked at it for about 10 seconds before realising her error. Ouch!

Sometimes I do wonder about the state of Ryde Eastwood League chess club. IMHO a few players' behaviour OTB can be improved. If these players were to continue playing chess this way, it's not surprising they're going to put people off (especially the younger players) with their antics. I'm being serious when I say this but this chess club desperately needs new blood and at the current way they're going, things don't look especially hopeful.