Tactics Puzzle

Here's an interesting position I just played on FICS.

Hint: Black to move and win material.

Answer can be found by highlighting between the brackets
[1. Bxe4 Bxe4
2. Nxe4 Qxe4
3. Re8 Qf3
4. Rxe3! and White cannot take the Rook back because of Bd4 pinning the Queen]

Do Losers Make Their Own Bad Luck?

Here's some food for thought.

As chess players, what do we regard as really important ?

I for one have no ambitions of ever attaining any titled rank. The amount of effort required to reach the highest echelons of chess involves an enormous amount of time and resources which I currently do not possess.

But is it possible that chess players suffer from status anxiety in one form or another?

IMHO, the more engrossed we are in chess and the more emphasis we place in chess, there is a chance that the level of our dissatisfaction with chess itself arises.

We start to compare with other people, be it other players of the same club or with people who we perceive to be our
"equals". And when our peers start to get better or rise up the ranks quicker than us, we feel resentful. We may even starting cursing ourselves for our own inadequacies and our failings.

Chess is a rather strange beast.

Much like the secular world we live in, we largely perceive the chess world as meritocratic. In chess, everyone is more or less granted the same in terms of equality with regards to the various rights, opportunities and methods to improve our knowledge and understanding of chess.

And herein lies one of the problems with this meritocracy. If as chess players, we believe that those at the top merit their success, then by logical reasoning, are we also inclined to believe that those at the bottom merit their failure? Does this also not mean that those at the bottom brought it upon themselves? Are they - as Ben Kingsley so coldly call them in the movie, Searching For Bobby Fischer - losers?

The oft quoted modern punishing mantra in the chess world is "We make our own luck."

So why is it that when winners say they were lucky, we are more inclined to believe it. But for the defeated to blame it on bad luck, why are we less inclined to believe the opposite?

U1800 Rd 4: Norths Grizzlies v Ryde Eastwood Results

I didn't fare so well in my game last night and lost after making a positional blunder vs Gordon Miller. Oh well, I will just have to take the lumps as it goes. Fritz had a look at the position this morning and spotted something (strangely enough, a purely positional move) that I would never have considered. :)

My team overall put up a decent performance.

Fellow team-mate Brenton beat my brother-in-law Steven in a tense game on Board 1.
Lorenzo lost against Oscar Wang on Board 2.
David French drew with Marek Baterowiz on Board 3.

So that effectively puts us at 1.5-2.5 for the overall result.

Norths Winter Challenge

This was a game I played during the Winter challenge 2 weeks ago.

During the middlegame, my opponent made some mistakes and I made some mistakes as well and we quickly transpose into an endgame in the following position.

The question is:


Should White play Qxh5(yes that Knight really is en-prise)? Black's a-pawn is going to head home soon because Black will be trying to play Qd4+ on the next move followed by a2 then a1=Q.

Answer can be found by highlighting the brackets

[1. Qxh5 is correct but there's a hidden reason. Play continued....
1.... Qd4+
2. Kh1 a2
3. Rxg7+!! It's mate in 3]

U1600 and U1800 Rd3 Results

Tonight is a bit of an unusual situation.

Both of my teams, the U1600 Norths Bear and the U1800 Ryde Eastwood were playing in the same venue at Norths League club.

I had earlier informed my U1800 team captain David French 2 weeks ago that I could not play for them tonight as I would be playing for the U1600 Norths Bear.

As a result, David had to find 2 players to fill in (Lorenzo was away as well) and Dennis Hale and young Dylan Siow-Lee luckily filled in for replacements for Lorenzo and me.

So the U1800 Ryde Eastwood team comprises Brenton Yum, David French, Dennis Hale and Dylan Siow-Lee.

I had a slight shuffle in my U1600 Norths team as well. The players were me, David Stern, Andrew Johnson and Michael Anderson respectively. We were playing the team from Manly (yes, I know how this sounds really strange) comprising Jack Mejzini, Chris Dimock, Gordon Miller and Nina Vayssiere.

My opponent was Jack Mejzini. I was Black and we quickly transposed into the Sicilian Dragon. Jack made a mistake and blundered his Knight (I was shocked that he left his Knight en prise that I spent nearly 10 minutes calculating the effects of taking it). He got 2 pawns for the Knight in return but it was insufficient compensation and I basically traded into a winning endgame.

Boards 2 and 4 were a draw and Board 3 was lost, so the U1600 Norths emerged 2-2.

I was watching the U1800 Ryde Eastwood team but unfortunately, we didn't fare so well, we lost on all boards and ended up 0-4.

An absolute bummer.