Some help......mate?

My opponent with black was kind enough in his attempt to flag me to play 53...f6??



I pre-moved 54.f4+ exf4 55. exf4# and was still searching for my next pre-move when I realized the game was over!! A funny little helpmate!

GM scalp, thanks to Marin once again ;-)

I more or less try to follow the Marin books when playing with the white pieces. At the moment I go for Closed Sicilian Reversed instead of the lines recommended by Marin. I also need to study more the c4 e5 lines from book one. I am however getting better and better with every week in the Symmetrical English. When I first started playing the English follow "Strategical Opening Repertoire" I alway had trouble when they played completely symmetrical and  had to go for the early d4 lines like in the following game. I finally studied it some after getting the Marin books and in this game against a strong opponent in the ICC 3-minute pool I managed to put together a good game following Marin's theory and get the nice result!

Tactics from Malakhov-Grischuk, Russian Superfinal

This position occured in Malakhov-Grischuk in the 7th round of the Russian Superfinal. Malakhov just played 39.Bh4 which is a surprising blunder in an equal position. At the moment white has an extra pawn but black can regain the pawn on h6 at his leisure so material is effectivly equal. Can you find the sequence that won black a pawn and eventually the game? Remember what Nunn said about lose piece, they usually drop of....but in this case the looseness of some white pieces was used to win a pawn!

Tactic from a live blitz game

Played some live blitz games with friends last night while sipping on a few and having a good time. In one of the games I found a nice way to take advantage of the weak back rank after white played Bg3-h2 on his last move!

A good win in the Black Queen Blues on ICC

This 6...Qa5 move, the so called "Black Queen Blues" as dubbed by Moskalenko has more or less become my main weapon in the Winawer. It's a nice variation, usually ending up in nice blocked French type positions. Here I use it again GM Julio Becerra and get a good win in the 3-minute pool on ICC.

Marin vs the Slav

I want to discuss the Anti-Slav line chosen by Marin in his repertoire books. The position below is the main branching point.

This is after 1.c4 c6 2.Nf3 d5 3.g3 Nf6 4.Bg2 of course there are several other move orders to reach this position. White could start with 1.Nf3 and McShane for instance reached this afte 1.g3!

Black has a choice here:



4...dxc4 5.0-0 is the gambit line which I have yet to discuss
4...Bf5 is the Barcza variation

And here I will discuss 4...Bg4

A funny thing has happened  here. I have played 2 online blitz games in the last 2 days that both went:

5.Ne5 Bf5 6.cxd5 Nxd5??



I obviously just played 7.e4 winning a piece!

The opponent on ICC somehow lasted over 40 moves and he tried to get counterplay with 7...f6 8.Nc4 Nb4 9.exf5 Nd3+ 10.Kf1 Qd4 which is probably the best black can do and hope for a miracle. The other guy, over 2400 on PlayChess went 7...Nb4 8.exf6 f6?? 9.Qh5 and resigned!!



Other than that I am mostly meeting 5...Bh5/Bf5 and only today for the first time I got 5...Be6 played against me.

Play after Bf5/Bh5 is often very similar. We go cxd5 and Nc3 and after e4 we give a check on a4 and it's slightly tricky for black. More games later!

Chess Tactics Training #1

Nice scalp in 3-minute pool

I managed a nice win in the 3-minute pool yesterday. My opponent is a Brazilian GM, Andre Diamant, Brazilian Champion in 2008.

After his weird opening, we get a Dutch type of position and I quickly get the upper hand.

Exciting round today in the Russian Superfinal

Everything that's wrong with online chess

Played this game on ICC in 3-minute pool vs Buffon(GM). Says he is from Italy. This is on move 47. I have 19 seconds left vs 1:28 after some tough defence and realize I can't win this and offer a draw. He declines.


On move 56 I win the pawn....I have 11 seconds left:



If he thought he had chances because of the pawn I offer a draw again....only to by flagged on move 100 by his brilliant back and forth moves.



I played Rd7-d5 about 30 times in that span...but he threw in some checks....

Is this chess anymore? I asked him after the game "What is this?" .....bad idea by the way, I have a very short fuse and this only ended up in getting me more angry which was obviously his intention with answers like "You crying ?" ...."still crying" "cry cry cry" "go on"  and sure enough he is gonna be the one "complaining" and I'll receive a stupid letter from ICC Complain....SERIOUSLY?

Flagging is sometimes part of the game but I think everbody with 15% decency is not gonna flag such an endgame....whatever happened to showing your opponent some respect?

p.s.

The position Ratedoro references. Tiviakov with black was flagged in this position. He can even lose all his pawns and his bishop and it's still drawn....pathetic!