Daily Chess Diary

It's been a little while since I've had time to play a rapid game (well that's not true, I could have found time over the long weekend, but I only committed to playing after work, so I'm not counting saturday-monday as a REAL lapse.) Yesterday was super busy at work and I had rehearsal shortly after returning home, so I decided to not play in my stressed and fatigued state late in the evening. So here we are! Trying to get back on the wagon. Had a nice quick victory against a line that was surprisingly similar to the last rapid game I played. Both players opened up with the almost identical d4, Bf4, Nc3, e3, h3 moves like it's some kind of system. In both cases, h3 seems like an obvious inaccuracy that throws away white's initiative and gives black time to develop pleasantly and castle before playing c5 to attack the center. My opponent today also played a bizarre move, Be5, posting the dark square bishop on a very forward square supported by their center pa...

Another game where I squander my early advantage and lose on time. Not a lot to say here, except I really need to avoid coming up with complicated reasons not to play normal moves. I spent like 5 turns not developing my knight and paid for it. I gave a check based off some complicated calculations on a line my opponent didn't even go into and ended up improving their position. I later fell for a simple pin when low on time. Alas. At least I played pretty well in the opening. I just need to work on sticking to sound moves in the middle game and moving a little quicker.

Well I finally got matched upward. My opponent played the Nf6 Scandi, which I know nothing about facing. I guess I have to learn somehow. I made fairly reasonable moves, but much too slowly, and ended up pretty far behind on time early in the game. I spotted a tactical opportunity and had a very good position for a few moves, but failed to find the continuation that prevented my opponent from trapping my piece. I thought I still had a good position, with two advanced connected pawns, but my opponent defended well and eventually I blundered while playing on increment. Frustrating to lose in this way, but not the worst game. I could have easily been winning if I'd manage to hold after the tactic, so I think there's nothing stopping me from facing players at this rating level in the future. Honestly, I thought my opponent played pretty crap moves in the opening, but it cost me so much time trying to respond that it didn't hurt them much. I'm not sure if the immediate a...

What are the odds? Yesterday was my first rapid game against Caro-Kann in a long time, and today was my second. Unfortunately I hadn't gotten to studying the opening any more since yesterday, though I did remember that it's better to avoid the early bishop trade and just focus on developing. I ended up making a few inaccurate moves through the opening, which delayed castling longer than I would have liked, but I was able to get in a c4 attack and eventually use it to establish a protected pawn on d6 at the expense of my dark square bishop. It cost black some tempo to do this, though, and so I had a large development advantage to boot. The engine points out some ways that black could have reestablished equality a number of times after I made an ill-advised queen trade, but from a psychological perspective I felt like my position was easier to play than Black's. I, once again, made a mistake in trading light square bishops, but managed to continue adding pressure to bla...

On one hand, I'm annoyed that I keep getting paired with lower-rated players. On the other hand, I don't mind winning a few games in a row to boost morale. I felt like I played fairly well today, at least when it comes to identifying some key tactical opportunities. I did fail to correctly calculate the pawn exchanges in the center early in the game, which is annoying, and I got a little low on time, but overall I felt like I had some good stretches of highly-accurate moves. We went into the Caro-Kann, which I almost never face. I know basically nothing about the theory, so resort to my approach against any slow-seeming opening by black: push my pawns into the middle and try to protect them. It went okay, though I perhaps should have opted for an earlier c4 in light of Black's overly cautious early play. I got a little apprehensive after the center opened up and black appeared to have a lot of pressure, but once I was able to disentangle my pieces, the central location ...

I guess I was tired of people making dubious sacrifices that forced me to defend until I ran out of time or lost concentration, and so I was the one to make the dubious sacrifice today. I knew it was suspicious even when I was playing it, but I really wasn't looking forward to playing an obnoxious position where I had to spend a bunch of time trying to kick around my opponent's queenside pawn storm. I decided to just go for it and hope that I might be able to give my opponent enough opportunities to make mistakes. All in all, it was kind of a mess. I got the highly-tactical position I expected, but then we missed a lot of tactics. Ultimately my opponent did blunder a mate-in-one but they had about a hundred ways to prevent it earlier. This wasn't really an earned victory, but it did give me the magic internet points.

Today's warmup puzzle rush was especially sluggish, so I did a second one and felt much sharper. Got yet another pairing with black and my opponent was slow to start so I checked out their profile. Half a dozen comments on his profile commented about how he abandons games he's losing, so I was debating aborting and trying again, but then he moved and I decided to just go ahead and play. He played a response to French Defense I've never seen before, with 2.c4, clamping down on d5. I avoided playing d5, and so it transposed into a sort of english-y position. I managed to get an advantage but at the expense of time (typical). He advanced a couple pieces on the queenside that seemed more threatening than they actually were and I should have just continued developing and ignored them. Instead, I kicked them out but allowed them to reposition to attack on the kingside. I allowed my opponent double my pawns at the cost of a bishop, because it felt like I would still have prett...

Yet another game as black, yet another French Defense. Today was the Tarrasch, which always makes me think of the Tarrasque. Since it's strong and scary, like the Tarrasque, I guess it makes sense. White puts the knight on d2 where black can't pin it, though I don't play the Winawer anyway so in some ways I feel like it makes white's play more awkward and takes away their Nb5 ideas. Usually when someone plays 3.Nd2 against me, I still am a little cautious because it means they have at least some idea what they're doing in the opening and I might be in for a fight. Today started out extremely typical, but my opponent allowed me to take the d4 pawn and then played a dubious knight move that also gave up the e5 pawn. I was worried I'd missed something tricky, but it looks like they just straight up lost those two pawns and now I had a comfortable advantage. I tried to leverage this into a kingside attack, but I just couldn't get my pieces into the game quic...

I wasn't very focused heading into this game. Work was busy and I didn't get home as early as I would like. I made myself some Earl Grey and bread with cinnamon and tried to settle in. I played a mediocre round of puzzle rush and fired up an "I'm feeling lucky" playlist on google music. It started with Tchaikovsky, so I decided that boded well and queued up. Another game where I got matched down, which is always a little double-edged. On one hand, my opponent might make more mistakes. On the other hand, quality of play seems extremely variable at this rating level and it's totally possible to play someone who is having a good day and outperforms their rating level while you have a lot of rating points on the line for getting matched down. The game started off immediately weird, with my opponent responding to 1.e4 with 1...e6, suggesting they were going into the french, but then they fianchettoed their queenside bishop, blocked their c-pawn, and we were out...

I wasn't sure if I would queue up today, but I decided to keep the streak going even though it's not a work day.  I got matched up against someone rated ~1570 and was ready for a fight, but they abandoned the game and I had to queue again. Second matchup was 1299 and I had black yet again, but what can you do? My opponent opened 1.d4, which is definitely less common at my rating, but I've been studying my Grünfeld Defence and was hoping to put some of my practice to work, so I dove right in with 1...Nf6. White annoyingly responded with 2.Nf3, which could still transpose, but then they brought out their other knight, played Bf4, e3, and the slow h3, hammering out all the moves nearly instantly. Clearly this was some kind of system they use, like a London except with an earlier Nc3 and the over-cautious h3.  I think I played fairly well in an unknown opening, and my opponent made a strategic error by capturing my c-pawn and opening the long diagonal for my dark square b...

Yet another game that took way too long because I failed to convert a significant advantage in the middlegame. I'm pretty frustrated to experience a repeat of yesterday's problem, though at least I held this game to a draw. It's very clear that I need to work on playing safe moves faster, because running out of time and trying tactics to force trades is not working out so well.  In my defense, I was playing this game before we went out to dinner and I just wanted it to finish so I could go eat. Probably not the best psychological configuration for patient play.   I don't have a lot of time to narrate at great length here, so I'm going to just post the annotated game.

As a French Defense player, I usually don't mind seeing the exchange French, because the people who play it at my level often do so to avoid knowing much theory in the French. From Black's perspective, it makes life comparatively easy in the opening, freeing the light square bishop and letting black equalize early. However, because none of the people who play the Exchange variation against me know what they're doing, I'm ALSO not very good at the theory in this line. "Play Bd6, develop your pieces, and wing it" is pretty much where I get off. Didn't work out so well today. My opponent played an early Qe2+, giving a check before either of was developed. I know this isn't great for white, but then wasted too much time trying to figure out what to do about it. I opted not to trade queens and we ended up in a SUPER SHARP line in which my opponent completely ruined my kingside. I managed to extricate myself with some tactics, but at the cost of almost a...

I committed to playing immediately after I get home from work in order to help solidify these games as a habit, but I decided it was okay to take the trash out and change the cat litter first, because it is Wednesday. Then I got myself some water, locked the cats out of the office, put on some random music, and settled in to play. I've decided to stick with 15+10 time control for this project (15 minutes per player, plus 10 seconds per move), which is a decent compromise between having enough time to think and finishing the game at a reasonable rate. I got White and opened with my current standard, 1.e4. We went into a pretty typical Italian game and its accompanying densely-packed mid-board. Notice by move 7, all 4 knights and 3 of the 4 bishops have been developed and both players have 2 or 3 pawns vying for the central squares. Very 'principled', as chess players who know what they're talking about would say. One of white's plans in the Italian game is to p...

Improving at chess is hard. It's especially hard for an adult, lacking as we are in time to dedicate to such frivolities with the intensity required for improvement. There are tactics to practice, strategic ideas to study, openings to learn, and books to read. Worse, you have to actually play the game in order to improve! Who'd have thought?  The consensus is that you should play slow chess games to improve. Slow chess online usually means somewhere from 15-30 minutes per side, with additional time added after each move. Individual games can take 30-60 minutes, or more, and there is no "pause" button. Obviously playing the game is the point, but sometimes that gets lost in the shuffle. When you only have 5 or 10 or 30 minutes, it's easier to sit down and do a few tactics problems, or read a few pages in a book, or spend a few minutes reviewing openings, than it is to commit to playing a full game of chess. There's also no punishment for getting interrupt...