Woohoo! I got triple goose egg at the club Tuesday (PARMA AUG. 30). I felt like I played poorly in 2 of my games. I played well in the other game but messed up and let my opponent get in my position with a N and Q. I was up a piece and should have sac’d my R and started my attack first. My provisional rating took a nice dive:

R: 1426P8 ->1302P11 Q: 1281P8 ->1182P11

Oh well……

I had a win and a loss at the chess club Tuesday(PARMA AUG 23). My excitement from winning was partly responsible for my poor play in the second game. The second game could have been very exciting if I had played better. I will post it here if I get a chance to annotate it.

Here is my win:


[Event "Edited game"]
[Site "Parma chess club"]
[Date "2005.08.23"]
[Round "-"]
[White "FLORY, TIMOTHY J "]
[Black "HALM, IMMANUEL "]
[Result "1-0"]

1. e4 d6 2. Bc4 g6 3. d3 Nf6 4. Nc3 c6 5. f4 e6 6. Nf3 Bg7 7. O-O Nbd7 8.
e5 dxe5 9. fxe5 Nd5 10. Qe1 O-O 11. d4 Nxc3 12. Qxc3 Nb6 13. Bb3 Nd5 14.
Qd2 h6 15. Qf2 b6 16. Bd2 Bb7 17. Rad1 Rc8 18. c4 Ne7 19. c5 b5 20. Be3 Nd5
21. Bxd5 cxd5 22. Qd2 g5 23. Rf2 a5 24. Rdf1 b4 25. h4 g4 26. Ng5 hxg5 27.
Bxg5 Qd7 28. Bf6 Ba6 29. Qg5
{Black resigns} 1-0


My current favorite white opening the Bishops/Vienna with f4 before Nf3. If I don't mess up I usually get a strong attack down the f file. There are also lots of tactical opportunities if black trys to get tricky. This guy, I guess, doesnt realize that only the attacker can win. I love playing against slow openers.














Time to get rid of that active N and my not so active B. Thanks Jeremy Silman.














I was going to try to overpower his h pawn. I did not really want to retreat my N though so I played Ng5 hxg5 27. Bxg5 Qd7 28. Bf6 Ba6 29. Qg5 {Black resigns} 1-0

I went to the chess club again Tuesday(PARMA AUG 16). I did ok. Had my new equipment from http://www.sigschess.com/ in 3 days. I got 1 draw and 2 losses. The draw could have been a win if I had more time or a stronger end game. I was still happy with the game. My second game I lost to playing the opening badly. I was still not recovered from my first game. The third game I was playing well. I had the advantage then made a tactical miscalculation then dropped a N for a P due to the pieces being in a jumble on the board. I wanted to post all my games here but I don’t have time to annotate them all. I got my provisional ratings:R: 1399P6 Q: 1246P6

:-(

I am falling a little behind in my first circle of drills. I am about 2/3 through the second level problems. Some of them are a bit tough. I am learning a lot from some of them. I am planning on modifying the circles drill because I don’t see how going through the upper level problems will do much good till I have a good handle on the easier ones. So far my internet rating seems to be holding steady at about 1530. I am not playing as many games since I have been doing so many chess drills. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Went and played my first OTB (PARMA AUG9) at the Parma Chess Club http://parmachessclub.org/. I had checked it out about a year ago to see if there were any kids for my son HEARTLESSWIZARD http://freechess.org/. It is G30 quads. I went expecting to lose 4 games, 3 on time and one on touch. Found out quads are 3 games. I suck at 0 Inc games and often have time problems in my 45 45 games. I did not do too bad. The first game was pretty rough. I did not have a board or clock so had to use a club board and my opponents broke dick clock. After about 4 moves we got the clock working and I forgot to notate my moves (so did my opponent) :-( I dropped a piece and lost that game. My opponent claimed to be about 1600.

My second game was against LUDVIK BARTA (~1600). He is a cool older guy. I made a tactical error trying to move quickly and lost.
[Event "Edited game"]
[Site "CLEWKSTF2INF"]
[Date "2005.08.11"]
[Round "-"]
[White "tim / phorku"]
[Black "Ludvik"]
[Result "0-1"]

1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d3 h6 4. Nc3 Nc6 5. f4 exf4 6. Bxf4 d6 7. Nf3 Be7 8.
e5 dxe5 9. Nxe5 Nxe5 10. Bxe5 a6 11. Qe2 O-O 12. Bxc7 Qxc7 13. O-O-O Bg4
14. Qd2 Bxd1 15. Qxd1 b5 16. Bb3 b4 17. Ne2 a5 18. Ba4 Nd5 19. Re1 Ne3 20.
Qd2 Bg5 21. h4 Nxg2 22. hxg5 Qh2
*
End of good annotation.

My last game was against Victor(~1500). I trapped his queen then had to hurry to finish him off before I ran out of time. ~60 moves in 30 is pretty tough especially for me. When I got down to my last couple minutes I stopped annotating. After a couple more moves I phorked his K and R. He resigned. Then he said he had a draw my repitition farther back but he didn't call it. As you can see there is no repitition. Anyway I was very excited about my win.

[Event "Edited game"]
[Site "CLEWKSTF2INF"]
[Date "2005.08.10"]
[Round "-"]
[White "VICTOR NASVYTIS"]
[Black "phorku / tim"]
[Result "*"]

1. e4 d5 2. d3 d4 3. Nf3 c5 4. b3 Nc6 5. Bb2 e5 6. c3 Nf6 7. cxd4 cxd4
8.Nbd2 Bb4 9. a3 Bxd2+ 10. Qxd2 O-O 11. Be2 Be6 12. b4 Qd7 13. Qg5 Rac8
14.O-O h6 15. Qh4 Qc7 16. Rfc1 Qb8 17. b5 Ne7 18. a4 Ng6 19. Ba3 Nxh4
20. Nxh4 Rxc1+ 21. Rxc1 Rc8 22. Rd1 Bb3 23. Rb1 Bxa4 24. Nf5 Qc7
25. h3 Kh7 26. Rc1 Qd7 27. Rb1 Bxb5 28. Kh2 Nd5 29. Nd6 Rc3
30. Nxb5 Rxa3 31. Nxa3 Nc3 32. Re1 Nxe2 33. Rxe2 b5 34. Rb2 a5
35. Rxb5 f5 36. f3 fxe4 37. fxe4 Qc7 38. Nc4 Qf7 39. Nxe5 Qf4+
40. Kh1 Qf1+ 41. Kh2 Qf4+ 42. Kh1 Qf1+ 43. Kh2 a4
44. Ra5 a3 45. Rxa3 Qf4+ 46. Kh1 Qxe5 47. g3 Qxg3 48. Rb3 Qxh3+
49. Kg1 Qe3+ 50. Kg2 h5 51. Kh2 h4 52. Ra3 Qg3+ 53. Kh1 h3
54. Ra2 Qxd3
*
End of annotation.

I ordered a clock, board and triple weight peices from Sig's Chess http://www.sigschess.com/. I get excellent service from Sig and will probably have my stuff by Tuesday. His price on the clock was also quite a bit cheaper than USCF member price.

Looking forward to going back next week.

I use winboard to do my chess vision drills. On the concentric squares drill I use the minimum piece that makes the tactic work and fill in all the forks, skewers and pins. Then when I am done you can see the full pattern.

Welcome to phorku's blog.

I am 38 and have been 'playing' chess since I was a kid. I played on and off into my 20's with out ever knowing what a tactic was. One day I bought a chess tactics book and learned there was much more to the game than I thought. My playing got a lot better after that. When I started playing on fics (Mon Dec 4, 17:14 PST 1995) I was still pretty ignorant. I did not know the names of any openings. My opening evolved from always trying for 1. e4 ... 2. bc4 ... 3. qf3 ... 4. qxf7# to the scotch. I still didn't know the names of the openings. Over the last 1.5 to 2 years I have been studying hard with little effect. Using reassess your chess I made it to 1581 but could not maintain that rating.

In t27 in the 45 45 league I was left with out a team after I found out Patchworks, my old team, would not be playing. The U1600 Pomaranch captain and the U1800 DeLaMaza captain kindly accepted me on their teams. This is how I was introduced to the DeLaMaza system. I had read the article on chess cafe some time ago and recently bought Michael's book when I saw it at borders. I have started doing the chess vision drills at lunch at work and ct-art 3 first circle August 1, 2005 when at home. My rating is about 1530 (fics). I have been around this rating for the last year even though I have been studying hard. Since I have started analyzing every game with crafy I see how weak I am.

Even though I have started trying a modified rapid chess improvement program I have 2 issues I need to deal with first.
1. There is a fine line between playing aggressively and recklessly. I cross it often.
2. In certain positions, especially after I have gained an advantage, I will get frustrated if there is no clear way to immediately press my advantage or no clear good aggressive move. Then I will make a blunder. I forget about oppenents counterplay, leave pieces enprise, make counting mistakes or whatever. I get so mad at myself when I do it. J. Silman talks about regrouping all the time. Maybe I should get it tatooed on my hand or something.
Here are some perfect examples:
[Event "ICS Rated standard match"][Site "freechess.org"][Date "2005.08.07"][Round "-"][White "ahorse"][Black "phorku"][Result "*"][WhiteElo "1511"][BlackElo "1536"][TimeControl "1800+30"]
1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 e6 3. c4 c5 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. Bg5 Be7 6. dxc5 dxc4 7. Qa4+ Nc68. Rd1 Bd7 9. Bxf6 Bxf6 10. Qxc4 O-O 11. Ne4 Bxb2 12. g3 Qa5+ 13. Nfd2 Ne514. Qb3 Ba3 15. Bh3 Bb4 16. O-O Ba4 17. Qb2 Bxd1

The advantage.

18. Rxd1 Bxd2 19. Qxe5Qxa2

The blunder. WTF were you thinking.

20. Rxd2 Qb1+ 21. Kg2 h6 22. Nd6 Rfd8 23. Rb2 Qg6 24. Rxb7 a5 25. Rxf7Rxd6 26. Rxg7+ Qxg7 27. Qxd6 e5 28. Qd5+*


[Event "ICS Rated standard match"][Site "freechess.org"][Date "2005.08.07"][Round "-"][White "phorku"][Black "Floppyjoe"][Result "*"][WhiteElo "1534"][BlackElo "1593"][TimeControl "1800+30"]
1. e4 c5 2. Bc4 Nc6 3. d3 e5 4. Nc3 d6 5. f4 g6 6. Nf3 Bg4 7. O-O a6 8.fxe5 Nxe5 9. h3 Nxf3+ 10. gxf3 Bxh3 11. Rf2 Qh4 12. Ne2 Be7 13. Bf4 Bf6 14.Bg3 Qg5 15. Rh2 Qe3+ 16. Rf2 Bd4 17. Nxd4 Qxd4 18. c3 Qe3 19. Qa4+ b5 20.Bxb5+ Ke7 21. Bc4 Nf6 22. Qc6 Rhd8 23. Kh2 Ne8 24. Kxh3 Qh6+ 25. Kg2 Qg526. Rg1 h5 27. Kf1 Qc1+ 28. Kg2 Qg5 29. Kh1 Qf6 30. Rgg2 h4 31. Bh2 Rac832. Qb7+ Rc7 33. Qxa6 Rcd7 34. Bd5 Nc7 35. Qc4 Nxd5 36. exd5 Kf8 37. Rg4 g538. Rfg2 Re8 39. Rxg5 Re1+ 40. Bg1 h3 41. Rg8+ Ke7 42. Rh2 Qxf3+ 43. Rgg2Re2 44. Qh4+ f6 45. Qxh3 Qxd5 46. Qh7+ Kd8 47. Qh5 Rxg2 48. Qxd5
The advantage.
Rg5 49.Rh8+ Kc7 50. Bh2
The blunder. I was under time pressure but I still knew that Q was hanging.
Rxd5 51. Rh6 Rxd3 52. Rxf6 Rd2 53. b4 Rh7 54. Rxd6 Rhxh2+55. Kg1 Kxd6*

Anyway welcom to phorku's chess blog and hope to punish you on the board soon.