King Kong - Game 2

Here's my second game again "Kevin Kong". There was nothing special about this particular tournament. Since his big breakthrough in February his rating had been bouncing back and forth between low 1400s and high 1300s. In the first round both of us got paired up and lost. I just missed the break so I played the number 1 seed and lost. Kevin was the lowest in the whole tournament. One upset and two late entries forced the second round pairing of the two of us.

This time I had the white pieces so I was pretty confident that I could get payback in the rematch.




I like my position out of the opening, but I guess I expected to be able to take advantage of the isolated d pawn. As I looked at the position today I thought maybe allowing the d pawn to become passed with 19. e4 was a mistake. However Fritz gave every line as equal. It wasn't until 21. exf5 that Fritz started giving black a small advantage. Once again he had a time advantage of roughly 4 minutes at move 25. 29. Bf3 is the last move I wrote down. Even though the passed pawn is a pain in the ass it's not crushing. Most of the continuations that Fritz suggested were equal or equal over plus for black.

This is the final position:

I have no idea how we arrived at this position, but somewhere in the time scramble I got rid of the pesky passer, but dropped a pawn, and as my time ran out the queens were being forced off the board. I don't know how many moves we played once we stopped keeping score. I drew up the diagram at the end. For all I know I left out a piece and maybe his bishop is defended by more then his queen and I'm losing my queen. If I'm only down the pawn going into the bishop versus knight ending it seems like I have drawing chances. If he doesn't choose to trade queens I still have problems. However when the digital clock reads 00:00 the board doesn't matter unless you have mate or the opponent lacks mating material.

King Kong - Game 1

This post is in response to a number of the comments I got regarding Adult Knightmares Redux. I decided to look at my past games with Kevin and see what is happening. This is my very first game against him back in February 2006. He was rated 1253 at the time. He was on the first of one of his breakthroughs. He had beaten a provisionally rated 1800 in the first round. In the meantime I got nicked for a draw by one of the kids from a lunch time chess class I teach. This was only the third time he was playing in a tournament with adults. The other two times were the under 1600 section of the Northeast Open, and the US Amateur Team East. His first round win was his biggest rating win ever, so he was totally stoked when he sat down to play me. In the meantime I was relieved to draw with the 1034.


The opening was pretty ordinary though 9...a6 wasn't very good. He got a little too much play with the knight and the bishop and boxed my queen in. I think there's where I got a little panicky and tried to reposition my pieces. Unfortunately I missed a simple little "remove the defender" tactic when I played 19...Nd7. After I dropped the pawn it went downhill from there. After 20 moves he had an eight minute time advantage.

I tried simplifying in the hopes that he wasn't good with endgames. I've pulled many rabbits out of my hat against young kids when I've been in time pressure in a lost ending. Some kids are so tactics driven that they don't know what to do in the ending. Unfortunately all I did with my attempts at simplification was give him the open c file and a centralized knight on d4. Instead of trying to chase the knight away I retreated my knight and ended out walking into a pin. When I was analyzing this game in Chessbase I couldn't figure what in earth I was doing during the game. It seems I had I just had a time pressure meltdown. When I looked at my scoresheet it appears I scribbled a time note of 37 seconds around move 30. The remaining moves I had gotten from my opponent when the game was over.

This particular loss was a combination of losing tempi early, dropping a pawn, and poor clock management. I didn't feel like he had gotten into my head. I figured he was pumped up from beating his first high rated adult in the prior round, and I happened to be the next one in line.

King Kong On My Back: Adult Knightmares Redux

The final paragraph of my post of September 16th said: So am I masochistic enough to play again when the next tournament there comes up? You betcha. I'm not letting a clean sweep get me down. Payback time is coming. Actually I played there in October, and managed an even score. I didn't play any of the same three kids that smacked me around in September, so I didn't really feel like I got payback. Winning a game where I was down a piece was satisfying, but it was off set by getting totally crushed by a kid who's in one of my lunch time classes. Ouch! (Sometime I will post on the topic of losing to former and current students, but not right now.)



Now it's November and I had an opportunity for payback time. Two out of the three kids from September were in my quad on Friday night. Instead of being #2 in the quad I'm #3. The two kids from September's quad are now higher rated then me, though not by much. Once again this is a very balanced section. The ratings range from 1721 down to 1666. First round I play black against Harry, and he beats me. Exact same opening, and I had the exact same problems. (Note to self: scrap 8...d5 against the attempted Yugoslav transposition. It's sucks!)


Next round it's time to play King Kong. I've made references to certain players who seem to be the proverbial monkey on my back. Those are the players that just completely have my number. There are 4 players that I've played more then 10 times that I am 0-fer against them. They are Jay Bonin 0-13, Larry Tamarkin 0-12, Boris Privman 0-11 and Ilya Lugonov 0-11. As annoying as that may seem I can take consolation in the fact that they are all at least 300 points higher rated then me.. There are a number of other players that I've played 5 or more times that I'm 0-fer against, but playing them doesn't fill me with fear.


So what's with me and King Kong Kevin? The first time I played him was February of 2006. He was rated 1253, and beat me in 45 moves. It was annoying but it wasn't the first time some 9 year old kid with a lower rating had beaten me, and it certainly wouldn't be the last time. He beat me again in April, November and December. I figured he'd be my next Ben G. Ben beat me 5 times in a row as a lower rated little kid. Then I beat him 5 times in a row. Then Ben started beating me again, but he's 1900 so who am I complain?


So after losing to Kevin again in January of 2007 for the 5th straight time, I figured next time I'd win. I didn't lose, but I didn't win either. I missed winning a pawn, but ended out in an ending where the material was even. I thought he was slightly better, but he offered me a draw. Since a draw gave me 1st place in the quad, who was I to turn it down. Trying to beat him would have to wait. It didn't happen in September......



I think it's become a totally mental thing now. I'm allowing myself to get psyched out by him. Even before the game he was bugging me, and asking if I was going to play the English against him. I decided I wouldn't play the English. Instead I played d4, and went for a Colle like position. We reached the following position after 12 moves.

I was considering the Bishop sac on h7. I couldn't work it all out, and I ended out chickening out. My thoughts at the time were, "I don't know if it's sound, but if it's not I don't want lose to him. I'll play Ng5, and even if my attack peters out, I won't be down material." I think against anyone else I would have said, "Go for it! Even if there isn't an outright win, you'll get play. It will be fun!" When I put the position into Fritz that move wasn't even considered, but when I put 13. Bxh7 this was what Fritz came up with.

Analysis by Fritz 5.32:
1. ± (0.75): 13...Kxh7 14.Ng5+ Kg6 15.Qd3+ Kf6 16.Qh3 Qd7 17.Ne4+ Ke7 18.Bg5+

2. +- (2.22): 13...Kh8 14.Ng5 g6 15.Qg4 Qd7 16.Bf4 Bxf4 17.Qxf4 Qe7 18.Rad1

Both lines look pretty good for me, but because of who I was playing I couldn't pull the trigger.

The rest of the game went like this;

13. Ng5 h6 14. Qh5 Qd7 15. Rd1 f5 16. Bxc6 ({Fritz 5.32:} 16. Nxe6 fxe4 17. Nxf8Kxf8 18. Be3 Ne7 19. Bxc5 Nf5 20. g4 g6 {[%eval 206,10]}) 16... Qxc6 17. Nf3 Rad8 18. Re1 e5 19. b3 Rd7 20. Bb2 g6 21. Qxg6+ Rg7 22. Qe6+ Kh7 23. Kf1 Rg6 24. Qc4? Ba6 0-1

I included analysis from Fritz for my 16th move. I felt this was the crucial part of the position where I started letting him back into the game. By move 18 I was getting defensive, and panicky. Again I attribute that to who I was playing. When he played 23...Rg6, I knew my queen was toast. My best try is simply 24. Qxg6, but I played Qc4, knowing full well that he had Ba6. It wasn't like I overlooked it in time pressure. I didn't feel like playing down a queen for a rook, so somehow I was hoping beyond hope that he wouldn't play 24...Ba6. When he did play the move I promptly resigned.

Kevin couldn't help but to point out at the end that I should have played 24. Qxg6. I admitted that I saw the move and didn't play it. He made the astute observation to the effect of "I don't understand why you chose to make the move that loses more material." I didn't want to admit that I was playing "hope chess" (I hope my opponent doesn't see.....), so I simply said "I don't know, I just did."

It's frustrating to allow somebody to get into your head like that. It's even more frustrating when it's a precocious 10 year old kid who knows that he's gotten into your head. After the round was done I heard him bragging to the other kids that "I killed Polly." He told my last round opponent to sac against me, and that he would win. Usually he's not so animated about his wins against me, but I think he knew that it was more then a game of chess he won.

I'm not sure how to prepare for my next game against him. I could play him again next week, or next month. Somehow I have to get past the head games and figure out how to beat him over the board. The other kids in the section don't have these problems with him. He lost to Harry, and drew a won ending against Josh. In September he drew with Harry and got crushed by Robert. Maybe I need to take lessons from Robert. :-) Maybe I have to start thinking like a 10 year old.

PS. Josh and I drew in the last round, so at least it wasn't a repeat of the 0-3 September blow out.

Off The Board Strategies: Playing The Pairing Game

An outsider might think that all the maneuvering and strategical planning happens over the board. Those who play in a lot of tournaments knows there's a whole other game going on at the same time. Depending on one's rating or position in the tournament the end result may be different but the objective is the same. The object of this inner game is to try to out guess the pairing program in order to achieve a certain result. The result isn't a win, loss or draw of the game. The result is trying to get the most favorable pairing as possible.

There are different ways to play this game. A master rated 2200 - 2300 may look at the potential next round pairings and realize barring no upsets he's going to play a grandmaster in either that round, or the round after. Based on his calculations he'll choose to take a 1/2 point bye for the round that he anticipates playing the GM. This way he plays a "Swiss Gambit" deferred and avoids the GM and still slips into the money. Another variation on this theme is the player anticipates that 3 points will win money. He knows he'll get two easy pairings, and the next two rounds will be a crapshoot. He takes his two 1/2 point byes, and barring any upsets he has his 3 points and a piece of the action.

Along with strategic byes one has the reentry gambit. The reentry gambit is usually played by class players who get off to a lousy start and want to reposition themselves to have another crack at the class prize. However I've seen a few different objectives for the reentry gambit. One kid I knew used to re-enter when he anticipated that he would get the full point bye in the next round. This way he'd avoid getting the bye along with a chance to contend for the class prize. Sometimes I felt like he did it just to annoy me because when he'd reenter, usually I'd be the one getting the bye.

I won't play the reentry gambit for any reason. I see no point in spending more money to attempt to have a better shot at winning a prize, or to avoid getting a bye in a middle round. I also have sworn off the preemptive last round 1/2 bye to avoid middle round full point byes. I tried that in one tournament and it blew up in my face. I was forced to take the last round bye that I didn't need. Now I take my chances and hope that I can avoid byes or that at least a decent house player is floating around if I get a middle round bye.

Last night was the second week in a row I was the second lowest on the wall chart in 4 Rated Games Tonight! When one is that low there's a very good chance that a bye can't be avoided. Last week it came in the first round because the lowest rated player was taking a 1/2 point bye. I was given the option of playing an 1150 house player. There's always the risk that one may lose to the lower rated house player, and then get crappy pairings for the rest of night based on scoring zero in round 1. I wasn't thrilled by having to play someone that low, but I didn't feel like sitting around an hour for round two. It almost blew up in my face. He played much better then his rating, but in a very drawish position he let his time run out. Apparently the guy had never used a digital clock before. He didn't know what time delay was, and had no idea how to read the display on my Chronos. I dodged a serious bullet that round!

I would not have had to think about bye possibilities last night if I had managed not to lose that round two game where I declined a draw offer while up a rook. So I started looking at the wall chart and figuring out whether I'd end out with a bye in round 4, or be able to avoid it all together. One scenario had the bottom player and me both losing in round 3. That was possibility since we were both going to get paired up again. Though the rating differences amongst the zero score group wasn't significant so anything could have happened. If that happened then even if there were an odd number he'd get the bye, not me.

What I didn't take into account was one of the zeros playing the reentry gambit. I'm not sure why he reentered. If was to avoid playing down it didn't help. He still played the highest rated in the zero score group. He won, and then got paired up in the last round so it didn't improve his chances at the class prize. $15 down the tubes. His money, not mine. However his maneuvering caused me to play the lowest rated player. Playing the lowest rated player in this tournament is not a slam dunk win considering that he's only 70 points lower then me. What resulted was a totally bizarre game where I should have ignored the advice I give my students. Castle to keep your king safe. I would have been better off taking my chances in the center.


Polly-TomM110107.pgn



I lost on time because I just couldn't figure about what to do about all the threats along the b1-h2 diagonal. I let Fritz take a whack at the position, and it came up with 28. Rh6 Rad8 29. Rxg6+ Qxg6 30. g3 e5 31. Qc2 Qxc2+ 32. Kxc2 Ra6. Fritz rates it plus over equal for white. The two pawns for the exchange gives white a slight advantage. That's all well and good but when black has a 5 minute time advantage and white has very little time, all the numeric evaluations of the position go out the window. Unfortunately my brain doesn't work as fast as Fritz. I had not even considered that move. I was freaking out over the threat of 28...Bxc3, and didn't even consider that 28. Rh6 takes care of that threat. All I was looking at as a defense was 28. Bxd4 which doesn't work because of 28... cxd4 29. Rh6 Rc8 30. Rxg6+ Qxg6 31. Rd1 Rd5.

Back to the pairing sub-plots of bye evasion and improving one's class prize chances. My loss positioned me for a last round bye if there was an odd number. A last round bye allows me to make the 11:12 train home as opposed to the 12:30 train if I play the last round. It does have its merits, but I won't do a preemptive drop out to make the earlier train. As it turned out the number was even so I avoided byes all together. Unfortunately avoiding byes also afforded me another opportunity to lose which I did. As for our reentry player, he got paired up to a 2100 and lost. So much for improving one's chances at the class prize.

You Know You're Having a Bad Knight......

......when you decline a draw offer in this position as black, and find a way to lose. My oppoent offered a draw. Even though I had a under two minutes to his 3:30 I still felt a rook advantage was enough. I had stopped keeping score, but was able to reconstruct to some degree how I tossed the rook back. The moves went as follows: 41. c5 bc, 42. bc Rd8, 43. c6 Rc8, 44. Bf3 Nxc6?? (Very foolish to be pawn grabbing at thsi point. I should be trying to simplify), 45. Qc3 Qd7?? (Totally overlooking the loose rook on f6.) 46. Qxf6 Na5. At this point I probably should have offered a draw back, but the time factor was clearly to my opponent's advantage. I think my pride is such that I don't want to beg for the draw after dismissing it outright a few moves earlier. I have no idea how we got to the final position where he takes my knight, and if I recapure, I lose my queen to a bishop pin on the king. So suddenly the position where I'm up a rook had degenerated into I'm down a piece, have 26 seconds on my clock, and my opponent still has 2:22 on his clock.

That had me talking to myself for the rest of the evening. Though one of my friends, and a member of the usual suspects make an interesting point. He said bravo for going for the gusto. If you had taken the draw up a rook you'd hate yourself even more. He's probably right. That's the chicken shit way out to grab a few rating points from an 1800. I'd rather play it out and take my chances.

Online Cheating: I Don't Get It.

Yesterday I wrote about some of my observations about Chess Tactics Server, and perhaps my biggest gripe was the 3 second time limit to get full credit. In the comments Scirius mentioned online cheating. I also noticed that CTS had a lot of information about different types of cheating. I know that on different chess servers like ICC or FICS cheating has been a problem.

Why in earth do people cheat on a site like CTS? Who cares what you rating is on a tactics server? Right now mine sucks. Hopefully it will improve as I get better at finding moves, and recognizing patterns in the various positions. I thought the idea of using sites like CTS was to improve your ability and knowledge of chess, not pump up a fake number. I guess there are pathetic losers out there who need to cheat so they can can validate their so called chess prowess by having a high CTS rating.

I guess they're the same people who try to get a high rating on ICC or FICS by having Fritz or a stronger player give them moves. I suppose having a high rating on one of the chess servers might get you better games. What's the point if you get crushed by these better players without using the computer? I can play high rated players in a live tournament and get some input after the game is done.

I suppose I'm preaching to the choir here. All of you in this part of the chess blogsphere are trying to get better at chess. I'd rather lose a bunch of games because I was outplayed or overlooked something, then win because I cheated. Whether I'm playing chess or some other game, I'm doing it because I relish the challenge of trying to do the best I can. It would be nice if the best I can always led to a win but chess, like life doesn't work that way. More often the not, best I can means not getting crushed and humiliated by a stronger player. Then there are those days where I get crushed and humiliated by someone lower rated then me. Those days suck! But like the rodeo rider who gets tossed immediately, I'll get up, brush off the dirt, and get back on the damn horse again.

It's not just online chess where people feel the need to cheat. I don't play a lot of online chess, but I love playing hearts online. The issues with the flat board in chess don't impact me when playing cards online. I've seen a lot of cheating at hearts. These games are not for money. I play in tournaments or in a card room where the only thing at stake is your hearts rating for that particular site. There are no prizes in the tournaments. One earns points each tournament and at the end of the month the top 16 players get to play in the end of the month championship. Winner of that tournament gets a tee-shirt. Woo hoo!

There have been cases where a player and his buddy would playing in the same game, and would IM each other information about their hands. Sometimes one player would be playing in the same game on two computers with two different handles. This way he had control of two hands each round. Though it's not really cheating, I see players constantly resetting their rating and starting over, or creating a new name. I'm not sure what the point is except some higher rated players will set minimum rating requirements for their table. I have found that for myself any time I've created a new name and have gotten an established rating with the new name that the rating is always within 25 to 50 points of my old rating.

End of the sermon. I think it's time to post another game!

More Thoughts on CTS

I just did another session on it, and I realize that the same things that plague me when I play online carry over to this too. I'm not fond of playing on the internet because I find I miss a lot due to the 1 dimensional nature of the board. I lose something spacially without a regular chess board. When I look at the problems on the screen I tend not to see the position as clearly as I might if I were looking at it on the board.

The other issue that makes this especially challenging is that I only have 6 seconds before the opponent is going to make the move. I have 3 seconds to come up with the right move in order to get full credit. I don't really care about the rating so it isn't a big deal if I'm not making the move within 3 seconds. In a real game I would have more familiarity with the position because it would be progressing in real time. Here I'm being dropped into the position with no concept of what is occurring until I look at the board so it's hard to come up with an answer quickly. Also since I'm not part of the video game generation my mouse reflexes aren't so hot, so even if I do see the right move immediately the hand-eye thing just doesn't work quite as well as it used to when I was a ice hockey goalie in college.

I would be interested in other people's observations on using CTS as a training tool. Do you encounter some of the same issues that I have mentioned?