Posted on June 16th, 2014 by Richard
Here is my next video in my chess game of the week YouTube series.
It is a win for me as White in 2.c3 e6 Alapin Sicilian opening variation.
I haven’t played many games during the week and this was not a good game as I made a blunder to lose a pawn but my opponent then blundered a rook! That proved fatal as it gave me an easy win.
The Alapin Sicilian (1.e4 c5 2.c3) is my standard defence against the Sicilian defence. It is arguably a boring response to 1….c5 but it can lead to exciting positions. WGM Alisa Melekhina recommends it (see her YouTube videos about it). In this game it virtually transposed to an advanced French defence position for black and that is not good for the black Sicilian player trying to use his pet Sicilian defence!
Sadly over the week I have not played very well and my rating has not improved. So I still want to get my rating between 1400-1600 consistently in 5 minute blitz. My real downfall is frittering away good opening positions with less sound mid-game play and taking too long in the mid and endgame and getting in time trouble.
This is my continual weakness that I have had over the last few years of my chess play and I want to change this, and I need to do this to win more games and get my rating to 1400-1600. On the positive side, I now have a reasonable knowledge of my preferred White and Black openings and defences and I can build on that. I need now to seriously try and eliminate my slow play and improve my mid and endgame play and this should be perfectly possible with practice and patience!
So I am going to try to learn to play more solidly and more quickly in the mid and endgame and this should mean I will win more games, I hope!
I look forward then to playing more and better games through next week and having a better game of the week video to showcase!
I also hope my videos are of some help to other low rated players who are like me trying to improve their rating. Happy chess play everyone 🙂
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