Posted on June 9th, 2014 by Richard
I haven’t played many games over the week and my rating remains just below 1300.
Here is my next video on my rpdatutube chess channel showing My chess game of the week playlist and week 2 video:
As a bonus for week 2 I feature x2 games! Both are good wins for me. The first is a win in the French Exchange as black against a 1600 rated opponent. The second is a quick win for me as white in the Philidor defence (opponent rated 1300).
I hope to get time to play more games over the next week and get more material for the next week 3.
Meanwhile I hope you enjoy this video series! Thanks for watching and I hope you can learn something from my games and analysis! 🙂
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Written by: Richard
Posted on June 1st, 2014 by Richard
I have created a new YouTube chess video playlist at my rpdatutube YouTube chess account. It is called “My game of the week” and the first video shows a French Advanced Wade variation win for me as black. The video is shown below:
I like the French defence as both White and Black. Notable GM’s that have played the French defence are GM Nimzovitch, GM Korchnoi, GM Botvinnik, GM Morozevich, GM Akobian, GM Uhlmann to name just a few!
Bobby Fischer did not play the French defence as black. He preferred the Sicilian defence as black. With white against the French he almost always played 3.Nc3 leading to the Classical or Winawer variations but he did not have his normal success rate against the French as in his other openings.
Many of my games are French defence ones and as I have to improve my rating, I need to play the French defence better! So I look forward to great games with the French defence and even the French Exchange (which I vow not to play as White if I possibly can! It is the most dull variation in the rich French defence system!).
Enjoy your chess over this next week and I hope to have another chess video next week….
Tags: Chess game, Chess Openings, my chess games
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Posted on May 19th, 2014 by Richard
I recently watched this film ” Life of a King (2013)” on my Sky TV and enjoyed it. Cuba Gooding plays ex felon Mr Eugene Brown who has been converted to chess by a fellow prison inmate during his 20 year incarceration. He struggles to find a job after release from prison and ends up forming a chess club and he helps troubled youngsters through the ideals of chess play applied to life.
Here is a clip from YouTube:
This apparently was based on a real story and despite early problems, the chess club is successful and others are founded elsewhere. This club is a million miles away from the sedate chess club of Bury St Edmunds and the local junior chess club. However both Mr Brown and Mr Jones (of Bury St Edmunds CC & JCC UK)are both passionate about chess and helping youngsters learn the game!
In tribute to this film I show one of my recent games:
ENJOY 🙂
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Posted on June 16th, 2013 by Richard
I haven’t blogged here recently and also haven’t played much chess recently on FICS. When I did have a few games last week my rating fell! I played poorly and my rating has dropped to 1100. I just wasn’t concentrating properly on the games and made silly errors & lost. One game I was in a very good position but twice played poor moves that let the opponent off and then the opponent started to exert pressure on my position. I did win the game in the end when the opponent was greedy and took a piece he shouldn’t allowing me to fork his king & queen & he resigned but I had made very hard work of that game!
Yesterday I played a good game as black in the English defence & posted it to my chess YouTube account. Here is the link: rpdatutube
Below is the embed:
I do know why my blitz rating is so low and it is because I am often very careless in the middlegame. So I will improve this and try & calculate better in the middlegame! This is something I have not done in the past. However I have to acknowledge that currently the middle game is my main weakness and I need to start calculating moves here better if I want to win more games. Game on!
I also need to play a bit quicker as my main play is 5 minute blitz and I have lost good game positions on time which is silly and frustrating. So hopefully I can try to get my rating back to between 1400-1600 where I want it!
Happy chess playing… 🙂
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Posted on March 6th, 2013 by Richard
I am going to try & blog regularly about attaining my chess goal. What is my chess goal?
Well, very simply it is to get (& maintain) my 5 min blitz rating consistently over 1400 on FICS.
My rating right at this moment is 1201 (but in July 2010 it was at 1480). So I want to get a 200 point plus rating increase as quickly as I can.
How can I do that? Well I intend to try & do some practice games daily versus chess engines with the free software ‘Lucas’ chess and try to play at least x2 rated FICS games per day. I also own Chess Position Trainer, Fritz9 & COWPro chess software and I hope to use all this chess software to help achieve this goal. I will have to make time for training & playing each day-most likely in the mornings and evenings. I shall outline my progress here with posts about my games and comments on improving. I have had my rating in the past above 1400 but have never consistently held it there. I feel this is a fairly modest yet hopefully achievable chess goal for me to try and accomplish. Presently I can win against 1300/1400 rated players but I have played several poor games and can lose to players rated 900-1000! So I want to eradicate those poor games. I far prefer 5 min blitz play ie quick time control games to slow play chess and the internet and computer chess engines are ideal for this.
Further I have always enjoyed learning about openings and I have studied these more than mid & end game play. This has helped me but I find I am generally fine in the first 8-10 moves of games but I definitely need to improve my mid & endgame technique as I often make weak moves through the mid & end game phases.
Well, I will need to consolidate my opening knowledge and increase my mid & end game knowledge to try & achieve this aim.
Daily training:
Start-Day 1
FICS rating 1201
Example game Lucas chess (using Tarrasch Toy Engine):
[pgn height=500 initialHalfmove=16 autoplayMode=none]
[Event “Lucas Chess”]
[Date “2013.03.06”]
[White “Richard”]
[Black “Tarrasch ToyEngine Beta V0.905”]
[Result “1-0”]
[Depth “3”]
[Hints “10”]
[ECO “C45”]
[Opening “Scotch: Mieses variation”]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.e5 Qe7 7.Qe2 Nd5 8.c4 Qb4+
9.Nd2 Nf4 10.Qe4 g5 11.h4 Ne6 12.a3 Qe7 13.hxg5 Nxg5 14.Qe2 Bg7 15.f4 Ne6 16.Nf3
O-O 17.f5 Nc5 18.f6 Bxf6 19.Qc2 h5 20.Rxh5 Re8 21.Qh7+ Kf8 22.Bh6+ Bg7 23.Qxg7# 1-0
[/pgn]
This game shows Scotch opening (Mieses variation). It is my current favourite opening to the Kings pawn first move ie with 1.e4 e5. As white 1.e4 is my favourite opening as I liked the advice of Bobby Fischer who is quoted as saying “e4 is best by test”. Strangely the Scotch opening is not a Fischer opening but one played very successfully by Garry Kasparov & many years before by J H Blackburne who are also favourite GM chess players of mine. I like the Scotch as many players can be offguard with it as they maybe expecting a Ruy Lopez(Spanish) or Guicco Piano (Italian) opening after 1.e4. The Scotch is though deceptively simple to start but much harder to fully understand as it can lead to several variations that need some knowledge of & practice with before mastering! This is true of this Mieses variation which throws up some strange moves and is a good example that the Scotch can be challenging both for white and black!
I played about 6 FICS games to get my rating up but as I lost 2, drew 1 and won 3 and my rating finished at only 1205 – I finished just 4 points up from my start rating! As I don’t think the games are particularly interesting I will not post them here. I lost 1 on time which is an issue I need to address and play quicker. I beat a 1480 player who blundered his Queen & resigned. The other loss was an English defence game vs 1.d4 and I need to practice my English defence opening as black more.
Still at the end of every training day I hope to finish with a higher rating and see how quickly I can get my rating to 1400+ and keep it there! On to day 2…..
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Posted on March 4th, 2013 by Richard
Against 1.e4 I play 1…e6 and start the French defence. I have mentioned this before in my other posts and I have done a video or two with my French games and now I add a little more on the French defence.
After 1.e4 e6 the game can continue in several ways and it is useful to know something about these if you play 1.e4 e6 -the French Defence. 3 mainline French variations are Advance/Classical/Tarrasch variations and White can play other ways and commonly this might be a Kings Indian Attack with d3 or French sidelines such as the French Reti gambit & Wing gambits.
Against the French Advance Black often employs the Wade variation with Qb6. Then Black will try & play on the Queenside while White may try to play on the Kingside.
The French Exchange is just a very boring opening by White! It actually has a notable drawing record and imho is a very unimaginative way for White to play against the French. It tends to lead to very symmetrical positions and Black often remains the opening tempo down. So I always like to develop quickly and not give White any tempo with a6/h6 type moves until castled & fully developed. This openings main challenge is to look further ahead and prepare for a slow attritional game-not something I enjoy but needs to be taken seriously before one player gets too bored & makes mistakes!
Against the Classical is the Winawer with Bb4 (pinning Nc3) but White can reply with Qg5 pressurising Black’s kingside. There is a lot of theory to the Winawer (including Poisoned Pawn variation). Presently I do not play this as I have not taken up the challenge to play this very sharp opening. Instead against either Classical (Nc3) or Tarrasch I play dxe and go for either Rubinstein variation (Nd7) or I have just become aware of the Fort Knox variation with Bd7 & next Bd6 which have less theory for Black but also good chances for White.
I have played a few Fort Knox blitz games but unfortunately I do not seem to have saved any to show here.
I believe GM Neil McDonald plays this but I have only seen a video of him losing with it!(against GM D Howell). Here is a link to Melbourne Chess Club YouTube video about it:
French Fort Knox at Melbourne Chess Club
I have already had mixed results with the Fort Knox variation and I look forward to playing it a bit more and comparing it against the French Rubinstein.
Against the Kings Indian Attack? Well frankly I do not know this well enough yet to pass comment. I must start to study this more now…
As White I am playing the Advance variation myself and exploring the Milner Barry Gambit in blitz with Bd3. I have not in general had great success with it yet but it is exciting & I am learning from my mistakes and feel it is appropriate for blitz games. If Black is not careful with the “Wade” Queen(!) it can become a target & be lost with a crushing advantage to White. This is where having some ideas of what possibilities an opening gives is helpful over just choosing moves at the time over the board. Playing moves at the time over the board is fine in general but you will probably miss opportunities that are there if you know more about the opening through some prior study and preparation of it.
Anyway I hope this gives a little insight into the French defence, an opening I play and which I need to explore more. The French defence is a rich & complex opening for Black & White & I j’aime la francais! I hope you enjoy playing with & against the French too-Viva the French! 🙂
Tags: Chess Openings
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