Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Lee-D Wins Again

Strontium Rd 2. Lee-D won his opponents Queen. Strontium won the match 3-1

Breaking The Fortress


Technetium Rd 2. ben622622 annotates his game from round 2. My notes in ( ). A key game that helped Technetium win the match 3-1. ben622 broke down the fortress.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Elalfer Wins Again

Rubidium Rd 2. No problems for Elalfer in this game. A smooth win.

Nice Win By TerryMalloy

Caesium Rd 2. White made a mistake and TerryMalloy jumped on it and tore his opponent to shreds.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Correct Endgame Play

Bohrium Rd 2. After my rant about endgames I thought I'd show you how, with a little work, you can turn these situations into wins. Upsan gives a great example.

Good Game From Sirian

Selenium Rd 2. Sirian played some great moves.

Another Train Wreck


Tellurium Rd 2. I'm always making rants about studying endgames. You make all these great moves but when you get to the endgame you throw it all away. Or your opponent does. But endings are boring you say. But they're not. It's the truth in Chess. Not to mention all the extra wins and half points you get, thus an increased rating. And studying endings increases your calculating ability which helps in all phases of the game. In this game Tamarin makes one less mistake and gets the win.

viking99 Plays 12.Nxf7

Bohrium Rd 2. What a shot.

room-matt Wins


Technetium Rd 2. A real train wreck of a game. White was playing real fast, giving away material. What can room-matt do but make good moves, take the material, and get the win.

DARKwizard1 Wins.

Rhenium Rd 2. DARKwizard1 won a pawn and nurtured it to victory. An important win as it allowed Rhenium to draw the match.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

A Swindle

Rubidium Rd 1. tamky70 missed a knockout blow and got into a horrible mess. He didn't give up, he found an idea, a plan. Of course it shouldn't have worked but great credit to him for pulling it off.

Elalfer Wins

Rubidium Rd 1. Elalfer wipes out his opponent

Where's The Draw Button

Niobium Rd 1. Kind of funny but tragic also.

azbycx Starts With A Win

Tellurium Rd 1. azbycx took advantage of some slight mistakes. Sadly Tellurium lost the match due to a no contact forfeit 1.5 to 2.5 .

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Awesome Stuff Here

Caesiun Rd 1. I didn't realize how good this game was until I really looked at it. While watching the game I thought the sacrifice was unsound. Surely Black could defend. But I was wrong. A great game by BadHabitMarco.

Server Crashes

There was and has been server crashes during league games. The server usually comes back pretty soon but your game in progress has gone to cyber-heaven.

What do you do? First don't panic. And don't leave!

Finally the league has written some detailed instructions:

16. Restoring a game when the server crashes

Instructions on how to load a game if you have the move list or a set position if the server crashes

Note: Do NOT close out your window. If you do, then it’s gone. The good thing is that when/if you disconnect and the server does crash and you have the windows up, you have the move list right there. So you can replicate it from the move list or from the set position given on the screen.

Things you will need to know/use

1. Loadfen “help loadfen”

2. Fen “help fen”

3. Match “help match”

4. Time odds “help odds-games”

5. Loadgame “help loadgame”

6. Liblist “help liblist”

7. Examine “see help examine”

8. The printed piece of paper will have the time on it as well

9. Moves see “help moves”

Steps For Dasher Users

1. Once you have disconnected, print off the position (do a screen shot) and take the piece of paper because you’ll need it during step 3

2. log back in and the board will show up again, but of course you cannot do anything

3. type “ex” or examine to open up an examined board. click on the bluish knight that says toggle set position. First thing I would do is clear board by right clicking with your mouse in the middle of the move list or anywhere on the right side (not on the board) board then choosing the option clearboard. Then you can set up the position by dragging the pieces on the board. If you made a mistake with your position with a piece, just drag the piece off to the right side where the move list is. After you have set up the board up. Make sure you set up the names, and times. (ratings doesn’t matter) to set white’s name type /setwhitename adamredsox and set black’s name type /setblackname rgadoury. Let’s say I have 10 minutes (I am white) and black has 30 minutes (rgadoury). Type /setwhiteclock 00:10:00. For black type /setblackclock 00:30:00. This is just to keep track to make sure that you know what times to match your opponent. I’ll explain that later. Next, click again on the blueish knight so that the pieces do not show up but the position does. Right click on your mouse not on the board and to pick whether or not its white’s move or black’s move. That’s very important. After that, I would save the game to your library (save it to the last one) just for future references if need for later. Click on the folder with the red arrow facing left and put in the game number it will say Created library game "adamredsox %399", for instance. Why I recommend that is once you open up your liblist to that game, it will show a game number on the top.

4. Open up your library by typing “liblist”. Scroll to your game 399 that you have saved it under and a board will come up. For my example it shows 1224. Now I type /fen 1224 and I get this k7/1r6/p7/3Q4/8/8/K7/8 w KQkq - 0 1 you will need that later.

5. Now, that you have the fen you can match your opponent with the correct times. I am white and rgadoury is black so I type /match rgadoury 10 45 30 45 w20 u . A game will show up with the start of a regular game and the times decreasing for white (if its whites move) etc.. Then type, loadfen k7/1r6/p7/3Q4/8/8/K7/8 w KQkq - 0 1 and the position will show up.

6. Play your game, and good luck. I don’t think the bot will pick this game up, so you should type /moves (game number- which will be at the top) as the game number will change and post it to the game forum.



Blitzin Steps

1. Once you have disconnected, print off the position (do a screen shot) and take the piece of paper because you’ll need it during step 3

2. log back in and the board will show up again, but of course you cannot do anything. type “ex” or examine to open up an examined board. Then you should clearboard by typing “clearboard”. Set the position by clicking on a piece and dragging it onto the board. If you make a mistake use the X, hold it, and put it on the piece that you want gone and it will disappear. After you have set up your position add the names, and times. The times: “setwhiteclock 00:10:00” and “setblackclock 00:30:00” for 10 minutes for white and 30 minutes for black. Type “setwhitename adamredsox” “setblackname rgadoury”. Also make sure that it is the correct player color to move. You do that by typing “tomove black” or “tomove white” After you are done, save it to your library. Type “libkeep” it will say Created library game "adamredsox %02".

3. type “ex %02” and it will pull up the game number and the game position

4. Next. Type “fen 338”. The 338 I got from my own example. It will change and show up on the top. It will say “examined game #338”. So type “fen (correct game number)”

5. After I typed that I got the fen as k7/1r6/p7/3Q4/8/8/8/K7 w KQkq - 0 1 again youll need this later.

6. Now, that you have the fen you can match your opponent with the correct times. I am white and rgadoury is black so I type /match rgadoury 10 45 30 45 w20 u . A game will show up with the start of a regular game and the times decreasing for white (if its whites move) etc.. Then type, “loadfen k7/1r6/p7/3Q4/8/8/K7/8 w KQkq - 0 1” and the position will show up.

7. Play your game, and good luck. I don’t think the bot will pick this game up, so you should type “moves (game number”- which will be at the top) as the game number will change and post it to the game forum.

Questions or comments please ask adamredsox or adamredsox24@yahoo.com

Monday, February 20, 2012

Impressive Win By Upsan

Bohrium Rd 1. Very nice. Bohrium goes up 2-0. A lot of good games Sunday and Monday. Stay tuned to this station.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Salvatore Wins

Niobium Rd 1. Salvatore destroyed his opponent. A lot of missed moves on both sides. Check out the final position.

Lee-D Wins

Strontium Rd 1. Lee-D got off to a good start

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Solution To White To Play


Who is the player who made this great combination? It is BlackHorse, and he's
playing for Rhenium this season.


daniguti

daniguti moves up to the top section and plays for Caesium. Some good stuff in this game.

AntMantis


AntMantis joins Selenium in the U1800 section.
This was a wild and entertaining game. Chances made and missed for both sides.
In the end AntMantis played the better Chess and got the win.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

White To Play

White has a winning combination here. Can you see it to the end?

Fezzik Joins Rhenium

A good attack with a sacrifice by Fezzik.
Iowa-Archer is playing for the new team Strontium in the U1400 section. Not much history for Iowa-Archer in the league. Only three games. Here's a game he won.

Monday, February 6, 2012

BadHabitMarco

BadHabitMarco joins the new team Caesium in the top section. This game won a GOTW in T47. The finish is really nice.

Sirian

Sirian joins Selenium for T52. Here's a nice game he played

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Az2112

az2112 is not new to the element teams. But he's been so busy being a Captain he hasn't got to play much in the last couple of seasons.

So I repeat a game he played in T49. Game of the Week Rd 6.

Introducing The Element Players

This blog is devoted to the members of the "element" teams.

This season we have 9 teams!

Here are the players:



Rhenium U2200 Paulkov (Capt), BlackHorse, Fezzik, DARKwizard1, ben622 (Asst)



Caesium U2200 King-Ghost, BadHabitMarco, daniguti, Campagnolo (Capt), TerryMalloy



Bohrium U2000 King-Ghost (Capt), LittleWarrior (Asst), futureGM, upsan, viking99



Technetium U2000 Paulkov (Capt), ben622, cesaralexander, room-matt, FlyingTiger (Asst)



Tellurium U2000 jorobo (Asst), livis, AreYouSerious, azbycx, Tamarin, az2112 (Capt)



Selenium U1800 AntMantis, bshribharath, toukon, FlyingTiger, Sirian, Salvatore (Capt)



Niobium U1600 Ivio, Krysto, Salvatore, milesotoole (Asst), berke, Paulkov (Capt)



Rubidium U1400 Krysto (Capt), Berke, otib2006, Elalfer, tamky70 (Asst)



Strontium U1400 Salvatore (Capt), lee-d, milesotoole, Iowa-Archer





38 players from 13 countries.




In T51 the element teams had two forfeits. That's still very few but let's aim for zero. Myself and your captain insist on this.



I want to thank all the captains and their assistants for making this group of teams a reality.



If you play a good game in will be featured in this blog. Please be patient with me, it's a lot of games to look at. If you really like your game, you can annotate it yourself for publishing.

Just let me know.



It is an "element" custom to feature a game on the blog in the week before games start for new members of the teams.

So if you're new to the teams watch for your game. Hopefully we'll see more games from you as the season progresses.




Games start soon!

Good Luck everybody. Let's have a lot of fun.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Solution To White To Play

Not too hard to see. You might think that you're getting a Rook and two pawns for two Knights but it's a lot more than that.