Chess Elements of T4545

upsan Victorious

2012-03-17T20:09:00.001-07:00

Bohrium Rd 5. A couple of mistakes were punished by upsan.

S(tuff) Happens

2012-03-17T19:31:00.000-07:00

Selenium Rd 5. Totally busted. But a grave error by White let toukon take the point.

bshribharath Wins

2012-03-17T19:11:00.002-07:00

Selenium Rd 5. Very good game from bshribharath

Battling Back

2012-03-17T12:24:00.000-07:00

Selenium Rd 4. When you go down material or get a bad position there is no need to panic, lash out and make things worse. Just play good moves and make your opponent win it. Maybe he will make a mistake. Sirian does just that exactly and came away with the win.

Milesotoole Gets The Win

2012-03-16T19:48:00.002-07:00

Strontium Rd 4. Miesotoole plays a good endgame.

Blockade

2012-03-16T18:27:00.000-07:00

Niobium Rd 4. Berke took some time on his moves and overcame his opponent. It might look like a mismatch rating wise but the guy was playing very well. Very good play by Berke. The game completed a 4-0 match win.

Ivio With The Win

2012-03-15T19:28:00.001-07:00

Niobium Rd 4. It was very even. But Ivio understood what was "really" going on.

Battling Back

2012-03-15T19:24:00.001-07:00

Technetium Rd 4. room-matt got into some trouble in this game but kept making good moves and got a nice win.

Excellent Play From az2112

2012-03-13T19:19:00.003-07:00

Tellurium Rd 4. az2112 played very fine positional chess in this game.

Impressive Game By LittleWarrior

2012-03-12T19:23:00.001-07:00

Bohrium Rd 4. From move 28 on LittleWarrior played like a Grandmaster.

2012-03-12T18:23:00.000-07:00

Caesium Rd 4. As soon as Black castled long you knew something bad had to happen. BadHabitMarco shows how to punish this.

Salvatore Gets The Win

2012-03-12T18:12:00.002-07:00

Niobium Rd 4. White resigned early but Salvatore had a much better position anyway.

futureGM On The Attack

2012-03-11T14:51:00.002-07:00

Bohrium Rd 4. A real nice attack.

ben622 Wins A Nice One

2012-03-11T11:24:00.000-07:00

Technetium Rd 4. ben622 outplays his opponent.

Krysto Gets Revenge.

2012-03-11T10:15:00.001-07:00

Niobium Rd 4. Good game by Krysto.

Berke Scores A Point

2012-03-11T09:47:00.000-07:00

Rubidium Rd 4. Berke won "quickly".

Round 4 Games

2012-03-10T15:49:00.001-08:00

Rubidium Rd 4. The game swung back and forth. In the end otib2006 had played better.

Mikesotoole Wins

2012-03-08T18:49:00.001-08:00

Strontium Rd 3. The draw got a drawn match. A theoretical battle in a popular variation.

Sirian Gets The Win

2012-03-07T19:34:00.000-08:00

Selenium Rd 3. Sirian got himself in a mess this game but kept battling, presenting problems for his opponent. Because of this White really fell apart in the endgame. White's game fell off the tracks. A 4-0 sweep by Selenium.

Paulkov Wins

2012-03-06T18:59:00.001-08:00

Rhenium Rd 3. Rhenium had a great result in round 3, winning 3.5 to .5

Worth A Close Look

2012-03-05T18:32:00.000-08:00

Bohrium Rd 3. One after another, great moves by LittleWarrior. I will make this game a lesson plan for a student.

Another TouchDown

2012-03-04T14:50:00.001-08:00

Tellurium Rd 3. A nice win by CamNewton, lots of tactics. Am I wearing the pun out?

ben622 Gets The Win

2012-03-04T14:21:00.000-08:00

Technetium Rd 3. With unbalanced material it's sometimes hard to see who is doing better. One solution is to play good moves and it becomes clear.

bshribharath Wins

2012-03-04T13:32:00.000-08:00

Selenium Rd 3. A little trick got bshribharath the point. Selenium leads the match 3-0.

Impressive Win By jorobo

2012-03-03T17:05:00.000-08:00

Tellurium Rd 3. jorobo outplayed one of the best players in the league, Chatica, 2311 league rating. And for half the game he was playing on the increment. Really great stuff.

How To Win In 9 Moves

2012-03-03T15:32:00.001-08:00

Rhenium Rd 3. DARKwizard1 shows us how. His opponent helped.

AntMantis Devours His Opponent

2012-03-03T11:46:00.001-08:00

Selenium Rd 3. Mantises are exclusively predatory. They will only eat meat that they have caught themselves. Insects form the primary diet, but larger species have been known to prey on Chess players.

Lee-D Wins Yet Again

2012-03-03T10:25:00.003-08:00

Strontium Rd 3. Lee-D goes to 3-0 for Strontium.

Ivio Wins Again

2012-03-03T10:05:00.000-08:00

Niobium Rd 2. Black opened up the position to Ivio's favor.

Toukon Wins

2012-03-03T09:27:00.001-08:00

Selenium Rd 3. Some missed moves in the endgame but toukon played it better than his higher rated opponent.

Great Attack By King-Ghost

2012-03-02T19:54:00.001-08:00

Bohrium Rd 2. The deciding game in the match. A very fine attack by King-Ghost made the score 3-1 in Bohrium's favor.

Good Game From milesotoole

2012-03-01T19:33:00.003-08:00

Niobium Rd 2. Black made some mistakes. milesotoole really showed how to punish those mistakes.

Ivio Wins

2012-03-01T18:19:00.002-08:00

Niobium Rd 2. Ivio has an ability to win completely lost games. Here he keeps setting problems that his opponent can't figure out. It should be a draw in the end though.

Lee-D Wins Again

2012-02-28T18:45:00.000-08:00

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

Breaking The Fortress

2012-02-28T17:36:00.000-08:00

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.

Elalfer Wins Again

2012-02-27T19:07:00.001-08:00

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

Nice Win By TerryMalloy

2012-02-27T17:53:00.000-08:00

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

Correct Endgame Play

2012-02-26T17:39:00.000-08:00

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

2012-02-26T16:10:00.000-08:00

Selenium Rd 2. Sirian played some great moves.

Another Train Wreck

2012-02-26T13:13:00.000-08:00

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

2012-02-26T11:34:00.002-08:00

Bohrium Rd 2. What a shot.

room-matt Wins

2012-02-26T10:42:00.000-08:00

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.

2012-02-26T09:51:00.001-08:00

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

CamNewton Scores A TouchDown

2012-02-25T22:35:00.000-08:00

Tellurium Rd 2. Great play by CamNewton

ben622 With A Nice Win

2012-02-25T11:13:00.001-08:00

Rhenium Rd 2. Some good tactics on display.

FlyingTiger Shoots Down His Opponent

2012-02-25T09:30:00.001-08:00

Technetium Rd 2. FlyingTiger out calculated his higher rated opponent.

Iowa-Archer Wins

2012-02-25T07:14:00.001-08:00

Strontium Rd 2. White made a mistake. Iowa-Archer took advantage.

One Little Pawn Move

2012-02-24T19:40:00.000-08:00

Technetium Rd 1. I got the victory due to an endgame error.

LittleWarrior Victorious

2012-02-24T19:17:00.001-08:00

Bohrium Rd 1. LittleWarrior made so many good moves he broke the exclam! key on my keyboard.

Dog With Toys

2012-02-23T17:35:00.001-08:00

A Swindle

2012-02-22T20:08:00.000-08:00

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

2012-02-22T19:03:00.000-08:00

Rubidium Rd 1. Elalfer wipes out his opponent

Where's The Draw Button

2012-02-22T18:31:00.000-08:00

Niobium Rd 1. Kind of funny but tragic also.

azbycx Starts With A Win

2012-02-22T18:06:00.000-08:00

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 .

Awesome Stuff Here

2012-02-21T19:48:00.000-08:00

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

2012-02-21T18:08:00.000-08:00

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

Impressive Win By Upsan

2012-02-20T21:12:00.000-08:00

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

Salvatore Wins

2012-02-19T11:00:00.000-08:00

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

Lee-D Wins

2012-02-19T09:49:00.000-08:00

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

viking99 Starts With A Win

2012-02-18T11:58:00.000-08:00

Bohrium Rd 1. Viking99 sacked his opponent in this game. A really wild game.

Round 1 In Progress

2012-02-16T17:56:00.000-08:00

T52 has begun. Already a few games played. Wish I had something to post.

toukon Joins Selenium

2012-02-11T15:06:00.000-08:00

A nice game from toukon

Lee-D

2012-02-11T14:15:00.000-08:00

Lee-D is playing for Strontium in the U1400 section.

Solution To White To Play

2012-02-09T18:31:00.000-08:00

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

daniguti

2012-02-09T17:46:00.000-08:00

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

AntMantis

2012-02-09T17:38:00.000-08:00

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.

White To Play

2012-02-08T18:08:00.000-08:00

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

Fezzik Joins Rhenium

2012-02-08T17:48:00.000-08:00

A good attack with a sacrifice by Fezzik.

2012-02-08T17:33:00.000-08:00

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.

room-matt Joins Technetium

2012-02-07T17:41:00.000-08:00

room-matt played a very good game here.

DARKwizard1

2012-02-07T17:26:00.000-08:00

DARKwizard1 is playing for Rhenium this season. Here's a good game of his from T47.

BadHabitMarco

2012-02-06T18:06:00.000-08:00

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

Sirian

2012-02-06T17:47:00.000-08:00

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

Az2112

2012-02-05T21:27:00.000-08:00

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

2012-02-05T21:03:00.000-08:00

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.

Solution To White To Play

2012-02-01T17:34:00.000-08:00

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.

What Do You Do When They Won't Resign?

2012-01-30T19:38:00.000-08:00

You can mate them as fast as you can. Or if they've pissed you off by playing on, you can try to humiliate them, say get 6 Queens. Or you can try the artistic approach as Fezzik shows in this game.

White To Play

2012-01-30T17:49:00.000-08:00

Technetium Rd 4. What should White play?

Bohrium Playing for the Championship

2012-01-27T18:06:00.000-08:00

Bohrium Championship Round. At this point the score was .5 to 1.5 . A must win situation for Bohrium. King-Ghost came through with a very fine game to even the match.

Unfortunately the last game in the round for Bohrium didn't go so well. Bohrium finished as the runner up in the U2000 section. Credit goes to Salvatore, the Captain, for taking a brand new lineup all the way to final game. And, of course, credit to the players for playing really great Chess. Congratulations.

Games From The Champioship Round

2012-01-24T19:35:00.000-08:00

Bohrium Championship Round. This game must have been real taxing on the players. Any slight error and the game goes the wrong way. Credit to both players for playing great.

The Deciding Game

2012-01-22T10:22:00.000-08:00

Bohrium Playoff Rd 2. The last game of the round, Match is tied 1.5 each. Because of tie breaks, Bohrium just needs a draw to advance to the final match. A very interesting game, well played by UsuallySleepy to get the win.

Bohriun Playoffs, Third Game

2012-01-19T19:30:00.000-08:00

Bohriun Playoff Rd 2. King-Ghost had good chances to win this against a very good player.

Upsan In Battle

2012-01-19T17:47:00.000-08:00

Bohrium Playoff Rd 2. This is a really neat game, a real battle. Both sides had chances to get a decisive position. A draw was a fair result.

LittleWarrior Draws

2012-01-17T17:40:00.000-08:00

Bohrium Playoff Rd. 2. I'll give all four of Bohrium's games in this round. The first game saw LittleWarrior draw despite being a pawn down. Made it look easy.

Bohrium Advances To The Championship Round

2012-01-16T19:51:00.000-08:00

Bohrium won in the second playoff round to advance to the Championship round! The Element teams last chance to win it all. Some good chess was played. I'll get the games up soon.

Technetium Eliminated from the Playoffs.

2012-01-16T19:45:00.000-08:00

Technetium Rd 2 playoffs. This round certainly didn't go our way. We started out with a no contact forfeit. Not only did we go down 0-1 but we lost the draw odds in the tie breaker. Another loss followed. We did get one win but that was a forfeit loss on their part. The only small bright spot was Boromir drawing a player 200 points above him. An interesting position at the end of the game.

LittleWarrior Wins For Bohrium

2012-01-10T18:39:00.000-08:00

Bohrium Playoff Rd 1. A key game to help Bohrium advance in the playoffs. LittleWarrior exploited his opponent's exposed King.

Technetium Advances In The Playoffs

2012-01-09T20:06:00.000-08:00

Technetium Playoff Rd 1. Really well played by Boromir in a must win situation.
Two of the final four teams in the U2000 section are "element" teams!

Bohrium Through to the Second Playoff Round

2012-01-09T20:01:00.000-08:00

Bohrium won their match 2.5 to 1.5 to advance. Some good chess being played by this team. I'll get another win from them up here soon.

Element Players In Playoff Action

2012-01-07T18:55:00.000-08:00

Bohrium Playoff Round 1. A very nice game by King-Ghost.

Solution to White to Play and Draw

2012-01-07T16:55:00.000-08:00

The initial move is 1.dxc6 . I'll show the solution on two separate boards.
The first solution is to 1..Kxc6 . Kind of Boring

The second solution is for 1..Bxa2 . This is really cool.

Correction

2012-01-07T16:38:00.000-08:00

A few posts back I said that the age of the universe was 4.5 billion years.
It's actually much older than that. Best estimates now say 13.75 years old.

White To Play And Draw

2012-01-03T17:32:00.000-08:00

Kubbel, L 1923
The last one was just a warmup. This one is a bit harder.

A Game From The U1200 Section

2012-01-02T19:14:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTyQ0etwgyM

Solution to White to Play and Win

2012-01-02T13:57:00.000-08:00

The puzzle is from Grigoriev, N 1935
It's very pretty.

White To Play And Win

2012-01-01T09:51:00.000-08:00

This shouldn't be too hard.

Solution To What's Your Move...

2011-12-30T18:59:00.000-08:00

Here Comes Santa Claus

2011-12-28T18:59:00.000-08:00

By: Gene Autry and Oakley Haldeman
The music is here: http://xmasfun.com/lyrics.asp?id=27 Cool video
I repeat the post because I've added some pictures.

What's Your Move...

2011-12-27T17:53:00.000-08:00

White's been attacking like a madman all game and just played 23.Nc5
What's your move?

Paulkov Wins

2011-12-26T14:46:00.000-08:00

Technetium Rd 6. I missed a lot of moves in this game. But I like the game, I got the win.