Campagnolo's Draw Clinches the Match

Rhenium Playoff Rd 1. Campagnolo, facing a player 200 points above him, was able to get the draw that gets the team into the Championship match. A very tense exciting complex game.

az2112 draws a much higher rated upponent.

Tellurium Playoff Rd 1. An over 200 point underdog, az2112 got a draw. There was one point in the game he could have taken over and got a winning position.

Rhenium Goes to the Championship Match

Rhenium clinched a match win today and has qualified to play in the Championship match next week! Congratulations to everybody. I'll try to get some games up here soon.

Previous Game, Final Position

Check out the final position. All of us, at some time, get a position like this. White should play b3 here.

Salvatore Draws

Tellurium, Playoff Round 1. Salvatore gets a draw versus his higher rated opponent.

Solution to White to play

3 posts back. It's a self-stalemate. Kh5, the King goes to bed. Then he pulls the covers over him with g4, g5, and g4. Stalemate.

Maartenkoning Wins a Playoff Game

Rhenium Playoff round 1. A really nice game.

Playoffs Underway

After the Sunday games the situation is as follows. Selenium in the U1800 is down .5 - 1.5. They need two wins in the final two games to advance. It's doable. Hcube plays Wednesday and Ivio plays on Sunday Jan 2. For Tellurium in the U2000 we're down 2 - 1. azbycx goes into glorious battle on New Years Day. A win and we advance. Rhenium in the U2200 is ahead 2 - 0. Campagnolo plays Tuesday and AreYouSerious plays on Thursday. Only a draw in those two games is needed. Good Luck everyone.

White to play

You can't catch the pawn. What are you going to do?

AreYouSerious's Dog

Solution to Black to play

About 5 posts back. One of my favorite combinations.

Solution to White to play and win

See the previous post. It doesn't matter what Black plays. White plays Rg7 - Rg8 - Nf7 mate. Simple as that.

White to play and win

1/2 of a Move?

Yes, White was castling. First 1/2 move was Ke1-g1, the second 1/2 move was Rh1-e1 mate.

White to play

No games this weekend so we can have a little fun. How does White mate in 1/2 of a move?

Black to play

The world champion Karpov has just played b6. What do you play as Black?

Campagnolo in Round 6

Rhenium Rd. 6. The last of three victories for Rhenium in round 6.

Miles Finishes With a Win

Niobium Rd 6. Sadly Niobium didn't make the playoffs. Close, one more win would have done it. Miles plays a good endgame here.

AreYouSerious Does It Again

AYS got into some "serious" trouble again but emerged victorious! You may say he was lucky, but not so. He kept making good moves, setting problems for his opponent. Little by little the tide changed and his opponent faltered. Not luck, just good Chess.

Selenium in the Playoffs

Selenium made it in as a wildcard. Three of the four Element teams are in.

Rhenium in the playoffs

Rhenium, in the top U2200 section, clinched the match today and joined the playoffs. Fantastic job everyone.

Tellurium in the Playoffs

Congratulations to the members of Tellurium, we're in the playoffs.

Ivio in Battle

Niobium Round 6. Endgames are important. Win a drawn game. Draw a lost game. How about win a lost game. Some work on endgames will get these these results, and more rating points. Ah, but they're boring. Not so, it is the "truth" in chess. Like math, there is usually only one correct answer. In a middlegame you may consider two moves, say Bc4 or Bb5, both are correct in their own way, and lead to different positions. But in an endgame the choice of moves becomes more crucial. Ke2 will draw, while Kd2 will lose. In this game you will see Ivio has an idea of what to do, he wasn't perfect or anything but had some feel for the endgame. His opponent however, I hate to criticize him, did not have any "feel". A 32 point rating swing. And a win.

Maartenkoning wins quickly

Rhenium Round 6. The Benko expert Maartenkoning shows why it's a great opening.

GOTW Round 5

They made me guru for Game of the Week round 5 and here is my winner. I hate that it's a game versus my teammate. Great stuff by both players. Runner up went to AreYouSerious, see a few posts back.

The Dog Gets a New Toy

Rhenium Round 5. The match is tied at 1.5 each. AreYouSerious gets the win to decide the match in favor of Rhenium.

Campagnolo Wins an Instructive Game

Rhenium Round 5. I was just going to dash off a few notes to show Campagnolo's nice win in round 5 but got intrigued by the endgame. How did he win, could it have been drawn? Instructive stuff here. I invite you to take a look. In he end Campagnolo outplayed his opponent.

After the game Campagnolo said "Whew, scary game"

hcube Gets a Draw

Selenium Round 5

Ivio Swindled

Selenium Round 5. Selenium won 3-1 but it could have been even bigger.

Paulkov wins

Tellurium Round 5

az2112 Draws

Round 5 Tellurium. At this point the match is tied 1.5 to 1.5. az2112 is playing a player with a large rating advantage with the match on the line.

Saturday Results

Seven games played Saturday. Results: 4 wins, 2 draws, and one loss. Very good.

azbycx draws

Round 5 Tellurium.

bshribharath wins

Continuing with Selenium in round 5. bshribharath faces an opponent rated over 300 points above him and he too gets the win.

JeeniousChess wins

Selenium Round 5. Jeenious plays a player rated over 200 points above him and triumphs.

Busy Weekend for Element Teams

Seven games on Saturday and four more on Sunday. I'll post some games here as soon as I can, but I'm busy preparing move 16 novelties for my two opponents right now. Good luck to everyone.

Selenium Throws a Shut Out

Selenium in the U1800 won round 4 by a score of 4 - 0. Good job! Here is bshribharath winning the final game.

A very good game by azbycx

The win got a draw for Tellurium in round 4. No annotations needed. All good moves by azbycx.

Know Thy Opponent

You should check out your opponents games. Sometimes there is something there you can take advantage off. My opponent here didn't have much history but I noticed he played the Gran Prix attack in the Sicilian. So I spent some time and prepared something. If he doesn't play that way, oh well, use it against someone else. If he does play that line, you're at a big advantage.

Ivio on Fire

Ivio won two league games this weekend. Here's the game for Selenium in the U1800.

Good Defense by Ivio

Ivio played stellar defense to get a win for Niobium in round 4.

Fallen into a trap?

My round 4 game for Tellurium went as follows.

A Nice Win by JeeniousChess

Black never had a chance.

Krysto Survives

A late round 3 game. Krysto's win secured a draw in the match for Niobium.

Forsake Materialism

Has anyone read "Chess for Zebras". This is a very great book. I put in up there next to "My System". One part of the book gives a different way to think about losing the exchange. Say you lost your Rook for a Bishop. The player with the extra Rook must now prove that the Rook, in the resulting position, is stronger than the Bishop. And you must try to prove the opposite. Usually the extra exchange prevails, but not always. Rowson explains it more eloquently. In the following game az2112 could have given up a Rook for a Knight and gotten a large advantage.

Part 3

Part 2

3 draws for Rhenium in round 3, Pt 1

AreYouSerious plays Thursday to decide matters. In my game versus Chiiwen, a 13 year old 2300 USCF, the USA cadet champion came to this position...

And then Jorobo won

The third win

Then az2112 won

The second win

azbycx wins

The first of three Tellurium wins in round 3

Sunday results

A couple of posts back I talked about us having 9 games this Sunday. The results were 5 wins and 4 draws. Not a single loss. Good job everybody!

hcube wins

For Selenium hcube played all good moves to beat his higher rated opponent. His opponent blundered, then started playing give-away chess. No respect for the game.

Ivio wins

A nice win by Ivio to help Niobium

Busy Sunday for Element players

No less than 9 Element players have games this Sunday. Ivio on Niobium starts things off at 10:00. Krysto plays Monday at 21:00. Hcube plays for Selenium at 11:00. Salvatore does battle Tuesday at 18:30. The whole Tellurium team plays Sunday: Paulkov at 20:00, jorobo and azbycx both at 22:00, and finally az2112 at 23:00. That last game is kind of a miracle save, az2112 got stuck in traffic and forfeited, but some quick action and some cooperation from the opponent got the game rescheduled. Rhenium plays three games Sunday. Maartenkoning at 14:00. Paulkov, first part of a doubleheader at 15:00, and Campagnolo at 21:00. AreYouSerious finishes things off Monday at 12:30. I hope everybody wins. Good Luck to all.

JeeniousChess gets the win

In a late round 2 game JeeniousChess decided the match in favor of Selenium with this game.

Nakamura blunders a won position

Check out Nakamura's reaction when he missed the win. A little overboard but quite funny. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05hfIVKwdMU

Great comeback by AreYouSerious

AreYouSerious, in his first league game, fought back from a losing position to beat egyptiantiger, a very good player who has been rated over 2200 at times. The win got us a draw in the match. Good job.

azbycx makes it 4-0 in round 2

Tellurium Rd 2 went very well.

Salvatore wins

Sal outplayed his opponent in positional style. Good job.

Krysto wins

In his first game for Niobium, Krysto routed his opponent in a short game

A nice win by az2112

Really nice was 17.Nxe6.

Miles wins for Niobium

A crushing victory.

Interesting position

Jorobo got a draw in this game to clinch a match point for Tellurium in round 1. Check out the position I highlight. What do you think?

Bishop dominates a Knight

The diagram shows how a Bishop can dominate a Knight. The second diagram shows how this knowledge could have been used by Ivio to win his game.

Paulkov finally wins a game

I was winning easily and thought trading down to the endgame was a simple win. I was sadly mistaken as a drawn position appeared. Luckily for me and the team he missed it and I got the point.

Salvatore wins for Selenium

A really fine attacking game by Sal. He pulled off an opening trap then tore the guy apart. Good stuff!

The Z's are'nt sleeping

For Tellurium we started with two draws by az2112 and azbycx. Let's take a look. az2112 got a repetition.

Then azbycx did battle. It looked like he had a big advantage but his opponent played well to get a draw. Such is Chess.

Pairings are up!

The league finally starts. Enough of the puzzles and White to play and win stuff. This blog is for the members of the "Element" teams. Rhenium U2200, Tellurium U2000, Selenium U1800, and Niobium U1600. News and notes, good games, etc. are to be featured here for the next six weeks. And hopefully longer because of the playoffs. I wish everybody great luck in the tournament

Solution to White to play and win

Did you get the answer? I didn't during that game. I thought I was getting killed. Which is what happened. But if someone said "White to play and win" I might have looked at the Queen sacrifice a little longer and got a great win."

Solution to endgame study

White will win the Knight for the h pawn. But to win the game he must keep his d pawn on the board so he has mating material.

An Endgame Study

Does anyone solve endgame studies? Most people don't, they think it's not like real Chess. But you should give it a try. It's very satisfying when you solve them. Here's one I created sort of by accident. It's a variation in a game I only managed to draw.

White to play and win

Here's a tough one to get your brain working before the league starts.

miles plays an endgame

I really enjoy watching good endgame play. Check out this game.

Finishing him off

Check out how Magnus defeats his 2700+ opponent.