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.