Salvatore Wins

Niobium Rd 3. Salvatore got a good win.

Time Trouble

Iridium Rd 3. I don't like posting loses but no one seems to be winning this week. bshribharath played great until time trouble did him in.

Lots Of Tactics

Iridium Rd 3. ben622 missed a win in this tactical melee.

Krysto Wins

Rubidium Rd 3. Krysto got an easy win.

Round 3 Games

Tellurium Rd 3. Justi leads off for Tellurium with a win.

Paulkov Gets A Win

Rhenium Rd 2. I thought it would be a draw but he cracked.

Turn Noescape Off

A lot of people get tired of people who disconnect when they're losing. So they use noescape. Fair enough. But in a league game turn it off.
The league statutes state : "Games are to be played with noescape turned off. Should a game be played with noescape on, and a player disconnect and forfeit, the result of the game will be a loss to that player, as shown by the pgn score. E.g. “{Black got disconnected and forfeits} 1-0” and no further penalty will be applied."
The games can be long, something can happen to your connection, it happens.
We had an incident this round where one of our players got a loss in this method. Just when he was getting a good position.
Turn Noescape Off

Miles Wins in 11 Moves

Niobium Rd 2. Another match tied with the last game to decide it. Miles had looked at the variation played, he was prepared. Result: a quick win to get Niobium a match win.

bshribharath Wins

Iridium Rd 2. Black made a slight mistake and bshribharath took complete control of the game and won. Very well done.

Elalfer Decides The Match

Rubidium Rd 2. The match was tied 1.5 each. Elalfer played a real good gane to give the match point to Rubidium.

Krysto Wins For Rubidium

Rubidium Rd 2. A good win. The match is now tied with one game to go/

Ivio Wins

Niobium Rd 2. This was pretty ugly.

jorobo Survives

Tellurium Rd 2. An opening trap. But jorobo got the win anyway

Maartenkoning Wins

Rhenium Rd 1. Maartenkoning outplayed his opponent in this round 1 game. The win gives us a match draw.

Krysto Gets a Draw

Niobium Rd 2. Krysto missed a win, got into a losing endgame, but found a great drawing idea. A good game versus a player rated 150 points more.

Round 2 Games

Selenium Rd 2. MasterOfTheKeys got his first league win.

Justi Annotates His Win

Tellurium Rd 1. Justi, in his very first league game, got a nice win.

GAUNTLET

Definition of GAUNTLET

1. a glove worn with medieval armor to protect the hand

To "throw down the gauntlet" is to issue a challenge. A gauntlet-wearing knight would challenge a fellow knight or enemy to a duel by throwing one of his gauntlets on the ground. The opponent would pick up the gauntlet to accept the challenge.

Jorobo Wins An Exciting Game

Tellurium Rd 1. I watched this game without an engine. A very nerve wracking game. It looked like Black might survive or maybe had some wins. Looking at it later with an engine shows that jorobo played it brilliantly. A really good game.

Campagnolo Wins

Rhenium Rd 1. Outstanding positional play by Campagnolo.

bshribharath Wins

Iridium Rd 1. You take what they give you.

Solution to White to Play

My missing posts have come back.
In this position White has the amazing 21.Nd7 putting the Knight in the middle of Black's position where it can be captured 4 different ways. Then he follows up with a Queen sac. Amazing. It all works.

ben622 Wins A Miniature

Iridium Rd 1. ben622 sacs a bishop on move 16 to get a winning attack.

Whisperbot

Check this out.

Information about WhisperBot(C) (Last disconnected Thu May 12 2011 20:21):

WhisperBot has not played any rated games yet.

1: WhisperBot will be dedicated to the team4545 league tournament for the next 3 months.

2: WhisperBot will watch your league games and when the game is finished WhisperBot can tell you what the observers had to say. Interspersed will be the move number so you can see what was said at various stages of the game.

3: Just type
'tell WhisperBot league'
after your league game and WhisperBot will do...
4: .
tell you whisper-line
over and over for as many lines of whispering that went on
5: ...
. 6: NOTE: WhisperBot WILL NOT ACCEPT COMMANDS DURING A LEAGUE GAME NOR WILL IT ENGAGE IN ANY DIALOG WITH YOU DURING A LEAGUE GAME
7: .....
8: By default WhisperBot will talk to you in the main console. I recommend to users that they open up a separate console to receive the tells from WhisperBot. This way there is no interspersing with shouts etc that are received in the main console window.
9: Notes: (1) WhisperBot will only report on your most current game in the league.

10: Any Questions? Talk to my owner, ICC user 'finger TwoEqualsOne'

Groups : Team4545League computer

T49 Games

I usually don't post loses here but cesaralexander played a really good game. One mistake ruined it.

Malfunction

The blogger crashed for the last day and a half. You could still view it but I couldn't add any new posts. In fact two of my posts from Wednesday just vanished. Everything seems back to normal now.

T49 Is Starting

I think I said T50 was starting. I got a little ahead of myself. It's T49. Duh

White to Play

No games yet to show. So I give you one last tactical puzzle.
White has an extraordinary move here.

T50 Is Starting

This blog is devoted to the members of the "element" teams. Here are the players:

Rhenium U2200 Paulkov (Capt), MaartenKoning, Seaborgium, Campagnolo (Asst), AreYouSerious

Tellurium U2000 Justi, jorobo, cesaralexander, azbycx, futureGM, az2112 (Asst), Paulkov (Capt)

Iridium U2000 ben622, DreamCatcher13 (Capt), AreYouSerious, bshribharath, bigcol, sidduchess (Asst)

Selenium U1800 futureGM, bshribharath, Ivio (Asst), MasterOfTheKeys, Salvatore (Capt)

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

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

27 players from 12 countries.
In T49 we had zero forfeits. We want to keep that perfect record here in T50

Play a good game and it will be highlighted in the blog. If you want to annotate it yourself, great. It's better to have your thoughts about the game, rather than me and my computer.
Let's all make the playoffs. Games start this Tuesday!

Solution to Black to play

Black is lost no matter what. Playing the forcing variation starting with ..Rb1+ is your only hope. White is likely to miss the refutation. Maybe you can steal a half point. Practical Chess.

Black to Play

You're Black. Things look pretty bleak. Can you find a drawing idea? And does it work?

Solution to Does Rxg7 Work

Yes it does work. You might think A. is the correct answer which is partially right. But the most correct answer is B. Black's Queen isn't guarded and White can exploit this.

Does Rxg7 Work?

What is the most correct answer?
A. Rxg7 works because of the position of Black's King
B. Rxg7 works because of the position of Black's Queen
C. You're full of crap Paul. Rxg7 doesn't work at all!
D. I haven't the slightest idea.

Vote with the comment button.

The Uruguayan Immortal Game

I recently came upon this game. One of the best attacking games I've ever seen.

Solution to White to Play

When I first saw this as a kid I was very impressed. Very beautiful.

But the only problem with this game: It never happened! The story has it that it was just analysis of a casual game.

Solution to All Around The Maypole

Take the White Rook off the board and it's stalemate.