Tag: chess tournaments

CategoriesChess For Beginners

Chess Noob #13- Assume Your Opponent is Better Than You

Posted on September 27, 2012by regencyadmin

I was originally going to write this article telling you that when you play chess with someone, you should behave as if you were playing chess with yourself.  Then I realized this might not work out so well, because when we play chess with ourselves (where we’re playing both sides of the board), we sometimes go in knowing which side of the board we want to win as, and so we may make moves for the other side not as strong as they could be.

So, let’s scrap that idea entirely.  INSTEAD, let’s say that when you play chess with someone, assume they are better than you.  This will make you think long and hard about making a move “because if they do this, I’ve got them!” and realize “Oh, but if they do this instead, I’m dead!”  Many people call this “hope chess”, making moves in the hopes that your opponent will make the wrong move that will allow your grand plan to come true!

Do not play hope chess!  Assume your opponent is better than you, and that they will therefore see at a glance exactly what your plan is!

So, if they always know what your plan is and how to stop it, how can you ever really make a plan?

Keep searching the board until you can come up with a plan that forces your opponent to make certain moves! If you’re coming at them in such a way that they literally HAVE to make the moves you want, then they’ll never get to make the moves THEY want!

So how do you do this?  Certainly it can’t be done on every single move, but every once in a while you’ll be able to find the right combination.   After all, you’re ASSUMING your opponent is better than you… that doesn’t mean they actually ARE!  Everyone makes mistakes in the game of chess.  Look for those errors and figure out ways to take advantage.

But don’t make a move because you expect your opponent to make a mistake or think they might (or HOPE they might).

But what about traps?

A trap is a trap because your opponent doesn’t see what they’re walking into.  Piece sacrifices (which we’ll get into soon enough) are a form of trap that in some cases are too sweet to miss up… unless your opponent knows that trap too!  Which again, you should assume they do.

Have a topic you’d like me to cover or a question you’d like to ask? send me an e-mail at [email protected]

CategoriesChess For BeginnersChess GamesChess Openings

Chess Noob #12- Simple Checkmates

Posted on August 17, 2012by regencyadmin

Now that you know notation, we can start looking at some positions and games and analyzing, etc.  In other words, now you can really start to learn to become a better chess player by reading books and blogs and solving puzzles, etc.

Let’s look at a few simple checkmates that are standard 1st time player mates to learn.

Fool’s Mate

This first simple mate (and actually entire GAME) we’re going to learn is titled “Fool’s Mate” because “only a fool would make such moves”!  It is the fastest possible checkmate where the entire game lasts only TWO MOVES!

1. f3   e5; 2. g4   Qh4#

Scholar’s Mate

Scholar’s Mate gets attempted quite a lot in novice play and even some higher ranked players will go for it as a type of fear tactic, so it’s good to learn both what it is and how to stop it.

The moves for a Scholar’s Mate are: 1. e4   e5; 2. Qh5  Nc6; 3. Bc4   Nf6; 4. Qxf7#

There are a few variations of this from white’s side(such as bringing the Bishop out before the Queen, or bringing the Queen to f3 instead of h5), but that’s the basic idea.  As black, there are many ways to guard against this particular mate.

One way NOT to block is to threaten the Queen with g6.  This results in a dangerous trap that allows White to check with the Queen (Qxe5+), forking the King and Rook:

You may think of answering 2. Qh5 with Nc6.  This will still drop the e-pawn with check… not the worst thing in the world, but still not very ideal. 2. … Nc6 is still a good answer to block against the e-pawn capture.  When White brings the Bishop to c4 for the threat of a mate, you can now push the g-pawn to stop the mate as the King/Rook fork is no longer an issue thanks to the e-pawn being protected by a knight.

Quick Smothermate Trap

A Smothermate, as talked about in a previous blog, is when Checkmate with a Knight when the opponent’s King is blocked in by pieces (and can’t move) that can’t capture said Knight.  Here is a cool little smothermate I saw recently that was very fast…

1. e4  e5; 2. Nf3  Nc6; 3. Bc4  Nd4; 4. Nxe5  Qg5; 5. Nxf7 (forking the Queen and Rook and can’t be captured by the King because it’s protected by a Bishop):

then black resumes- 5. … Qxg2; 6. Rf1 (so it doesn’t get taken) Qxe4+; 7. Be2 (moving the queen there would just result in a queen capture… which, given the circumstances might be the better idea for white at this point) Nf3#

These three fast mates are all possible (and infact, Scholar’s Mate happens quite frequently in beginning chess players’ games).  Now that you know them, you can try them out on your friends, and protect against them when your friends try them on you!

Have a topic you’d like me to cover or a question you’d like to ask? send me an e-mail at [email protected]

CategoriesChess For Beginners

Chess Noob #11 – Time Control

Posted on August 8, 2012by regencyadmin

If you’ve ever seen people playing chess in a park somewhere (even if it’s just in a movie like “Searching for Bobby Fisher”… which I might do a movie review of for a blog one day), you’ll notice they are often moving quickly and hitting clocks.

When a player is brand new to chess, one of two things will happen: 1) they are totally scared of the clock and/or forget it’s even there and keep forgetting to hit it, or 2) they are so overzealous about the appeal of hitting a clock that they bang the buttons so hard it seems like they may cause collateral damage!

But what is the clock really for, and what do time controls mean?  Let’s take a look.

Time control is how long each player has to complete their portion of a chess game.  This can be anywhere from many hours to just a few minutes.  Every tournament will have a time control written in specific ways.  Every internet chess website will have various time controls to choose from as well.

If the game is not over but one player runs out of time on their clock, that player automatically loses the game.  This is called “losing on time”

On tournament posters, you’ll see the time control written as (# of moves)/(length of time).  This will often be followed by something like SD/(length of time) or (length of time)d or (length of time)inc.  Here’s a few examples:

“G/60” would mean “game in 60″… in other words each opponent gets 1 hour on their side of the clock (making a potentially 2-hour game) and the game MUST be finished within that time limit.  As stated before, if a player runs out of time before the game is over, they lose the game.

“40/90, SD/1” means 40 moves in 90 minutes followed by an hour of sudden death.  In other words, each player gets 90 minutes on their clock.  If the game is still going after both players have made 40 moves, and neither player has run out of time, an additional hour is added to both sides of the clock and the game MUST conclude by the end of the new time.

“G/45, 5d” Like before this would mean “game in 45 minutes”, but this has the addition of a 5-second time delay.  Time Delay is when the time on the clock (always digital for delay) pauses for the first few seconds (in this case 5 seconds) of every turn before counting down.  This extra time is to give the player adequate time to write the notation for the move that was just made by their opponent, without cutting into their time.

“40/90, 30inc” is 40 moves in 90 minutes followed by a time where 30 second increments are added to the clock.  Incremental time control is a fairly new idea and only comes on the newest clocks.  In the United States, it’s only used in the upper sections of big tournaments, although internationally FIDE uses it for all their events.  What it means is that an increment of time is added to a players clock so that they will have at least a certain amount of time to make a move.  In this example, after the first 40 moves (which each player has 90 minutes to make), sudden death comes into effect but instead of a set time control, 30 seconds is added to their clock after every move.  This ensures that even if a player is basically out of time, they’ll have a minimum of 30 seconds to make a move.  If incremental time controls aren’t utilized, a player could have to make a move with only a couple seconds to spare (as in literally 2 seconds).

It would be wise to invest in a digital chess clock that has at least a time delay function, such as the DTG series clocks which can be purchased right here at The Regency Chess Company.

Have a topic you’d like me to cover or a question you’d like to ask? send me an e-mail at [email protected]

CategoriesChess Midgame

Chess Basic Tactics Series #1 – Pins and Skewers

Posted on July 25, 2012by regencyadmin

If you’ve read my previous post, then you know that studying tactics is one of the most important things you can do to improve your game. In this series, I’m going to go deeper, define, and give examples of some basic tactics. Before we get into the fun stuff, let me first give some required definitions.

In chess tactics can be defined as short term opportunities where one player makes threats against the opponent.  Pins and skewers, are just two examples of various tactics that are used in a chess game. A pin in chess is when you attack a piece that can not move out the way because it would allow capture of a piece of greater value. There are two types of pins, absolute pins and relative pins. Let’s look at some examples.

This first diagram is an example of an absolute pin. The black knight on c6 is absolutely pinned to the king because the knight cannot move. In chess, it is illegal to move a piece and expose your king to check. Keep in mind that absolute pins are more powerful than relative pins for this very reason, the piece that is pinned is completely stuck!

 

The next diagram is an example of a relative pin. The knight on f3 is pinned to the queen. Unlike the first example, it is possible for the knight on f3 to legally move. Doing so however would be bad since it would lose the queen which is more valuable than the knight.

One thing to remember is that only queens, rooks, and bishops can pin other pieces.

The next tactic we will discuss is the skewer. A skewer is very similar to a pin, however in the case of a skewer the more valuable piece is in front of the piece of equal or lesser value. When the more valuable piece moves, it exposes the less valuable piece to capture. Just like pins there are absolute skewers and relative skewers. Let’s look at some examples.

The following diagram shows an example of two skewers. The white queen is skewering the black king on a5 and black rook on a8. Since the black king is in check it must move out of the way allowing the capture of the rook. Also, the white bishop is skewering the black rook on f6 and the black knight on g7. Since the rook is more valuable than the knight, when it moves it allows capture of the knight. Just like pins, only the straight line pieces, queens, bishops, and rooks can skewer.

 

I hope this post helped you get your feet wet with some basic tactics! In the next post in this series we will discuss double attacks. In the meantime start improving your tactics play by solving some chess puzzles!

CategoriesWorld Chess

sooooo many ties!

Posted on July 10, 2012by regencyadmin

Just like there were sooooo many players in the World Open, there were soooo many ties for various prizes in every section.  Not one person swept their section (although one player in one section came very close), and there were often 2, 3 and even 8 way ties for each place in each section.

This particular blog is much less of a blog, and much more of a results recap.  Personally, I only won 4.5 out of 9 games (I ended up with 3 wins, 3 losses and 3 draws).  So I only came in 39th place in my section.  Here’s how some other people did:

Under 900: James K Snee (rated 844) from Louisiana, USA took 1st place in the under 900 section winning 8 out of 9 games.  The only player in that section that bested Snee was Pennsylvania player Ithan Sandoval-Lorenzo who only managed to come in 12th place (just short of being able to take home prize money).  David Wu from New York came in 2nd place with 7.5 out of 9.  Tied for 3rd with 7 out of 9 each were Charity Brickman from New York and Leighton E Barrett from Jamaica.  And the top 10 was completed with a 7-way tie for 3rd (making 1 person win money but not technically being in the top 10).

Under 1200: In the under 1200 section, there was a 2-way tie for 1st place between Jason Lawson from Jamaica and Efthymios Papageorgiou from New York.  Both players, however, had provisional ratings based on less than 26 tournament games.  This fact made both players only eligable for up to $1500… so while the top prize was $5,000 for the section, each were only allowed $1500 for their scores of 7.5 out of 9.  What happens to the left over money?  It went to lower places, allowing for many more people to walk away with prize money!  There was a 3-way tie for 2nd place with scores of 7 out of 9, then a 6-way tie for third place and finally a 9-way tie for 3rd place where each person in the 9-way tie took home a mere $28.12.

Under 1400: Top prize in the Under 1400 section went to Manuel J Then of New York with 8 out of 9 wins.  This is even more impressive when you consider that he was the 11th lowest rated person in the section at 1200 (his new rating after the tournament is 1583)!  Second place went to Evan B Mossman of Pennsylvania with 7.5 out of 9, followed by a 4-way tie for third, a 4-way tie for 4th and a 5-way tie for 5th place.

Under 1600: The 1st place prize for the Under 1600 section went to Ryan Arab, a buddy of mine from my local chess club.  He did better than anyone in any section in the entire tournament with a whopping 8.5 out of 9 wins!  The closest anyone came to beating Ryan was Carlos D Hoyos who managed to get a draw with Ryan, but only managed to be part of a 9-way tie for 4th.  In between were ties for both 2nd and 3rd.

Under 1800: Eimer A Romero took 1st place in the U1800 section with 8 out of 9.  Below him was a 2 way tie for 2nd, a 5-way tie for 3rd and a 9-way tie for 4th.

Under 2000:Jesus Orozco from California took 1st place in the U2000 section with 8 of 9 wins.  Two players managed to get draws from Jesus, one of which tied for 3rd place (along with five other players) and a player who did not even come close to placing in the top 10!  Jesus took home nearly $11,000!  Due to ties, the top 10 prizes got stretched out among 18 players for this section.

Under 2200: Lorand Bela Kis won this section with 8 out of 9, getting draws with two of the 12 players that tied for 3rd place after a 3-way tie for 2nd.

Under 2400: In the under 2400 section, there was a 2-way tie for first place between Carl Brandon Boor and Miles F Ardaman each with 7.5 out of 9, followed by Alexander R Katz who took 2nd place by himself and then an 8-way tie for third which included several IM’s from the USA, India, Nigeria, and Russia and Croacia.

Open: The open section is where all the Grandmasters live!  This section consisted of 118 players including 33 GMs (I apparently miscounted when I claimed 27 last week), 2 WGMs, 20 IMs, 1 WIM, 11 FMs and a smattering of non-master players with ratings between 1828 and 2600.  The GMs faught back and forth where the top prize was split between GM Ivan Sokolov of the Netherlands and GM Alexander Shabalov from the United States.  Each had 7 out of 9 and took home close to $13,000 each!  There was then a 7-way tie for 2nd place and a 10-way tie for 3rd.

CategoriesWorld Chess

Sooo many chess players….

Posted on July 6, 2012by regencyadmin

Here, at the World Open, One thing comes to mind: WOW! So many players!

How many players is a lot?  1225! (and that’s NOT including any of the side events like the Women’s Championship, the Under 13 Championship, the Under 13 Booser or the Senior Amateur Championship).

Over 1200 men, women and children raging in age from six to 86, and from people who are making this their very first chess tournament ever to people who’ve been playing in tournaments for over 70 years!  If that doesn’t show you what a wide-spread game chess is, nothing will!

Players come from all over the world for this tournament.  I’ve heard more languages and accents in the last couple of days (sorry for not posting any blogs from the tournament before this, I’ve been pre-occupied trying to win my games) than I’ve ever heard in one place aside from a trip to Disney World when I was a child.

If the above two paragraphs don’t demonstrate just how widespread the game of chess has become, then I don’t know what does.  All walks of life are represented here, it seems: from the poor to the rich, the young and the old and everything in between, every ethnicity you can imagine, both genders, “nerds” and “jocks” and “emos” and “hippies” and any other stereotype you can think of are represented here.  Every major motion picture WISHES they could reach everyone as the game of chess seems to have as litterally any demographic that exists is represented here.

If I get a chance, I will try to post a photo later of the veritable sea of people that makes up the tournament playing areas (there are 3 large ballrooms filled with people each round).  That will likely come tomorrow if I can pull it off, because tomorrow is when all the game schedules merge together and all players will be in the same place at the same time!

I was curious about how many master players there are, so I checked out the Open section and the Under 2400 section.  There are 27 GM’s (Grand Master) in the Open section, 1 WGM (Woman Grand MAster) in the Open section and another in the Women’s championship tournament, 8 IM’s (International Master) in the Open section and 2 in the U2400 section, and a smattering of FM’s (FIDE Masters) and LM’s (Life Master).

In other words, the talent in this building right now is awe-inspiring!

Of course, there are also many amateur players like yourself… some that have only just learned what chess even is this year that could gain a lot of valuable info from the Chess Noob blogs I usually bring you.

Tomorrow morning, I intend attending a lecture by one of the many Grand Masters here.  I sadly did not attend the one today because I slept in a little bit (I had a long grueling day yesturday).  After the lecture, I’ll be posting a blog that outlines some of the stuff the GM talked about (after all, wouldn’t you rather get a short lesson from one of the best players on the planet rather than a potzer like me?).

I may post one or two of my games on here too, as that might be helpful (including one game where my opponent made a horrendous mistake in the opening, allowing me to capture his queen on move 7… it will be a good lesson in what to look for).

Until then, I need to prepare for the next round…