Pawning Structures

Welcome to the Agglomeration

My friend, fellow blogger, and fellow chess player Ngiammy came to me early last year and he excitedly described to me how he won an exciting game on Flyordie the night before (Yes, this was early in the days when he still cared enough about chess to actually want to improve and play stronger opponents instead of listening to Korean pop songs and deep frying macaroni with his mind). He was at the time quite proud of himself for "inventing" what is a well known endgame position, but at the time he didn't know that, and so he proceeded to show me what he called the 'Three Pawn Trick'.

It's White to move. The winning sequence here is obviously

1. b5 axb5 (cxb5 fares no better) 2. c5 bxc5 3. a5

and there is no stopping white's a pawn promoting first with check.

I recently reached a position in one of my Chess.com matches, which also featured a nice pawn structure win. The game was played in a team match, and I was playing on Board 1 for my team 'Global Teens' against the 'Mikhail Tal Fans' Board 1.

I was White, and play started as follows:

[Event "Online Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2009.10.14"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Bingshui"]
[Black "alinoe"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2130"]
[BlackElo "1929"]
[TimeControl "1 in 3 days"]
[Termination "Bingshui won by resignation"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.Bf4 d6 5.Qd2 O-O 6.h4 Bf5 7.Bh6 Nc6 8.Bxg7 Kxg7 9.f3 e5 10.d5 Nd4
11.e4 Bd7 12.h5 Nxh5 13.g4 Nf4 14.Nce2 Ndxe2 15.Nxe2 g5 16.Nxf4 exf4 17.Qh2 Rh8 18.Qh6+ Kg8 19.e5 Qf8 20.Qxg5+ Qg7
21.Qxf4 Re8 22.Bd3 Rxe5+ 23.Kd2 Qg5 24.Qxg5+ Rxg5 25.Rae1 Re5 26.Rxe5 dxe5 27.g5 Kg7 28.Rh5 b6 29.a3 a5 30.b4 axb4 31.axb4 Ba4 32.b5 h6 33.gxh6+ Rxh6 34.Rxh6 Kxh6

The position reached is shown by this diagram.



My next move essentially wins. The only way for him to continue on a bit longer is to sacrifice his bishop by taking the pawn on b5 but instead he swaps and it's all over for him.

35.Bc2 Bxc2 36.Kxc2 Kg6 37.c5 Kf6 38.d6 Ke6 39.dxc7 1-0

I thought the ending with the pawn structures was pretty awesome. But that's just me. And I'm weird.

To conclude today's post, I leave my readers a puzzle, similar to Ngiammy's aforementioned position. Best solution will get a prize of some shape or form. Criteria are speed/accuracy/annotations. Good Luck all.

Puzzle #1 - The Four Pawn Trick

White to Move and win. For a hint, check the solution to the 'Three Pawn Trick' position.

Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.

Hammering Meat

Welcome to the Agglomeration

As promised, I will post another of my tournament games from Chess.com. The featured game is my highest rated win so far, but he's only mid 1800s. I'm playing a few high 1900s and 2000s at the moment, so after I finish those I'll probably post them as well.

In Round 1 of this tournament I'm currently on 7/7 with one game against this guy to go, which I'm winning, another game which I'm positionally worse off, and the third which will most likely be a draw (K and 3 pawns on the same side of the board endgame - but I'm holding off accepting his draw offer firstly because he's a 1700 (yeah I know, screwed up in the middle game) but also because I'm hoping for some last minute blunder), but since the top two of my group goes through to Round 2, I should be OK.

Anyway, the game. With a few annotations this time - not many since I've not done that sorta thing before.

[Event "6th Chess.com Quick Knockouts (1601-1800)"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2009.10.01"]
[Round "1"]
[White "meathammer"]
[Black "Bingshui"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1835"]
[BlackElo "1983"]
[TimeControl "1 in 1 day"]
[Termination "Bingshui won by resignation"]

1.e4 d5 2.e5 Bf5 3.d3 c5 4.Qf3 e6 5.g4 (this was unexpected) Bg6 6.Nh3 Nc6 7.Bg5 Qa5+ 8.Nc3? (randomly gives me a piece) d4 9.Bd2 dxc3 10.Bxc3 Qc7 11.O-O-O Nge7 12.Nf4 Nxe5 13.Bxe5

Qxe5 14.h4 h6 15.Re1 Qd6 16.Nxg6 Nxg6 17.Qxb7 (his attempt to get compensation for the piece) Rd8 18.Bg2 Be7 19.h5 Ne5 20.Re4 O-O 21.Rxe5 (also unexpected, considering I'm up a piece.) Qxe5 22.Qxe7 Rb8 23.b3 c4! (I like this move :)) 24.dxc4 Qa1+ 25.Kd2 Rbd8+ 26.Ke2 Qe5+ 27.Be4?? (Which is shortened by this move, giving me mate in 1 instead) Qxe4+ (not surprisingly, he resigns)

0-1

Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.

Squashed Position

Welcome to the Agglomeration

As a welcome change of pace for readers such as Ngiammy, as well as revitalising what was an intended but sadly neglected feature for the blog, I decided that I will be posting some of my matches from Chess.com, since I'm participating in 2 tournaments atm, and set to start some team matches as well as a thematic tournament, so enjoy.

Today's match comes from my first tournament that I entered, the 1600-1800 division of the 6th Chess.com Quick Knockouts. It was against a lower rated opponent who was playing quite well, and I found myself in a bit of a positional disadvantage until the end.

Please leave your comments, I'll be interested to see where you think I could've gone better.

[Event "6th Chess.com Quick Knockouts (1601-1800)"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2009.10.01"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Bingshui"]
[Black "sebastiansaaveedra"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "1934"]
[BlackElo "1636"]
[TimeControl "1 in 1 day"]
[Termination "Bingshui won by resignation"]

1.Nf3 d6 2.c4 e5 3.Nc3 Bf5 4.e4 Bg6 5.Qb3 b6 6.d4 Nf6 7.Bg5 Be7 8.dxe5 dxe5 9.Rd1 Nbd7 10.Nxe5 Bd6 11.Nc6 Nc5 12.Qb5 Qd7 13.Bxf6 a6 14.Ne5 Qxb5 15.cxb5 gxf6 16.Nxg6 fxg6 17.bxa6 Nxa6 18.a3 O-O 19.Nb5 Be5 20.b4 c6 21.Nd4 Nc7 22.Nxc6 Bc3+ 23.Ke2 Rxa3 24.Rc1 Nb5 25.Kd1 Nd6 26.f3 Rf7 27.h4 Rc7 28.b5 Kf7 29.h5 g5 30.Rh3 h6 31.e5 Nb7 32.f4 Rd7+ 33.Rd3 Rxd3+ 34.Bxd3 Kf8 35.e6 1-0

So what did you think? Those early exchanges a bad idea? My endgame tactics a little off? Please let me know what you thought about the game.

Thanks, I'll post another game soon.

Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.

A Somewhat Interesting Miniature

Welcome to the Agglomeration

It's time for some chess here on my blog. I've decided to show some of the more interesting games I have played to fill up space on this blog. Having started my 2nd Guest Welcoming Tournament on Chessworld.com, and subsequently won my the first of my 18 simultaneous matches with relative ease, speed and hilarity, I thought it would be the perfect first game to display. Here it is, with my own annotations:

GHOSTRIDER7929 (W) vs. Airwick (B)

1. Nc3 e6 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. b3 Bc5 4. g3 Ng4 (Trying for a cheapo mate, with 5...Bxf2++ of course)

5. e3 (which was subsequently foiled) Nc6 6. Nh4 h5 7. Na4?? Qf6! (what an excellent move) 8. c3?? Qxf2 # 0-1

I thought that was quite interesting. Coincedentally, my second game with this opponent, in which I am White, I am also faring extremely well in. I'll post a second game later, but that's all for now.

Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.