P&B Chess League - Season 8 coming soon….

[DeeTillEhDeh]

GordonEF I'll start our cup match once I've finished my league match against markf268.

Thought we were going to finish tonight.

I'll just start now.

[NotThePars]

NotThePars loses to Hammys. *runs the PR script* We've learnt our lesson this week and the boys fall back down to earth after getting slightly gallus off the back of back-to-back victories. We'll dust ourselves off and hope we're sitting comfortably enough to avoid relegation but will not be resting on our laurels!

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Elrohana beats markf268.

A couple of mistakes by me - one with my fat fingers moving a pawn instead of a bishop!!

The other I don't think was a mistake - trying to force his Queen either back or to the side or swapping off as I was ahead - the suggested move was taking a free pawn - which I ended up doing anyway.

A 4-piece attack with his King boxed in was impossible to defend.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Did you get my challenge GordonEF?

[Gordon EF]

1 hour ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

Did you get my challenge GordonEF?
 

Yep. I'll accept it once I finish one of the league games I've got going. 

[eindhovendee]

Eindhovendee beat Ludo in the cup.

Definitely helped going first with the way the board set up but a very difficult game.

In the end I didn't move my King at all until the last desperate throw of the dice from Ludo so a clear advantage to white.

 

 

[Richey Edwards]

DiegoDiegoPB beats RicheyEdwards by checkmate.

Good game.

[gkneil]

13 hours ago, madwullie said:

All my life I've been convinced you can't castle after being in check. 

Oh well

And not just once, had me in check twice before I castled

[madwullie]

5 minutes ago, gkneil said:

And not just once, had me in check twice before I castled

The first time with the Bishop I genuinely did it to "stop" you castling  

[gkneil]

I wanted you to put me in check at that point. Everything was going to plan for me until your 13th move when you went a different way to what I thought you would, so had to change my approach.

[madwullie]

Right, enough of your mind games satan

[true_rover]

Elrohana beats markf268.

A couple of mistakes by me - one with my fat fingers moving a pawn instead of a bishop!!

The other I don't think was a mistake - trying to force his Queen either back or to the side or swapping off as I was ahead - the suggested move was taking a free pawn - which I ended up doing anyway.

A 4-piece attack with his King boxed in was impossible to defend.

The analysis tells me I made one blunder and that was the difference, moving a bishop out of threat as a defensive move rather than taking your pawn which would have resulted in a piece swap at worst. No coming back from that afterwards as you were able to threaten my queen and get ahead straight away.

[Ludo*1]

9 hours ago, eindhovendee said:

Eindhovendee beat Ludo in the cup.

Definitely helped going first with the way the board set up but a very difficult game.

In the end I didn't move my King at all until the last desperate throw of the dice from Ludo so a clear advantage to white.

 

 

Yep, wasn't even close. From about move 5 I wanted to resign but didn't want to appear as if I'd thrown a huff. I quickly made some stupid mistakes with my bishop and you took full advantage and smothered my whole left hand side. It was an awful experience! Well played!

I also drew with DiegoDiego in the league. I'm not sure he's best pleased with me. He got into my head so instead of going for my usual play with black which is quite a weak opening but has the element of surprise and has served me well so far, I went for a more classical line in the 'Sicillian Dragon'. I had no idea it was called anything other than the sicillian, but that's a cool name. But yeah, I was basically playing for a draw from about the half way point and played very defensively. It was a dead draw for about 10 moves before we agreed, but Diego twice spurned my draw offer. In my head, I had it as me acting like a team shitfesting at 0-0 from the 10th minute of the game.

@DiegoDiego

[gkneil]

16 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

Yep, wasn't even close. From about move 5 I wanted to resign but didn't want to appear as if I'd thrown a huff. I quickly made some stupid mistakes with my bishop and you took full advantage and smothered my whole left hand side. It was an awful experience! Well played!

I also drew with DiegoDiego in the league. I'm not sure he's best pleased with me. He got into my head so instead of going for my usual play with black which is quite a weak opening but has the element of surprise and has served me well so far, I went for a more classical line in the 'Sicillian Dragon'. I had no idea it was called anything other than the sicillian, but that's a cool name. But yeah, I was basically playing for a draw from about the half way point and played very defensively. It was a dead draw for about 10 moves before we agreed, but Diego twice spurned my draw offer. In my head, I had it as me acting like a team shitfesting at 0-0 from the 10th minute of the game.

@DiegoDiego

Given that he's almost certainly been following your tactics and had a plan in place, DiegoDiego will be absolutely raging that you've done this. Love it.

 

[DeeTillEhDeh]

The analysis tells me I made one blunder and that was the difference, moving a bishop out of threat as a defensive move rather than taking your pawn which would have resulted in a piece swap at worst. No coming back from that afterwards as you were able to threaten my queen and get ahead straight away.

Yep.

As soon as I went that piece up it was a matter of threatening your Queen.

You also did not move one of your rooks for the whole game - it was not even doing a defensive role. This was because you did not develop the bishop that blocked the back rank.

As well as not taking the pawn I also think you went with your Queen too early just after that.

[Frank Grimes]

Lots of draws in the top flight!

[DiegoDiego]

1 hour ago, Ludo*1 said:

I also drew with DiegoDiego in the league. I'm not sure he's best pleased with me. He got into my head so instead of going for my usual play with black which is quite a weak opening but has the element of surprise and has served me well so far, I went for a more classical line in the 'Sicillian Dragon'. I had no idea it was called anything other than the sicillian, but that's a cool name. But yeah, I was basically playing for a draw from about the half way point and played very defensively. It was a dead draw for about 10 moves before we agreed, but Diego twice spurned my draw offer. In my head, I had it as me acting like a team shitfesting at 0-0 from the 10th minute of the game.

@DiegoDiego

I had checked your recent games and prepared what could have been quite a fun line against the Duras gambit. At first I was raging that you'd switched it up but I'd prepared the Sicilian Dragon as black against Richey in my other Week 5 game. I was delighted, my Yugoslav attack was going perfectly until about move ten when you went off piste and the very next move I blundered a piece. Thankfully you coughed up one of your own not too long after.

I was quite pleased that I made my first ever successful piece sacrifice, when I got your connected passed pawns for my knight. I didn't realise the pawn endgame was drawing and would have kept the rooks on the board if I had. Instead I went from a potential +6 to +0.3 in three moves. Pretty brutal on the replay. It's rare that I reach relatively even endgames and I know very little strategy about that part of the game. Apologies for declining those draws, if I'd known the reality of the situation I wouldn't have. I'm a bit disappointed with the draw, not so much because of how the game went, but because I wanted to even up the head-to-head and be the first to take the scalp of the mighty hustler Ludo.

Does anyone have any recommendations for endgame theory?

10 hours ago, Richey Edwards said:

DiegoDiegoPB beats RicheyEdwards by checkmate.

Good game.

Cheers, it was a decent game. I don't think you did much wrong, really. Losing that early pawn and getting your rook trapped didn't make much difference in the end. I think the biggest issue was not castling. It was a pretty closed game and once the king side was locked down I could get my heavy pieces over to the queen side quite easily while your bishops were stuck amongst the pawns. There wasn't really much to be done at that point. Sorry about the en passant, by the way. I'm looking forward to the reverse fixture!

 

[DiegoDiego]

Given that he's almost certainly been following your tactics and had a plan in place, DiegoDiego will be absolutely raging that you've done this. Love it.
 

Yes, I was raging, and Ludo has risen in my esteem for switching it up. However, if I've made him deviate from his preferred opening on move one then I'd like to claim victory in this particular mind game.

And fear not, Mr Neil, my seconds are already leafing the archives in preparation for our next duel!

(There's a German GM, Bluebaum, who plays the French Defence with black every single time. Sometimes it doesn't matter if your opponent knows what's coming, especially if you've played it 20x more than them.)

[Richey Edwards]

40 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

Cheers, it was a decent game. I don't think you did much wrong, really. Losing that early pawn and getting your rook trapped didn't make much difference in the end. I think the biggest issue was not castling. It was a pretty closed game and once the king side was locked down I could get my heavy pieces over to the queen side quite easily while your bishops were stuck amongst the pawns. There wasn't really much to be done at that point. Sorry about the en passant, by the way. I'm looking forward to the reverse fixture!

 

Yeah, I realised the bishop mistake but it was too late to do much about it. I think my pieces were too congested down that end of the board which meant I couldn't really manoeuvre. I knew I was going to lose at that point.

I'd never saw an en passant in a game before. Every day is a school day.

Very enjoyable game, and another game closer to me Brechin-ing this season.

[Gordon EF]

League B Round 9

GordonEF beats markf268

Entertaining game this one. I'd built up a bit of an advantage and was looking to force my Queen down the left side to start delivering checks. At that point @true_rover decided to stop defending and go straight for a checkmate himself. Leaving us in a position where he could deliver a forced mate with one free move. I was absolutely sweating trying to work out whether I had to keep attacking and try to get him in perpetual check or whether to spend a move defending the king. Ended up attacking, exchanging my rook for his Queen and getting the mate (not before completely missing a simple checkmate).