Posted in Life beyond the chess board on September 22, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I think I can hold it for the simple reason I can generate counter play.
If I stick the king on d6, I can push the e-pawn when the time is right. Whether I am right or not, I shall find out in due course. I also have the option of pushing the f-pawn to slow my opponent up.
Posted in On-line journal on September 18, 2020| Leave a Comment »
In three days’ time my child will be eight. Being the eighteenth of September, I had to get some OTB practice at the chess club tonight because so many games have been played on-line. I just had to see where I was against old friends in a familiar setting. So bike it to the skytrain I did, rain or no rain it mattered not. Of late I have shied away from a Friday evening saunter into the city from the simple reason that I dislike blitz, and blitz is all that they play. Three minutes with a two second increment isn’t anywhere near enough for a game of chess to be played. And given that I wasn’t even quick enough for it in my youth, why try my hand some thirty years on? But anyway I felt compelled to go since I’ve clocked up around five hundred games in the last five months, and my results have steadily improved. Before play began I felt content and focused, curious to see how the night would unfold. In my first game I checkmated someone in the opening with the Vienna Gambit and won the following four games with ease, putting me on five out of five. Though a queen up, I lost the sixth game on time, then the bubble burst and fatigue suddenly reared its ugly head. Of the seven participants, four were better than I; two noticeably, two only just yet they concurred I outplayed them all, being a queen up in two games lost whilst failing to finish my opponent off in due time. In two games I ran short on ideas and found the unfamiliarity of uncertainty uncomfortable. I became less clinical and errors crept in. And so I ended up with only six out of twelve.
I was number four and unbothered by the fact I didn’t win outright, sure that what I was told was true: I outplayed everyone and had them all in very serious trouble. What I had hoped for most of all was that I played with the same directness I play on-line against lesser opponents with. And that I did, which in itself constituted proof that a fundamental change in approach is well in progress. Kai -number six on the tournament table- is a well-known tournament organizer, international arbiter and a strong player indeed, having beaten a number of Grandmasters. But to me he symbolizes consequentialism like no one else can. He is the personification of the theory repudiates the positions upheld by the dominant paradigms upholding ethics.
Once upon a time, when both Kai and I arrived early at the chess club the week after the Bangkok Chess Club Open of 2011 had ended, I asked him about a member of staff who helped with the organization. Of course I didn’t know that he employed her, and that she managed his main business at the time. And because she did a good job, he showed me her facebook account. Could I have even guessed the consequences to follow would result in the said employee and I bringing a child into the world the following year having already married? I very much doubt it and rightly so for who would expect such a thing from something oh-so-incidental, something done out of courtesy only. When born we named our daughter Grace (Hitchcockian me points out the name honours Grace Kelly). I insisted she did not have a middle name, meaning that her initials were GM, making her the youngest GM in the world, upon birth and perhaps for a few minutes more also.
You understand consequentialism as being the theory that both stands in opposition to and functions as a valid critique of deontological ethics yes? And indeed you should for it does. I learnt it from Professor Dan. Hutto as an undergrad back in the nineties. The main premise being that we can never judge an act in terms of goodness or moral worth for the consequences of an action are, ‘have like a domino-effect’ Dan said surely. We just don’t know where they will end thus cannot judge them for what may initially be beneficial or advantageous to an individual may have consequences of a far worse nature. Indeed, even modern-day Britain has a helpline for those who win the lottery and become millionaires. Fome some it is the beginning of the end, as the avalanche of difficulties triggered by it are deathly, when those you know only want you for your money and come in for the kill.
Putting Kai to one side, what did I learn from this evening? I learnt that the bottom line remains unchanged. I never was cut out for tournament play and never will be -end of story. Twelve games in the space of two hours was too much for me to bear and my performances tailed off towards the end. The drawn out nature of the birthday party in the floor below, and the love music accompanying it didn’t exactly help -of that everyone became tired. I did learn that my style has changed because my play is indeed more direct than ever. But I also learnt against noticeably stronger opposition, I need more experience to steady the ship more so than I have already done. I reflected upon whether chess really is a game dictated by character, and was reminded that in my youth the only thing I became proud of was not that I improved my skills but that I became solid and hard to beat. Losing carried more weight than winning; grinding out hard fought draws against stronger opponents was something I became good at Decades ago -steely resolve and solidity still both identity-conferring. The more I gravitate towards them, the more wholesome my play will be in time…
It would appear that next Friday there will be an official FIDE rated blitz tournament. Let us hope this evening was a good warm up. And let us hope the late night road home has no rain, much drier roads, no flooding and less construction.
Kai be him opposite camera and opposite opponent wielding a european passport, a can of coke, and forgettable FIDE rating as video starts. I be man hold camera being deafened to deaf by dodgy covers of songs that were never any good, even when played by those who wrote the buggers. If you watched the clip, in all probability your concluding remarks were wtf!
Olcmarcus
Posted in On-line journal on September 18, 2020| Leave a Comment »
The answer is less obvious than you think. It’s not necessarily 2 since in binary it would be 10. So what did more practice + a change in approach = ? It equalled this:
Posted in My Own Games on September 15, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Rust removal no longer required. Directness creates pressure, pressure causes collapse…
Posted in Selected on-line games on September 13, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Something I bought in the mid 80s
I visited Vienna in 97. It is still today one of the most beautiful cities I have been to…
Posted in Chess, My own endeavours on September 6, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I’m in a state of sworn silent swinehood, being well and truly disgruntled! Why? Because I am learning the hard way that starting competitive chess at 0030, six hours ahead of your opponent is massively disadvantageous. Maintaining your highest level of concentration at 2-3 am -the wee hours as they are known colloquially -is a very big ask even for those saddle sore with hyper mania. Don’t get me wrong, the normative aspects of daily life are…are fatigue-free but to raise the bar at that time -no way! And for the second time consecutively, I could neither raise my game nor play as directly as I normally do. Common sense dictates to play at your peak, play during the afternoon or early evening. Don’t leave it until past midnight, that’s time for hours of sleep not hours of competitive chess. From last night I learnt that tiredness over-simplifies your decision making process. If your thought process becomes less robust, errors creep in because you become less diligent and aren’t checking as much as you should be. In sum, that’s the principle reason why I lost: whilst sleepy I became sloppy. Ah well, I tried at the end of a long day but it just wasn’t quite enough. At least after I realized I had made a mistake, I went on the front foot. Credit to my opponent for making my kingside attack look rather flimsy. I lost but learnt from it -a pyrrhic victory of sorts you could say… .
https://englishchessonline.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/N-v-S-Final-Scores.pdf
Olcmarcus
Posted in Chess, My own endeavours, Tournament Chess on September 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »
With seven hours to go only, I am quite excited about representing the South of England as we compete against the North of England, a match which last occured 126 years ago. Given the current climate, the match has to be held on-line, and once again I am six hours ahead, meaning I will most likely be playing at gone 3am again.
Details of the match can be found in both below:
https://www.englishchess.org.uk/online-north-v-south-challenge-2020/
With 107 boards that means 214 English men will compete against each other. The North of England is the slightly stronger team, with an overall average rating of 139, given that the South of England has an overall average rating of 132. There’s a noticeable difference between the two teams on the top ten boards but it evens out the further down you go. My opponent’s rating being exactly the same as mine on board 51. Seven points is not a big difference but perhaps the strength at the top is what will bring home victory for the North of England.
There are four players from Bedfordshire competing, I have the black pieces and am sincerely hoping for 1. e4, in which case my opponent is in for quite a shock! It’s a very passive opening I play but being played by a southern softy it’s not. I know it very well and know what to target, how to transpose and when, if necessary. There is, in fact, very little left to learn regarding that opening, so in all probability I will come out of the opening with a slightly better position or one relatively equal but leading to a type of middlegame I have much more experience with than him.
Olcmarcus
Posted in On-line journal on September 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »
After years without one, I changed tack and put a signature at the end of my posts on the forum I’m always on. I thought it was funny at first but then perhaps a bit silly, so came up with one more to the point, and closer to the mark.
Old.
New.
Marcus
A side note on how to read old Tom Sweby's columns
Not perhaps, but quintessentially, Old Tom Sweby is best thought of as a passionate devotee to the newspapers he wrote for. He was well read and knowledgeable of the Bedfordshire chess scene and well beyond, given that he was the president of the S.C.C.U. once upon a time. He was generally well-respected and rubbed shoulders with many, if not all, of those eminent within British chess circles. It would, however, be a critical mistake to see his column is primary source material entirely. That it is not. You will also find secondary source material quoted too, and the reliability of that is not quite as Tom hoped. Given that he wrote for decades, this is to some degree inevitable, and after all we are all prone to error whether we realize it or not. Thankfully, with regards to old Tom Sweby, they are infrequent and for the most part old Tom continued to document events and developments in the Bedfordshire league from the get go as best he could but, of course, everything lies open to interpretation. Despite this, and generally speaking. this does indeed make him informative and thus worth reading. Dare I say his columns constitute a narrative describing the latest developments, match reports and changing nature of the Beds league...he knew his audience and wrote according. This manifested itself over decades but brevity was always in play courtesy of the restictions imposed by writing a column. Should you wish to read a in instrumental figure of the Beds' league post WW2, you are quite welcome to peruse what has been posted here... . :-) I should, however, point out that as the decades wore on he gradually moved on away from narratives concerning the Bedfordshire league towards affairs both historical and international. The reasons for this are multifarous, old age was a predominante factor presumably, however, the bottom line is with regards to how the Bedfordshire chess scene developed post WW2: old Tom Sweby is your go to guy. He wrote more about chess in Bedforshire than anyone else did but given he was a Lutonian and writing for a Luton newspaper there is both bias and greater coverage of his hometown than the rest of the county.
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McCreadyandChess 