Archive for the ‘My Own Games’ Category

1,2,3

Posted in My Own Games on February 20, 2025| Leave a Comment »

For the all the right reasons, I have abandonded online chess for once and for all. Now I only play Lucas Chess, against the engine Cinammon 12.c (ELO1930). Here’s how easy beating it can be.

Easy peasy.

Mark. J. McCready

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Throwing away certain victory

Posted in My own endeavours, My Own Games on December 25, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Opening remarks, I hope you enjoy the oginiality you are about to encounter, an approach opposed to conservatism too, and a sense of pride in my working class upbringing despite it being antithetical to what usually consitutes chess writings. It’s not part of the norm and rather unnerving I suspect. Good if it is. Finding your voice is an aim all writers hope to achieve and is of much greater value than and the opinions of those I have never met, will never know nothing of and have no interest in whatsoever, courtesy of their anonymity which will forever condemn their comments to not worth reading. However, I am willing to concede this post isn’t really worth reading as my account of myself and comments on the world are a little too playful to be believed…ah well, I’ll try to do better next time. Would it help if I said I am by far the baddest, meanest, toughest, most fearsome 1600 player on the planet, capable of finding any mate in one on the board provided I’ve still got a good 25 minutes on the clock still, and have never blundered more than 15 times in a game. I even know how to set the pieces up correctly and can get it done in less than half an hour usually, and if you gave me a pencil to write my name on the scoresheet, it usually take me less than an hour to work out which end you write with, not that I ever write the moves down though, I was told only trannys do that.

Having always been rubbish at chess, it’s very pleasing to redefine my approach and adopt a style of play hyper-aggressive when the intitiative is often seized by sacrifical attacks. I so very nearly beat my electronic friend tonight. I had the game completely won and was spoilt for choice on how to finish him off. But because I am not only rubbish at chess, I’m also a useless bastard, I went and bollocked it up, much to my disappointment. It was my every intention to really stick it to my electronic friend tonight and beat it for the first time. I almost wiped it off the board but got exited and forgot how rubbish I am and bound to mess it up. Which I did, as expected. Go have a look at the game and ask, how on earth could anyone throw that away? Don’t ask me, I don’t even know. It will be quite sometime before I can overcome the disbelief, I estimate about 25 years. It’s killed my interest in redefining my approach to chess completly, I’ll never believe I had it so easily won then blew it, my confidence in myself hasn’t just been sledgehammered, it’s been completely obilterated But to end on a positive note, I do have a chance I can succeed, and it’s only a 10,000,000-1 shot,so wish me luck. Lamentably, If I ever do play chess devoid of confidence, I am usually proper fucked and get massacred always.

To conclude, I sincerely apologize for not having the writing skills required to describe the absolutely appalling way in which I threw the game away. But I do accept in life there are sometimes things we experience we will never be able to understand or believe, I just suppose who are completely rubbish at something should expect this infrequently. But to inspire those who have read this, if like myself disbelief in how crap you are will remain ever present in your life, it is still possible to gain pleasure from playing. It happened to me once 30 years ago, and it’s safe to assume you will experience the same thing at some point in the next 40 years or so, like one of my best friends did. So it’s not all doom and gloom. But I should warn you when he walked into the car park after the match, he got a smack in the mouth and a kick in the bollocks for winning, and when questioned his opponent refused to say the name of the mental home he’d just been let out of too. So be sure you opponent is the amiable type and hasn’t just been let out of a mental home.

https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14451&p=313748#p313748

Mark. J. McCready

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2nd draw achieved

Posted in My Own Games on December 24, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Most unexpectedly, I am redefing how I play chess. Rather than faff about and not do veyr much, Against Lucas I have developed a style based on sacrificial attacks and relentless attacks on the king. I like it very much because when I gain the intiative I dominant the game and really stick it to it. I’ve already had many won positions but get a bit excited and fail to convert them. The intentional is to now reduce the risk in my play and opt for gentle pressure rather than all out attack all if I can’t find it, as I sometimes push too hard. Wish me luck for today’s game. I am going to stick it to my electronic friend I can assure you. Victory is not too far from being within my reach. You can see the second drw in the link below.

https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14448

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Sticking it to my electronic friend

Posted in My Own Games on December 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I got another draw with what could be decribed as the kitchen sink attack!

Sacrificial attacks in search of mate but couldn’t quite pull it off!

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On the right path

Posted in My Own Games, tagged , , , , on December 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I am already benefitting noticeably from abandoning online chess and playing Lucas Chess instead. The engine I chose, Cinammon 1.2c. I have to be at my very best to stand a chance, and in the dozens of games already played, I only have one draw. But in most game I really stick it to it and gain a strong initiative, sometimes with sacrifices. I’ve nearly had it beat quite a few times.

The most obvious benefit being it has revatalized my approach, level of seriousness and begun complexifying my decision making process for my moves. It’s pulling my out of the malaise 4 years of online chess created. There is work to be done as I am still making mistakes but less so and they don’t usually lose my the games, more so the initiative. Correction there is not work to be done, there is much work to be done. This is quite okay as I am already enjoying it because my style has become very attacking, and I am already far better than what I usually am. Happy to play 10 games a day, after all, I am am holiday and have to rest up anyway after the accident I had a few days back. Here’s a link to the draw I should have won, illustrated by embedded pgn, so you can play through it.

https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14443&p=313683#p313683

Impressive huh?

MJM

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Underpromotion brings about checkmate!

Posted in My Own Games on September 26, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Not me at my best but how often do you get to deliver checkmate with underpromotion? Which I might add was due to my opponent generously allowing me counterplay and failing to identify a threat in the position.

MJM

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Under the kosh? No problem!

Posted in My Own Games on September 24, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Determining whether a sacrifice is sound or not is never easy but it is generally accepted that greek gift sacrifices usually are not. So I accepted rather than decline and came under the kosh but hung on in there as my opponent allowed me to simplify all too easily.

MJM

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…’how to’ and ‘how not to’…

Posted in My Own Games on August 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »

If you are ever taught by a GM, you will learn quickly that you should not make mistakes in the opening, well I was at least… .

…this game makes me smile because you don’t normally deliver checkmate barely out of the opening without even moving your queen…

…especially in the Italian game of all things but it does sometimes happen…

…enjoy…

MJM🙂

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The perils of passivity

Posted in My Own Games on June 2, 2024| Leave a Comment »

My opponent never even made it out of the opening against me of all people! There are many things you shouldn’t do in chess. Being super-passive in the opening is one of them, usually a recipe for disaster! At the highest level that can be interpreted as provocative but here its just downright foolish. Don’t do this at home folks!

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McCready v Gayson (Beds. Chess Challenge 1)

Posted in Bedfordshire Chess, Life beyond the chess board, My Own Games on February 18, 2024| Leave a Comment »

We played on the same team on 87 (Luton A), and were members of the same club in its final year, so let’s see if Board 1 can beat Board 4! (most probably!)

Game on

1. e4 c5. We start with a Sicilian because it offers more counterplay than the French, which I grew rather tired of as the years rolled on by.

2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nc3 Nf6 (note to self: try to remember the correct bloody move order next time please!). Uppsala! Having not played one single game in 8 months, I simply forgot 5. …a6 or 5. …Qc7 are the most playable responses that avoid transposing towards the deluge of open Sicilian theory -clumsy.

6. Ndb5 d6 (almost a necessity and frighteningly transpositional!)

7. Bf4 e5 8. Bg5 a6 9. Na3 b5 10. Nd5 Be7

We have transposed into the Sveshnikov but that’s quite alright as I played it for a few years and read up on it too! But as GM Rowson once said ‘the Sveshnikov is full of holes’. They can appear on both flanks, some caution is needed.

11. Bxf6 Bxf6 12. c4

Yoicks, not the main move, so now I am out of book. Although 12. …Qa5 may look tempting, its not at all, its premature. Black has threats to attend to before any counterattacking ideas can be put into play. I could lose the exchange or a pawn easily if I am not careful. So the plan is to shut things down and shore things up, that way the position should stay in tact – hopefully should! I can’t really tell because I am out of book already, so will stick to the few opening principals I learnt some ten years ago.

12. …b4 (let’s shut things down) 13. Nc2 a5 (and shore things up) 14. Qf3! I chose exclamation mark because I’ve never seen that move before and don’t know why it’s played. Here I play 14. …Be6 because usually the light-squared bishop goes to either e6 or b7 and I never worked out why the latter was the preferable option so, once again, I stuck it on e6, and also because I couldn’t work out what else to do, so blindly follow opening theory and principles I shall but this is really just about as far as I can go, I’m pretty much on my own from now on. I know I may get double f-pawns but that’s okay, all it means is the king should stay in the centre, and that’s okay, its quite safe there with the bishop on e6.

15. Nxf6 (from what I understand this is thematic as black usually ends up with doubled f-pawns)

15. … Qxf6. I spent around 5 minutes thinking about this. In principle, white’s remaining knight is heading to d5, so why would I want to put my queen on f6? I played it because the white queen is on f3, and unless white exchanges, I gain a tempo, which I can lose with, say Qg6, should the knight land on d5. I’m not expecting an exchange of queens.

16. Qxf6 gxf6 17. 0-0-0. Now what do I do?

Much thought required here. Where does the king go? I don’t really want to place it on e7 if a knight can pop into d5. I have to keep my bishop on e6 and exchange off if that happens but if it does, I think my knight is slightly better than white’s bishop as it can stay unchallenged on d4. Do I castle queenside? My rook can gain counterplay on the a-file, do I want to take it off that file?

18. … 0-0-0

Updates to follow

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