If these 3 days/move were faster...

I don't really have anything interesting to post at the moment. I am in the middle of a pretty awesome tactic in one of my games in the USA:North Central vs. Phillipines match on Chess.com, but can't post it because the game is in progress. On a related note, how sad is this: I am playing board 3 against Italy, 6 against the Phillipines, 5 against Australia, etc. How come nobody strong from the USA:NC is willing to play in these matches?

Some Simple Tactics

Since I don't have anything else to post at the moment, I am going to post some of the fairly recent tactics from some of my correspondence games.


Tactic 1: Difficulty: 4/10. Black to move.



Tactic 2: Difficulty: 5/10. Black to move.



Tactic 3: Difficulty: 3/10. White to move.





Solutions:

In a few more lines the solutions will be displayed.

Make sure you are ready for them.

Although, if you cheat, I won't know.

It will not help you much if you don't work at them though.

Enough stalling, here they are:

Tactic 1:

The key to this is to note the weakness of the white king. The black queen looks a little overworked, but since the king has infinite value, this doesn't matter.

1. ...Rxc3+!!
a. 2. bxc3 Qxc3+ 3. Kb1 Bd3#
b. 2. Kb1 Bd3+! 3. Ka1 Qxe1+ 4. Nb1 Qxb1#


Tactic 2:

Looks simple but has some trickery in it.

1. ...Ne3? 2. Rxf7! and white is just fine.

1. ...Rxf1 should be easy to find.
a. 2. Rxf1 Rxf1 3. Nxf1 Nf4+ with an extra pawn and probably winning endgame.
b. 2. Nxf1 and here is the hard part:
2. ...Rf3+!
a. 3. Ng3 Nf4+ 4. Kh2 Rf2+ with a likely winning bind
b. 3. Kh2 Nf4 and either d3 or b2 will fall.
c. 3. Kg2 was played in the game, but fails to Rxd3! 4. Rxd3 Nf4+ with a winning ending.

Tactic 3:

This one is much simpler, but the variation is longer.

1. Qxg7+! Kxg7 2. Rxh7+ Rxh7 3. Rxh7+ Kf8 4. Rh8+ Ke7 5. Re8#

Did I Just Refute the Evan's Gambit?

For my usual brief description I will go ahead and direct you back to the title of this entry. I played GM Larry Christiansen in a simul and increased my record against him to +2 =0 -0. Enough fanfare, enjoy the game.

GM LarryC(2637) - MrMash(2047)
WCL Simul June 9, 2009

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4!? Bxb4 5. c3 Bd6!?

Lucky for me I vaguely remembered hearing somewhere along the line that this is supposed to give black a good game.

6. d4 Nf6 7. Nbd2 0-0 8. Bb3 exd4 9. cxd4 Bb4 10. 0-0?!



10. d5 was a bit better, although black should still stand a bit better because of the extra pawn and since white has committed the center.

10. ...Bxd2!

Forces a weakening of the center or a win of a pawn.

11. Qxd2 Nxe4-+

The position is rapidly becoming hopeless for white.

12. Qf4 d5 13. Re1 Re8 14. Ba3 Be6

Now that all of black's pieces are developed, black can more or less choose when to go into a winning endgame.

15. Rac1 Qf6 16. Qxc7 Nxd4



A quick glance at the position shows that the white pieces are swinging at air, and an overwhelming centralization of the black pieces.

17. Bd1 Bg4 18. Rxe4 Rxe4

The game is pretty much over now, as the white king is looking quite vulnerable.

19. Qxb7 Rae8 20. h3 Bxf3

Missing a tricky mate, but white is helpless at this point.

21. gxf3 Re1+ 22. Kg2 Qg5+



And white resigned without seeing Kh2 Qg1#. 0-1


Fun fact: There were no checks in this game until the mating combination.

Something to post in a few days?

So, for the past week or so I have not played a single game. That makes it a little hard to post anything. Since I am actually getting consistent views on this thing, I should really play more so that I can guarantee being able to post every few days/week. Long story short, I will spend a lot of time playing blitz this week so that I will have something to post in the next couple days.