Video: Viewer Submission: Pins Galore

The following game was submitted by Mathew Jacob and is a great example of pins, pins, and more pins. Some threatened, some actual, all of them scary.

The Adventure Continues, Video: Laugher/Fundamentals

So I decided to post a game of decidedly lower quality this time. Partially just so I post something and partially because it illustrates fundamentals pretty well. As I state in the video, I am going to start to check out some of the clubs in the area this week, so hopefully I can find one to regularly attend. I might post another video later in the week, a good game that ends after an abrupt error. As always, I welcome any comments and suggestions.

Video: Psychological Play

So here we are again, with another new video. This game is not of particularly high quality, but it was more an experiment in psychology than an attempt to have a superb game. Also, I do not condone playing like I did in this game if you are playing seriously. This game took place during a lesson, so it is entirely for educational purposes. Something along the lines of the concept of a 'teaching game' in Go. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the game and are able to draw something from it.

Vs. J. Zhang: Queens and Pawns and Diagonals, Oh My!

I did moderately well at the Iowa City Open, with 3.0/4.0. My horrible lack of sleep the night before made things difficult, luckily all four games were pretty straightforward. It also helped that the tournament was only about two blocks from where I live, so I got to go home and rest between rounds. In the third round, I played Jiahua Zhang, a young player who in early 2009 I told Hank Anzis was going to be a strong player sometime in the next few years. Here it is a year and a half later, over 600 points later for Jiahua, and him coming off a nice draw against an expert, I knew I had my work cut out for me. The opening and middlegame of this game were nearly nonexistent. It felt like it just went 1. e4 c5 2. Rxe8+ and endgame. Because of this, there was obviously no room for a flashy attack. So I just did what I always do when I'm playing a dangerous young player, I just out-endgame them. For all my flashy attacks, I actually think my chances are better in any given ending than any given middlegame. Don't get discouraged by this video being about endgames, I still try to keep it interesting by adding in lots of pretty colors. Enjoy and share your thoughts in the comments!

Video: Against Steiner: How do you reach these positions, you maniac?

Finally I have returned to making video posts. I had a rather successful North American Open in Stillwater, OK. I scored a solid 6.0/10.0. Yes, that's right, out of 10 rounds. With 3 wins, 4 draws, 1 loss, and 2 byes, I felt like I played pretty well. Of my games, I believe this one to be the most entertaining, played against expert Tim Steiner in round 7. Since when I made this video, it was over 20 minutes, I chopped off most of the opening, since it was just a ...Bd6 Evans Gambit. That cut it down to 16 minutes of listening to me drone on. If you want a pgn of the game in its entirety with my notes, email me and I will send you a copy.

Vs Tyagi: Light Square Attack

As the poll said, you wanted middlegame ideas, so I chose a game in which the weakness of a certain color of square makes a large difference in the outcome of the game. Enjoy!

New Video: Vs Sobo; When you are in trouble

Back after a bit of a break from making videos. I got bit by the MMO bug for a while, and haven't played much chess, so coming up with material for videos is a bit difficult. It was kind of funny I missed a mate in 1 while recording the video so I had to add in text over the analysis near the end. As always, I welcome suggestions for future videos or comments on them.

New Video: Drake Chess Festival vs. Bernat

Here is a new video everyone! I scored 3.0/4.0 in the Open of the Drake Chess Festival, increasing my USCF to 1935, the highest it has been in nearly 2 years. I made a video of my last round game, which was the best played of the four. I also fiddled with the video settings some more to try and get more of a square look to the board. As always, I welcome any comments here or on the forum.

In the style of the old Masters

Game 3 of my match against George Eichhorn was an exceptionally interesting game to look at. I made a video post of some of my analysis for you all to look at and comment on. The match itself ended in a 2-2 draw. Home field advantage seemed insurmountable in this match, with George winning the two games in Stratford and me winning the two in Iowa City. I want to thank Jason for his assistance in verifying that the computers can't play the position after the sacrifice correctly. This game might end up being one of my crown jewels, so I hope that it can generate some discussion in the comments.

New Video - Madison-Hodina

As requested by Jason, I have annotated the game I played in round 4 of the Cedar Rapids Leatherjackets tournament against Jim Hodina. I messed around with the capturing again, so it should show up better now. Hopefully you cannot hear how stuffed up I was when I recorded this earlier today. As always, I welcome any comments on the game, the annotations, or the video itself. I uploaded straight onto Blogger this time instead of onto Veoh since the video has been in processing all day on Veoh with no sign of finishing any time soon.

First Video Annotations

Watch Chess Game Analysis in Sports | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Ok, so I finally managed to make the video and get it edited sufficiently well. On the plus side, since this is the first one, it can only get better than this. Please let me know what you think so that I can make more like this or not.