Chessninja G/30

Here is the final game I am going to present before going to Philadelphia tomorrow. It was a G/30 I played against a opponent online (real rating unknown, but his blitz rating was about 200 points higher than mine, not that that means anything) for a message board tournament. It was a Marshall where I feel he didn't really know what to do. As a result I got a dominating position out of the opening (20 moves deep), and won without too much trouble. I blundered near the end, but he didn't take advantage of it.

Anyways, wish me luck this weekend!

Askine - NN

DC Chess League

I played a really interesting game last Friday, until my opponent made on of the worst blunders I have ever seen. But that is how these things go. I played like Smyslov, letting my opponent ruin the pawns infront of my king so I could attack!

Askine 1597 - NN 1541

This may be my last post before the World Open, or I may have one more coming. I don't know. Wish me luck!

NIH Chess Club

Sorry about the delay, I've been really busy with work and all. Anyways I played this game last Wednesday at NIH. It was an interesting game, where I could have been more accurate, especially in the ending. Luckily I still got the W.

NN 1700 - Askine 1597

I will be posting my DC Chess League Match I played on Friday night a little later.

~Kyle

Delaune Memorial Fifth Round

Here is my fifth round game. Too sleepy to say anything else. If the annotations make no sense it's because I can't even read I'm so tired.

Goodnight.

NN 1159 - Askine 1597

Delaune Memorial Round Four

Sorry for the delay. I just recently started working so I have been a lot busier. Anyways, here is my round four game from the recently completed Richard Delaune Memorial Tournament. I played really well in the middle game, really badly in the early ending, before finishing the game brilliantly.

Askine 1597 - NN 1538

I will have my final round game up tomorrow I hope.

Delaune Memorial Round Three

In this game I was up a pawn early, but didn't expand in the center when I had the chance, and got a somewhat precarious position as a result. I entered into deep complications when I thought I was losing (even though I wasn't) in mutual time pressure, and he misplayed it, so I pulled out a win.

NN 1536 - Askine 1597

I am pleased to report I went 5-0. I will have the fourth round game up tomorrow.

Delaune Memorial Round Two

I played an interesting endgame in this game that I grinded out into victory. My third round game was the really interesting one though. I will put that up tonight when I get back. I'm 3-0 right now... wish me luck!

Askine 1597 - NN 1362

Delaune Memorial Round One

I played the first round of the Delaune memorial last night, and I won a fairly nice game against a rather young boy. I saced a pawn in the beginning but got good pressure, and then he just began giving me combinations. At one point when he was down two pieces, one of his rather young friends walked over, looked at the position, made a face, whispered something to the boy, and sprinted away laughing. The poor kid looked like he wanted to cry. But hey, it isn't my fault, I'm just doing my job.

NN 1223 - Askine 1597

I am leaving now to play the next two rounds, so you can probably expect that update tomorrow.

NIH Ladder

I suck at tactics.

Askine 1597 - NN 1448

Waldorf Open Final Round

At this point in the tournament I had 2.5, as did the fellow I played last round. There was someone with 3 (the guy I play now) and a 900 with 2.5. So I played the 3 and the 1521 played the 900. During my game the 1521 was just dead lost against the 900, and I had the tiebreaks over the 900 by a mile, but then towards the end of the game when he was a rook and 2 pieces up (I kid you not) the 900 just kept sitting there and writing down his moves instead of moving. If he had just asked the TD for insufficient losing chances he would have gotten it (it was 2 rooks, 2 pieces, and like 5 pawns against 1 rook and 2 pawns or something), and if he just freaking moved he would have won. Instead he lost on time. It was unbelievable that I lost out on an extra $75 because of that. I was not a happy camper.

Anyways, my game was rather messy, and I was losing at various points, as I expected. But as normally happens in the Pirc, my opponent misses all of his chances and then I outcalculate him when it matters. I am not going to be this lucky all the time. Here is my ugly, ugly, game.

Askine 1597 - NN 1376

I'm hoping to go to NIH on Wednesday so hopefully I will have something new for you all on Thursday.

Waldorf Open Round 3

I think in this round I played the worst game that I played since my dreadful Team East / Maryland Open. I thought that if I just created no weaknesses and did nothing, that he would somehow blunder and I would win. What happened is that I should have lost. I can't believe how I played, and I am never going to play like that again. I promise that.

Askine 1597 - NN 1521

Final round game will be up later tonight or tomorrow morning. I have a feeling it was a huge blunderfest, and I should have been losing 10x over, but somehow I won. I think it was a really horrible game though. We will see.

Waldorf Open Round 2

Here is my second round game. It was an interesting game in the exchange variation of the Ruy which was evenish the entire game. I lost my way a little in the middle-game, but luckily he decided to trade off the rooks into a dead lost king and pawn ending, which was nice. However I cannot expect such kindness from all of my opponents.

NN 1409 - Askine 1597

I will have my third round draw up tomorrow.

Waldorf Open Round 1

I played in the Waldorf Open yesterday, and tied for 1st in the U1600 Section. The guy I tied with I drew in the third round, in a game where I had a lot of pressure, and then something went wrong, and then he had a lot of pressure. We both ended with 3.5/4. I was talking to him later and he said he played in the HP Challenge in Minnesota, so he is the level of player I will see in Philadelphia. Anyways, we will get to that later.

In my first round game I decided to go back to 2. Nf3 against 1.. e5. I know so much about the Ruy Lopez it really doesn't make sense for me not to use it in my money games. But me and the King's Gambit had a very hot, if short relationship, but it was one of those relationships where you know that it could never really go anywhere, it was just for a few months of fun. Now I am back to the old and steady Ruy Lopez. You know exactly what you are going to get when you play it (unless the other player does something devious like 2... Nf6). Now I'm not saying that I won't take the old KG out for a one-nighter every now and then, because we both know I will, but the Ruy will become my everyday opening again. I feel that this is the opening I am going to use at the World Open.

Anyways, I had an easy win going (my moderately rated opponent dropped a piece on move 5) and instead of just simplifying I kept the pieces on and practiced my tactics. This is good and fine if this were the only game I was playing today, but I had six hours of chess to go after this game, and I think it suffered because I used too much energy. From now on, in an early round of a tournament, if I am up a piece, I am just going to hoover the pieces off and win in the endgame, and save all of my energy.

Askine 1597 - NN 581

I will post the second game later tonight.

Chessninja G/30

Here is a G/30 game I played in last night. He played the hated Caro-Kann but I got an ok position out of the opening, and then he blundered and I went on to win.

Askine 1539 - NN 1453

The above ratings are taken from a different website where you play correspondence because I don't know any other ratings for him.

Anyways, I think I am going to the Waldorf Open tomorrow, so hopefully I can win some money there. If anyone wants to tag along let me know.

~Kyle

NIH Ladder

I played in the NIH ladder tonight, and won a lucky game. I didn't calculate thoroughly enough, and paid the price in an opening which demands exactness from both sides. As a result I was just down a piece, but luckily he missed a tactic and I won.

Actually interestingly, I didn't know my opponent at all, and assumed that he was high rated (maybe an expert or high "A" player) before the game. I don't know why, so I played the game with this assumption. Luckily I don't think I play differently at all based on who I play. After the game when we were analyzing I realized that he wasn't looking at variations that I thought mattered, and was looking at useless variations, and I was right. It is sort of strange when you are analyzing with someone and during it you figure out that maybe he is weaker than you initially expected. I came home and looked up his rating, and sure enough I outrated him. Of course it could have been he was an expert and I was looking at worthless variations just as easily, but my feel in positions like the one on the board are fairly good I think, and it seemed like he far undervalued initiative and overvalued material. And looking at the lines that he was looking at, Fritz agrees with me. Just an interesting story, at least to me.

NN 1448 - Askine 1597

I am playing a Chessninja G/30 game tomorrow night so I will have that game up late tomorrow night or Friday morning.

DC Action Final Round

I would like to say thanks to the three of you doing most of the analysis (Graham, Todd, and Zhong). You say that I shouldn't rely on Fritz so much for positional analysis, and that is why this webpage exists. If Fritz knew everything I wouldn't need it.

Anyway here is my final round game, where I got a crushing position, and just could not convert it to a win cleanly. But I eventually got my win, so that is what is important.

Askine 1597 - NN 1946

I didn't get this up earlier because the power went out last night, so Fritz lost what it was working on.

DC Action Fourth Round

In this game I think I was just flat out better against an expert, until I lost a piece. My ideas and strategies are sound I think, I just need to work hard on not losing pieces to obvious tactics.

NN 2056 - Askine 1597

I will post my final round game tomorrow most likely.

DC Action Third Game

Here is the third game I played in the DC Action. This guy really liked playing the King's Indian Defense, though he didn't know one of the most well known traps in it. Yes! As a result my opponent could have resigned on move 10 for the second straight game.

Askine 1597 - NN 1681

Fourth game will be up later today.

DC Action Second Game

This is the second game I played. I played this fellow at Fells Point recently and won, and had an easy game against him again. Here is the game:

NN 1464 - Askine 1597

The third game will be up later today or tomorrow.

DC Action

I played in the 6 round DC Action Championship yesterday. It is a G/30 tournament, and I won the U1600 prize with 3.5/6. I took a first round bye so I really got 3/5. I am generally pleased with my play, but my last round game is what really makes me happy. Sadly for you guys you have to sit through some other crap first.

I am going to be posting my games one at a time. Here is my first round game, where my opponent did not seem to know what he was doing at all. However, he was tactically alert, and I must have still been sleeping so my positional knowledge ended up being useless. I gained a big advantage and then pissed it all away with a few blunders. Oh well.

Askine 1597 - NN 1800

I will probably but up my second round game later today.

~Kyle

DC Chess League

We had the playoff match for our section of the DC Chess League last night, which sadly we lost. Oh well, it was a good year, and I think I'm winning the board prize.

Anyways, about my game. I am sort of unsatisfied with how it went. I feel like I played quite well, but never once had an advantage. I was always slightly worse the entire game. I think my opponent played well, but it is annoying when I don't think I did anything wrong and just drew. Perhaps that is the fault of my opening, because the game did peter out quickly. Maybe I should learn to play Bc5, but just not right now, as I need to learn other openings more urgently. The game is as follows:

NN 1746 - Askine 1597

Maybe someone can tell me what I did wrong. Maybe c5 wasn't so good but I was having fantasies about winning the c4 pawn at the time, which turned out to look not so good for me.

Anyways, I am going to the DC Action Championships today, so will have 5 games at some point later. What I think I am going to do is post them one at a time as I analyze them, and that will help me get comments on all of them.

~Kyle