Sunday, September 28, 2008

It's All About Winning !



Here is an upset played by Atomic Patzer over a higher rated opponent. The game is in Chess Flash Format.

Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.
Vince Lombardi



Thomas S. USCF Rating 1526
aka: Atomic Patzer Chess Blogger


This game posted below shows Tom that has the will to win and set the tone for his opponent. His rating at the time of this OTB game was 1480 USCF and his opponent's rating was very close to 1800 USCF.



Click on Show Chessboard to open game and Click on any variation move which plays that variation out .

Click on Frtz2Stns to download the game as a PGN file, playable on Fritz.

The analysis is by Fritz 8. The latest version Fritz is Fritz 11.
Fritz 11


FrtzStns1.pgn



In the analysis in the game above Fritz 8 shows that Black is trying to equalize by playing F5 instead of taking white's bishop but white's position plays itself out by ChessMaster 10th playback. So the question is was this a true sacrifice by White or did White just completely exploit Black's weak positional play.

The game below is without any annotations and is the exact scoresheet of the game played on May 26, 2008.

Thomas_S-William_H_B.pgn



Just recently Tom tied for first place in the Under 1600 section at the New Jersey Open during Labor Day 2008. It would have been nice if he would have played Jim West's student Ziping Liu in the same section, but Ziping may have better off not playing him. In August 2007 at the US Chess Open at Cherry Hill , New Jersey, He also tied for first in the Class D sectiion.

US Chess Open 2007 Results for Class D section
Class D: Michael R. Dean B , and Tom S , All tied with 4.5 points

Results of 2007 US Chess Open

At this present date of September 29, 2008, the highest rated player that Tom has upset was rated USCF 1972 points, which was at the 2007 US Chess Open, Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The opponent's name is Ben Bailey.

Some chess statistics of Tom S. courtesy of MSA Chess Statistics Program. MSA is a utility program that extracts chess statistics from USCF Tournement records.


Best Upset = 577 points -- BEN B. -- 1972 2007 US OPEN 08-05-2007
Best Draw = 540 points -- RANDALL D-T -- 1935 2007 US OPEN 08-05-2007

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Frank Turns The Tables

This game was played in round two of Mastermind's Chess Club Quads in August 10, 2008. At that time Frank's USCF rating was 1726. His opponent's USCF rating was 1904. Preston never considered that the final outcome would result in an upset and a complete lost when Frank played him that day since he was rated almost 200 points higher than Frank.


Click on Show Chessboard to open game and Click on any variation move which plays that variation out .

Frank-Preston.pgn





At the present date of September 27, 2008, this is Frank's highest rated opponent that he has beaten.

The statistic is courtesy of MSA Chess Statistics Program. MSA is a utility program that extracts chess statistics from USCF Tournement records.

Highest Rated Opponent Win = PRESTON -- 1904 MASTERMINDS CC 08/10/08 08-10-2008

Frank is a strong over the board player and I will try to post one more of his better rated USCF games to my blog. I have a strong amateur chess game from Joshua from the June 2008 Hamilton Chess Quads that I will post next, because the theme of this chess blog is all about " Chess From the Amateur"

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Chess 5 Personal Online Chess Database

Chess 5 is a web page where you can input your chess games for online storage. You can make your online game collection public or private. If you make your chess games public those playing over your games can provide you with some analysis by leaving comments.
Here is a public game on that Frank Dixon (Canadian Player) posted,which is a minature King's Gambit with some comments left by him.

Profile of Frank Dixon Canadian ChessPlayer

Canadian IM Bryon Nickoloff

Canadian Chess Page

KngsGmbit.pgn




Here are Frank Dixon Comments on the game left at web page Chess 5.

Friday, September 19, 2008
Frank Dixon: This sub-miniature shows the perils of the King's Gambit very clearly. The main line in the Kieseritsky variation with 3...g5 is 5...d6, but the text 5...d5is also playable. Black is in serious trouble after 9...Qe7, and he errs on his next as well, bringing the White Queen to a powerful position at g4, where she menaces the c8 and g7 squares. Black almost gets out of it, but misses the strength of White's clincher 15.Nf6+, winning the Queen since the N/g8 is pinned. I don't play the King's Gambit that often, but a game like this is always worth a big smile afterwards
!

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Sacrifice On H7 At Hamilton Quads September 20, 2008





Hamilton CC NJ Directions



Below is a rated game played in the under 1300 section of Hamilton Quad in Quad Six between Dion and Diamondback. The tactic here in this game is the Classical H7 Sac !

In this game Dion, who played white presented Diamondback with a Greek gift, sacing his bishop on my h7 to take advantage of my unprotected backrank.


Dion-Diamondback.pgn


Here is a link to Greek gift games by famous player at

Famous Greek Gift Games this link is part of Chessgames Database


This second game posted below is between Scott A. and Dion C. in the first round.
Congrats ! to Scott A. who took first place in our quad with a score of 3-0. The second game posted is a win by Scott A. (white) against Dion in quick fashion.

ScottDion.pgn



Hamilton Chess Club Directions

Monday, September 15, 2008

Speed Chess With A Bang !











Here is link to a You Tube that shows that Speed Chess can be played for high stakes. The video is from the British Sci Fi show Blake's Seven that ran in Britain from 1978 to early 1980's.

Blake's Seven Speed Chess You Tube Video






Infomation about this British spin off of Star Trek can be found at Wikipedia.

Blake's 7 Image Library

Wikipedia Blakes Seven

Blake's Seven Synopsis at MSN

The highly regarded British science fiction series Blakes 7 was created by Terry Nation, one of the prime movers of Dr. Who. Gareth Thomas stars as Blake, an extraterrestrial do-gooder. With a seven-person crew comprised of criminals and insurgents, Blake wages an unending battle against "The Federation," the totalitarian regime which controls the Earth and hundreds of other populated planets. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, Blakes 7 has attained cult status in the U.S.; it was somewhat difficult to see until it fell into the hands of local PBS stations and such cable outlets as the Sci-Fi Channel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Monday, September 8, 2008

Coffee House Chess At Hamilton Chess Quads



The Italian Stallion




Hello to All:

This chess blog is for all amateur chess players under the USCF rating of 2200.
and this is my first chess blog. In the future I will add chess diagrams and some light annotations to my chess games I post here.
*** Please note this content of this post was first published on August 24, 2008 Sunday *** the date of my first ever blog post here on Google Blogger E Blogger.

Hamilton Chess Club Directions

Hamilton Chess Club Home Page

Here's a chess scoresheet for a chess tournement that was just played recently by myself at Hamilton Chess Quads at Groveville , New Jersey. I played White. The game was played on
August 23, 2008.


Click on Show Chessboard to open game and Click on any variation move which plays that variation out .

SalvAndi.pgn






The real names of the players have been changed to protect their privacy.

USCF Rating (1381) - USCF Rating (1441) [A09]Hamlton Quads Aug2008 23.08.2008
Diamondback vs The Italian Stallion Groville , August 23, 2008 1-0

The game was played rather fast by opponent even though the time control was 40/80 minutes and 15 moves every 30 minutes for the second time control.

After move twenty -five the game was in the bag for White. In fact after move 25, Black stopped writting down the moves on his scoresheet, something the TD should keep and eye out for, but I did not cry foul because Black's postion was lost.

Also during the last ten moves of the game, my opponent was talking trash as to why I was'nt moving as fast as he did. At that point the TD stepped in and told him to stop running his mouth.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

The Chinese Dragon

At www.chesscafe.com is an article in Gary Lane's column title " Opening Lanes". The name of the chess column is " Enter the Dragon"

The reader asks " What's up with this Chinese Dragon.
I quote from the his column the reasons behind this variation.

"This theme of attack in the Chinese Dragon is the perfect way to create danger at the earliest opportunity" and " Rb8 , this move signifies the Chinese Dragon; basically the idea is to play ...b5 in the right circumstances.

Sounds like my kind of opening for a quick kill over the board.

The link to Gary Lane's chess column " Enter the Dragon " is http://www.chesscafe.com/lane/lane.htm
The first chess playing diagram is the Chinese Dragan.

And the Second chess playing diagram shows Black 10th move Rook to C8
instead of the black's 10th move R B8 which indicates the Chinese Dragan.







Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Mackenzie Molner Winner 2008 New Jersey Chess Championship





Please Note: Annotations and Games posted here are courtesy of Michael Goellner from his chess blog The Kenilworthian from his post Best Games from NJ Open 9-09-2008.

Scoring five points out of Six rounds of hard fought chess Mackenzie Molner is the new chess champion of the 62nd New Jersey Open. Below is one of his wins over chess master Jim West.


MACKENZIE S MOLNER

CrossTables of 2008 NJ Chess Open





Humbling Experience at NJ Championship

Here is a game that I played in Round 2 of the 2008 New Jersey Championship in the under 1600 section with Carlo. I played Carlo before in the 2008 Memorial Day NJ Individual Amateur East championship in the under 1400 section and he resigned with a strong postion so I knew he can play well when he turns it on.

An interesting side note this kid starts sixth grade in a few days and I know he will be a strong player in a two or three years.

Perhaps when I traded my strong central knight for a passive bishop was the beginning of the end, I will let you be the judge on where I started to self destruct in the middle game.

Atomic Patzer is always telling me " study tactics as much as you can "

Atomic Patzer

I think I will start opening my ears to this advice after this game.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Blogs on the New Jersey Chess Championship

As of Tuesday September 2, 2008 there are updated blogs on the 2008 New Jersey Chess Championship that was held over the Labor Day Weekend.

Those chess blogs are Jim West on Chess , Kenilworth Chess Club Blog and of course Diamondback Chess.

Best games from NJ Open

Jim West games from the New Jersey Open

Ziping NJ Open game

Labor Day Madness in US Chess Life


I like to include in this post my last game I played there which resulted in a hard fought draw. I played an Octogenarian and his name is Al. A very nice gentleman with a will to win. At the last move, he had a won game, but offered a draw. What a gentleman !


Monday, September 1, 2008

Comedy of Errors

Today is the last day of the 2008 New Jersey Championship which was held over the Labor weekend at the Ramada in Somerset , New Jersey.

The best result for me was after each round when I drove nearby to the Pronto Deli or Starbucks for a coffee or sanwich. Need I say more. I was totally unprepared for the competiton in my section. You would always see the kid's parent looming over their child when I played the yougsters. Or maybe that person was the Kid's personal chess coach or both.

I participated in the under 1600 section and the oldest opponent that I played was aged 85 years old and the yougest player was aged 8 years old. There is a lot to learn from your losts, especially when a eight year old knows more about Chess Opening Theory than you.

Here is one of my games that shows my poor judgement that it was not the best decision to exchange rook for rook instead of Knight takes rook. I reasoned that it this exchange was better so that my opponent would take back my rook with black's pawn and then White's knight would then recapture Black's pawn , if I had taken the rook with my knight then Black would recapture with his pawn and that pawn would be a dangerous passed pawn.

As always, ther first chess playing diagram is the actual game played.

The second chess playing diagram is analysis on move 26 by ChessMaster 10th edition

ChessMaster 10th Edition

ChessMaster XI edition





In the second game below, all the moves were played out by ChessMaster 10th edition after move 26th NxR.

AsnTeen-Diamondback.pgn




Analysis if NxR on move 26 for white.
Chessmaster - Chessmaster
01.09.2008