Hoist With His Own Petard

He wrote the book on this opening. « Fearless Chess

Hamlet:

There's letters seal'd, and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd—
They bear the mandate, they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For 'tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard, an't shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines
And blow them at the moon.

Here is game in Chess Flash format that can be find at the link above to the new wave blog " Fearless Chess" I call it new wave because of the clear and lucid style the blog is written along with his amateur games in Chess Flash format complete with analysis in his own words.

This blog and game was pointed out to me by Atomic Patzer at a local chess quad event in New Jersey in June 2009. Atomic mentioned that the amateur player upset a well known New Jersey master , which was posted on his blog "Fearless Chess". The NM played his favorite opening as black and unfortunately for him, he lost in an upset.

Note: Here is NJ National Master's chess blog post on this upset....diamondback

What interesting about this upset, is the NJ Master wrote the book on the opening , which is the Philidor CounterGambit he played as black against the amateur player.

There is some light analysis in the game below by Fritz 8.

Note: just click on analysis in chess flash scoresheet moves below and the variation will highlight in red and you will be able to play out the variations
Note: Corrected Game Added On Saturday June 27, 2009 Per Comments
Made By Bruce Till.... Name corrected and scoresheet corrected


tillwest_0.pgn

George's Diamond In The Rough

This game was played by George aka " ChessPig " on ICC during the November 2008 Hamilton Quad in Round One. His opponent playing white is John B. who is the past has turned the tables on many class A players in his past tournement play.

George certainly had the upper hand in this game by virtue of having played four hundred more rated games than his opponent. John B has only played about 67 rated games and is a sporadic tournement player. John's USCF rating is 1466 and George's USCF rating is 1562.

George had a lot of help in this game from his opponent when White on move 23. moved his Knight to d2 blocking his defense of the d3 square by white's queen. Nd2 which resulted in Black knight's occupying a hole on d3. The second positional blunder followed by White moving his rook to c2 on move 24. which resulted in blsck deflecting the rook away from the defense of his knight on c3. With doubled rooks on the C file, Black snatched up the knight on c3. From that point on White was on the defensive.

At the 2008 National Chess Congress at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,George had GM Arthur Bisguier analysed his game from opening to endgame, after which GM Bisguier commented by saying " George you pick your opponents well "


John_B-George_R.pgn


Below is listed George's USCF chess record using the MSA program that extracts one's chess tournament statistics for www.uschess.org web page

A more detailed explanation on how to use the MSA Chess Statistics Program can be found here at the MSA Download Webpage
and on my previous post dated October 14, 2008 which redirects to a more complete use of MSA by fellow blogger Castling Queenside "MSA Chess Statistics Intro"


Listed below is George's Chess Statistics dating from 1991 to 2008

This is data from 01-01-1991 to 11-25-2008
Current Official rating is 1512 Current UnOfficial rating is 1558
Best Unofficial rating = 1584 Best Official rating = 1584 Lowest rating on record = 1223
304 Opponents Total Rated Games = 459 ---> 187 Wins 88 Draws 184 Losses

Best Upset = 572 points -- SHAILESH G PATEL -- 1894 WORLD OPEN AMATEUR 07-01-1993

Humphrey Bogart Amateur Chess Player

On the June/July 1945 edition of Chess Review image posted to the left, on the cover.
Under caption "Movie Stars sponsor Pan American Congress" on Chess Reviews it reads as follows: Lauren Bacall gives chessmaster Herman Steiner "the look" while Charles Boyer (left) and Humphrey Bogart (both keen chessplayers) finished a game between takes on "The Confidential Agent" which Charles Boyer stars in . The scene is in Boyer's dressing room at Warner Brothes Studio. These and other movie stars will take an acitve part in promoting and sponsoring the forthcoming Pan American Chess Congress at Los Angeles.(see chess briefs)......... Circa June 1945.....Diamondback




Chess games of Bogart

bacall_bogart_1951.pgn


You will see that one of the games returned was played in 1951.(Bogart, Humphrey - Bacall, Lauren, 1-0, 1951). We all know Humphrey Bogart for his legendary portrayal of Rick Blaine, a world-weary ex-freedom fighter who runs a nightclub in Casablanca during the height of World War II in the movie Casablanca, 1942. It became one of the most beloved films in the Hollywood canon, garnering Bogart his first Academy Award nomination as well as an Oscar win in the "Best Picture" category.

It turns out that Bogart was a very accomplished chess player as well. (Bogart's rating would probably be equivalent to modern 2100.) His 1951 chess game that you located in the ChessLab's database was played against the actress who played leading roles opposite Bogart in several movies and who also became his wife.

Josh's Dangerous Passed Pawn

As promised in my September 27, 2008 post, I am posting Joshua's game that was played in June 2008 Hamilton Chess Quads in Groveville, NJ. His opponent was Tim McKeen, who is rated above 1900 USCF.

I like this game by Josh because he ties up Black's pieces, takes good squares away from Black, and he uses force to drive home the pawn.


Joshua David H. USCF Rating 1942


JoshGame.pgn



Here is the same game with classic black and white chess board.


JoshGame.pgn


Some chess statistics of Joshua David H. from MSA, the chess statistic program that extracts wns and loss records from
US Chess Life web page.

Highest Rated Opponent Win = DRAGAN MILOVANOVIC -- 2248 HAMILTON GAME/30 CHAMPIONSHIP 01-17-2007
Highest Rated Opponent Draw = DENNIS RYLANDER -- 2346 2004 US TEAM-EAST 02-14-2004

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

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"