Chocolate

Hai! I have little new to tell, while it would be untrue to say that it has been a quiet month. Maybe this has been the most turbulent month of i-chess so far! Many dozens of tough games against superior opposition; with some ups and many downs, with a short draw as the summit of my efforts. Thing is that the number thingy we are all so unanimously striving for, "the highest internet rating ever", for me again has shot through a few roofs after some days of practical chess, some determination and a little bit of luck. I have grabbed my opportunity to donate the extra points back into the pool, in return for games against superdeluxe opponents. At least I have achieved some of my new year resolution goals in the i-chess field; if only I had had such ambitious plans in life!
But what I currently have to say sidechess-wise about chess being a fantasy trip still has to be worked out more carefully and thoughtfully. Right now, chess is quite a stressful endeavour. When performing on a higher level there is even more "frustration" instead of less - secretly I had hoped that when you reach a higher level, you will reach a happier state of mind too; but, unsurprisingly, that is not the case - for an outsider it does not matter if you have 1200 or 2500, you're the most amazing chess player of the street. And for yourself, it's just the same old crap with the same dreaded pieces. There's not any more insight involved than when you were rated a thousand points lower, you don't have more power, you don't have more money, you don't have more friends, you aren't more eloquent, you aren't more socially accepted, you are still restless... - you still will have to figure out a way to progress in all of those fields outside the board. For some reason, at the start of the journey, years ago, I subconsciously expected inner peace, salvation and seventy-two virgins as the final reward. ;-) Right now I'm not so sure. But despite the periodically returning frustrated feelings, I have been having a blast in the meantime anyway.

NOVELTY TIME

1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nc3 Qh4+ 4. Ke2 d6 5. Nd5

This is a vaguely known position in the Steinitz Gambit, with black winning 2.0/2 after the reasoned 5. ... Qd8.
David - Romanishin, Italy 1998. http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1080209
Rubinchik - Kaidanov, USA 2000. http://www.newinchess.com/NICBase/Default.aspx?GameID=577364

Winning is not enough. What is the appeal of such a wimpy retreat when there is the possibility to sacrifice a rook instead? It's novelty time!!

Play online chess

Mudslide chess

That position after ...d5 I would like to refer to as "mudslide chess". Who cares about previous objective assessments when the mudslide maneuver on the king wins by force?
Check out a similar position that was reached in the game between Hou Yifan and Li Chao, Danzhou 2011. We start here after the limp 26. b2-b3

26. ... Bxb3 27. cxb3 a4 28. Bc4 axb3 29. Bxb3 Rxa2 30. Bxa2 b3


31. Bxb3 Qa3 32. Kc2 Qb2+ 33. Kd3 Ba5 34. Bc4 Rxc4 35. Ne2 Qc2+ 36. Ke3 Bb6+ 0-1
OK, he played that a little bit more grandmasterly than I ever could; I would never have dared to go for it as the resulting position after ...b3 is not clear enough for me, even when it is already on the board. Live footage and post mortem of this game can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMJiibdVYjE. Poor little girl. Must have got in his way on one of his bad days. The full game can be found on TWIC.

Big chess

OK, as you may know, this blog is intended to blow off some chess-steam: to discover what I actually have to share in context of this game and most of all to discover why I bother playing it. So with all that in mind, here's a nice instructive Youtube video featuring the rising star Big Chess. Highly recommended, it's quite a pleasant tune. Warning beforehand though: it may contain some explicit language, although I am unable to tell as I can't transcribe whatever cool southern London dialect they are employing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-xyG5zsK6s. Also check his mixtape full of strong & powerful rhymes to be downloaded here: http://thegrimereport.blogspot.com/2011/04/free-download-big-chess-slap-snitch.html.

So his name is Big Chess and it appears he won't let no computer program tell him what moves to make, nor won't he let his sense of selfworth depend on a computer's assessment. There is no engine available to assess the strength of knights on the Big Chess board anyway.


...and that's it for this month.