Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

[Etienne]

Apologies - I lost three games on time. So much going on at the moment, but it's no excuse. I'm just wondering whether I should let the other three games lose on time, so it makes it an even tournament? I'll try with the remaining games, promise.

Don't do it on my account.

[Sam]

Checkmate with a pawn! I can retire now. Good game, EEG. (Well, I'm not sure either of us was good, really, but it was a fun one.)

[Sam]

In other games, I resigned against ad hoc because I got distracted looking at stuff in the analysis tab, and when I returned to the game I then unthinkingly took his bishop with my queen instead of the knight I had been planning to use, thus hanging the queen. Maintain concentration at all times, people. And wash your hands.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Nice one Sam! I see you have now won 3.5 of the 6 points available in our last 6 H2H matches. I'm having a poor tournament performance-wise, but enjoying it.

Playing Bored is a lot tougher than it used to be, to put it mildly. That's been developing over a number of tournaments, but seems to have really changed this time round. 23 moves in, I'm feeling the pressure. An upset seems far from unlikely.

[Sam]

Yes, I feel like this has been said a few times in the past but Bored has markedly improved of late. I reckon that if he were to re-register with a new account and play a bunch of other daily tournaments against players more at his level, after a few months his rating would be much closer to where mine is than to where his own is at the moment.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

And you get your first double over me, Sam (though you got 1.5 against me the tourney before last I think). Nice one. My win on time against VT is my only non-zero result so far in this tournament.

[Sam]

Thanks, EEG. I was hoping you'd fall for that pawn advance ...

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

On my current form it would have been a miracle if I'd spotted the trap, Sam. I have now fallen 107 rating points, from 1483 to 1376, from my matches so far in this tournament.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Well, I won the first of my two matches against Bored eventually. The computer analysis has him slightly ahead after 24 moves each, and it very much felt like that from my perspective, but then he made it easier for me. And yay, I get a rating point for that win.

[Bored Of Education]

Thanks for the encouragement, chaps. My ADHD and the amount of games in tournaments still does for me, I think, as I try and keep track not only what my opponent is doing but what I was planning on doing. Having said that, I much prefer playing against you guys than others (which I have dipped my toe in in between tournaments). You may also be faceless people off the internet that I have met (apart from Sam) but your my faceless people off the internet that I have met (apart from Sam)

[Levin]

I am feeling great relief today. EEG resigned in a game that I was expecting to go to a draw and I managed to beat Bored in a game that had some very hairy moments.

[ad hoc]

I had been enjoying following the FIDE Challengers tournament on Chess.com (a tournament of 8 players battling to be the next one to face Magnus Carlsson for the world championship). I like the way they cover tournaments like that on chess.com, and as it was to all intents and purposes that only live "sport" that I knew was taking place, it was an enjoyable way to spend my afternoons. Sadly at the half way point after 7 games each, the tournament has been suspended. It does leave a few slightly odd questions though. Some players complained that they were distracted by the ongoing situation and that it shouldn't have even started. Then, one player from the 8 qualifiers, Radjabov, decided to pull out before it began because of the situation - and his replacement, French player Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is currently on top of the leaderboard. So, it has to be postponed and finished later (rather than annulled), but I can imagine that Radjabov is pissed off. As perhaps were the players who complained of being distracted, some of whom are completely out of contention by now.

(It was suspended not because of health reasons, but because Russia was about to suspend all flights in and out of the country, and they wanted to get the players out)

[Sam]

I thought it was a bit odd that it was going ahead, although the restrictions around it to guard everyone's health sounded very rigid/sensible. I was amused when I read about the player (I forget who it was) who refused to play in the massive fancy leather armchairs and instead insisted on being given what looked like a very uncomfortable school classroom-style plastic chair because the big comfy ones made him drowsy.

Thanks for the encouragement, chaps. My ADHD and the amount of games in tournaments still does for me, I think, as I try and keep track not only what my opponent is doing but what I was planning on doing. Having said that, I much prefer playing against you guys than others (which I have dipped my toe in in between tournaments). You may also be faceless people off the internet that I have met (apart from Sam) but your my faceless people off the internet that I have met (apart from Sam)

You've managed to miss the word 'not' (or 'never') not once but twice in that message, Bored. Or are you secretly American, and this works in the same way as 'I could care less'?

[Bored Of Education]

Ha, no, I cut & pasted the first one out of laziness and included the mistake.

[The_Purple_Cow]

For reasons totally beyond me, my blitz rating is now 1116 - the highest it’s ever been. Also of the 12181 blitz games I have played I have won 5687, and lost 5692. I’m hoping to move into positive territory this week. As I said, I have no explanation for my improvement, I haven’t studied as such, though I have watched a lot of Ben Feingold’s YouTube videos.

(edit. Spoke too soon, my rating crashed 50 points in a day yesterday, including a somewhat suspicious loss to a guy rated 905.)

[The_Purple_Cow]

Hilariously my son Dylan beat GM Ben Feingold last night in a game that was live streamed. I’ll post a link if anyone is interested.

[Etienne]

Yes please

[The_Purple_Cow]

Here it is, fast forward about 92 minutes. Dylan plays (predictably) as The Amsterdam Chief.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/5809497...K09laEUaCy0pFU

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Well, this has been by some margin my worst overall tournament performance since we started OTF tourneys a few years ago. I'm in hopelessly losing positions in both my remaining matches (though I will give ad hoc and VT the satisfaction of earning the wins to the end rather than resigning at this stage, as I perhaps should have done in my second match vs Levin). So my total points haul will be from a win on time against VT after 3 moves (no rating impact as too soon an end) and two wins against Bored. My rating will end up about 135 down from the tourney. Most notably, and i really mean this, my matches whose outcome seemed to have most uncertainty were my two against Bored. I've long noticed that, whilst others have steadily improved, my level has remained obstinately stuck where it started a few years ago, but I don't know why I have been quite so poor this time. Sorry for not giving you better games chaps!

[Levin]

Jesus christ. How do you play chess that fast? Not you necessarily TPC but your son and other people.

[Etienne]

Well done Dylan, though I have to say that is not what I recognise as chess! But the best I have ever done is be a pawn up against an IM in a simultaneous when I was a kid, so beating a GM is amazing.

[The_Purple_Cow]

I wouldn't know where to start playing chess that fast, 5 minute games is the fastest I can manage. The ability to pre-move is key, but of course if your opponent does something unexpected your pre-moves can quickly lead to an embarrassing loss. I thought it was particularly funny that Dylan missed a mate in one due to a mouse slip, but won next move anyway.

[Bored Of Education]

Interesting end to this tournament with Levin holding all the cards over who eventually wins despite, like the rest of us, being way behind ad hoc and Etienne. Both ad hoc and Levin have both lost queens in their game but, at this stage, I am not sure the way it is going to go.

[Etienne]

Had I known how much would rest on my game with Levin I might not have played so loosely - in particular taking a pawn on move 12 that I could see was likely to lead to all sorts of complications. I've managed to scramble well enough since then, but it's on a knife edge. Levin's position is significantly better than ad hoc right now though, so maybe that will save me.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

So, if Levin wins his last three games, it will be a three-way tie with 10 points at the top? Who would win on the tie break?