Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

[irony towers]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Congratulations to ad hoc, who outplayed me from start to finish.

[Etienne]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Well done ad hoc.

*mutters* It shoulda been me.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Congrats ad hoc!

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Sam's mate let you off the hook, though, didn't he, ad hoc? I think you rightly suggested, around the time of the late 30s moves, that you had a lost position then. If border123 had pushed his h-pawn forward on move 39 instead of moving his queen, and then just kept on pushing that h-pawn forward, you were helpless to stop him getting a second queen, right? If he'd left his queen where it was before move 39 and kept moving the h-pawn, his ability to fork your king and rook, for example, if you'd attempted to capture the pawn either on h6 or h7, meant you were stitched, I think.

[Etienne]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Sam's mate also had me in a Q vs B & R endgame, only to allow me to fork his K & Q, so he's clearly got the potential to do a lot better in the next tournament.

[matt j]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

and he had irony towers stuck in a losing position too. He's a future medal winner.

[Sam]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Not that I want to pile pressure on him, but he has told me he initially found the huge number of games all at once a shock which stopped him playing his best, and he's expecting to improve next time round.

As am I, like, but I'm less likely to bother the podium.

[ad hoc]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Evariste Euler Gauss wrote: Sam's mate let you off the hook, though, didn't he, ad hoc? I think you rightly suggested, around the time of the late 30s moves, that you had a lost position then. If border123 had pushed his h-pawn forward on move 39 instead of moving his queen, and then just kept on pushing that h-pawn forward, you were helpless to stop him getting a second queen, right? If he'd left his queen where it was before move 39 and kept moving the h-pawn, his ability to fork your king and rook, for example, if you'd attempted to capture the pawn either on h6 or h7, meant you were stitched, I think.

I was definitely let off the hook. I lost my queen early on, and carried on playing as an exercise for myself in seeing whether i could salvage a draw. I think the Q move on 39 made sense, but I have no idea what the Q move on 41 was meant to do, and that's the one that handed me the h pawn.

[Sam]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Ah yes, congratulations ad hoc.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

The spectator sport opportunities afforded by games in this tournament put the gentle pace of test match cricket into the shade.

[Kevin S]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Heh, yeah. And my last two games are meaningless too.

[Bored Of Education]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Congratulations, Rogin. Thought I might find a way to win even with your extra queen but didn't notice the danger from your knight. Well played.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

I was kicking myself because I could have taken your queen with my knight about eight moves before (when you moved Qb8+), and totally missed the chance. Then you started harrying my king up the board and I thought you were going to have me, even though I was the obvious one move away from checkmate at your end.

That's the first game I've ever finished with two queens on the board.

[Kevin S]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Thanks for the game Rogin, that was indeed a mate in one or two at the end there. I haven't run the analysis yet but at a guess I imagine it'll say you should've exchanged queens on move 9. By declining it put you on the defensive I think, as the pin proved to be decisive in the end.

[Kevin S]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

The analysis... Is not kind to either of us. About a third of the moves were blunders...

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

That's not bad for me.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

LOL @ ad hoc's pair of queens vs Bored!

[Bored Of Education]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Don't worry, it was all part of my plan to sucker him in, soften him up and give him him a false sense of security.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Bored, have you ever seen that film with Paul Newman and Robert Redford in, you know, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. You know that final scene in Bolivia?

[Wouter D]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Evariste Euler Gauss wrote: Bored, have you ever seen that film with Paul Newman and Robert Redford in, you know, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. You know that final scene in Bolivia?

I don't remember any queens involved in that scene. Maybe they were dispensed beforehand?

[Sam]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Hard luck Bored...

Do we have a kick off date planned for OTF4? If I read correctly last night (looking at the tournament table on the Android app is a bit awkward) we're only two Bored games away from completing this one now.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

There are four games unfinished still, Sam (one of which - Bored v ad hoc - only kicked off two days ago):

ad hoc v your mate
Kev v Bored
Bored v ad hoc
Rogin v Bored

Suits me fine, tbh, as I won't be able to get fully into the swing of OTF4 until 4 June - I'll be in slow play mode from kick off till then.

Ad hoc's game with your mate looks very even at the moment, with not much material left. If border123 gets either a win or draw from it, he'll beat Levin to the 7th spot.

[Sam]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Ah, thanks. The app leaves something to be desired when it comes to looking at the table, as I said (it just opens a shrunk-down version of the webpage, so reading is rather awkward on my table's 7" screen).

If anyone fancies a friendly or two, challenge away. I'm bored as shit at the moment.

[Bored Of Education]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Sorry to be holding everyone up. I am much more into the swing of things with the phone app so, hopefully, next tournament will be quicker. I will try to play by return on the remain matches as well so that this one finishes in the next couple of days.

[Kevin S]

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

I see you've had a fairly frantic lunchtime playing the three matches at the same time!

The app is excellent, isn't it - I do the vast majority of my moves on it. One simple but major benefit is the way, when you press a piece, it puts a blob on all the squares it can legally move to.