Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Roll up, roll up for the OTF chess tournaments

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    My favourite tale about predetermined opening plans comes from the days of correspondence chess. Presumably to save a few pennies on postage, the player with Black notified his opponent: "Whatever you play, I'll start with ...g6 and ...Bg7."

    The game proceeded: 1 d4 g6 2 Bh6 Bg7 3 Bxg7 1-0.

    Comment


      ha ha!

      Comment


        I've just spent ages analysing the main points and tie-break points scenarios for a near-finished tourney first round group of 6 which I'm in (linked below), from which 3 progress, with 3 matches left to finish. One of those three matches involves me but I'm losing it badly so I have to assume a defeat. That will leave me with 6 points out of 10, where the top 4 players are guaranteed to share exactly 24.5 points between them, so in some scenarios 6.5-6-6-6 with one unlucky 6 pointer being tie-broken out. Nobody is yet safe. The other 2 unfinished matches have barely started so there are 9 possible permutations of W-D-L from those matches. In 8 of those 9 permutations I go through, either on main points or on TBPs, but in the 9th permutation (two draws), i go out on TBPs.

        I've even considered the hypothetical ungentlemanly game-theory aspects: the player (JPS) who is involved in both the other matches could in theory agree draws in them both to put himself through and me out, and that is conceivable because each of his opponents could safely agree a draw, but if JPS agreed a draw in either match separately without being sure of at least a draw in the other match then he could end up going out.

        Edit: it would be particularly irritating to go out, party because I'd be safe but for losing due to a stupid early howler I made in my match as black against iPrince, but also because iPrince resigned two of his matches (against my rivals) without playing a single move.

        https://www.chess.com/tournament/960-quartz-mohs-7
        Last edited by Evariste Euler Gauss; 01-09-2018, 12:54.

        Comment


          Levin must be kicking himself. In our second game he had trapped my Queen and was just about to capture it but used the wrong piece to do it. 2 moves later he'd lost. If it'd been me I'd have been turning the air below.

          Comment


            Ha, interesting match. I just ran the chess.com "Deep" level analysis on it, though, and its evaluations have left me perplexed, as Deep analysis scoring very often does.

            To my Noddy-level thinking, your first and worst bad moves were 9. Qg5 and 10. g4, which (at move 9) moved the queen into the "high risk of trapping or suffering other threats which partly use the trapping threat" zone then (at move 10) definitely made the queen trappable, and Levin's move 11 .......Bh6 was very bad because (as I assume you were implying above), he could have captured your queen by instead going 11........h6. So I would have expected the big swings in positional evaluations to arise from those moves (as well as from black's subsequent disastrous 12....... Bg7 of course).

            But according to the Deep analysis, your most self-damaging move by far was earlier at 8. Qxe7 (a "blunder" which moved your positional score from +0.30 to -2.64). And, even more suprising, black's move 11.......Bh6, which let your queen escape, hardly dented the computer's Deep evaluation of black's lead, moving it from -4.45 down only to -3.90, so still very strongly ahead. (Black's 12th move then gave you mate in 3, which is off the positional point scoring scale).

            Comment


              Yeah, I'd agree with the analysis that Qxe7 was a blunder, I thought so at the time it was risky and there wasn't great places to move my Queen to. I don't see how the analysis has black ahead after bh6 because after I moved the Q to f6 if he'd defended the f7 pawn then I'd have taken his knight.

              Comment


                Well, I don't pretend to understand the reasoning for some of the non-captures and sacrifices involved (in particular black's passive queen sacrifice at his move 13 in the sequence below), but the Deep level analysis has black remaining comfortably ahead throughout the following play which it prescribes as best by each side if black makes the 'best' move of 12.........Be6

                12.............. Be6
                13 b4 Bxc4
                14 bxa5 Rxe2+
                15 Kd1 Bg7
                16 Qb2 Bxb2
                17 Bxb2

                Comment


                  Wouter, in case you're running short of time for your next move in our game, I wouldn't claim the win automatically should you time out. It's the least I can do to give you some leeway after you kindly accommodated my weekend away.

                  Comment


                    Originally posted by irony towers View Post
                    Wouter, in case you're running short of time for your next move in our game, I wouldn't claim the win automatically should you time out. It's the least I can do to give you some leeway after you kindly accommodated my weekend away.
                    Ooh, thanks for the notice! At a conference, so cannot completely focus on chess, but at least I can avoid timeouts.

                    Comment


                      Sick as a parrot. I'm blaming the length of time since the last tournament. But looking at the analysis my thinking is just inexplicable.

                      Sam and I have come to the conclusion that 64 spaces is just too much so we're playing out current game over 24.

                      Comment


                        I can see that from white's move 29 onwards, it has all been in the right half (32 squares).

                        I reckon my game as white against Sam was even more localised - of the 21 moves from my 19th to my 29th inclusive, only a single one ended outside the 20 square rectangle defined by e-h, 1-5; https://www.chess.com/daily/game/203547116 - Sam launched an attack on that corner with a bishop-for-two-pawns sacrifice at his move 19, in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to exploit the problems I had with my pieces blocking each other as I sought to marshal defences to fend off his mate threats.

                        Comment


                          I've just created another Chess 960 tournament in my "Mohs" series of tournaments, which I for one am hugely enjoying. The rating limits for eligibility are 1000-1500, but I think that works off your 960 rating rather than your standard rating.

                          Link here just in case anyone on here is interested:

                          https://www.chess.com/tournament/960-topaz-mohs-8

                          Chess 960 rocks. Despite the resolute conservatism of the OTF chess community in relation to chess variants and my participation in almost all the OTF tourneys, my love of 960 means I have now played significantly more Daily 960 matches (337 of them) than Daily standard chess matches (302).

                          Comment


                            I'm finding this tournament very depressing, tbh - making all the same old mistakes I promised myself I wouldn't make. Too many moves made too quickly without any analysis, and way too many moves after the consumption of two thirds of a bottle of zinfandel. And now my rating has sunk below 1200.

                            Eigen schult dikke bult.

                            Comment


                              Meanwhile IT's rating has gone back up to 1812, which I'm sure is just the overture to greater progress.

                              Comment


                                I sympathise, TPC, blitz is much more forgiving of errors, you can still hope they will make a mistake of their own and if not at least it is over quickly. Throw away a piece in one of these tournaments and you just get ground down.

                                Comment


                                  I have been wondering as to the ease of suggesting a one-off OTF blitz tournament, but I imagine we'd all have to commit to being online at the same time, or something, wouldn't we? Which would make it a bugger to arrange.

                                  Comment


                                    I couldn't participate in any blitz tournament, due to not having a reliable broadband connection. I'd need to spend two or three minutes out of any ten minute session fiddling around to get my signal back. Thanks Virgin.

                                    Comment


                                      I would likely crash and burn but would be interested in a quick blitz/bullet tournament. Was thinking sometime around 2200-2300 UK time might work for us all?

                                      Comment


                                        I'd be up for that too. Is it possible to organise?

                                        Comment


                                          Originally posted by The_Purple_Cow View Post
                                          I'm finding this tournament very depressing, tbh - making all the same old mistakes I promised myself I wouldn't make. Too many moves made too quickly without any analysis, and way too many moves after the consumption of two thirds of a bottle of zinfandel. And now my rating has sunk below 1200.

                                          Eigen schult dikke bult.
                                          Oh, bloody hell, nothing like me. I have had the issues outlined in the "get out of jail free" thread which took my eye off the ball for the start of the tournament (I think I played a couple fo moves at Crown court). By the time that was over, I was somewhat in the mood of "if I am going to go down , I am going to go down fighting" so the remaining games, I tried more aggressive playing and not relying on my more usual - and totally unsuccessful - defensive start. It has been quite fun in a way, playing with a more buccaneering style and, as I say, no less rubbish but you lot must have wondered what I was up to so apologies for that.

                                          Originally posted by Sam View Post
                                          I have been wondering as to the ease of suggesting a one-off OTF blitz tournament, but I imagine we'd all have to commit to being online at the same time, or something, wouldn't we? Which would make it a bugger to arrange.
                                          Is the the 10 mins a move thing? I would be up for that if it was at a time I could do but don't build it around me, whatever you do.

                                          Comment


                                            It'd be more like 10 mins (or less) for all your moves, so the match could last 20 mins.

                                            Comment


                                              Bloody hell, sounds fun.

                                              Comment


                                                Hmm. As a Platinum member, the only tournaments I can create are daily ones. But I note that on the Tournaments page, there is a link over on the right for Live Club Tournaments. But we have an OTF club, In case anyone's forgotten. Could Wouter, as the admin of that, set up a live tournament within the OTF Club? From my non-admin position in the group it looks like that's an option for him, because there's a page within the club for Live Tournaments.

                                                Comment


                                                  (Oh, and 22:00–23:00 BST works for me if it's a Tuesday or a Thursday. Although I'm going on holiday in two and a half weeks and will be away for six weeks, so during that time all will be up in the air for me. I'll be able to play daily but probably not rapid or blitz.)

                                                  Comment


                                                    So I missed mate in 2 twice in my game against Sam. I'm quite annoyed at that.

                                                    Comment

                                                    Working...
                                                    X