Chess Pundit

I played 3 games on Saturday. The first one I was black, and reached this pawn endgame. Looking back, I'm not sure if I can win this at all (black to move). I played the ugly f5. I was scared about g4, where an eventual g5 creates an outside passed pawn. My king has to go catch it and he wins the d pawn and gobbles up my queenside pawns. The game preceeded 1...f5 2. c5! Ke7 3. Ke3 Kf6 4. Kd4 . I originally thought about going Kg6 and going for his h-pawn but g3, makes the effort take too long and he queens first. Nonetheless, I found eventually myself in zugwang and lost.



The second game was a rather easy game (as white) with the King's Gambit against a 1600 player, which looked like I was playing an 800. The brilliant thing about the King's Gambit is that the games are usually draw free.

My third game, against I was black. It was on the losing side of knight endgame but with under 2 minutes on my clock was able to deliver the surpising checkmate, Ne4-d6#.


I'm still in a bit of a slump. When I sit at the board, I don't have the . This is likely due to my lack of studying. Chess was forced onto the backburner due to other obligations, but I haven't been able to get "back into it." In my last 24 games, I'm 12.5/24 against an opposition of 1691. Little wonder my rating has dropped so. In 3 weeks, there is a big tournament in town and I still plan to play in the open section.