Monday, July 11, 2005

 

Continuing mediocrity

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.

Comments:
Tough blow... remember pawn-only endgames are the most elementary in all of chess... and also the most difficult. Where else can one simple and inobvious move so easily cost one the game? And where else do lost tempos and opposition become so absolutely precious?
 
Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?