Always Check for Check

Here's an example of how quickly one's fortune can turn in a game of chess. Figure 1 shows a position in which I had the Black pieces and had a decisive advantage.

Figure 1

Had I played Qc5+ my advantage would have been - 4.73. Instead I panicked and played Rf1+ and my advantage was suddenly a disadvantage of + 5.63 had White captured with his King. As it was he captured with his Rook and I had some counterplay. See Figure 2.

Figure 2

The lesson to be learned here is to always look for a check, especially when faced with a Knight fork. A check cannot be ignored. It must be dealt with by the opponent, by moving the King, capturing the attacker or by blocking with my pawn or piece. Currently my rating on chess.com is 1329, down from a recent high of 1353. I seem to be stuck around the middle 1300's. It's rare that I'm on the back foot right from the start. In most of my games, I have a decisive advantage at some point but manage to squander due to poor choices or blunders.

It occurred to me how little chess I actually play. I'm hardly battle-hardened and I need to be if I'm going to improve my rating. I play terribly on a phone but I should make use of the chess app that is on my phone or even open a new account on one of the online platforms where I can just play, get extra practice and not worry about my rating.

Back in the Saddle Again

I've only recently started playing 15 | 10 on chess.com again after playing very little since my return from Australia. Currently my rating is 1355, much lower than it is on lichess.org but no matter. I'll stick with the former for the time being. I think it's important to play early in the day before I become too tired. Late morning or early afternoon would seem ideal.

Sometimes the mistakes I make are disturbing. For example, Figure 1 shows an example of a game that I played today in which, playing black, I needed to defend my pawn on g6 that was under threat of capture from the White Queen.

Figure 1: I'm Black and White has just played Q-c2

Instead of playing my Knight to e7 and defending the pawn, I played my Bishop to e7 allowing the pawn to be captured. Had I moved my Knight, White would probably have played his Bishop to g5 pinning my Knight. I would then have played my King to f7 protecting the pawn. If White captured my Knight with his Bishop, I would recapture with my Bishop and if he checked me by moving his Knight to g5, I would have captured the Knight and held the pawn, Chess blindness, I guess you'd call it. Anyway, the more games I play the less likely I will succumb to such blunders.

Ouch

I've been playing 15 | 10 on chess.com, meaning that the players have 15 minutes per game with 10 second increments. This is a comfortable amount of time but I still find myself drifting into time trouble. I haven't played on lichess.org since August 19th where I have a rating of 1634 there, down from a high of 1648. On the latter platform, I'd been playing 10 | 5 but I may switch to the longer time format when I return. On chess.com I've been struggling in the mid-1300's much as I did on lichess.org for a while. Currently my rating is 1336. Here is a screenshot of my latest game in a position where I overlooked Black's threat of R x h3. Blithely unaware, I played R(c7) d7 and promptly lost.

Link to Game

Clearly I should have won and could have easily prevented disaster had I realised Black's ploy. However, I didn't feel badly about this game because overall I played well. I'm learning to simply enjoying playing and not being too disappointed about losing. I'll keep playing on chess.com until I can get my rating up to something comparable to what it is on licess.org.

A Comedy Of Errors

While I may have reached my highest official rating of 1628 on Lichess playing 10 + 5, it's not because of my good play. My latest game was a comedy of errors in which my opponent made the last error. However, my troubles began early on when I kept my Queen in the line of fire of the Black Rook. See Figure 1.

Figure 1: link to game

The computer analysis is prompting me to play d x c5 because this defuses the threat of the Black Rook on c8 that is bearing down on my Queen. I castled Kingside instead and then Black's best move was c x d4 which he didn't do immediately. I was aware of the threat that the Rook posed but thought that I'd have time to move my Queen to b1. Instead I was caught as Figure 2 shows.

Figure 2: link to game

As can be seen I did get to move my Queen to b1 but I was forced to and it came with the loss of my b pawn and my light-squared Bishop. This would never have happened if I'd simply taken Black's pawn on c5 but I didn't and I was lucky to go on and win the game. Black at this point had played well and took full advantage of my error.

Following my previous comments, I played another game that I promptly lost because I assumed my opponent had made a blunder. He hadn't. I had been sucked in big time and fell for the trap hook, line and sinker. It's too embarrassing to even post but the lesson to be learned from it is that if your opponent has been playing well and offers you a free piece then be very wary. I was not wary. This loss cost be 8 points so I've fallen back to 1620. Currently I am very annoyed with myself.

1616: Still Climbing

 At last I played a game with zero blunders but in which my opponent blundered in time pressure.

I now have a ranking of 1616 which I'm happy about.

Here is a link to the game with a screenshot showing my opponent's fatal mistake. Black with 1:31 left on his clock failed to see that my Knight could take his Queen and so promptly resigned.

1600 Target Reached

Today I finally surpassed 1600 points in the 10 + 5 rapid section of Lichess. I played two games, the first I won after my opponent left the game early on and in the second I should have lost except my opponent failed to take advantage of the position. Figure 1 shows the progress of the game in which I had the White pieces:

Figure 1

As can be seen for most of the game I was hopelessly lost. I knew I was in trouble. Black had mounted a massive attack with his two Rooks and Queen. Figure 2 shows the crucial moment.

Figure 2: link to game

I moved my King to g2 because I wanted to bring my Rook on f1 to h1 to oppose the Black Rook. At this point, I was relieved because, even though Black was about to double up Rooks on the h file, I knew I had time to bring my Rook across and defuse the situation. Black played his Rook on h8 to h7 as I anticipated and all was well. Little did I know that the game was lost. All Black needed to do was to sacrifice his Rook to h2. Even with the computer analysis, it took me a little while to see why this won the game for Black.

So while I may have surpassed 1600 with this badly played game and will continue to improve my rating, my opponents will soon not miss golden opportunities like this one that Black squandered. The moment Black played castled Queenside, I mishandled the position and allowed Black to mount his formidable attack.

Knights Can Move Backwards

 After a couple of wins, I managed to lose after blundering my Knight. Here was the position:

lichess link

All I needed to do was to retreat my Knight to e6. The evaluation bar showed that I was clearly ahead. After playing my Queen to g5 and checking the White King, I forgot about my Knight and ended up losing it. It was a game with errors on both sides but if I had retreated my Knight my position would have been fairly secure. It just didn't enter my head during the heat of battle.

I need to play more regularly and restrict myself to one game every one or two days. The only way to become battle hardened is play several games daily. I will lose some and win some but over the space of a few weeks I should see my rating slowly climb into the 1600s and maybe even beyond. The lesson to be learned from this game is that KNIGHTS CAN MOVE BACKWARDS.