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Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Ivan Drago pays chess!!

Dolph Lundgren,Dolph Lundgren......Dolph Lundgren the handsome studly Swedish actor kept popping into my feeble mind during this Internet Chess Club 3 minute game where United States of America player IvanoDrago11 opened with the very passive setup you see in the picture below.

However, the chess version of this aggressive pugilist was the dead opposite not placing any of his pieces or pawns beyond the third rank! Who am I to complain though as IvanoDrago11 has induced me to overextend countless times and then dominated me in one sided end games. I did manage to exploit my space advantage by crushing him and his provocative play today. He ended up castling queenside behind a tattered pawn structure and was slowly suffocated in a Karpovian endgame.

Guys like Nimzovitch  and Damian Lemos love this crouching "scared way" of playing our Royal Game in true Pterodactyl Defense style. Their mindset is good defense is as equally rewarded as an attacking manner of play, but I still wonder if people who play this way are gay bottoms? Also, solid performers and practitioners of he Hippo include  Alessio De Santis,Eric Briffoz and Gary Gifford who market their books on the opening with phrases darkly, deceitfully, dreadfully, duplicitous or even dangerously deceptive. They disingenuously recommend the White Side of the opening hoping that Black will feel the need to refute it by overextending.


Sexual preferences aside, one has to admire this Hypermodern mindset and ones willingness to risk getting blown off the board for the reward of sneering at a blushing opponent for being over aggressive! So hip hip hooray for the Hippopotamus!!!

Oh yeah, all of your got the Rocky boxing movie reference?!

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

How did this guy earn an IM Title

My USCF rating moves between 1875 flirting with 2000 occasionally. The virulent virus had raised the value of the Internet Chess Club Immensely and I get to play many IM titled players who usually dominate me. No surprise.

However I played somebody from Ukraine with an IM title next to his name. Won handily in a one-sided contest against 1662 rated Serg2008 who played horribly creating unprovoked weaknesses around his King side.
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You can see in screenshot that he allowed an elementary tactic due to his en prise a1 Rook in a game where Black seized the initiative against a player who may have been drunk or somehow cheated to get his International Master FIDE title.


Can you spot the winning piece sacrifice for Black in the below diagram? It is based on a King stuck in the center and fatally weak dark squares.


Most chess devotees know about the Georgian cheater Gaioz Nigalidze. 

The best chess blogger in the World, Bill Wall of Colorado, wrote about prisoner Claude Bloodgood who cheated his way to a high rating(Jude Acers can enlighten us all on this matter), but Claude was a cheater in the biggest game of all...LIFE, so who cares?  Unnamed players in Lampertheim Open were involved in misdeeds in the restroom(no they were not giving each other hand jobs)

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Irascible Blind Chess Player

Many chess players who have not progressed to the paranoid level of schizophrenia will actually publicize personal tidbits about themselves in their finger notes.

An octogenarian did just that including multiple misspellings which is probably explained by his legal blindness status. He achieved close to an expert rating and attributes his healthy old age to playing a lot of the Royal Game and spitting on his beloved spouse.

The old fart still has an aggressive mean streak and gets really pissed off if you do not give him a rematch. He seems to think his fellow competitors care if he censors them. His blitz rating is usually well below 1500.

I guess domestic violence laws must not be strongly enforced in Venezuela based on his admission he spits on his wife after beating a young whipper snapper.

I wonder if he is familiar with the record of Darpan Inani, Dennis Cummings, and Daniel Pulvett.

   1: Robert Dennis
 2: Age 87
 3: USCF 1980
 4: Its just a game, unless you do it for a living.
 5: Just celebrated my 88th! Yes,,, Key to logevity, Play chess often, and
  wrestle with your wife.
 6: Every time I whip ya I muster a large lugi and spit it my wife.  Sometimes
  I hit the wheel chair.
 7: Never too old to whip you youngsters.  In my day I would have whipped all
  you
 8: blindfolded  Matter of fact my sight is so poor I am legaILy Blind. If I
  need to change my depends during a match I do appreciate adjournments.
 9: IF YOU DECLINE A REMATCH AND ACCEPTSOMEONE ELSE'S ONE RIGHT AFTER THE OFFER
10: AUTOMATIC CENSOR LIST!!!!!!!

Friday, April 17, 2020

Podiatry as it relates to Epaulettes

Was reminded of the wildly popular YouTube site maintained by Suren when I delivered an Epaulette mate to a podiatrist at ICC who shockingly goes by the name of FootDoc. Suren probably makes tons of advertising revenue with his Adsense account. I noticed he has 105,000 subscribers.

Suren posted a video of an Epaulette Mate By Alexander Morozevich. So why in the hell do they call it an Epaulette checkmate. Suren did not explains this, but it  turns out it is a military term. An Epaulette is a type of ornamental shoulder piece or decoration used as insignia of rank by armed forces and other organizations. GET IT EVERYBODY? In the diagrammed position where the podiatrist is being mated, both rooks and the bishop are "shouldering" the King occupying escape squares. Moreover, an age old rule of the Royal game is only one piece may occupy a single square, otherwise the King could move on to the same square as his rooks or Bishop. Possibly FootDoc forgot that fundamental rule? A synonym for this may be smothered mate where king is completely surrounded and then mated by a Horse. So I guess smothered mate is a special case of Epaulette mate.


Please do not confuse any of this with the legendary Nigerian Foot doctor who practices in Albuquerque, NM  United States of America.

Roll Tide Chess

I do apologize for the length of the following list, but I did not want to risk excluding any of the cordial Alabama chess players who I met during a National Guard Deployment. It was related to the assistance Governor Ivey provided at Mexico border back in 2018 where in our spare time we played blitz chess and kibitzed with friendly Alabamians.

Master Jurjevich could not have been nicer or more accomodating and I apologize if I left out any names.  Also there is no better reportage than that of Michael Ciamarra with regard to the state of affairs of the ACF! My job will bring me back to this great chess state and I look forward to nurturing those special friendships at that time!!

 BILL MELVIN

CHIBUZO CHURCHILL ILONZE

GEORGE RUSYNIAK
 YURY ANATOLIEVICH BARNAKOV


 SCOTT VARAGONA
 STEPHEN ADAMS

MATTHEW PUCKETT
 KEVIN WANG
 
 STEPHEN GRAVELING
 JOSEPH JURJEVICH
 
 ANDY REEDER
 AARON DECORD
 CHARLES L MEIDINGER
 TEJAS VINAYAK THORAT
 THOMAS DENTON
 
 MICHAEL WILLIAM PORCELLI
 ZACHARY SNOW II
 WILLIAM DANIEL FOX
 FARUK ESAT ERGIN
 JAMES LINHOLM
 MILES MELVIN
 OM BADHE
 TERRENCE WAYNE EDINBURGH
 JEFF TOBIN
 KIRK D PETTY
 KENNETH W GOODMAN
 MARK LLOYD LIATTI
 JOSHUA VARNER
 TYLER WESLEY FREEMAN
 RANDY W COPE
 MICHAEL BARTLETT GUTHRIE
 TIM BOND
 ROBERT LUBIN
 JOEL NICK FRIEDMAN
 JOHN DAUGHERTY
 CAESAR W LAWRENCE
 XAVIER BRUNI
 SARVAGNA VELIDANDLA
 RAY DOWNS
 CHARLES H ANTHONY
 JOSHUA NOAH WAKEFIELD
 PATRICK DOWD
 RHODES PEELE
 LUIS J MORENILLA
 CHRISTIAN EDWARD FRIEDMAN
 DAVID HAYES
 KENNETH SLOAN
 ALADDIN LATEEF
 LOUIS S DE FIORE
 ETHAN JOSIAH SMITH
 MARK PETERSON
 WILLIE JEROME SANDIFER
 PAT RAYMOND ALFORD
 GABRIEL TUZI NOLAND
 MARK STRIBLING
 NATHANIEL BRUCE TILLMAN
 PAUL MULQUEEN
 JONATHAN SMITH
 SHERWOOD DONG
 WILLIAM R SAVOIE
 WALTER F MALMBORG JR
 VALERIE HODGSON
 JOHN DAVID GOOD
 SAMUEL G BASKARRAJ
 CONSTANCE WANG
 TOMASZ NIELSEN
 JOSHUA HUGH LIN
 VICTOR LUNDY
 MARIANO RUNCO
 WILLIAM BAO
 NEAL SANKHLA
 DEAN E YOUNG
 C SCOTT WILLIAMS
 JENSON SCOTT WILHELM
 KEITH WAYNE RATLIFF
 DOUGLAS STROUT
 STEPHEN O'SHEA
 DORMAN DAVID
 CHRISTOPHER BISHOP
 KRISTIAN KADE JORDAN
 RANJAN SATISH MEHTA
 SAMUEL JOSEPH GILLILAND
 DONGWEN CAO
 MARK CHRISTOPHER GORDON
 BALAGEE GOVINDAN
 STEVEN PAN
 SAI CHINMAY KUSHAL KORRAPATI
 JEROME FLOWERS
 YARYNA ZHURBA
 MARVIN N MC QUITTY
 THOMAS A GILBREATH
 MALACHI MUHAMMAD
 RAGHAVAN MADABUSHI
 FRANK ZHAO
 CICERO NELSON IV
 KAPIL NATHAN
 SHANNON LEE BAKER
 AUSTIN J ZHAN
 RHETT MONTGOMERY
 MARK E GORDON
 SETH DAVID HUNT
 BENJAMIN E KENNEDY
 JOSEPH SHALOM GRAVELING
 TIMOTHY TYLER PUGH
 CHRISTINA R SCHEIBLE
 ROGER RIVERA RUIZ
 THOMAS MINH THAI NGUYEN
 DAN WILLIAMS
 SHAWN CHOI
 PARKER CY LIU
 ROBERT M EDGE
 MAREK ROBERT FRIES
 KRISHIN REDDY YERABOLU
 ATINDRAH HARISHANKAR
 JACOB THOMAS MAULDIN
 WENDELL E WHITAKER
 CALVIN HANJOONG KIM
 HARSHIL YOGESH MEHTA
 RAYNALD JESSE BROWN
 THOMAS MITCHELL WALDING
 WEI ZHAN
 HUGH MITCHELL
 ANDREW YANG
 AADITYA SAXENA
 MAANASI A LIMAYE
 JACOB KUNISCH
 PRESTON HELMS
 DR FUBO CAO
 ALISHER ULUGBEKOVICH KHASANOV
 MICHAEL WILLIAM CONNALLY
 WILLIAM MICHAEL SPANIER
 HAYDEN REED BILLMANN
 NIRVANA RAJBHANDARI
 AKHIL REDDY BATCHU
 LANDON ALBERT DRUMMOND
 HOUSTON DELANO THRASHER
 AUBTEEN POUR-BIAZAR
 HARTWELL KING FORSTMAN
 CARLOS T MATOS
 DAVID KLIMJACK
 PAUL LAYMON
 DANIEL SEEWALD
 ETHAN MARTIN DULL
 MICHAEL PORTER
 BERTIN MARGARITO
 PUJA CHOPADE
 BERKY BENDECK
 OVIYA GOWDER
 RANDALL DELANE TEW
 KENNEDY GRACE GORE
 WILSON CHARLES ENGERISER
 ZACHARY ROBERT CALINSKY
 BISHOP JACKSON HERRINGTON
 ARTEM STARENKI
 DENNIS COMEAUX JR
 ALBERT CHEN
 JUSTIN HOWARD RUTLEDGE
 SREEKRISHNA CHINTAREDDY
 EDWARD ANDREW CALINSKY
 AASIM MUNAF MUSANI
 MICHAEL KLIMJACK
 SOHAN RAO MYNAMPALLY
 MICHAEL KENNEDY
 KRISH NATHAN
 GARRY WILLIAMS
 HOLLAND LANG
 SNEKHA RAJASEKARAN
 SWETHA SHRI JAKKA
 RACHAEL EHRMAN
 EDWARD YI XIAO
 PRANAV CHAITANYA SOMU
 NEHA CHOPADE
 JETHRO MONTGOMERY AITKEN JONES
 ADITYA SAI PIPPALA
 CAROLINE ALEXANDRA WANG
 OWEN LANG
 SHRUTI KADAM
 SHREYAS KESHAVA
 PATRICK DOWD
 EMIN MURATOGLU
 JASON PARK
 LABDHI YOGESH MEHTA
 WESLEY MCCLUNEY II
 NORA GRACE FARRIS
 JUAN F MAYORAL
 JACKSON MATTHEW HARRIGAN
 ADVITIYA KANA
 HENRY FREDERICK HOLLAND
 MADHUSHALINI BALAJI
 DOUGLAS SEEWALD
 PRANAAV SATHEESH
 SARAH ELIZABETH PETER
 SAIKARUNYA KESIREDDY
 RAJ PATEL
 JUSTIN YOON
 MATTHEW S BORDEN
 DENNIS ALAN BORDEN
 LUKE JEFFERSON FLOWERS
 FORREST P SMITH
 ALEX MOORE

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Winning pawn Duo

Canadian chess player HotCanary missed a grand opportunity to create an oppressive/winning pawn duo by failing to capture Black's f5 Bishop with a pawn. The Maple Leaf stud must have been worried about his hanging h4 pawn, but it is curtains for Black  after the formation of the f5 g5 pawn duo.

The e pawn recapture at f5 also clears the e4 square for the Ricardo Martinez marauding White Monarch. Note that Black's pawns have zero mobility, whereas the White counterparts are lusting to advance producing   a winning passed g or f pawn. White's prelate at c8 prevents Black's King from chasing down the passers by controlling the vital d7 and e6 entry points!

Final takeaway is the creation of pawn duo on the 5th rank or higher is a goal worth sacrificing pawn or even the exchange  in some cases!  Ask Sergey(Not Garry) Kasparov if you doubt this writer's claim.


Tuesday, April 7, 2020

Giving up pawn in KP ending to cement the Draw

Brazilian Jugadore Rafalvar must have thought he was winning the King and Pawn ending based on some of the ICC trash talking that is allowed in moderation at the most popular internet chess club in the entire fuckin WORLD!

He confidently played the pawn move c4 expecting an easy win if Black carelessly recaptured with his d pawn. However, we have a Dvoretsky example of widening the beachhead which essentially gives up a pawn to block all entry points of the menacing White Monarch! Note that Black's d6 pawn performs the vital function of controlling the c5 and e5 squares. So Black aloofly places Kb6 and becomes a King pendulum(another term used freely in the Russian's excellent endgame manual)

PHD and exceptional instructor WIM Alexey Root has produced some excellent lessons on KP endings, but I suspect widening the beachhead is too abstract and deep for her k-6 cute kids. Also GM chess instructor and ICC employee Yermolinsky knows that every Russian school boy is much smarter than their American counterparts. Alex is one helluva writer and commentator(despite his contempt for the Dutch Defence) as his Bally's Las Vegas Casino Hotel friend Shabalov. Some real poker studs in the group! Shahade Chess Bitch Fan club!!


Also see if you can calculate the variation which involves mutual/simultaneous queening if White tries to enter via the b1-h7 diagonal.

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Careless pawn recapture leads to lost endgame

Hot blooded and passionate Mexican/Spanish players often have an overly aggressive romantic way of expressing themselves chessically.

The problem experienced by ICC player Churrumais77 is that he was too forceful in a technical King and Pawn ending where patience and circumspection were of more value.

In the following diagram, with white to move, one pawn captures loses and the other retains drawing possibilities. White blundered with King takes pawn on the f4 square.  Do you see reason why this capture loses?  The  reason is posted beneath the commentary underneath the diagrammed position.

Adena Johnston, who must be a jerk herself, wrote sometimes being a jerk is the only way to be a good leader. I think this relates to behavior of many chess players in an obscure sort of way and would love to know if Adena would possibly concur?



Solution: Black captures White's g5 pawn which leads to the creation of an outside passed h pawn. As the White monarch chases down the distant passed pawn, the Black King ingests the c3 and b4 pawns and Queens one of his two passed pawns to decide the game!!!!