Unstoppable Mate in Four

 CTalin is a tactical beast at the ICC in the USA. I am usually on the receiving end of brutal attacks by this 1857 rated Mikhail Tal fanatic, but today was tactically alert, Larry Christiansen, and was lucky enough to to see a Mate in 4 after the careless Be6 move by Ctalin.

Can you find this mating pattern based on the potentially wide open a1- h8 diagonal and g file? Hint: Look for line opening piece sacrifice where the only way to delay mate involves hanging the Bishop.

Electrical Engineer Mike Peattie has posted some rather dry commentary about sacrificing material at Quora in a way quite common to unimaginative understanding of the concept of material.

Exchange Sacrifice for Weak Pawns

 You all remember those material point tables published by the German Bernhard Horwitz who claimed a Queen was worth 9 pawns, a Rook 5, Bishop or Horse worth 3

This dude who plays on the internet named Blackdata believes these values are absolute indicating he never has read Rowson. 

So when I play this cat, he always lets me take off his Horse with my Tower as you can see in the following diagram(Notice the f3 Knight has been snapped off by the f8 Rook shattering his Kingside pawn structure). I thought he might be a computer programmer or a bitcoin miner or a data scientist, but probably not since those type of professionals always learn from their mistakes.

Blackdata does not get the quality and coordination aspect of a chess position. In the above position, he thinks he is winning because his pieces add up to 16 pawns and Black's pieces add up to 14 pawns according to the German MoFo who formed the infamous group "The Pleiades"

I am sure the Chess Improver  Valer Eugen Demian and his copyrighted content could talk about the weak squares around the White Monarch along with weak pawns as being more than adequate compensation for the exchange sacrifice. Black has an enduring initiative despite having "lost the exchange". 

Demian  will quickly learn that a standard Blog is no match for Streaming Twitch content or YouTube. Daniel Naroditsky does not give the USCF the time of day after becoming a Twitch ad revenue animal. I sure as hell do not blame him, although I miss his outstanding column in Chess Life.

In closing Blackdata, like many lovers of the game suffers immensely from materialism and should realize chess would not be much of game if one could just do a Horwitz count of material to determine who stood better in an arbitrary position. 

Two different Assassinations

 

Chess is the Netherlands is more historically rich and dense compared to almost pop culture blitz ethos that exists in the USA. The former Santa Fe NM Grand Master would surely agree given his recent public squabbles with Greg Shahade. 

The theme illustrated in the diagram below witnesses yet another example of greed being harshly punished.  Thetheo1304 is "up the exchange and a pawn", BUT is still dead lost. So one could say he was suffering from excessive emphasis on his distorted notion of material. Yaz, the cool dude and blood brother of IM John Donaldson, once stated his first chess teacher Pupols taught it is not what comes off the board, it is what stays  on the board. 

This ICC member appears to have dearly loved Theodore Van Gogh who was assassinated by a Dutch man from Morocco,Africa.  Never got the significance of 1304 in his online moniker. 

Perhaps the death was still weighing on his distant mind when his materialism allowed Black's g pawn to become dangerously passed. Maybe he thought Rook takes pawn check on the d5 square would give him time to prevent the promotion to Queen. A draw may have been held by moving the King towards the Queening Square rather continuing with the pawn grabbing avarice. 

Greed, Greed, Greed.....Lose, Lose, Lose

One of the seven deadly sins is Greed and chess psychologist Rowson expounds lucidly on the perils of not overcoming avarice in our beloved Royal Game pastime.

However, ICC user Missile14 apparently did not get the memo after getting splattered by the mating pawn move f6 in diagrammed position. The military jet fighter plane enthusiast was aiming for rapid consolidation with Nd6 with the goal of liquidating the powerful e4 Horse. In fact, Missile14 played Knight captures Knight after White played the overt checkmate move pawn to f6 pinning the g7 mating square pawn to the trepidating Black Monarch!  

Black could have played the desperate  Nf5 which only delays the mate or the calamitous loss of material. I think our military man was just assuming since he had an extra "do nothing" proverbial WHOLE ROOK on a8 square(not half mind you) that he would just win by swapping aka the Patzer's curse. 

I did find something about the Infrared Air Force FALCON homing missile14. 

BTW, a cat with a youtube channel called chess traps has a beautiful trap number 28 out of the Kings Gambit opening involving a knight on the grim rim and another fork winning Whites Queen!!!

Finally a tribute to some old acquaintances/buddies in Texas USA: 

Carmen Chairez - Army Veteran 

Tom Crane - Navy Veteran 

    Charles Fricks - Army Veteran 

 Troy Gillispie - Army Veteran - 

           Sheryl McBroom - Air Force Veteran

Bret Lynn - Air Force Veteran

Tom Boyd 

                            Master  John Farrell jarhead(teasing John semper gumbi) 

                                   My favorite Asian who love Biden's VP choice  Neil Naputo  

                           David Hater 

                               Leon Toliver and Jimmy Nazario 

MISS AND LOVE ALL YOU GUYS!!!! probably will never be able to play any of you face to face due to personal issues and fickle COVID policy starting with the leadership vacuum in the White House.....credit to Microsoft BOSS for that one!!!!

An invasive Steed Saves the Day

I figured out why the guy my YouTube account defaults to is so damn popular:

1. He does not babble on while playing out the opening moves like some chess commentators do who pretend to know what the best move is.
2. The dude has the most tranquilizing, soothing voice I have heard.
3. He provides just a dollop of history as he quickly gets to the critical positions of the chess masterpieces he presents 

I wonder what Antonio Radic would think about the following position where Black is down the  exchange with an exposed and apparently vulnerable King. Czech Republic jugadore Nadateho must have believed the game was his after playing the instinctive Qd6 check. 

However, it is White who has to be careful and could easily lose with a careless misstep after Black moves his Monarch to the "safe square" h5. A key feature of the position is White's inactive f1 Rook viz a viz Black's hyperactive Horse! White's error was to ingest Black pawns at the expense of not activating his his f1 Rook. Rowson would certainly scold White for not having intimate cozy conversation with his phlegmatic Tower. White also unnecessarily weakened the f3 square providing a simple goal for the Black Knight. White can draw but has to acquiesce to a perpetual check which is hard to do psychologically when you had been winning the entire game.

Long live Agadmator and his lucrative passive income stream. 3.2 million subscribers to his channel and counting!!

Influence of Book Reviews on Book Sales

I was overjoyed to learn that John Watson has secured stable employment with the United States Chess Federation. The French Defense advocate in a great writer and commentator regarding chess history and theory, recently espousing the profound work of GM Davorin Kuljasevic which seeks to eradicate the materialism malady which afflicts weaker club players. 

Also his full time position with the USCF should provide much needed health care benefits. I recall long ago John being ill and seeking contributions from other chess players to defray exorbitantly high health care costs. This was around a decade ago and medical care is even more through the roof nowadays!!

Watson got "beyond material" in his Advances since Nimzovitch magnum opus, so his review/assessment of Kuljasevic's new work should help sell many copies for the Croatian writing talent.  I wonder if it is possible to track John's influence on the gross proceeds for the much awaited book? 

Advanced Pawn Triples win in all Variations!!

As a weak USCF class player with a rating usually a little under 1500, one of my major weaknesses is being too materialistic. I go out of my way to win a pawn in the opening only to be slaughtered like a lamb by stronger players who see the pawn I won as a gambit pawn!!!

In the game above, Denmark player Superboy seemed to be well on his way to another crush of the weaker player. The skilled Danish player was up a piece and attacking my f8 Rook with his a3 Bishop. There is a spectacular move in the position that allows the second player to mobilize his blockaded pawn phalanx at f4,e3, and d4. Hint: The winning move also threatens to pin the White Queen to the White King!

Now, of course, I did not find the move over the board, but just imagine a tactical sequence that creates a PAWN TRIPLE. We all know about the potency of a pawn duo(couple), but how about at Fuckin pawn triple my chess loving friends??? Scroll down to see the winning conception figured out by StockFish.

Rf5!! putting the Rook en prise to the d3 Bishop. Capture allows for the winning mobilization of static pawn wedge!!!!!