Blaah...
I dropped my CTS rating from +1800 to ~1700. Yippii.
More importantly tho, I regained my confidence in blitz chess. I achieved 85% score against fairly strong opposition (1800-2200 players) in recent tournament and ended up finishing 2nd. Having pretty nice performance after three disaster-tournaments was really important.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Eeeeew
Good news: I broke 1800 CTS.
Bad news: My blitz sucks. After excellent (what comes to blitz) first half of the year 2007, I am at the moment experiencing pretty deep downswing.
June started pretty well. In first club blitz tournament I managed to achieve solid 87% score against opponents averaging ~1950 strenght. The next tournament was little worse, I scored 75%, which may seem like a good performance, but this time the average opposition was just ~1700.
Then the next tournament was about the same, I scored 67%. But now the latest result, 47%, is just horrible by all standards. I think that was the first time, since year 2003, I scored under 50% in any OTB tournament (incl. all time controls). Suddenly I was playing very slowly and I lost most of the games on time. In good old days I could have 30 seconds time against opponent's 60 seconds in an even position, and still I felt confident. But now I feel shaky, and way too often I "freeze" trying to find that famous "better move" after I've found a good one. And when I finally find it, I have 10 seconds left...
Well, I think I am at the absolute bottom right now. I know I can't get any worse from here. But still for sheer fun I calculated what my rating would be in end of the year if I keep dropping my level at this pace. It'll be...wait...negative.
Bad news: My blitz sucks. After excellent (what comes to blitz) first half of the year 2007, I am at the moment experiencing pretty deep downswing.
June started pretty well. In first club blitz tournament I managed to achieve solid 87% score against opponents averaging ~1950 strenght. The next tournament was little worse, I scored 75%, which may seem like a good performance, but this time the average opposition was just ~1700.
Then the next tournament was about the same, I scored 67%. But now the latest result, 47%, is just horrible by all standards. I think that was the first time, since year 2003, I scored under 50% in any OTB tournament (incl. all time controls). Suddenly I was playing very slowly and I lost most of the games on time. In good old days I could have 30 seconds time against opponent's 60 seconds in an even position, and still I felt confident. But now I feel shaky, and way too often I "freeze" trying to find that famous "better move" after I've found a good one. And when I finally find it, I have 10 seconds left...
Well, I think I am at the absolute bottom right now. I know I can't get any worse from here. But still for sheer fun I calculated what my rating would be in end of the year if I keep dropping my level at this pace. It'll be...wait...negative.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Weeee...(part II)
Three days ago was my city's open championship tournament being held. As a reigning champ I felt obligated to participate. This year tournament was pretty poor in every ways (only 4 participants and average rating well under 1800).
Well I won the tournament pretty easily (with "mind-blowing" 2.5/3 score lol). My games are not worth of detailed analysis, but here is an interesting position from my second round game against 1500-rated player:
I was black here and its my move. White just played g6. I have 52 minutes time left, white has about 9 minutes. Now you might ask; what is that special in this position? You are right, there is nothing special here. After black plays Rb1 (or Ke7 or Ke8 or Rb6 or even Rh3+) its over. Of course I knew they all win. And I knew I cant play anything else, like a4 or Rb2 because after g7 white promotes.
Yet I played a4 (explanation: I was not paying attention coz I was kibitzing other game at the same time + total mental blackout). The thing is that immediately after I touched a-pawn I knew its over. Huge deja vu feeling went through me; just seconds earlier I was thinking that I can't play a4, and seconds later I forgot it totally and played it.
Okay, after g7 its whites win. But amazingly he didnt win, because I defended well (=well enough to force position where 1500-player in time trouble couldn't find a way to finish me off).
Other results from past weeks: won round-4 and round-5 games in 1h+30sec-tournament.
Won May's open blitz tournament with 9/9 score. So I think right now I am in good upswing. I hope that next downswing does not start before autumn.
Well I won the tournament pretty easily (with "mind-blowing" 2.5/3 score lol). My games are not worth of detailed analysis, but here is an interesting position from my second round game against 1500-rated player:
I was black here and its my move. White just played g6. I have 52 minutes time left, white has about 9 minutes. Now you might ask; what is that special in this position? You are right, there is nothing special here. After black plays Rb1 (or Ke7 or Ke8 or Rb6 or even Rh3+) its over. Of course I knew they all win. And I knew I cant play anything else, like a4 or Rb2 because after g7 white promotes.
Yet I played a4 (explanation: I was not paying attention coz I was kibitzing other game at the same time + total mental blackout). The thing is that immediately after I touched a-pawn I knew its over. Huge deja vu feeling went through me; just seconds earlier I was thinking that I can't play a4, and seconds later I forgot it totally and played it.
Okay, after g7 its whites win. But amazingly he didnt win, because I defended well (=well enough to force position where 1500-player in time trouble couldn't find a way to finish me off).
Other results from past weeks: won round-4 and round-5 games in 1h+30sec-tournament.
Won May's open blitz tournament with 9/9 score. So I think right now I am in good upswing. I hope that next downswing does not start before autumn.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Weee...2004
My new national rating is 2004. So first time I have +2000 rating.
I also visited CTS and solved some puzzles. Due my high RD my rating sank under 1750. I dont even remember what it is now, and I dont care. I think that way too many 1600-1800 rated problems are not real "problems"; they are more like positions where there are no real tactical shot to be found but instead you just have to find a way make best defensive/offensive move or simply recapture a piece. I hate that, because I am there only to keep my tactical eye sharpened, not to think about positional factors and stuff. It really bugs when you are searching to find cool combination and the solution is something like simply recapturing opponents piece.
I also visited CTS and solved some puzzles. Due my high RD my rating sank under 1750. I dont even remember what it is now, and I dont care. I think that way too many 1600-1800 rated problems are not real "problems"; they are more like positions where there are no real tactical shot to be found but instead you just have to find a way make best defensive/offensive move or simply recapture a piece. I hate that, because I am there only to keep my tactical eye sharpened, not to think about positional factors and stuff. It really bugs when you are searching to find cool combination and the solution is something like simply recapturing opponents piece.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
3/5
Today I lost and won. First, in fourth round I was paired against top-rated guy. Well, I had white pieces but once again that didn't help me at all. After 15 moves I was already defending and hoping for a miracle. I defended brilliantly, and eventually my strong opponent couldn't find a way to mate me although almost all his pieces were pointing towards my poor king. In the end I managed to "bounce back", and my counter-attack ended up being decisive. 1-0 for me.
Second game... I messed up the opening, got worse position, defended and defended, but this time my opponent also attacked accurately and I had to resign.
3/5 score, shared third place in group A, rating performance being decent 2100.
Second game... I messed up the opening, got worse position, defended and defended, but this time my opponent also attacked accurately and I had to resign.
3/5 score, shared third place in group A, rating performance being decent 2100.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Phew...2/3 so far.
Mikkeli's open five-round weekend tournament started today. After three rounds (G/90mins) I have 2 wins and 1 loss, average rating of opponents being 1976. So not that bad, although my goal (5/5 score) can not be achieved anymore, I am still very pleased I have 2 points.
What to comes to the games, well...they were terrible. Get this: In all three games I was either in lot worse position or in dead lost position after 10-15 moves. In first game I played too creatively (out of book) . My opponent had an wonderful idea, double fianchetto, which worked pretty well. The two bishops made my position almost to collapse right after the opening. Had he offered draw, I would have took it immediately. Then something odd happened, despite his great position he couldnt find a good plan and started to drift. I took full advantage of couple inaccurate moves he made, and soon it was drawish endgame. Luckily we both were in serious time trouble. Althought I had actually less time (~2 mins to his 4mins), I knew I could handle the situation better than he would (here we see how playing bullet improves your long chess too). I did, he blundered...and I won.
Second game, perhaps the worst I've ever played OTB, I played with white. After 15 moves I was already dead meat. I think I'll never understand how I can lose so fast without making any visible blunders. Well, the game still lasted another 20 moves. Then I resigned.
Third game. I was frustrated, and wanted to finish my opponent off quickly. Bad idea. Opening wasnt really a success for me, in fact I just barely survived. Then he gave me time to finish my development. After 20 moves I had decent position, which again looked like a draw. Well, he tried bit too hard and I defended well, and eventually we moved to an endgame where material was even but his only knight was trapped in the h-file. So...being practically knight up in material, I managed to "bust in " with my rook and when he finally got his knight out of h-file, it was already too late.
So...phew. I could very well have 0/3 score right now, but luckily I am lucky man, who knows how to deal with inferior positions.
What to comes to the games, well...they were terrible. Get this: In all three games I was either in lot worse position or in dead lost position after 10-15 moves. In first game I played too creatively (out of book) . My opponent had an wonderful idea, double fianchetto, which worked pretty well. The two bishops made my position almost to collapse right after the opening. Had he offered draw, I would have took it immediately. Then something odd happened, despite his great position he couldnt find a good plan and started to drift. I took full advantage of couple inaccurate moves he made, and soon it was drawish endgame. Luckily we both were in serious time trouble. Althought I had actually less time (~2 mins to his 4mins), I knew I could handle the situation better than he would (here we see how playing bullet improves your long chess too). I did, he blundered...and I won.
Second game, perhaps the worst I've ever played OTB, I played with white. After 15 moves I was already dead meat. I think I'll never understand how I can lose so fast without making any visible blunders. Well, the game still lasted another 20 moves. Then I resigned.
Third game. I was frustrated, and wanted to finish my opponent off quickly. Bad idea. Opening wasnt really a success for me, in fact I just barely survived. Then he gave me time to finish my development. After 20 moves I had decent position, which again looked like a draw. Well, he tried bit too hard and I defended well, and eventually we moved to an endgame where material was even but his only knight was trapped in the h-file. So...being practically knight up in material, I managed to "bust in " with my rook and when he finally got his knight out of h-file, it was already too late.
So...phew. I could very well have 0/3 score right now, but luckily I am lucky man, who knows how to deal with inferior positions.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Won a long game
After last weeks shock loss I was paired against another ~1600 rated guy. I didn't learn anything from my loss (deep in my mind I didn't want to...) and played the game blitzing all the moves out. I The game was pretty easy, he played well and position was about equal (although dumb Fritz tries to claim he had already some advantage) until at move 20 he unfortunately missed simple trap and lost a bishop. After that it was of course just waiting for resignation.
One nice thing when playing with increments (1h + 30sec/move) is that you can have more time at the end of the game than at the beginning. Last time (the game I lost) I had about 55 mins time left when I resigned, now I had 1h 7 minutes when he resigned. In next game my goal is to make it over 1h 10 mins :D
Anyway...before the next round I'll have important weekend tournament. Last time I played in national weekend tournament was exactly year ago (2006 edition of the same tournament). And before that the previous one was the 2005 edition, and before that the 2004 edition. And three years ago I finished 8th, two years ago I was 3rd and last year I was 2nd. So...only one logical way to continue...1st place! Not too easy task thou, because in previous three years the winner has always been +2400 rated IM. And I have these twisted tendencies to lose against 1600 rateds and playing blitz-mode permanently turned on.
One nice thing when playing with increments (1h + 30sec/move) is that you can have more time at the end of the game than at the beginning. Last time (the game I lost) I had about 55 mins time left when I resigned, now I had 1h 7 minutes when he resigned. In next game my goal is to make it over 1h 10 mins :D
Anyway...before the next round I'll have important weekend tournament. Last time I played in national weekend tournament was exactly year ago (2006 edition of the same tournament). And before that the previous one was the 2005 edition, and before that the 2004 edition. And three years ago I finished 8th, two years ago I was 3rd and last year I was 2nd. So...only one logical way to continue...1st place! Not too easy task thou, because in previous three years the winner has always been +2400 rated IM. And I have these twisted tendencies to lose against 1600 rateds and playing blitz-mode permanently turned on.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Faulty problem on CTS
This is a problem from CTS (Chess Tactics Server). White just played Rc6. You are black. What should you do? And as all regural CTS-solvers know, you only have about 3-15 seconds (assuming you dont want to end up losing rating points) to decide whats the best move for black? And for those who dont use CTS (oh why dont you woodpushers use it????) I must inform you that in CTS only one move is regarded as a correct one.
You all probably spot very quickly that white's bishop and rook can be forked, and white can't defend them both. So Nd4 looks like a logical way to continue. In addition, some might think that "hell, after Nd4 white still has a rook, so why don't I just play Rxf3 and after Kxf3 I'll still have that fork." This thinking is also very logical but it misses a simple point: white does not have to recapture the rook after Rxf3. White has in-between-move Rxe6!
"Very cool" might one think. So after all, is there only one correct solution (Nd4)? Nope, because after Rxf3 Rxe6 black also has an in-between-move...Rxg3!!. Now after Kxg3 fxe6 or hxg3 fxe6 black has a trivial win. He is pawn up, and simply by pushing his queenside pawns he can force white king to leave the kingside, and then black king can easily pick up all the white pawns on the kingside. Very logical, very simple. Black wins.
So, Rxf3 and Nd4 both win. Now you are back to square one: which one is the correct solution? You have no way to know, so you just have to take a guess. But if you are lucky and you don't see Rxg3!! at all then you might think only Nd4 wins and you choose the correct one. But if you are unlucky (and in this case "unlucky enough" equals GOOD ENOUGH ) enough to see Rxg3 then there is a big chance you end up losing lot of rating points although you found a winning move.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Weee...
This is the game I lost against 1600-rated. Time controls were 1h + 30sec/move.
[Event "Tourney"]
[Site "MyTown"]
[Date "2007.04.09"]
[Round "1"]
[White "opponent (1600)"]
[Black "jusah (2000)"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B07"]
[Annotator "me"]
[PlyCount "69"]
[TimeControl "300"]
1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Bc4 Bg7 5. Nge2 O-O 6. O-O Nc6 7. a3 e5 8.
Bg5 h6 9. Bh4 g5 10. Bg3 Nh5 11. d5 Ne7 12. Bd3 Ng6 13. h3 Nhf4 14. b4 Bd7
15. a4 Qc8 16. Bxf4 exf4 17. Ra3 f3 18. Ng3 fxg2 19. Re1 g4 20. hxg4 Bxg4
21. Be2 Bh3 22. Bf3 Nh4 23. Nce2 Qd8 24. Nf4 Bd7 25. Nxg2 Be5 26. Bg4 f5
27. Bh3 f4 28. Bxd7 Qxd7 29. Nxh4 fxg3 30. fxg3 Qg7 31. Nf5 Rxf5 32. exf5
Bxg3 33. Re6 Rf8 34. Rg6 Bf2+ 35. Kh1
1-0
Here is the position after whites 19th move (19.Re1). I was black.
How does this look to you? Do you think black has little advantage, huge advantage or totally won position? I think its somewhere between =+ and -+. I am a pawn up, and if I want to, I can instantly grab h-pawn and be two pawns up. Also, I have great outposts for my knights on e5 and f4, he has bishop pair and both of his bishops are active. White, on the other hand, has nothing: he has backward e-pawn, bad bishop, knight under attack and kingside ripped off. So we all agree black has huge advantage here. Even more, I used only few minutes to reach this position, in fact, thanks to the 30sec/move increments, I had about 65 minutes time left here. Thats pretty good when you have 60 minutes at the beginning. But watch this: I'll show you how quickly I can make it all my advantages vanish...
So I played 19...g4. Why didn't I grab the pawn? Now that I review this game I would not even consider anything else. But in game I did consider something else, something worse. I thought that taking the pawn is just lame (thats right: lame!) and I wanted to finish him off quickly and in style. Also, I thought that in this position almost any move is fine.
So...eleven moves later I am in this position.
Things didn't go very smoothly. Ten moves earlier I was so sure I had him on ropes I actually, move by move, worsened my position. I didn't bother to take my time and play accurately enough, and here is the result.. Now its me who is down a pawn, and it is me who is in worse position, and its me who still has over 1h time left. I totally blew it.
The saddest thing is that I had seen this position few moves earlier move, and I evaluated this as better for black. The key move, so I thought, is Rxf5. By saccing an exchange I get his great knight out of the game and, more importantly, I can take the g3-pawn on next move. So I thought: "After Rxf5 exf5 Bxg3 his rook is hanging, plus it'll be check after I move my bishop away from g3. I'll gain time, and rip the remainings of his kingside open. I'll be down an exchange, but I have strong bishop and strong passed h-pawn. There is now way I could lose, especially against 1600-rated."
Of course I missed his simple reply after Bxg3.
[Event "Tourney"]
[Site "MyTown"]
[Date "2007.04.09"]
[Round "1"]
[White "opponent (1600)"]
[Black "jusah (2000)"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B07"]
[Annotator "me"]
[PlyCount "69"]
[TimeControl "300"]
1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Bc4 Bg7 5. Nge2 O-O 6. O-O Nc6 7. a3 e5 8.
Bg5 h6 9. Bh4 g5 10. Bg3 Nh5 11. d5 Ne7 12. Bd3 Ng6 13. h3 Nhf4 14. b4 Bd7
15. a4 Qc8 16. Bxf4 exf4 17. Ra3 f3 18. Ng3 fxg2 19. Re1 g4 20. hxg4 Bxg4
21. Be2 Bh3 22. Bf3 Nh4 23. Nce2 Qd8 24. Nf4 Bd7 25. Nxg2 Be5 26. Bg4 f5
27. Bh3 f4 28. Bxd7 Qxd7 29. Nxh4 fxg3 30. fxg3 Qg7 31. Nf5 Rxf5 32. exf5
Bxg3 33. Re6 Rf8 34. Rg6 Bf2+ 35. Kh1
1-0
Here is the position after whites 19th move (19.Re1). I was black.
How does this look to you? Do you think black has little advantage, huge advantage or totally won position? I think its somewhere between =+ and -+. I am a pawn up, and if I want to, I can instantly grab h-pawn and be two pawns up. Also, I have great outposts for my knights on e5 and f4, he has bishop pair and both of his bishops are active. White, on the other hand, has nothing: he has backward e-pawn, bad bishop, knight under attack and kingside ripped off. So we all agree black has huge advantage here. Even more, I used only few minutes to reach this position, in fact, thanks to the 30sec/move increments, I had about 65 minutes time left here. Thats pretty good when you have 60 minutes at the beginning. But watch this: I'll show you how quickly I can make it all my advantages vanish...
So I played 19...g4. Why didn't I grab the pawn? Now that I review this game I would not even consider anything else. But in game I did consider something else, something worse. I thought that taking the pawn is just lame (thats right: lame!) and I wanted to finish him off quickly and in style. Also, I thought that in this position almost any move is fine.
So...eleven moves later I am in this position.
Things didn't go very smoothly. Ten moves earlier I was so sure I had him on ropes I actually, move by move, worsened my position. I didn't bother to take my time and play accurately enough, and here is the result.. Now its me who is down a pawn, and it is me who is in worse position, and its me who still has over 1h time left. I totally blew it.
The saddest thing is that I had seen this position few moves earlier move, and I evaluated this as better for black. The key move, so I thought, is Rxf5. By saccing an exchange I get his great knight out of the game and, more importantly, I can take the g3-pawn on next move. So I thought: "After Rxf5 exf5 Bxg3 his rook is hanging, plus it'll be check after I move my bishop away from g3. I'll gain time, and rip the remainings of his kingside open. I'll be down an exchange, but I have strong bishop and strong passed h-pawn. There is now way I could lose, especially against 1600-rated."
Of course I missed his simple reply after Bxg3.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Blitz going well, long going hell.
I haven't written for almost two months so I think its time to for update:
Good news: I played in team blitz championship of East-Finland region couple weeks ago (open for clubs from our region). 12 teams participated. I was "on the mood" and achieved my best blitz result ever - 20.5 points out of 22 games. My opponents ranged from 1660 rated to 2200 rated, average being 1870. Unfortunately the event was unrated, and even more unfortunately our team didn't win the tournament.
Not-so-good news: What comes to normal OTB games, I am in losing streak. About month ago I lost very important game against 1960-rated player. I had clearly better position but blew it - not a surprise. Also THIS happened to be rated game.
And yesterday I lost against 1600-player. Nothing more to say.
Good news: I played in team blitz championship of East-Finland region couple weeks ago (open for clubs from our region). 12 teams participated. I was "on the mood" and achieved my best blitz result ever - 20.5 points out of 22 games. My opponents ranged from 1660 rated to 2200 rated, average being 1870. Unfortunately the event was unrated, and even more unfortunately our team didn't win the tournament.
Not-so-good news: What comes to normal OTB games, I am in losing streak. About month ago I lost very important game against 1960-rated player. I had clearly better position but blew it - not a surprise. Also THIS happened to be rated game.
And yesterday I lost against 1600-player. Nothing more to say.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Won a long game...I know...amazing...
Today I finally won. It was very cool game, definitely best I have played this year. With this last round win I ended up with 4/6 score. The sole winner has 4.5/6. So not that terribly after all.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
4th draw in a row
Yesterday I drew again. Nothing new there, I have drawn now 4 games in a row and have poor 3/5 score in our club tournament. Yesterday I was paired 1600 rated opponent. I got worse position right out of the opening, did my best to mess things up and play for a win, but in the end I had to take a draw. So, 3/5 might sound decent but when the average rating of my opponents is about 1700, and I am rated 2000, the illusion is gone.
Some good news too: my long games suck, but blitz is going pretty well, although I am still far away from the best days. Week ago I won club blitz tournament with 20/22 (+19 =2 -1) score, 0.5 points ahead of #1 ranked player (FM).
Some good news too: my long games suck, but blitz is going pretty well, although I am still far away from the best days. Week ago I won club blitz tournament with 20/22 (+19 =2 -1) score, 0.5 points ahead of #1 ranked player (FM).
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Playchess
Today I registered (yet again) to playchess. I haven't been playing there (except some unrated games) since last winter when my previous account got terminated (didn't renew my subscription...). Now having played about 30-40 bullet games there, I already noticed something peculiar: ratings have deflated??! I mean about year ago I had my bullet rating solidly between 2100-2200, but now I barely managed to get it over 1900. I know I shouldn't make too many conclusions based on handful number of games, but I still wanted to say this. Maybe somebody else has noticed the same thing.
Or maybe I am just bit rusty. I shouldn't be thou because I have played lot of bullet/blitz lately with good results.
Or maybe I am just bit rusty. I shouldn't be thou because I have played lot of bullet/blitz lately with good results.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Made it back to top.
Back to finnish #1 on CTS. I admit that I took full advantage of my high RD, but as I solved only 3 problems during the session (compared to total number of tries = ~1500) and I my rating went "only" 10 points up, I think my rating is still very accurate. Furthermore my current rating is not even my record...
Now I will probably take a good break from CTS. At least until somebody takes over the "top ranked finn" title. Yet sadly, by looking the rating list, it seems like my position won't be challenged for a long long time...
Now I will probably take a good break from CTS. At least until somebody takes over the "top ranked finn" title. Yet sadly, by looking the rating list, it seems like my position won't be challenged for a long long time...
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Monday, January 29, 2007
Getting worse
Strange things happen to me. Although I had about 6 months period in last autumn when I practically played no chess whatsoever, I managed to make a stunning comeback couple weeks ago. I noticed that I hadn't got tactically worse almost at all, and also my blitz was in good form. But maybe it was just an illusion. Or maybe it was something what has happened before; "fresh" attitude (thanks to 6 months I was in military) towards chess might have improved my game for awhile. But not for too long; all too sudden I was again playing hundreds of bullet games on playchess. And I started to get bored.
Suddenly I started drawing games. Now I have drew three long games in a row against weaker players. In first game I was struggling with the black pieces, and only barely managed to draw. In second game, I outplayed my opponent in every ways, until I missed forced 3-moves-mate and thanks to that ended up with very dangerous position. Ultimately, I defended very well and drew the game. Third one, which ended three hours ago, was an opening catastrophe for me. I messed up my opening, and my opponent ( black) got great attacking chances with his bishop pair. I was surely losing the game, but again, I defended well, and in the end I managed to trade down material so that although he had two pawns more, he had no way to break through thanks to opposite coloured bishops.
So what have I learnt? That nowadays I only play well when I am in troubles.
Suddenly I started drawing games. Now I have drew three long games in a row against weaker players. In first game I was struggling with the black pieces, and only barely managed to draw. In second game, I outplayed my opponent in every ways, until I missed forced 3-moves-mate and thanks to that ended up with very dangerous position. Ultimately, I defended very well and drew the game. Third one, which ended three hours ago, was an opening catastrophe for me. I messed up my opening, and my opponent ( black) got great attacking chances with his bishop pair. I was surely losing the game, but again, I defended well, and in the end I managed to trade down material so that although he had two pawns more, he had no way to break through thanks to opposite coloured bishops.
So what have I learnt? That nowadays I only play well when I am in troubles.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
2000
after winning a league game about week ago, I finally broke the 2000 barrier. still I am pretty sure that my rating lags at least 100 points behind my true strenght
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Statistics so far
well I was just pondering what the heck should I write here on my brand new blog. Then I got an great idea; what would be better way to start a new blog than summing up my records so far.
Rated tournaments I have played: 15 (including 1 team contest)
First tournament: April 2004
Latest tournament: August 2006
Tournament wins (not shared): none
Tournament wins (shared): 1
Runner-up finishes: 3
Highest perf. rating: 2222
Lowest perf. rating: 1781
Average perf. rating: 1967
Most rating points gained in a tournament: 85
Most rating points lost in a tournament: 4
Total rating points gained/lost in tournaments: +249
Rating points gained/lost on average per tournament: +16.6
Rated league games I have played: 9
Score: +3 =5 -1
Average rating of opponents: 1798
Rating points gained/lost in league games: +35
Rated blitz tournaments I have played: 3 (incl. 2 team contests)
Wins/Runner-up finishes: none
3rd places: 1
Overall:
Scoring percentage in rated games: 71.1
Scoring perc. in rated blitz games: 61.1
Number of rated games played: 102
Number of rated blitz games played: 112
Highest rating: 1990
Lowest rating: 1704
Rating points gained/lost on average per month: +8.9
Thats it. Took a while, but fortunately Finnish chess federation did most of the work (sends information about rating changes, aver. ratings etc.) for me.
Rated tournaments I have played: 15 (including 1 team contest)
First tournament: April 2004
Latest tournament: August 2006
Tournament wins (not shared): none
Tournament wins (shared): 1
Runner-up finishes: 3
Highest perf. rating: 2222
Lowest perf. rating: 1781
Average perf. rating: 1967
Most rating points gained in a tournament: 85
Most rating points lost in a tournament: 4
Total rating points gained/lost in tournaments: +249
Rating points gained/lost on average per tournament: +16.6
Rated league games I have played: 9
Score: +3 =5 -1
Average rating of opponents: 1798
Rating points gained/lost in league games: +35
Rated blitz tournaments I have played: 3 (incl. 2 team contests)
Wins/Runner-up finishes: none
3rd places: 1
Overall:
Scoring percentage in rated games: 71.1
Scoring perc. in rated blitz games: 61.1
Number of rated games played: 102
Number of rated blitz games played: 112
Highest rating: 1990
Lowest rating: 1704
Rating points gained/lost on average per month: +8.9
Thats it. Took a while, but fortunately Finnish chess federation did most of the work (sends information about rating changes, aver. ratings etc.) for me.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Does this thing work?
Testing testing...
well I hope this does work. So, where to start...
Oh, I am 19-year-old finnish club player. My national OTB rating is approx. 1990. I created this blog for keeping record of my performances. And to practice my poor english...
well I hope this does work. So, where to start...
Oh, I am 19-year-old finnish club player. My national OTB rating is approx. 1990. I created this blog for keeping record of my performances. And to practice my poor english...
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