I updated the chess games database I am using and put the new version in the downloads section. It is a collection of more than 578000 chess games I put together from various sources on the Internet. In particular, I'd like to acknowledge TWIC for the latest master games and the chess archive of the U Pittsburgh for older chess games. The database is available both in SCID and PGN format. The old version got a few hundred hits, so I hope some people who don't want to spend the money for one of the commercial databases might find this useful.

In my previous post, I mentioned that the chess blogosphere seemed to be more quiet than it used to be. Right after writing this, I stumbled over a whole series of interesting posts and discussions. Just today, Chessloser writes about getting stronger (both literally and at chess). He discusses, if a book aimed for players above a certain rating is appropriate for lower rated players.

I have been thinking about similar issues lately. I started to work with a chess coach a while ago, studying basic chess strategy and endgames. Does this make me a better player? Well, somewhat. To a certain extend, I believe that higher players would get more out of these lessons than I do. I still struggle too much with losing to simple tactical shots to be able to use concepts like pawn structures effectively. Don't blame my coach for this, though - we discussed this before we started the lessons and he warned me that they are designed for slightly higher rated players. It all boils down to knowledge and having the skill to use it. I might know now more about strategy, but my tactical skills are too weak to effectively use my new knowledge.

You might wonder now why I pay somebody for chess lessons if they are not efficient for me. Well, first of all, I do think they make me a (somehow) better chess player. I actually start to see some improvements in my correspondence chess games, where I have more time to check my moves for tactical mishaps and therefore generally blunder less than during "live" games. But for the most part, the knowledge gained from studying material that is a little too advanced for me makes chess more enjoyable. For instance, it helps me to understand annotated master games better, enabling me to appreciate the moves of chess masters more than before. And after all, I both play and study chess to have fun.

I cannot believe that my last post is something like a month ago. I haven't found much time to blog lately and have been lacking ideas what to write about, too. It also seems that now, after DG from the Boylston Chess Club Blog stopped blogging and Bluedevilknight is wrapping things up, the chess blogosphere is increasingly quiet (Note that I don't say that there is nothing interesting written anymore. It just feels that there are fewer new posts to read). Or may be I am just getting old and with me the blogs I read regularly. Anyway, after giving a rook for free in a correspondence game with my old chess friend troopersccop (and a few pawns as "tip", after all I don't want anybody to find out that I am a cheapskate, right?), I first felt like complaining about myself blundering so badly. However, I think I should take a more positive view on the world, and thus decided to publish this position from the game I won against Trooper with a cute combination. For a change, I actually calculated things out without messing up. May be my new training helps (more about that later).

This was my first game playing against the Grand Prix Attack. I still don't understand what it is about, but I enjoyed the game anyway. Anyhow, the position is after White played fxg5, threatening my bishop. What is the best response for Black?

It is quite unbelievable that it took me more than 2 years to end a game with stalemate.

Photo "Stalemate" by redheaded pirate

endgame

blitz

rating

This post does not have much to do with chess aside from the fact that I don't get to play chess and blog about it as I used to. Why? Simple: my home Internet connection stopped working and all the customer service has to offer is the same canned answers repeated over and over again each time I call. It is unbelievable: we can build computers that are "smart" enough to beat every single human chess player and the Internet with its high speed data connections opens up new ways to play chess and communicate about our favorite game. But when a problem occurs, we still have to deal with humans. That should be a good thing, right? Only too bad that the humans working in the call centers are forced to behave like robots.

I am not blaming all the tech support people I talked to. After all, they are probably trained to only tell me what is written on their script and might even lose their jobs otherwise. But I find it very saddening that in a world that gets more technologically advanced every day human interactions seem to get more primitive.

Anyway, what happened? I used to be a Verizon DSL customer and called their tech support after my connection stopped working. Over two calls I spend something like 1-2 hours being walked through the usual reboot your computer, please wait, reset the modem, please wait while we test your connection, etc. routine but my connection was still dead and I was told that somebody would take care of it and call me back. Of course, nobody ever called me back. In contrary, every time I called customer support (I tried it 4 times), they claimed that would be the first time they hear of my problem (even though their phone robot claimed that my problem would have been solved and made it extra hard to get connected with a human) and started the whole procedure all over again, even though I made clear that I have been through that procedure without success several times before. I was stuck in an endless loop, hearing the same script read to me over and over again. There seemed to be no other way out than to switch my ISP. Interestingly, terminating the account was pretty easy!? Sadly, I somehow don't expect much better service from my new provider but at least I don't have to start paying them before the new service starts working. Until then, I will have to make the moves in my online chess games from my office and have plenty of time for offline writing...

The reason why I enjoy playing the Colle-Zukertort system so much is that it starts harmless with 1.d4 followed by pretty natural developing moves without threatening much for the first ten moves or so. But then, after Black is lulled into sleep, White can often start a nice kingside attack. The board on the right shows a blitz game I played a couple of days ago on ICC.

I am White, starting one of these potentially vicious attacks. However, for an attack being successful you need two simple things (the nice thing of playing at the patzer level is that you do not have to worry much about the fine print): first and most important of all, your opponent has to make a mistake. Luckily, at the patzer level this happens more often than not. Secondly, you have to recognize the mistake and exploit the resulting weakness. Well, this is one of the games where I had a chance for a tactical shot but did not see it. After the smoke cleared a bit over the battlefield, we see the position after 18. ... Ne4 (you should hopefully see it on the interactive board, if you are using your RSS reader, you might have to load the post in your web browser). Clearly, Black's knight is threatening to capture White's queen. The simple thing to do would have been 19. Nxe4, exchanging knights. However, I was too "smart" and figured I might be able to trick my opponent into a quick mate by playing 19. Qh3 threatening 20. Rh8#. At least I thought so, forgetting a little thing you probably realized already... damn those little pawns, they always surprise me!

Anyway, in the end, I resigned. The postmortem computer run-through showed me that I apparently got into an equal position later on but after losing my rook I was too demoralized to recognize anything. However, I still enjoyed the game: even though I messed up big time, I got a nice attack going giving me some adrenalin rush and some experience that will hopefully convert into a win next time around.

Phaedrus, a Dutch chess trainer, gives some interesting food for thought about Michael de la Maza's chess training methods, also widely known as "the circles" in his latest post: "The killing fields of chess training". He discusses the differences between learning, training, and memorizing, and, while being positive on some of the methods de la Maza suggests, comes to the conclusion that "This kind of dedication, as Michael calls it, may well take all the fun out of chess training. It may easily convince you that training is completely useless, incredibly boring as well as hopelessly time consuming. Those who have followed Michael all the way may well have walked through the killing fields of chess training."

How can such a simple game as chess be so hard to learn? Sometimes it is just frustrating: I just logged off ICC where I finished another day of lost 15 minute chess games. And I am not even trying anything fancy - I just try not to lose too many pieces. Seriously, in an attempt to reduce the number of blunders I make, I try to force myself to be careful by sitting on my mouse hand. This is supposed to remind me of checking my moves for blunders before I make them. In theory, at least. Only too bad that after a couple of moves I seem to forget even this most simple thing and switch to autopilot, making the same good old blunders. Conclusion: chess is not that hard to learn but it seems that some people like me are simply stuck with their bad habits, which is dreaming up attacks instead of keeping my own king safe for me. it is fun to learn more about chess strategy, but it will never make me a better player unless I solve this very basic problem that no amount of tactics problem solving is able to cure. I guess I "just" have to force myself to become more disciplined, but that does not sound like a fun hobby to me. And after all, I play chess to relax and have fun, and not to chastise myself.