A few weeks ago, I started playing at the Internet Chess Club (ICC) to get some "live" chess practice in addition to my correspondence chess games. I signed up for the STTourney, a four round tournament with one slow chess game a week. The first game was a disappointment, because my opponent didn't show up (I really do not like winning by forfeit!), although I had a nice unrated game with another player whose opponent did not show up either (thanks ThugKnight!). This week, I scored my first win in a long battle. Both my opponent and I used almost all of our thinking time (the STTourney games are played with 60 0 time control) and the game was very close. Therefore, I got really excited the moment I noticed a significant advantage for me in the endgame, but also pretty nervous because I managed to mess up almost all endgames I played during correspondence games at ChessWorld so far. I have to admit that playing "live" can be more exciting than correspondence chess. But this time I used my king wisely to block an advanced passed pawn and finally won the game (See here for the complete game with annotations). My score is now 2.0/3.0 and I am looking forward to the last game in the October tournament next Tuesday. I will have white, which is supposed to be an advantage but I usually play better with black.

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