November 2014 – Page 2 – Campfire Chess

Happy Veteran’s Day!

On November 11, 2014

As the World Chess Championship rages on, the United States comes together today to pay special tribute to the men and women that have given of themselves to serve in the Armed Forces in order to make our country safe for friends, family, and our ideals. As a veteran of Operations Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom, I am proud to stand today with my brothers and sisters in arms and say Thank You to each of them for dedicated themselves to something bigger than they are.

It takes a special kind of heart to give one’s life for his brother or sister. It was our Lord Jesus Christ whose words of kindness immortalized the spirit of the military servant:

Greater love has no one than this,
that someone lay down his life for his friends.

John 15:13, ESV

I will be forever grateful for the men and women that I have served with and for the ones that came before me to pay the ultimate price for our way of life. Today, I ask that we all take a moment and put down the chess pieces, step back from the board, and recognize the heroes that do battle on the 64 squares of life in the grandest war game of all.

OMC Weekend Review (Volume 1, Issue 13)

By Commander Exorcist

On November 9, 2014

In Personal Reflection

It makes sense that Volume 13 of OMC Weekend Review would take on a somewhat somber tone. I recently wrote a post about reaching 950 ELO in blitz, but today I watched in agony as my ELO dropped to 806 before rebounding to 816. Suffice to say that things are extremely frustrating around here right now and I would be lying if I said that there were not times this week that I did not seriously consider quitting chess altogether.

However, I do realize that players of all levels suffer setbacks and must make corrections to their games to improve. In my case, it seems that the methods I have adopted are simply not working, so something else must be done. To that effect, I have adopted a new series of rules for my chess playing that I hope will improve my game:

No more blitz games. Speed chess is fun, but it does not seem to be helping me improve my game in any significant way. Therefore, it is no more.
One correspondence game at a time. This may sound silly, but I need to begin working on increasing my focus level before playing more than one game at a time. When the Chess.com U1200 tournament is over, that will be my last multi-game session for a while.
Reset my chess reading list. Pandolfini’s Ultimate Guide to Chess and Silman’s How to Reassess Your Chess are now #1 and #2 respectively on my reading list.
Watch more chess. The World Championship is being played in Sochi, Russia right now, so it is a perfect time to take a step back from the board and watch how the masters do it.

To those people that may be reading this blog for the first time, this post should also serve as a reminder that this site’s primary purpose is to serve as a conduit for me to share my journey as I work to get better at chess. The news, reviews, and reflection articles are nice, but they are not the core of this site. As always, I appreciate everyone’s willingness to read this blog and the support that I get from friends and family toward my obsession.

Chess.com visits the Polgar Chess Festival

By Commander Exorcist

On November 5, 2014

In Campfire Chess

The 8th annual Polar Chess Festival was held at the Budapest Palace of Arts on October 4th of this year. The event featured thousands of chess fans playing multiple variations of the game and GM Polgar being recognized by Guiness World Records for leading the FIDE world rankings for 25 years! Check out this excellent video from Chess.com highlighting the festival and some of its activities!

GM Wesley So Joins FIDE Top 10

By Commander Exorcist

On November 5, 2014

In Famous Players

After his recent transition to the United States Chess Federation, Wesley So claimed the $100,000 prize victory at the Millionaire Chess Open in Las Vegas. Now he has added another notch to his belt of achievements by entering into the FIDE Top 10 players for the first time! Congratulations to GM So and best wishes as he continues up the ladder of chess excellence!

Rank	Name	Title	Country	Rating	Games	B-Year
1	Carlsen, Magnus	g	NOR	2863	0	1990
2	Caruana, Fabiano	g	ITA	2839	11	1992
3	Topalov, Veselin	g	BUL	2800	0	1975
4	Aronian, Levon	g	ARM	2797	6	1982
5	Grischuk, Alexander	g	RUS	2795	11	1983
6	Anand, Viswanathan	g	IND	2792	6	1969
7	Giri, Anish	g	NED	2776	6	1994
8	Karjakin, Sergey	g	RUS	2770	11	1990
9	Nakamura, Hikaru	g	USA	2767	11	1987
10	So, Wesley	g	USA	2762	7	1993

Chess.com U1200 Tournament Pairings (Corrected)

By Commander Exorcist

On November 2, 2014

In Tournaments

This tournament was fun when it started, but I have to be honested that it is dragging on a little. I hope to finish up most (if not all) of my games before the FIDE World Championship begins on November 7th. Right now, yours truly is near the bottom of the pairings list with 3-3-0. Unfortunately, two of those wins come from RevvedPatzer, a 1200 ELO member that has apparently bowed out of the competition and forfeited all of his games. A win is a win, I guess.

Group #2	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Score	Tie Break
1. YellowCakeInc (1304)	♟	_ _	1 1	1 1	1 1	_ _	_ _	1 1	8	26
2. RexIbnMadinat (1126)	_ _	♟	1 _	1 1	_ 1	_ _	_ _	1 1	6	17
3. Yashaman (1200)	0 0	_ 0	♟	_ 1	1 1	0 _	_ 0	1 1	5	12
4. jrlanders (1070)	0 0	0 0	0 _	♟	_ 1	_ 1	_ _	1 1	4	7
5. Heleyson (1111)	0 0	0 _	0 0	0 _	♟	1 1	_ _	1 1	4	6
6. AmishHacker (1161)	_ _	_ _	_ 1	0 _	0 0	♟	_ _	1 1	3	5
7. Mischa8 (884)	_ _	_ _	1 _	_ _	_ _	_ _	♟	_ 1	2	5
8. RevvedPatzer (1200)	0 0	0 0	0 0	0 0	0 0	0 0	0 _	♟	0	0

OMC Weekend Review (Volume 1, Issue 12)

By Commander Exorcist

On November 2, 2014

In Campfire Chess

There is just one week to go until Carlsen and Anand descend upon Sochi, Russia to compete in the FIDE World Chess Championship. All eyes in the chess world will be on these two superpowers on the board as Carlsen battles to retain his title and Anand tries to snatch it away from him. Little has been heard from Carlsen after his mediocre performance in the Sinquefield Cup. Fabiano Caruana and others have dominated headlines in recent months, but now the stage is set for the two to battle it out to determine who is the best chess player in the world.

Back on earth, where the rest of us play in seedy chess clubs on borrowed tournament boards or confined to the anonymity of Chess.com and the Internet Chess Club, yours truly lost is 900 ELO blitz rating after hovering around 951 for a while. Some of the losses were a standard affair in which I made some inexplicable error or the player was simply better than me. Such was the case in this week’s first game where I played against a player rated 1001 ELO blitz on Chess.com.

Suffice to say that the above loss was not very difficult to swallow until I went back and did my final analysis. Missing such a simple move like Kxh2 was psychologically devastating. However, the loss gave me an opportunity to sit back and examine my response time in these games. Did I really need to respond so quickly to my opponent’s moves and what difference does their rating make? There are times that I wish I could turn off the ratings indicators on Chess.com to avoid having a constant reminder in the corner of my screen. Still, things got better as time went on. The next game was a win against a player rated 1020 ELO and the second-highest blitz victory in my short chess career.

My university studies have remained constant and so far they have not taken too much time away from my chess work. It is my intention to provide as much coverage and commentary on the championship as I can, but I am limited the availability of life’s most precious resource: time.