Campfire Chess

Month: July 2017

Approaching the 1300 Threshold

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On July 29, 2017

In Game Analysis

Chess improvement can be a slow and grinding process. It has been a rollercoaster-like ride full of ups and downs (mostly downs) over the last few years. I am excited to be approaching the 1300 rating threshold after several setbacks over the past few months. Some of the losses this year have been brutal and some of the wins have been incredible, but learning to live with win and losses is one of the biggest challenges when learning the game.

This is a game I played last night that placed me within 2 points of the 1300 threshold. I have been too busy today to put my mind to another game, so I figured I would annotate this game and show some of the things I continue to learn on the long to road to chess mastery.

Cleaning Up My Soviet Travel Set

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On July 29, 2017

In Chess Collecting, Chess Sets

I love old Soviet chess sets and one of my personal favorites is a travel set I got from Etsy a few years ago, but it took quite a beating before I ever purchased it. So, I decided to take some time tonight to clean it up and try to restore as much of its original shine as I could. This is the same set I posted on Instagram earlier this week:

Time for some rest, relaxation, and study time! #CampfireLife

A post shared by Campfire Chess (@campfirechess) on

Here are some before and after images spliced together haphazardly using my iPad:

And here are some nice shots of the finished product:

Not too bad for about 20 minutes worth of work. In fact, it took longer to compile these photos into a blog post. 😁

Analyzing My First OTB Win

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On July 11, 2017

In Game Analysis, Tournaments

Longtime readers know that I have struggled to secure any hint of a victory when playing against players over-the-board (OTB). I have won (and lost) my share of online blitz and standard games on Chess.com and lichess, but capturing that first victory at a real tournament was elusive. This might not seem like much to a seasoned chess player, but not being able to obtain even a slight advantage in so many games was frustrating. See here, here, and here. However, that frustration came to a close recently with my first OTB victory!

Because it has been awhile since I posted anything of significant here on Campfire Chess, I thought it would be a good idea to share this game with my readers to help celebrate my victory. My opponent was very challenging, but errors were made that turned things in my favor.

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