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I've been working on a chess post, I really have, but it's not ready, and so today I simply present two images. Above, a photo of Juneau, Alaska I shot the other day.

Below, a photo of Elizabeth Vicary that she shot the other day. She, like me, feels the urge to write about things other than chess from time to time. Thus this post.

Memorable Game 4: I Defeat My First Expert, B. Brandt - RLP 05.13.87 0-1

I had defeated several USCF Class A players by the spring of 1987 and raised my rating to the low 1700s, but no Experts had fallen to my bad kung fu until this game. This was the same year my opponent won the Nevada State Championship, and even now Barry is still competing at the Reno Chess Club!

Admittedly, he plays the opening in "coffee house" style and I just take advantage, but I'm proud of my play. After I obtained a winning position I did make a couple of (?!) moves but fortunately they merely prolonged the game slightly.

(show chess board)(hide chess board)

Memorable Game 3: Update with Corrections

Bill Davis comments on my "Memorable Game 3" post:

Hi Robert, Good game as you deserved the win with your preparation. I'd have played out the game if I knew this would become your blog. I'd like to make a few corrections. No, I hadn't been drinking or something else. Also I had been a Master for two years at the time of the game. I do remember the disgust and frustration when I realized I had blundered away a pawn. I don't see the mate coming within ten moves as you stated. I saw a very difficult position and would probably drop the c-pawn too with your pressure. So leaving a mate on the board was my frustrated way of resigning. In hindsight I should have played on as now I have the experience of saving such games. Well done, hope you get the chance to beat another Master.

First, my sincere apologies to Bill for saying "[he] looked kind of distraught, or perhaps had been drinking or something...anyway, he didn't look happy to be there." I take his word that nothing unusual was going on except just one of those "moments" we've all experienced in chess.

Second, apologies for the inaccuracy on his achieving the USCF Master rating--I was going from memory there, as the USCF online records only go back to 1991.

When I said "I guess I was subconsciously giving him a chance to resign instead of getting mated inside of 10 moves, and he did" I was talking the position on the board after Bill's "resigning" by allowing mate. I think he's right, he should have played on; as I noted in the original post (you have to look at the ChessFlash game annotations there) White scored 46.5-4.5 from the position in the database, but Bill was and is a stronger player overall, and Black did manage two wins and a few draws after going down the pawn.

Thanks for commenting Bill, and again, apologies for the inaccuracies in my original account.

Some Thoughts on Blitz

Wormwood at the rarely updated but always thoughtful Burning Castles gets to 1506 on ICC at 5-minute Blitz and his observations on raising the rating at blitz chess are well worth waiting for:

F i n a l l y ! It's been over two years since I first crossed 1400 on ICC 5-minute, and even though the effort has been sporadic at best, it still took more than enough time. I've had these spells of blitz in which I decide to work on it properly, but they've seldom lasted for more than a couple of weeks at a time. Then 3-8 months of hiatus, and back on it. -It's always been hard to keep myself motivated to train blitz more, as slow chess has always gone so much better for me. Obviously you always much rather do things you're good at. Hopefully that'll change for the better now after reaching a basic level of not dropping everything in every game, so my strategic/positional strengths should also begin affecting the games. Still much to do on the basic technique though, and I'll also no doubt dive back under 1500 soon enough. Gotta just keep hammering.

(...)

Notice that he speaks of "working on it properly" and "training blitz," showing his approach is specific. It gets even more interesting:

So what worked and what didn't?

Well, for one, I must say that tactics never did anything for my blitz, even though it's always advertised as the holy grail of fast chess. It has benefited me hugely on correspondence chess and the ability of solving tactical puzzles, but my blitz never improved on bit before I begun playing blitz heavily. Although obviously you have to have some basic proficiency in tactics, you can't just expect to survive in blitz if you never drilled tactics. But it isn't the bottleneck, at least on the low levels.

(...)

Amazing! I think this is exactly opposite of what we would expect. And maybe other people have had different experiences. But Wormwood reports in a precise, rational manner that leads me to think he is giving us the straight dope. Now for the BIG surprise:

Slow games haven't had much effect either. It's the area I've always used most time since the beginning, analyzing positions for hours every day. The outcome has been that I'm great at seeing what I did wrong afterwards, but that's just too little too late. The ability to analyze slow games is just too, well, slow. The revelations must come instantly, without thinking, or otherwise you lose on time. -Perhaps the slow games will some day reach a critical number, so I'll have seen all the basic situations so many times that playing them correctly becomes instinctive, but after 4 years it still takes conscious thinking time. People who've played for decades are probably in a very different situation regarding all this.

That pretty much leaves openings. The unappreciated love of beginning players, on which the experienced players always tell you not to waste study time. -And in slow chess that's actually true. But in blitz... I don't think so anymore.

During the past year that I've finally focused on my openings properly, it's become obvious that my opening knowledge has been abysmal. The shallowness and uncertainty on even the things I thought I knew has been simply enormous. As the cliché goes, I'm only beginning to understand the extent of my ignorance. I now study openings every day, and it's paying dividends especially in blitz. I'm actually outplaying my opponents on book knowledge, and to top that I'm even understanding why their non-book moves are inferior. Of course that still happens mostly in the mainlines, and quite early at that, but it's a promising start. I'll continue on that vein and see where it'll get me.

###

So what's my take on all of this? My own highest blitz rating was 1442 on FICS in 2007 (which I assume to be roughly equivalent on ICC, though if you, the reader, have a different opinion I'd like to hear it). Right now I'm at 1316, and I have been as low as 1250 and as high as 1406 in the last few months. Part of the roller coaster for me is that I often play only late at night, when all of life's other tasks are done, and that's certainly not conducive to best play. But one takes what one can get.

I play quite a bit of 3 0 and the factors I've found at that speed that really help are 1) playing faster than I think I should, and; 2) something related to Wormwood's experience, playing openings I know, playing instantly while in my "book," and once in the middle game, doing what I call "watching the opponent's pieces," that is, keeping his stuff in my visual field between moves and not staring at my own men and thinking about what I want to do to him.

As for speed of play, Rolf Wetzell, whose book Chess Master at Any Age I've written about a number of times (have I actually followed his program? No, but that's another story...) had some very interesting thoughts on how fast one should play at various time controls. In sudden death, whether G/3 or G/120, he made the excellent point that one needs to have time to execute mate! He notes that many sudden death time-control games are played to mate or until someone's flag falls, thus you should plan on playing 60, 80 or even 100 moves in one of these games. I've made it my goal to get to move 60 before losing on time (or, hopefully winning on time or mating the opponent!) and this seems reasonable at 3/0, averaging 3 seconds per move. I can't play much faster and not throw stuff away left and right.

I also play 2/5 sometimes (5 seconds added per move made) and this seems to me to be almost a completely different game! With a 5-second increment I feel like I can grind out winning endings and there's often the chance to make a few quick moves and build some time for calculating how to finish a game off more precisely. Probably I should only play this time control, as I find it much less stressful, and conducive to pretty decent chess (sometimes). But always there is the Siren Song, the call of the adrenaline rush of 3 0...

I'm coming around to the view that blitz is an entirely legitimate field for experimentation in techniques for raising one's rating. There are some similarities with just "getting stronger at chess" in general, but based on Wromwood's report and my own experiences there seem to be significant differences, as well.

I would be very interersted in hearing in the comments any thoughts and/or experiences of readers on this subject of raising one's blitz rating.

Juneau Chess Players

This is what our little chess club here in Juneau, Alaska looks like, in the very interesting, glass-walled "fish bowl" room of the Public Library:



That's the cruise ship Amsterdam right out the window! And just opening his computer:



President Brian Bezenek. The guy who has kept the club going for some time. Thanks Brian!



Tom Rozek (left) and Russ McDowell, two of the regulars. These were taken two weeks ago, but last week several more people came by. This club is blowing up, dude!

I'm the reporter, so there's no picture of me. Reporters are supposed to stay out of the story. I'm old fashioned that way. I will report that last week Russ beat me three time running. That's only fair to note.

(Cross-posted at Juneau Chess Club)