English Chess Forum

. That didn't even occur to me.

Generally, blundering a lot. I seem to find ways to defend when I'm worse and then end up cracking: Black against Brendan O'Gorman: 1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e6 3. e4 d5 4. e5 Nfd7 5. d4 Bb4 6. Qg4 Bf8 7. Bd3 dxc4 8. Bxc4 Nb6 9. Bd3 Nc6 10. Nf3 Bd7 11. Bg5 Ne7 12. Ne4 Bc6 13. O-O Qd7 14. Rfe1 Nf5 15. Rad1 Be...

I just finished this correspondence game that we started in mid-June. It was fascinating! I probably shouldn't have allowed White's rook in, but the a pawn provided counterplay. It seemed sensible to then give it up in order to get the two connected pawns in the middle that I could just push. Was sl...

Sorry for the delay in responding - been away from the computer most of the week with other things. Thanks folks! Jonathan - those suggestions are great; I'll take a look and get round to making an account. I tend to use the rating limits on both chess.com and lichess though I do worry that online r...

I haven't, only because I usually avoid social media! Are there accounts you'd recommend following/tweeting at to advertise?

Thanks for the suggestion, Jonathan.

Hope everyone is doing well. While there's no OTB chess, I'm looking for someone I can play some regular (once a week roughly) 15+10 games with for training. Ideally, someone stronger than me (my last ECF rating was 1255E).

Give me a shout if you can help me out.

Not a question, but just wanted to share a recent game. Most of my games these days are blitz or bullet, which are not the best but I occasionally play some rapid. I find it quite difficult to play anything longer online and probably like most, sorely miss OTB chess. Most of my life I've been playin...

Did you notice that Black's structure and the material imbalance of two Bishops and a Knight against two Knights and a Bishop can also arise from the Trompowsky? I didn't, but that's likely as I've had no experience with the Trompowsky either. These days I'm playing the English and responding to d4...

I'm really missing OTB chess as probably a lot of people are, but I'm trying to play some decent games online. Here's a correspondence game I played with Black over the course of a day (!). I can't recall facing the Nimzo-Larsen before and I misplayed the opening losing a pawn. I got it back and the...

I'm playing lots of correspondence games these days, on chess.com, lichess.org as well as through the ICCF, while we wait for OTB chess to resume when it's safe to do so. I particularly enjoyed this game and my opponent made the unwise decision to open up his king after castling long, instead of pla...

Quite! I'd like to be at least 100 really .

I'm up to a reasonable 74E. I felt like I was playing decent chess this season. Still aiming for 100.

Thanks for the game references, Jonathan; I'll have a look when I have some more time. Even if I've been playing on and off for a number of years, I still consider myself quite inexperienced. Having said that, I still find the Italian quite dull.. I'll probably try to start playing some OTB rapid ev...

Roger: thanks for that. I figured that passed pawn was the asset in that ending. I was also surprised by 45. exf6 and thought that e6 made sense there. David: also thanks. Yeah, perhaps I should have played on. Apparently c3 is OK (working with that loose bishop) or exd5 getting two rooks for the qu...

I guess I'd probably be even more out of depth with a Sicilian, though I suppose said opponents maybe wouldn't know the theory either . Hopefully I'm still managing to play OK!