A Better Move - Blog

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Dan O'Dowd
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Location: Carlisle, Cumbria

Re: A Better Move - Blog

Post by Dan O'Dowd » Mon Jun 24, 2013 11:13 pm


Steven Gardner
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Re: A Better Move - Blog

Post by Steven Gardner » Tue Jun 25, 2013 12:39 pm

I've read the first couple of posts Dan, looks really nice. I look forward to more.

Geoff Chandler
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Re: A Better Move - Blog

Post by Geoff Chandler » Wed Jun 26, 2013 11:11 pm

Hi Dan

Good.

Nice vids, and I like the jumping pieces, you are moving them by hand.
(keep that in, that is your thing.)

You can set illegal postions on Wnboard (Options - allow illegal positions, no Kings etc.)
If your site won't load illegal FENS use a gif from a screen grap.

You can animate gifs, flash squares, have bears ice skating across the 5th rank.
Add bullet holes, have Spiderman swoop down and grab a pawn. I've done all that.

For endgames (infact any aspect of the game) I've always used an actual game that contains the error to kick off it.

No better example than from an actual game.

Go to the 4NCL site and download ALL the games. That will give 31,000+ games.
You will find some good examples in there. (hawk around the lower divisions.)

I think 80% of the fun is looking for and spotting the game you after making
a note to store any other interesting games for another day.

The point is your examples will be original and not seen before. Fresh meat.

Also it means you cannot steal notes from another source you too have to have to do some work.
You are not going to tell me that won't make you a better player.
I know I have put into my games some ideas I've seen in other players games I've noted up.

Use some examples from the regular posters on here and you will get feedback.
It does not matter if it's good or bad. Feedback is feedback...someone is looking. There are millions of unread blogs.

And don't worry about upsetting anyone, it's only a game, never make it more than that.
have a wee joke but keep it on the chessboard.

Roger has been involded in quite a few games you can pull examples from. He's a regular poster.

Here he is on top from the opening but allows Black right back into it and Black
can wrap it up with 34.Bg4. White missed it, Roger outplays his opponent in a
Rook ending displaying a few deft touches.
(but there may be an error in there, a cute move I've not seen....it's an ending, I'm me.)

I could have used a few things for this one.

A. Mapletoft - R. de Coverly, 4NCL 2012



When you get around to mating with two Knights. This will do. It's perfect.

(wee bells are ringing, did this appear in CHESS or have I seen it when I was going through
Eddies games looking for stuff for Rampant Chess.)

And if you have written a book, plug it every chance you get! :wink:
(But bells are ringing. )

E. Dearing - R. De Coverly, 4NCL 1998



Finally Slow down, don't burn yourself out.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: A Better Move - Blog

Post by Roger de Coverly » Thu Jun 27, 2013 12:31 am

Geoff Chandler wrote: A. Mapletoft - R. de Coverly, 4NCL 2012
It just shows how careful you need to be in advancing pawns in front of your King, even if it appears to be an ending. So the positionally logical .. g5 to anchor the f4 Knight proves to be a serious lemon.

The Rook ending after move 40 was better for Black, but White's play can be improved.

Geoff Chandler wrote: E. Dearing - R. De Coverly, 4NCL 1998
I half suspect Eddie was showing off and he had alternatives to going in for the KNN v KP ending.

It seems to show that it's easy enough to win with the typical Kings' Indian blockade against the e5 pawn. At around the same time there was a more difficult example with colours reversed and an f pawn where Matthew Sadler could only draw.



I've checked my game with Eddie against the tablebase and it was always lost. I should check the Sadler game as well. There is some old Soviet or Russian theory which draws a wiggly line across the board and you should lose only if you are the wrong side of it with the pawn.

(edit) Checking against the Shredder table-base has a win for Black in 17 (!) in the Sadler game from move 64 (/edit)

Geoff Chandler
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Re: A Better Move - Blog

Post by Geoff Chandler » Thu Jun 27, 2013 2:50 am

Hi Dan,

See....I have got you one guaranteed hit, Roger will be checking your blog every week just to see if he's in it..
And look, he is even trying the old 'Don't look at my games, look at Sadlers more interesting games instead' trick.

You've got him and now Roger has got you Mathew Sadler. That's two hits.

Drop in a few more names and you will soon have all he 4NCL players, arbiters included,
checking out your weekly blog to see if they get a mention.

I cannot see your name though, you will have to find a team and take part.(Get pictures)

Hi Roger :?

Your opening v Mapletoft was just perfect.
The Metzger Unpin in all it's glory. Nc6-d8-e6-f4-h3.
If I was playing beside you Roger I would have stopped the clocks and applauded.

But here with you to play.



He's all tied up. No need to move the Knight from h3.
15...Re8 A free move with the threat of 16...exd5 and 17...Rxe5 (f2 hangs to the Knight Fork.)
You develop with a piece with a threat. You remembered your Metzger but forgot your Morphy.

Dan O'Dowd
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Re: A Better Move - Blog

Post by Dan O'Dowd » Thu Jun 27, 2013 2:57 am

Geoff Chandler wrote:I cannot see your name though, you will have to find a team and take part.(Get pictures)
I can't, I'm in Cumbria :( No teams anywhere near to entertain the idea, and no travel either. I'll get someone to take plenty of pics if I can get to the British though, and if I ever get to a position where I could move daan saath, I'll surely consider it.

By the way I have no idea what you meant earlier by jumping pieces :lol: And I'm glad you like the jovial video chop interludes!

Roger de Coverly
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Re: A Better Move - Blog

Post by Roger de Coverly » Thu Jun 27, 2013 7:56 am

Geoff Chandler wrote: He's all tied up. No need to move the Knight from h3.
15...Re8 A free move with the threat of 16...exd5 and 17...Rxe5 (f2 hangs to the Knight Fork.)
On 15. ..Rfe8, he has 16. d5. Then I play 16. .. Ng5.

The computer engine marginally prefers that to Ng5 immediately.

Geoff Chandler
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Re: A Better Move - Blog

Post by Geoff Chandler » Thu Jun 27, 2013 1:43 pm

Hi Dan

The video explaining the Tarrasch Trap.
(I never has the sound turned up as I was watching it at work.)

Today I did. It's not you, some it's American with the typical dry uninterested voice.
Ditch him, do your own, jiggle the pieces like he does.

Cumbria? What on earth are you doing there? You will have to move.

You are closer to the Scottish NCL.
I can get into the Wandering Dragons if you want.
(don't they have a Nothern Region or has that been dropped?)
--------

Hi Roger

"The computer engine marginally prefers that to Ng5 immediately."

Will you switch that bloody thing off, stick it back in it's pretty box and throw it into the cupboard.
It's rotting your brain, clouding your judgement, you are playing a human who by all accounts was having a bad weekend.

We are not interested in what a computer thinks, we want to know what Roger thinks.
The moment the lad Mapletoft played a non-computer move why are you assuming he will then suddenly play like a computer?

You know and I know that here on that cold January day in 2012..



After Re8 he would have played Qe3 like he did in the actual game to get out of the pin and walk into exd4 & Rxe4.

The poor lad was having a stinker of a weekend.
Allowing the full idea behind the Metzger to develop,His Bc4 then Bf1...
(a positional blunder...but blunders always comes in two's everyone knows that except a stupid computer.)

In the same game he missed the win against you.



He played 32.R2h5 instead of 32.Bg4 with the piece winning threat of Bf5.

He was way off form, it happens.
So why are we looking at this lad's game with a computer?

The day before as Black against Sargent who was rated 80 points lower than him he hung his Queen.


Black played 39...Qf7?

I'm putting that one down to time trouble. (time trouble is not an excuse, it's a reason.)

Hello again Dan.

See what is lurking in that 4NCL database? Dig out the instructive chaff and post it.
This stuff deserves to be shown. And see what else I've unearthed by chance.

Mapletoft - Ballard, 4NCL 2009



Brilliant. You won't see that position on a GM board. That DataBase is a gold mine.

Dan you have a quest.

Dan O'Dowd
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Location: Carlisle, Cumbria

Re: A Better Move - Blog

Post by Dan O'Dowd » Sat Aug 24, 2013 12:23 am


Roger de Coverly
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Re: A Better Move - Blog

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sat Aug 24, 2013 12:46 am

Black to move. Is there anything useful to improve the position before either Qxc3 or bxc3? Playing ..Bf5 would force bxc3 but is that to Black's advantage?

Presuming it's either a London system or a slow Trompovsky, experts in that sort of stuff should know the answer.
Last edited by Roger de Coverly on Sat Aug 24, 2013 1:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

Dan O'Dowd
Posts: 194
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:14 am
Location: Carlisle, Cumbria

Re: A Better Move - Blog

Post by Dan O'Dowd » Sat Aug 24, 2013 1:08 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Black to move. Is there anything useful to improve the position before either Qxc3 or bxc3? Playing ..Bf5 would force bxc3 but is that to Black's advantage?

Presuming it's either a London system or a slow Trompovsky, experts in that sort of stuff should know the answer.
Haha, I gave you the opening moves alreay and you still guess the opening wrong. :P

Well I can't answer that question about taking on c3, or I'd give the game away. Quite seriously, why don't you join the rest of my readers, and do an analysis session and find out :) Such work would be very welcome - just as I try to train those rated lower than me, likewise you might wish to impart some analytical rigour upon me after I've posted what I got in a few days time. It would also doubtless provide a contrast in thought process (and exposition of any errors I make) to those readers who are diligently working on their game and seek a rounded opinion of matters, since I'm sure there are no players out there who are solely listening to me. Or I bloody well hope not :lol: :lol:

But do bear in mind that the original idea for this post came from giving an analytical exercise to a buddy on Chesscube who also probably would come out at 160 something or 170 something (I have good results against him because he finds my way of playing quite difficult to get around since he has a lot of difficulty with any sort of deep or odd-moves calculation), so its original target audience was lower rated too.

I'm sure it isn't your intention :) But the way you often present your comments, you sometimes seem to forget that if you are a chessplayer, by extension you might consider me a bunny rabbit, and you might consider some of the lower rated among my intended readers as lettuce. It does have an impact though :) Those things which one such as you process subconsciously and post-fluently, are sometimes those very seeds of training that we ourselves are working on or seek to improve. In my case, such exercises as this one provide me with a useful check on my progress since the game was played (3 and a half years ago), but also when I compare my work to others, give me more hints on the exposition of those weaknesses in me that are most damaging, which I can then work on (:

Certainly if the exercise yields poor response (by design) I can accept that gladly and try to post better examples, but given the volume of material I have, and that I'm new to this sort of more in-depth work (as opposed to coffee house sessions where analysis isn't as much required, or brief position discussion in fora or in club), I'd much rather just plough on with everything I have and tweak what I'm doing along the way (: Most importantly though, even if the posts help nobody but me, or just one other person; they have benefit. It could simply be that at your level, my blog won't provide that much in the way of brain-stretching - only time will tell ;)

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