English Chess Forum

This is a junior who of course should be treated differently and so far I see nothing of substance debatable we should even be discussing it.

Carl Hibbard wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 10, 2019 10:49 pm

This is a junior who of course should be treated differently and so far I see nothing of substance debatable we should even be discussing it.

It's plausible that a player could be self taught and self trained to a high level on the numerous on-line servers. Equally it's not uncommon for an ability to play chess at a high level to correlate to an ability to tell computers who is boss.

The doubt comes from the results at the London Chess Classic Blitz. It's feasible enough that a run of bashing the Dorset top boards could be terminated by running into titled players above FM. But what is the explanation of the result on Sunday? Ill advised sandbagging is one perhaps.

He had a quick win over a 180 rated player the following day, finishing with 4 minutes more time than he started with.

The Allan Pleasants game posted on behalf of Pete Heaven. My first try at entering a game on here;

[Event "Dorset League"] [Site "Division 1"] [Date "03.10.2019"] [Round "?"] [White "Lovelock, Declan"] [Black "Pleasants, Allan"] [Result "1-0"] 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 c6 4. f4 d5 5. e5 Nh6 6. Nf3 f6 7. Bd3 O-O 8. O-O Bg4 9. Ne2 Qb6 10. c4 dxc4 11. Bxc4+ Kh8 12. h3 Bxf3 13. Rxf3 fxe5 14. Rb3 Qc7 15. dxe5 b5 16. Bd3 Qb6+ 17. Kh2 Na6 18. Qe1 Nc7 19. Bd2 Nd5 20. Rc1 Nf5 21. Be4 g5 22. Rd3 gxf4 23. Nxf4 Bxe5 24. Bxd5 Bxf4+ 25. Bxf4 cxd5 26. Qe5+ Kg8 27. Rxd5 e6 28. Rxb5 Qa6 29. Rc7 Rf7 30. Rbb7 Raf8 31. Rxf7 1-0

Matt, you said earlier "I think when the Allan Pleasants game arrives it will be fairly eye opening." and " His win over Allan Pleasants was an engine-like destruction apparently." To me, that looks like a good attacking game, but nothing particularly spectacular (Allan playing 23...Bxe5 looks like a big blunder, exposing his king to a crushing attack). I think the focus here has to be on the games played in the London Classic blitz event, or at least something to explain that result. Are those games available (apologies if they were linked to earlier)?

The London games are on Chess24; https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tourn ... itz-2019-c

Unrated junior tournament from 9/2/19. Score 3/6. https://www.dorsetchess.co.uk/junior-ch ... for-girls/

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 11, 2019 11:40 am

Matt, you said earlier "I think when the Allan Pleasants game arrives it will be fairly eye opening." and " His win over Allan Pleasants was an engine-like destruction apparently." To me, that looks like a good attacking game, but nothing particularly spectacular (Allan playing 23...Bxe5 looks like a big blunder, exposing his king to a crushing attack). I think the focus here has to be on the games played in the London Classic blitz event, or at least something to explain that result. Are those games available (apologies if they were linked to earlier)?

Good games don't have to be spectacular, they can just be logical and mistake free. Most of the time it's not *that* hard to find any particular move, but playing lots of accurate moves in a row is very, very difficult. I won't speculate when I don't know the details, but I would be very happy to play this game and there aren't many games I'm that happy with after analysing with a computer (which I've just quickly done here).

Well, I can't even accurately calculate the finish that prompted Allan to resign here. Does it start 31...Rxf7 32.Qb8+ Kg7? Oh, I was missing 33.Be5+ (because the queen is on that square in the diagram).

Black can resign for many reasons. One win is 32.Rb8+ Rf8 33.Rxf8+ Kxf8 34.Qh8+ and taking on h7, but you're right that 32.Qb8+ is stronger: if Rf8 then 33.Qc7 wins and if 32...Kg7 then 33.Be5+ Kg6 34.Qg8+

Personally, if I had any kind of outstanding chess ability, I would invite testing, put an end to any speculation and set about cleaning up at every event i could find.

So we have a (young) player out of nowhere reaching master level play without any witness to his improvement. He always plays with a hat. In a tournament with strong security he plays like a beginner. In nearly all his games he beats seasoned, strong players literally without thinking.

I just examined the last game with Stockfish 10 running. I allowed it to run for 30 seconds for each move. Starting with 9.Ne2, All of his moves were the engines first choice at some point in the 30 seconds apart from 2 that were the 2nd choice, and 2 moves: 26.Qe5 27.Rd5 that were not top choices but maintained a winning position.

I challenge anybody to find a Magnus Carlsen game with that level of accuracy. Never mind one played at near blitz speed.

Well asking the young man to play without his hat would seem like an obvious step (not to mention why is anybody wearing a hat indoors in the first place, it's not raining). Best implement this from move one, though, rather than follow Nigel Short's example.

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 11, 2019 4:18 pm

Well asking the young man to play without his hat would seem like an obvious step (not to mention why is anybody wearing a hat indoors in the first place, it's not raining). Best implement this from move one, though, rather than follow Nigel Short's example.

Have we reached the point where players shouldn't be allowed to wear hats or headgear at all?

This might be relatively simple advice for the ECF to give to leagues and congresses

...

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 11, 2019 4:22 pm

Have we reached the point where players shouldn't be allowed to wear hats or headgear at all?

This might be relatively simple advice for the ECF to give to leagues and congresses

That would be a simple enough measure, apart from the problem of whether or how to make exceptions for those wearing head coverings for religious reasons.