Page 1 of 2
I played the second round of the Cork Club Championship and lost. My opponent was feeling a bit under the weather, so to go home early he launched a speculative attack which succeeded! I should bring Lemsip to these games in future.
The computer says I had a chance to turn things around near the end by playing Bb8 on move 28. I think in practical terms it would have been very hard to spot that as my attention was focused on the pieces around the king and not the other side of the board. It's an instructive idea though - the mate threat keeps my opponent's queen pinned to the h file and allows me to trade it off and so end the attack.
→ posted on December 9, 2016chess
Round 7 of the Munster League continued and naturally the A team didn't have a full team. There were no B team games this weekend though so I was able to play up for them.
I managed to win my game after my opponent miscalculated a tactic dropping a bishop for a couple of pawns. I went into an endgame with a knight and rook against a rook and two extra pawns and coverted it.
This meant that the A team drew the match 2.5 - 2.5. I'll be expecting a trophy at the end of the season if they win the Championship!
→ posted on December 4, 2016chess
The second round of the ladder continued and I had white against one of the top rated players in the club (1800+ ICU). I was expecting a draw at most but instead I won! I managed to get a passed pawn on the 6th rank and use that to attack.
The game was played with no increment due to time constraints - I was a bit nervous about this as I normally bank on using the increment for any endgame. In this case i won just as we reached an endgame so I was ok on time.
It's a pity these games aren't rated but if I keep playing like this then my rating should move up anyway.
→ posted on December 3, 2016chess
Congratulations to Magnus Carlsen. Was the more aggressive throughout the match and deserved the victory
→ posted on November 29, 2016microposts
Turns out Karjakin didn't need his whites. Won with black after a crazy game. Must be a huge favourite now
→ posted on November 22, 2016microposts
Karjakin seems to have wasted his two whites. Still level but now Magnus has three whites from five games - and will finish match on a white.
→ posted on November 20, 2016microposts
I've added a rating page to show my rating progress (or lack of it!) over time. The first few tournaments were calculating my provisional rating so there was a great deal of variance there. Now however I have a proper rating and am making some slight progress.
The rating shown is my ICU rating which unfortunately is not an offical FIDE rating. However my Munster League matches count towards those so I should get one of those soon enough. But given the low amount of games which will be used to calculate that, I don't know how accurate that will be over time.
→ posted on November 20, 2016chess
Now the match is really well set - and Karjakin has two whites in a row
→ posted on November 19, 2016microposts
Karjakin has to be pleased that he made it to halfway still level.
→ posted on November 19, 2016microposts
Last Friday we kicked off the Cork Chess Club Championship for the new season.
I won my first game. My opponent missed a pin against his rook in the middlegame and I was able to win material from there.
→ posted on November 18, 2016chess