The slump

Ok.

I had a ball couple nights ago going at my first try in bughouse! But afterwards something happened. The next night and day my head tried to work out the experience and at the same time I seem to have lost some thread of thought in my basic chess. I hit one of the worst loosing streaks and I kept loosing both in ICC and FICS untill the last game I had this morning before I run for work.

Naturally my opponent was totally winning, but erred and played Nxa1?? unaware what will hit him.

White to play:



To tell some background I summoned up my good ol' CT-Art 3.0 and Peshk the other day and out of curiosity bought the Elementary checkmates for beginner and have quite regularly trained on the mates so it seems it has become easier for me to find mates.

Do you see the continuation? I'm sure my opponent didn't.

That turned the tides somewhat and also gives more motivation working on my tactics and mates.

My favourite sacrifices part 1

White to move

This particular sacrifice is one of my favourite ones. I played it in Free Internet Chess Server 5 minute blitz game.

Nice mate

Position of analysis in 5 minute blitz game white to play.



Here's what would have happened if white had played rybka recommended Rf6+ against me. Now Kh5 and white has nice mate in two? Do you see how?

Trivia time once again!

I ran rybka with depth of 7 to find some missed tactics in my 100 recent games and here's beautiful tactic black missed against me in five minute blitz.

Black to move.



Do you see it?

A new video

I published a brand new video on my recent slow time control game on FICS. There's pretty neat attack on the end of it as an icing of the cake.

Mate in two

I run around 250 of my recent games with Fritz looking for missed mates. Here's first one. Black to move. Mate in two.

Cheers, mate.

Last couple of days I have been working the ladder up in 5 minute blitz against chessmaster personalities. I am currently playing against around 1200 rated opponents so still I have a long way to go. It seems to be in many cases that I am not very able to use available resources for a mate but I usually just promote enough queens to deliver. Here I stopped to think for a change and found the fastest mate. Which is mate in two.

I had 1:32 on my clock and it took me seven seconds to confirm it.

White to move.

Haunting positions #2

Another positions that keeps coming back from subconscious is this mate in one with white to move. The reason I guess it is that it is a bit against natural instinct. It is nice that I am one to deliver. This is from 5 minute blitz game in FICS. I am not sure how difficult it is. I had 3:12 and my opponent 2:56. For me it took 5 seconds to see it.

A draw!!

Couple of positions remain with you for the longest times and come back to haunt you. This one is one of the better ones. It is between me and Jonfern in FICS 5 minute blitz match when I have had inferior position for some time but I am pressing my opponent on time. Here my opponent has 22 seconds and I have 40 seconds. So can you find the drawing move in 40?



Maybe it's not that difficult but most satisfying anyway for me.