[White "Houska, Jovanka"]
[Black "Dembo, Yelena"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[BlackElo "2429"]
[ChessCat "CHESSCAT 1.0"]
[ECO "E63"]
[EventCountry "BUL"]
[EventDate "2008.04.21"]
[EventRounds "11"]
[EventType "swiss"]
[PlyCount "52"]
[WhiteElo "2390"]
1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. c4 Bg7 4. g3 O-O 5. Bg2 d6 6. O-O Nc6 7. Nc3 a6 8. b3 Rb8 9. Nd5 Nh5 10. Bb2 e6 11. Nc3 b5 12. d5 Ne7 13. dxe6 fxe6 14. c5 Bb7 15. Qc2 Qd7 16. Rac1 Ba8 17. Rfd1 Rbd8 18. b4 Nd5 19. Nxd5 Bxd5 20. Bxg7 Qxg7 21. cxd6 cxd6 22. Nd2 Qf6 23. Bf3 Ng7 24. Qc3 Qf7 25. Qc7 Qf6 26. Qc3 Qf7
1/2-1/2

The game is taken from the European Chess Championship. Dembo is currently leading the tournament.

Why did I put up this game?

Well, it’s a coincidence that the two new chess books I got is written by the above two players. Dembo is the author for Play the Grunfeld (see cover at bottom article) and I’m also seriously thinking of using some Grunfeld in my coming Selangor Open games.

I am definitely not a Sicilian player. I don’t play the open Sicilian as White and I don’t play the Sicilian as Black. This is one of the rare games where I was tricked into playing a Sicilian Dragon as Black thru transposition:-

[Event "USM Team"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2007.05.06"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Hafiz Helmi"]
[Black "Andrew Ooi"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B78"]
[Annotator ",Andrew"]
[PlyCount "69"]

1. d4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. e4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 d6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. Bc4 Nf6 8. f3
O-O 9. Qd2 Bd7 10. O-O-O Ne5 11. Bb3 Rc8 12. h4 h5 13. Bg5 Nc4 14. Qe2 Na5 15.
Kb1 Nxb3 16. cxb3 Qa5 17. a3 Rxc3 18. bxc3 Qxc3 (18… Qxa3) 19. Qd3 Qa5 20. b4
Qb6 21. Be3 Qd8 22. Rc1 a5 23. b5 d5 24. e5 Ne8 25. f4 b6 26. Rc3 Nc7 27. Rhc1
Ne6 28. Ka2 Nxd4 29. Bxd4 Kh7 30. Rc7 Bh6 31. g3 Bg7 32. Rb7 Be8 33. Rxb6 f6
34. e6 Kg8 35. Rb7 1-0

Rxc3 was practically "forced" as I’ve seen this happen in Sicilian games but only in books. I certainly didn’t like to play it..

This has got to be my most memorable game which I promised my opponent I won’t publish at my main website at blog.gilachess.com but I’m sure it’s alright to publish it here since this blog is rarely visited by anyone

My opponent is a National Woman Master and also a certified FIDE Development Instructor. I guess with credentials like that she had added pressure playing against a patzer like me. I attribute this pressure as one of the reasons she lost this game

[Event "Selangor Open 2008"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2008.05.07"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Andrew Ooi"]
[Black "NWM Khairunissa Wahiduddin"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C25"]
[PlyCount "65"]
[EventDate "2008.05.07"]
[SourceDate "2008.05.07"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 exf4 4. Nf3 d6 5. d4 Bg4 6. Bb5 Bd7 7. Bxf4 Nge7 8. O-O a6 9. Bc4 Na5 10. Bd3 Bg4 11. Qd2 Qd7 12. Rad1 Nac6 13. Bc4 f6 14. a3 O-O-O 15. b4 Na7 16. a4 h5 17. b5 g5 18. Be3 a5 19. b6 Nac6 20. Bb5 d5 21. bxc7 Re8 22. Nxd5 Nxd5 23. exd5 Qxd5 24. c4 Qg8 25. c5 Qd5 26. Bxc6 Qxc6 27. d5 Qxc7 28. d6 Qd8 29. Rb1 Bh6 30. Rxb7 Kxb7 31. Rb1+ Ka8 32. Qd5+ Ka7 33. Qb7++ 1-0

I’m starting to look at the Caro Kann as defense against 1.e4. One of the reasons is as an e4 player myself I hate playing against the Caro Kann as I have no real plans against this ‘quiet’ defense. Consequently, I scored poorly against the Caro as White. As Black I never even thought of using it as I think it’s a ‘negative’ opening meant to negate all of White’s initiative and most of the time leading to draws.

However, if I’m losing so badly against the Caro, it stands to reason, I should pick this opening up and see it from a whole different perspective. Perhaps I’ll even start getting better results as Black. My usual Scandinavian still scores very well for me against opponent of the same strength but it rarely holds up against stronger player. It’s too shaky. Hopefully the Caro will fit in as a solid defense for me.

I’m planning to learn up the main lines and hopefully try it out at the coming Selangor Open next week.

Currently reading up on the Caro-Kann from this new book by Jovanka Houska. From the initial reads, I find it pretty well written.

The author is a WGM / IM rated around 2390. I tend to trust the book authors more if they use the openings themselves. Jovanka is a Caro-Kann user and she knows what she is talking about.

Let’s see how much I can absorb from this book in one week!

That’s obvious isn’t it. I’m lazy - no doubt about that.

Just like people making money on the internet, there’s so many scams promising instant success. There is no such thing! As a person who solely survives on blogging and programming on the net, it’s been hard. It took me over 3 years to finally get a sustainable income from my blogs and websites. That’s 3 years of effort. However it irks me to see people selling ebooks that promises instant success, make money without effort, online income while you sleep and all that rubbish.

Similiarities in chess too. I’ve been those silly hopefuls that want instant success by learning some cheap tricks in the opening, viewing some short chess videos, hanging around some GM and browsing some chess books.

No wonder my online rating has been static for 10 years!

What I’m going to do about that? Experiment more but importantly put serious efforts into my chess. That doesn’t mean I’m going to put hours and hours into chess. It’s just that I have to set aside some fixed time and be more organised as well as  consistent in how I train.

I’ll monitor my time spent, tools used, success or failure etc.

A good thing about blogging about your plans is that if I don’t do anything about it, everyone who reads this blog will know. So that’s motiviation enough for me

Peter Long has started a new column for trainers to share their knowledge of chess with young players. It’s called Trainers Notebook and to be published weekly, he has agreed to exclusive Malaysian syndication with The Patzer. This week FT Peter Long kicks off with "You have to decide".

Peter Long can be contacted by email at peterlong64@gmail.com and welcomes reader suggestions. He is also available for those who wish to improve but demands commitment from his students.

by Peter Long

ASEAN chess today is led by four countries who agreed to organise an ASEAN Masters Circuit together to give their players opportunities to gain rating points and to make international title norms.

Each of the fours countries therefore are organising a GM, an IM and Mixed events, 12 player round robins, and in their home event have the right to select half the players.

Indonesia started the ball rolling in Tarakan early this year in grand fashion with simultaneous GM, IM (upgraded to GM “B”) and Mixed events and Singapore recently held just the Mixed event. Despite not being one of the four, Malaysia was given two places by Indonesia in Tarakan and so Singapore decided to extend the same courtesy to Myanmar.

Read more »

All books for patzers interest me. Here’s one with a twist. It’s a book written by a patzer for patzers

Not trying to be disrespectful to the author of the book, Pafu but he is does not seem to have any credentials or chess title. At least not listed in the book.

Still the book is not bad earning 4/5, 5/5 and 2/5 in Amazon’s page so it should be quite decent and I’d probably buy it too if I can find it here in bookstores. From the reviews, it seems that Pafu is advocating some fixed pawn structures in the first 8 moves in the opening to cut down on the opening study time.

The author’s sales pitch is:

Master the chess opening in less than an hour!

Sounds ambitious!

It’s interesting that books are now starting to be sold digitally on Amazon.

It’s priced USE 7.99 as an ebook copy to be read using a special ebook reader called Kindle.

Those playing online chess should know this technique well. You have 30 seconds and your opponent only has 5 seconds. Just take the Queens, Rooks or what have you and throw the pieces as sacrifices in your opponent’s face. He or she will most likely find it hard to recover mentally and quickly lose on time. Even if your opponent is mentally strong, he/she cannot match you move for move for long.

I did this many times especially when the position was equal and I had time advantage. This would never really happen over the board though. Not quite a gentlemanly thing to do but it’s accepted in most online chess playing sites.

Today, this ‘technique’ backfired on me because I somehow turned off my "Auto Flag" feature in my chess client (Babas Chess). Auto flag just means the computer will claim the win for you once the opponent times runs out. I can’t imagine why it’s not always on. After sacrificing both my rooks in front of my opponent’s King, I was shocked he could still play on with a negative time showing on his clock. I panicked as I tried to recognize which of the icon was the "Auto Flag" button. At the same time I had to make moves to answer my opponents threats.

Can you guess which is the button from the screenshot below?

I almost got checkmated before I found the button.

Phew..I pushed my e-pawn and pressed the autoflag button just in time !! Certainly an interesting game to get the heart pumping

This is the all important "Auto Flag" button. I’m putting extra mental effort in recognizing this button and making sure it’s ON everytime I start a game.

Today was the first time in 9 years since I went over 1500 for blitz!! Man, I really deserve the title patzer

          rating     RD      win    loss    draw   total   best
Blitz      1521     38.6     622     637      51    1310   1733 (16-Nov-1999)
Lightning  1332     39.2    1198    1816      96    3110   1720 (04-Nov-1999)
Wild       1829    266.4       1       0       0       1
Crazyhouse 1487    350.0       0       2       0       2
Suicide    1639    350.0       0       1       0       1
Atomic     1252    306.2       0       1       0       1