Graag gedaan;) succes verder

 Photo by Thorwulfsson: Lewis Chessmen, 12C
http://www.flickr.com/photos/midgardarts/906738512/








I said ok, dank u  -   when I resigned

So that's what the Dutch guy said back. Graag gedaan;) succes verder.

It went 46 moves, and on the 44th I stepped into a Knight fork where he got my Rook leaving him with a big advantage. A winning advantage.

Up until then it was very tense but there was a chance I would win with two pawns poised close to Queen promotions, but once the Rook was gone it was soon clear that there was no chance any more and he would eat those pawns before they could make it.

As I mentioned before when it is hopeless it is good form to resign if you're playing a gentleman, although when fighting pirates it is for blood and there's no quarter given nor expected.

And So Having Lost,  I Have A List of Reasons, Not Excuses

It was two in the morning and I was half asleep, and maybe he knew what time that is here, but in any event I could have just stopped playing in my sleep. He only had one knight, so I should have seen the possibility of the check and double attack on the Rook that finally made it hopeless.

And anyway I started off boldly and recklessly using an Icelandic Gambit, where I go two pawns down from the beginning, even though he is 400 points above me in ranking.

So he beat me both games, and there are no more with him in this tournament.

But he's the only one so far to beat me.

And he is number four out of the one hundred, so it would have been a big thing to have beat him. That would mean I could be up there too. As it was I made him think pretty hard from March 21 until now. The first game featured a dramatic event I am calling the "Buzz Saw Attack," where I tore him apart and left him lucky to only be a Rook and Pawn down. But he ultimately won the first game.

I think the title means 'done with pleasure, further success,' too bad rampjaar and brigade daendels have been quiet lately or we'd get a proper Dutch translation. Still might if Peter or someone can help out. The chess player lives in Nieuwerkerk a/d IJssel.



But I Beat the Scots Guy For My First Real Tournament Win

On the bright side, at the same time the Scots guy, who is the next best and who did split with the Dutch guy, stepped right into one of my traps at long last so that I could do a similar double check attack on his King and Bishop, forcing him to guard the King while I win his Bishop, which in that tremendously tense game was enough to cause him to resign to me, on his 44th move. He didn't say anything, but promptly started up the next game.

It seems odd to see a Scotsman select an opening known as 'The King's English,' but that's what he is doing, no doubt meant to throw me off. Little does he know, almost anything would throw me off just as well.

The game I won, he was using a King's Indian Defense with the fianchettoed Bishop while I had started off trying to do a Queen's Gambit. That game was so tense it lasted exactly as long as both games with the Dutch guy. But I got an advantage fairly early on by a Knight, and the tension was from not letting him ever get it back, until finally the loss of his Bishop left him down two pieces and he gave it up. It is harder for the mighty to fall, since he is in second place and trying to catch the Dutch guy too.

I moved up to fourth for a day, then yet another guy I'm playing beat another other guy, the #9  (the one who got my Queen last week) so he took fourth and I fell to fifth, out of ten, in the Standings.

Meanwhile during the week, I got that Queen back from #9 at the cost of a Rook, and then this morning got back the Rook too so I have made a complete comeback against him. Still too early to predict a win, but I am confident in that one.

Then there's another guy where I have got way ahead in material, like two pieces plus I just forked his Queen out last night, so that one he'll need a miracle for me not to beat him pretty soon.

So I am doing way better in this tournament than I would expect, considering that I only even qualified for the minimum rating a day before it started, and now I've got up to fourth or fifth place, from number ten, and have reason to think I'll end up even higher once some more games end.

This other guy who bumped me, #4, is exactly dead even with me with just a few identical pieces left and probably many would have drawn that game, but he seems to be more of a Pirate type. You know what that means.

Tricking the Nemesis

My regular Nemesis took the whole week off even though he has responsibilities as the tournament director.

But he got back in the game and he's beating me in our one remaining private match. My rating went up for beating the 1737 Scots guy, but not quite enough to catch the Nemesis by about one game.

So I came up with a trick. I convinced him to try a novelty system called the Chicago Gambit, which is also called the Irish Gambit. It's like a typical set up where the center pawns face off, then the Knights come out--but then one Knight takes a pawn, then the other Knight takes the Knight, and then the first guy brings up another pawn.

Net result, it was a stupid move to take the first pawn and lose a Knight for it. Apparently the inventor was quoted as having said on his death-bed, explaining his bad unsound gambit, "I hadn't seen the King's Pawn was defended."  So it seems this gambit is a sort of Irish joke...but maybe not, as for the price of a Knight for a pawn White does get a perfect solid pawn center phalanx that is usually very hard or impossible to get.

So if it really is unsound, like it looks, it's an easier than normal chance to beat Mr. Nemesis, by using a trick.




Sticky Paints In Stock At The Stores

I finally pulled out of chess long enough to get seven bottles of fresh acrylics and most of them are so old as to be sticky. It's like the stuff from tubes, and artists mix it all the time, so it may still be usable off a palette with some water added, but it's pretty annoying to have the new paint turn out older than the old paint.

I bought colors suitable for the American Civil War with a view to getting some 1/72 figures for that, but didn't yet and pulled out my American Revolution project instead.

But when I did I found the Alamo project that I had primed a month ago and did blue for coats and pants across the lot, actually more thinking of the 1845-47 US-Mexican War than the Texas War of Independence of 1835-36. So I painted a little over 100 figures for that, 83 Mexicans and 26 Americans. They are nowhere near finished, but they are more than started.

I've been accepted to the new a d program, with an outfit out of London, UK, so presumably it'll be more Euro-friendly or should be anyway. Better for customers, a bit worse for me as it's a middleman that wasn't there before.                                                               

RESPECT BRO

Intensely Battling For Supremacy With The Enemy, We Can Forget They Are Decent People

Staring at the board, and noticing every little change on it and combination that could happen, if I do this, and then he does this, unless he might do that, etc...

I was especially battling hard against the top two tournament opponents out of ten, who I am calling the Dutch guy and the Scots guy, until  about 1:30 in the morning in their part of the world. These are the ones highest up in ratings and ability, and neither one has beat me yet, even though half the tournament is already over.

In fact I had a big advantage over both of them, although their technique could -  maybe - be good enough to get them back out of trouble. The Dutch guy did beat me despite a Rook disadvantage by using a trick a couple weeks ago, but the Scots guy has not been able to overcome a Knight disadvantage yet.

These two guys are rated 1800 and 1700. I am still a little under 1400, like 1393. But I think I will get above that.

There are still nine guys in the tournament on my section after the one dropped out; another one is taking a 'chess vacation' so proceeding very slowly. So far I have moved up to seventh place but not higher because I only have two games finished. One loss to the Dutch guy, and one draw with an American. His idea. I accepted that.

There's another American guy where when I was tired last week after being in the Salt Mines I moved my Queen by mistake right where he could get her for free, which is a terrible blunder, and would usually be enough to lose the game after that. Also, that is exactly what I was blogging about NOT doing, but the next day I saw I did it anyway, not seeing it because I was tired when I did  it.

But instead of losing, I have figured out a way to get his Queen and a Bishop too, the next move, and I think I will end up winning against that guy after all. That's what I meant about a stronger player having the technique to make a comeback against a weaker one, despite a big disadvantage.

It seems it largely comes down to mistakes at a certain level, but it still takes some skill to see and recognize the mistakes and to take advantage of them.

But Maybe The Enemy Are Decent People Sometimes, Away From The Board

So now after several moves against the Dutch guy tonight I was so engrossed in the battle I didn't notice until later he has invited me to another tournament which is more exclusive and I see it has him, the Scots guy, and one other with a similar rating.

 I don't know how many more games this will entail, I think only three more, but all against strong opposition. Playing the top competition is a strong challenge but it forces you to play better or die, so since we simplified so many games last week, I signed up. For More Games.

It will be rough but it does bring some adrenaline and excitement, and I see being invited to this one as a sign of RESPECT from the big boys at the top of the board, who are having a very hard time trying to beat me.

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Working On Our Knight Moves

The GF Stopped By Saturday While I Was Crashed 

Sleeping in the ordinary people's daytime, after 12 hours in the Salt Mines. I got up to say hello.

During the time when I was talking, I was apparently babbling something about even more chess games starting, and that I had won some, and also lost some. At that time I had got the 23 games down to only 19 more games to go in the Match with two Wins and two Losses.

My opponent had previously beat me 9 out of 10. But not anymore. Right now it seems to be running more like 50-50 and we are playing an odd number of games, so it cannot be tied. In the end, someone must win More than the other one. At least One More.


The Tournament Adds Nine More Games on Top of the 23 Games From the Match

Unfortunately I had forgotten that 25 days earlier I had signed up for a Tournament against other people around the world, and had notification that it would start on Monday.

That means nine more games, against nine other people, and of the ten of us in the Tournament--I am the lowest-rated player allowed in. 



Ain't It Funny How The Knight Moves
 

The Knights in Chess are the ones usually depicted as a Horse's head, or it could be the whole horse. They have a strange L-shaped move, The game looks complicated to those who don't understand it, and it probably is more complex than checkers or draughts, but there are only six different pieces, and five of them have straightforward enough moves. There are six-year-olds who can do it.



Here is some wisdom you can use in your own life:

If You Ever Want To Get Something Done--Give It To A Busy Person. They will just add it on to the stack of other things they are doing, and they'll have it all done before the lazy person even would get started. Try it and see for yourself.

Now yesterday, there's yet another guy who wants a match against me, this one is just one game so far, and I went ahead and started that one too. I protested a couple times that I was overwhelmed already, etc, but on third thought, okay, there's surely some reason why.

This one means 19 ongoing match versus the first guy, then the nine of the tournament versus the other nine, and then this one on one makes 11 opponents and would be Twenty-Nine games all at the same time, and every last one of them against higher-rated players and even almost Double the ratings for a few of them. They average 300 points better, but all the more glory if I can beat them.

One of the Tournament games against a guy 300 points better has ended in a win for me because the opponent ran out of time--he has three full days to move, but hadn't moved for four, so an automatic win. He is also in ten games in this Tournament, so the other guys are bit by bit winning, too, although he can still jump back on, and then the advantage goes to those like me who were quicker. Everyone's three days are not up yet.

 This opponent is an Asgari of Mohammad, or soldier of Mohammad. Askari is the same word carried over from the Arabic into Swahili. Maybe his connection went down, or he's too busy for all the games he is in. Whatever it was, it gives me a win in a tournament where I am occupying the bottom of the chart, so I lucked out on that one. Too bad the game was too short to count for points, because with his strength 300 more than mine, I would get about 100 points to beat him in a legitimate battle. As it was, no points.
                                                      


 Het Laatste Nieuws
--the latest news

Since then one more match game against the first guy ended in a win for him, so now just against him the record is 3 wins for him, 2 wins for me. But--!

But there are two other games, game 3 and game 13, in which he will lose as soon as he moves, no matter what move he makes, and then when it's my turn, he will be Checkmated and lose. He knows that, and that that means I am for all intents and purposes, on top. By One More Win--for all intents and purposes that is.

Not quite in reality just yet--because first he has to move anything anywhere, before I can finish him off.

But the thing is, knowing that, and that he has three full days to make that fatal move in each of those two games, he said I will have to wait two days, 23 hours and 59 minutes before he makes those moves.

                                                        That's a moral victory in itself.


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Blog News Announcement
In blog news, I will have to change some arrangements for the sponsors, due to some misguided legislating having been done by the legislature the 9,000 people in my state have all got fired, from our program. Immediately when the governor signed the papers, on the 59th of 60 days he had to think about it, all nine thousand of us got fired. Our governor is brilliant.

That means I have to either move to another more business-friendly state, or change the program, or both. The links are good from now until April 15, and then they have to be changed. On the bright side, most of the readers are not in the US anyway, and the new deal may take the international readership into better account, maybe, we shall see.
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