Sneaky Little Checkmate

Here is a second interesting game played on the Internet Chess Club "Dos Hermanos VIII" blitz tournament. Some checkmates are easy to overlook---this one I pulled off while so low on materiel that I was resorting to the King for help:




A whole-board scan that answers the question, "is my King in immediate danger?" should be the mantra of every move. :)

"Get a Little Better Every Day!"

--GT

ICC Tournament "Dos Hermanos VIII"

The "Dos Hermanos VIII" tournament on ICC has drawn such luminaries as Magnus Carlsen, the boy wonder from Norway, and Alex Lenderman, of "Kings of New York" fame. I'm just a humble 1100 rated blitz player, but that doesn't mean I'm immune to passing flashes of semi-brilliance...

Here is a hard-fought game that earned the bitter ire of my 1700+ opponent after he stuck his knight in the wrong spot:




The surprise checkmate at the end earned me a stream of accusations of cheating that I found irritating yet amusing and complimentary. I was rated 600 points below him, so that might have precipitated the vitriol. Too bad some people don't "Win with grace and lose with dignity" as Susan Polgar so aptly puts it.

Chess Publisher: Tolle v. Kirpekar 1 Mar 07

This game is the NPS Chess Club debut of my new DGT Tourmanent Set. Fellow NPS student Ulhas Kirpekar sat down at my computerized setup and gave me a run for my money through move 25. Fritz 10 (dynamically rating the game as we played on the DGT board) registered an advantage for me at that point, namely, the opportunity to pin his rook to his king.

Being a restless blogger, I searched the net for a convenient way to display the game here on Blogspot (I will post significant wins AND losses here, lest this degenerate into unwarranted chest-thumping), and found a nifty blog-friendly Portable Game Notation (PGN) publisher called "Chess Publisher." The two best things about it are (1) it works and (2) it's free! Here is the game, complete with diagram:




Many thanks to my friend Ulhas for the game, and to the author of Chess Publisher!

DGT Tournament Set!

OOOoooooo baby! I just received my DGT Tournament Set (Rosewood USB board, Ebonized Professional Chessmen, DGT XL clock, black case) from the House of Staunton. The software loaded seamlessly with Windows XP, and I promptly lost a game to Fritz 10, who announced his moves in English from my dual core Dell Inspiron e1705 laptop. The pieces are feather light--almost like balsam wood, but the computer picks up the moves as soon as you can make them. If you make a mistake or overlook a check, Fritz will tell you emotionlessly to put your piece back to its original spot. I'll take the set to the Naval Postgraduate School Chess Club today to hook it up to a smart board and let the laptop record the moves. Ah, the wonders of digital electronics.