@ALivelySedative you should join! Playing stronger players is a good way to get better.
Yeah, at this stage I’m at a point where I really have to take my time to solve the puzzles. There are a lot of puzzles where the target time would be 40 seconds, but it would take me at least 2 minutes to solve it.
I’ve been mixing in some 3 minute and 5 minute Puzzle Rushes to see if that would improve my speed.
In other news, looks like I’m gonna come up a bit short to advance out of my section for the daily chess championship. There was a 1700 and a 1500ish player so I knew it was gonna be an uphill battle, but at least I came out with a draw against the 1700 as white with the Smith Morra (love this opening).
The good news is I will be advancing out of my sections for the Under 1400 and Under 1600 Championships. Winning a lot of these games has me at 1416 in Daily at the moment. The bad news is advancing means a lot more 1-day no vacation tournament games against tougher competition, which might coincide with this tournament. It’ll mean I’ll have to continue playing every day if I don’t want to lose by time-out.
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I’ve been slammed this month and haven’t even looked at the invite. Saw that it was sent out though. I’ll try to get on there and do it at some point.
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Bumping one more time, would be nice to get at least one more entry! Tournament starts tomorrow
That’s just too many games at a time for me.
It would be 6 games at a time with 14 players. 2 groups of 7.
Sorry - too many games for me too.
Tourney starts soon. So either jump in or out while you can
Will we get a chance to play everyone, or is it top 3 of each group advance to play each other?
@Rick_Groszkiewicz if you decide not to play, I don’t think you lose rating points as long as you don’t start any of the games on your end.
Also if you don’t want to play this time round you can withdraw. I believe it won’t affect your rating or timeout %
Playing chess with arrows feels like so much cheating.
My tourney is going better than expected. Won a game that was basically a Giuoco Piano game as black and drew an Alapin Sicilian game as white against @MayanActuary, and won a French defense game as white and drew a game that involved the Ponziani Opening (never heard of that before) as black against @AbstractActuary. My game with @LususNaturae was a Ruy Lopez as black, where I thought I was doing well to aim for a draw until I blundered a piece at the end.
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I think most of my wins lately have been ‘wait for opponent to make a blunder and capitalize’, even in Rapid (hoo boy I had a bad losing streak last week). The opening play in this tourney has been overall a lot better than I had expected and has definitely pointed me to a couple areas I need improvement on in e4 e5 games.
I did play a few great games in the official tourney, where my opponents played into lines I know -very- well (sorry AA; I’ve played that French Nd2 Ne2 Nf4 Qh5+ Ng6 line MANY MANY MANY times in blitz before) but some of those quiet closed games left me in a few awkward positions.
I’m still hoping I can play a good 6.Bg5 Najdorf sometime 
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I actually felt pretty good in our first game. Really felt like we were in an even position for a long time. Then I apparently made a massive blunder.
In our second game, it also felt very drawish for a long time, with me even having a slight development and piece activity edge. But since that time, I’ve been impressed with how you have improved your position and push for an advantage.
In my 1st game with @LususNaturae , the engine had me up by as much as 4 points even though we were equal in material. When he offered to exchange queens and I took, it was deemed a blunder and the game went to even. I still need to learn when it’s important to keep certain pieces rather than exchanging, especially since I would have a disadvantage if it comes down to close endgames against higher-rated players.
Yeah, I felt like I was fighting for a draw for much of that first game. You controlled the d and e files and I had no way to get counterplay without dropping pawns. Once I got control of the d file I think the game was drawish despite the pawn difference, though. [Incidentally, analyzing this game afterwards has convinced me to give up …d5 which has been my anti-Ponziani move for well over a decade]
The second game is a really messy opening that is surprisingly a ‘main line’ through about 15 or so moves. There was a decent GM game in that line. I believe I picked up the opening from one of the St. Louis Chess Club videos on the French Tarrasch.
From ~600 on ICC to about ~1600, I played nothing but French exchange (I had tried the Winawer and advance and hated how cramped they could each feel), before I finally discovered the Tarrasch. The other line I love in the Tarrasch is 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 Nf6 4.e5 Nd7 5.Bd3 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.Nd2 Qb6 8.O-O cxd4 9.cxd4 Nxd4 10.Nxd4 Qxd4 11.Nf3 Qb6 12.Qa4, sacrificing the pawn for a complete immobilization of black’s K-side (12.,.Be7 Qg4).
Here’s that French Tarrasch with the Qh5+ and winning exchange (for which black gets better center pawns and development) position: The French Defense: Tarrasch Variation | Chess Openings Explained - YouTube
[I don’t believe I learned it from this video, as I’ve been playing it for a few years; I tried searching for some of their other French Tarrasch vids and didn’t find another mention of this line though].
Another good French video (I really like Schrantz’s videos; I picked up the Benoni after his ‘The Modern Benoni is No Baloney’ series): Pawn Structure #2: French Defence | Strategy Session with Jonathan Schrantz - YouTube
Hmm, my chess books are in my closet upstairs; I’ll have to see if one of the lines is in ‘How to Beat the French Defence’ which is my one anti-French book.