Not a Smothered mate

Here's another CTB position, and no, its not a smothered mate despite so many pieces on the board and around the king.

Its also notable that there isn't a forced mate, although that is the solution given in CTB.

Admittedly, if you don't follow the given solution ( ie the reply from Black ) , then Black is on a fairly downward course, but technically, its not forced !

Its not a smothered mate either, or have I already said that ?  This mate is often termed ....

White to move

Solution if required [ 1. Qxf6+ Kxf6 2. Bd5#    and its an epaulette mate, I think ]

More tactics on a stifling theme....

As I trawl through CTB slowly, I find some interesting positions. 

Here's one related to a theme that I seem to enjoy.

Not that hard, but you'll probably dismiss the solution first time around.

Solution if required [ 1. Ng5+ Kh6 2. Rh7+ Bxh7 3. Nf7 mate ]

T64 Openings

Below, the top 10 T64 Openings...

5 e4 openings, 4 with d4, and the Réti.

                           T64 Top 10 Played Openings

B20-B99	Sicilian	135 (13.5%)
C00-C19	French Defence	98 (9.8%)
D30-D69	Queen's Gambit Declined	80 (8%)
D00-D05	Queen's Pawn ( General)	64 (6.4%)
A45-A50	Indian & Torre Attack	59 (5.9 % )
A10-A39	English	54 (5.4 % )
B10-B19	Caro-Kann	53 (5.3 %)
C60-C99	Spanish Game ( Ruy Lopez)	52 (5.2 %)
A04-A09	Reti	32 ( 3.2 % )
B07-B09	Pirc Defence	30 ( 3 % )

All games were re-indexed by ECO code using Chess Assistant 11,. 

The Opening classification ranges ( ie grouping ECO codes), I borrowed from Chessville (many thanks, although it seems to have disappeared :(

See also T56 Summary,  T55 Summary, T51 Summary,  T50 Summary and T47 Summary, T57-59 Summary , T61 Summary, T62 Summary and T63 Summary

Smothered Improvement

How to know that you are improving at chess ?

A complicated question, since it pre-supposes you have a base level, and an ongoing plan or improvement schedule.

As I am not rated via FIDE or national standards, I rely on a general feeling of improvement rather than changes in recognised rating numbers  ( although you could say that at least the Team League rating is a consistent one to benchmark against, albeit not a "recognised" one ).

I had a deja vu feeling when playing this game.....

Not here, where after f3 appeared on the board, I saw the lovely check with Qd4...

Promptng Qd4+

...and expected that White would play Rxf2 to limit his losses.

...Continue reading...

BootChess

Well, isn't that a co-incidence !

On the same day that Stockfish 6 is released, out comes another new engine...

I doubt if there is any competition, since BootChess  ( or here ) is only 487 bytes in size, and " doesn't do" castling, and is fairly lax on applying chess rules !

Created in homage to the ZX81 chess games of the early 80s, it is an attempt to create the smallest chess-playing code and demonstrate optimisation in coding, using assembly language.

I tip my hat to the guy, since I only did assembly language coding once, back in 1984, when learning the basics of programming. I have never had to do it for real, and for that I am truly grateful !

I suspect that Bootchess vs Stockfish would a foregone conclusion, but it might be fun trying to play Bootchess just the once, although it would take me a while to work out how to compile it !

See the BBC for the full story, or ArsTechnica for a more geek view.

T63 Opening Summary

T63 is still running, but for playoff qualifiers only : the main show is over, but the encores are about to start, so to speak.

Since both teams I am involved with didn't make the playoffs, ( though in both cases only just falling short ! ) here's the breakdown of the season in openings so far in TL chess.

It is hard to put things any differently than previous posts, since  both the Sicilian and French Defences remain top choices for Black against the main White start of 1.e4.  ( In fact, 485 games start with e4 vs 308 with d4 ).

The remaining openings jostle for position in the runners-up enclosure, but are usually in the same proportions, except that this time, the Spanish (Ruy Lopez) has stormed into 3rd place.

Makes one wonder what happened in the last few months. New book or DVD on the Spanish ? Major victory by a super GM ?  Time warp back to 1914 ?

Regardless, a classic opening is back for a while !

Other openings just after the top 10, and in double figures for games played, are the Dutch, Centre Counter, Slav, Nimzo-Indian, Pirc, Grünfeld, Philidor, Italian, Benko Gambit and Guicco Piano.

You could probably say that second slice of openings is a 50/50 split of e4 vs the rest, so e4 is definitely taking the lion's share of the attention.

...Continue reading...