One of my favorite tactical games

I played this game on FICS as part of a Team League tournament. My opponent for this round was a player who was more than 300 rating points ahead of me. I was rated 1601 and he was rated 1916 at the time. Being a scheduled game and part of an organized tournament, both of us had to message each other in advance to set up a suitable playing time for the match. I can't remember what time zone my opponent was in, but it turned out that the only suitable time for us to play was when I was at work. So on the day of the big game, I was hoping that my work schedule would permit me to take one of those really long coffee breaks, to play an online schedule chess tournament game. The time controls for the game were 45 minutes to both players with an increament of 45 seconds per move. I had the white pieces and this is how the game went.

1. e4 c6 2. d4 a6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Bd3 Nf6 5. h3 dxe4 6. Nxe4 Nbd7 7. c3 h6 8. Nf3 Nxe4 9. Bxe4

I've managed to cramp Black's position, he's underdeveloped and can't move his pieces too well.

9. ....Nf6 10. Bc2 Be6 11. Ne5 Nd7

Black wants to relieve some ofthe pressure, so he offers to trade off Knights. My Knight however looks quite strong there, and I don't want to get into a meaningless trade, so I found better.

12. Ng6!?

I calculated this blow out very carefully, and was shocked that I saw a tactic like this. Furthermore, I was convinced that this was too good to be true, I saw a tactic that my 1900 rated opponent missed. This is the comment Fritz's analysis makes in reference to this move, "Registering a claim to victory." What is the idea? Well it's a mate threat

12. ......fxg6 13. Bxg6+ Bf7 (only move) 14. Qh5 Nf6 15. Bxf7+ Kd7 16. Qf5+ Kc7 17. Bf4+ Kb6

18. Qc5#

An amazing win against a much stronger opponent. I'm sure the mate was not forced, since after 17. Bf4+ he could have played e5 to avoid the mate in one, but Fritz still gives white a score of +-5.75 in this position, which means that I would have won eventually unless I played really bad.

This is a great game, with a killer tactic (with my 12. Ng6). Hope you enjoyed it.

A strange game I recently won

Here's a game I played on FICS last night. This was a tournament game and my opponent was a lot stronger than me. Although I was winning this comfortably in the middle game, my advantage and attack suddenly disappeared and I couldn't figure out what went wrong. Here is Fritz's analysis of the game. I played white and the image is after 32. ..... Re7 (white to move)

[Event "rated standard match"][Site "Free Internet Chess Server"][Date "2007.07.24"][Round "?"][White "Gambit"][Black "PankracyRozumek"][Result "1-0"][ECO "B56"][WhiteElo "1541"][BlackElo "1738"][Annotator "Fritz 10 (15s)"][PlyCount "166"][EventDate "2007.??.??"]
{B56: Classical Sicilian: Unusual Lines} 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bb5 Bd7 7. O-O {last book move} g6 8. Bg5 {White has a very active position} Bg7 9. h3 {Controls g4} (9. Nf3 $11) 9...Nxe4 (9... O-O $142 $5 $11 {should be investigated more closely}) 10. Nxe4 $16Nxd4 11. Bxd7+ (11. Nxd6+ $142 $5 Kf8 12. Nxb7 $16) 11... Qxd7 $11 12. Re1 (12.Nf6+ $1 {is an interesting idea} exf6 13. Qxd4 fxg5 14. Qxg7 $11) 12... O-O (12... Ne6 13. Bc1 $17) 13. c3 (13. Bf6 Ne6 14. Bxg7 Kxg7 $15) 13... Nc6 14. Qb3b6 15. Rad1 Rac8 16. a3 Na5 17. Qa2 b5 (17... Rfe8 18. Be3 $17) 18. Ng3 (18.Bxe7 Qxe7 19. Nxd6 Qc7 20. Nxc8 Rxc8 $15) 18... e6 (18... Rfe8 19. a4 Nc4 20.axb5 $17) 19. Ne4 $15 d5 20. Nf6+ Bxf6 21. Bxf6 Qc6 (21... Qd6 $5 $17) 22. Qb1$11 Nb3 23. Qd3 Nc5 24. Qd4 Nd7 (24... Qb7 $11) 25. Bg5 (25. Bg7 $142 $5 {would allow White to play on} Rfe8 26. Bh8 $14 Kf8) 25... f6 $17 {Black threatens to win material: f6xg5} 26. Bh6 {White threatens to win material: Bh6xf8} Rf7 27. Qg4 Ne5 {Black threatens to win material: Ne5xg4} 28. Qg3 (28. Qe2 Re8 $17) 28... Rd8 (28... Nc4 29. b3 Nxa3 30. Qg4 $17) 29. h4 $15 Rc8 (29... Nc4 $5 30. b3 Nxa3 $11) 30. h5 $11 Qe8 (30... a5 $142 $5 $11 {might be a viable alternative}) 31. f4{White threatens to win material: f4xe5} Nc6 (31... Nc4 $142 $5 32. hxg6 Rfc733. gxh7+ Kh8 $16) 32. hxg6 $18 Re7 $4 {terrible, but what else could Black do to save the game?}

(32... Rfc7 $142 33.Qh4 hxg6 34. Qxf6 Qf7 35. Qxe6 Rd7 $18) 33. gxh7+ Kxh7 34. Kf2 (34. Qh4 $142 {and White can celebrate victory} Qg6 35. Bf8+ Kg8 36. Bxe7 Nxe7 37. Rxe6 $18)34... Qg6 $11 {Black threatens to win material: Qg6xh6} 35. Rh1 (35. Qxg6+ $5 {should not be overlooked} Kxg6 36. Rd3 $11) 35... Qxg3+ $17 36. Kxg3 Kg6 37.f5+ Kxf5 38. Rdf1+ Kg6 39. Bd2 f5 (39... Rg8 $142 $19) 40. Rh6+ $11 Kf7 41. Bg5{White threatens to win material: Bg5xe7} Ree8 42. Rfh1 (42. Kf4 $5 Na5 43.Rh7+ Kg6 44. Rh6+ Kf7 45. Rh7+ Kg6 46. Rh6+ Kf7 $11) 42... Rg8 $15 {Black pins: Rg8xg5} 43. Rh7+ $2 (43. Kf4 $142 $5 {would keep White in the game}Na5 44. Rf6+ Ke7 45. Rxf5+ Ke8 46. Re5 Rc4+ 47. Kf3 $15) 43... Rg7 $19 44.Rxg7+ Kxg7 45. Rh6 Re8 46. Kf4 Nd8 47. Rh3 Nf7 48. Bh4 (48. Rg3 Nxg5 49. Rxg5+Kf6 $19) 48... Nd6 49. Rg3+ Kf7 50. b3 (50. Re3 $19) 50... e5+ 51. Kf3 Ne4 52.Rh3 Nxc3 (52... Rc8 $142 {makes it even easier for Black} 53. Ke2 Nxc3+ 54. Kf1$19) 53. Be1 Ne4 54. Rh7+ Ke6 55. Rxa7 Rd8 56. Rb7 d4 57. Rb6+ (57. Rxb5 d3 58.Rb6+ Kf7 $19) 57... Rd6 58. Rxb5 Ng5+ (58... d3 $5 {and Black can already relax} 59. Ke3 d2 60. Bxd2 Nxd2 61. g3 $19) 59. Ke2 e4 (59... d3+ $142 $5 60. Kd1Ne4 $19) 60. Bg3 (60. g4 Nf3 61. gxf5+ Kf6 $17) 60... Rc6 (60... Rd5 61. Rb6+Kf7 $19) 61. Re5+ $2 (61. Bf4 $142 $5 Rc2+ 62. Kf1 $17) 61... Kf6 $19 62. b4 $4{a blunder in a bad position} (62. Rd5 $142 d3+ 63. Ke1 Rc1+ 64. Kf2 Rc2+ 65.Kf1 $19) 62... Rc2+ 63. Kf1 d3 (63... Rc1+ $142 {seems even better} 64. Ke2 d3+65. Ke3 $19) 64. Rc5 $2 (64. Rd5 Ne6 65. Be5+ Kg5 66. g3 $19) 64... Ne6 65.Be5+ Ke7 66. Rxc2 dxc2 67. Bb2 e3 (67... Nf4 $142 {nails it down} 68. a4 Nd3$19) 68. Ke2 $17 Nd4+ (68... f4 $142 $5 $17) 69. Kxe3 $11 Ne6 $4 (69... Nb3$142 $11 {and Black has air to breath}) 70. Kd2 Nf4 (70... Kd6 71. Kxc2 Kd5 72.Kb3 $18) 71. g3 Nh5 (71... c1=B+ 72. Bxc1 Nh5 73. a4 Nxg3 74. a5 $18) 72. Be5Ke6 73. Bf4 Nf6 (73... Kd5 74. b5 c1=Q+ 75. Kxc1 Kc5 $18) 74. Kxc2 Kd7 75. Kd3Kc6 76. Kd4 Nd7 (76... Kb5 {hardly improves anything} 77. Ke5 Ne4 78. Kxf5Nxg3+ 79. Bxg3 $18) 77. a4 Nb6 (77... Kb6 $18 {is the last straw}) 78. b5+ Kb779. a5 Nc8 (79... Nd7 $18 {desperation}) 80. Kc5 Ka7 81. Kc6 (81. a6 Ka8 82.Be3 Kb8 $18) 81... Ne7+ (81... Ka8 82. a6 Na7+ 83. Kb6 Nc8+ 84. Kc7 Nb6 $18)82. Kd6 Nc8+ 83. Kc7 Nb6 (83... Ne7 {does not help much} 84. Be3+ Ka8 85. Bc5Nd5+ 86. Kc8 Ne7+ 87. Bxe7 f4 88. b6 fxg3 89. Bc5 g2 90. b7#) 1-0

Chess Puzzle

White has just played h3. What is Black's best move?

Favorite Chess Quotes

1. "I love all positions. Give me a difficult positional game, I will play it. Give me a bad position, I will defend it. Openings, endgames, complicated positions, dull draws, I love them and I will do my very best. But totally won positions, I cannot stand them." - Hein Donner, Clubblad DD, 1950
   


2. "We like to think." - Gary Kasparov, asked by Hans Ree why he and Karpov get into time trouble so often.
   


3. "Checkers is for tramps." - Paul Morphy
   


4. "You know, comrade Pachman, I don't enjoy being a Minister, I would rather play chess like you, or make a revolution in Venezuela." - Che Guevara, quoted in Ludek Pachman, Checkmate in Prague, 1975
   


5. "In chess, as it is played by masters, chance is practically eliminated." - Emanuel Lasker, Brettspiele der Völker, 1930
   


6. "It is always better to sacrifice your opponent's men." - Savielly Tartakower
   


7. "Nowadays, when you're not a grandmaster at 14, you can forget about it." - Anand Viswanathan
   


8. "In a very strongly played match between Mrs. Brookman and C. Deen, White was able to place a fork, whereby Black lost his one rook, and shed a piece of exchange. This loss put Black under heavy pressure and tried to achieve a better position in the defense, but White continued strongly with her attacking play and was able to finish the game surprisingly by mate, to her advantage, 1-0." - Hoogeveense Courant, 5 April 1991
   


9. "The only thing chess players have in common is chess." - Lodewijk Prins, interview with Max Pam, 1972
   


10. "When you see a good move, look for a better one" - (Emanuel Lasker)
    


11. "All I want to do, ever, is just play Chess" - (Bobby Fischer)
    


12. "The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the Universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature and the player on the other side is hidden from us" - (Thomas Huxley)
    


13. "Adequate compensation for a sacrifice is having a sound combination leading to a winning position; adequate compensation for a blunder is having your opponent snatch defeat from the jaws of victory" - (Bruce A. Moon)
    


14. "Strategy requires thought, tactics require observation" - (Max Euwe)
    


15. "I don't believe in psychology. I believe in good moves" - (Bobby Fischer)
    


16. "Modern Chess is too much concerned with things like Pawn structure. Forget it, Checkmate ends the game" - (Nigel Short)
    


17. "Of Chess it has been said that life is not long enough for it, but that is the fault of life, not Chess" - (William Ewart Napier)
    


18. "Openings teach you openings. Endgames teach you chess!" - (Stephan Gerzadowicz)
    


19. "That's what Chess is all about. One day you give your opponent a lesson, the next day he gives you one" - (Bobby Fischer)
    


20. "Who is your opponent tonight, tonight I am playing against the Black pieces" - (Akiba Rubinstein)
    


21. "I like the moment when I break a man's ego" - (Bobby Fischer) MY FAVOURITE
    


22. "Excellence at Chess is one mark of a scheming mind" - (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
    


23. "A bad day of Chess is better than any good day at work" - (Anonymous)
    


24. "Good positions don't win games, good moves do" - (Gerald Abrahams)
    


25. "Chess was Capablanca's mother tongue" - (Reti)
    


26. "Don't even mention losing to me. I can't stand to think of it" - (Bobby Fischer)
    


27. "No one ever won a game by resigning" - (Unknown)
    


28. "One doesn't have to play well, it's enough to play better than your opponent" - (Siegbert Tarrasch)
    


29. "The hardest game to win is a won game" - (Emanuel Lasker)
    


30. "Different people feel differently about resigning" - (Bobby Fischer)
    


31. "It is not enough to be a good player... you must also play well" - (Siegbert Tarrasch)
    


32. "Some sacrifices are sound; the rest are mine" - (Mikhail Tal)
    


33. "Morphy was probably the greatest genius of them all" - (Bobby Fischer)
    


34. "A Chess game is divided into three stages: the first, when you hope you have the advantage, the second when you believe you have an advantage, and the third... when you know you're going to lose!" - (Savielly Tartakower)
    


35. "Chess is the art which expresses the science of logic" - (Mikhail Botvinnik)
    


36. "Not all artists are Chess players, but all Chess players are artists" - (Marcel Duchamp)
    


37. "Chess is thirty to forty percent psychology. You don't have this when you play a computer. I can't confuse it" - (Judith Polgar)
    


38. "On the chessboard, lies and hypocrisy do not survive long" - (Emanuel Lasker)
    


39. "Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponents mind" - (Bobby Fischer)
    


40. "For surely of all the drugs in the world, Chess must be the most permanently pleasurable" - (Assiac)
    


41. "The boy (then a 12 year old boy named Anatoly Karpov) doesn't have a clue about Chess, and there's no future at all for him in this profession" - (Mikhail Botvinnik)
    


42. "Though most people love to look at the games of the great attacking masters, some of the most successful players in history have been the quiet positional players. They slowly grind you down by taking away your space, tying up your pieces, and leaving you with virtually nothing to do!" - (Yasser Seirawan)
    


43. "Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the Chess player, not the Chess piece" - (Ralph Charell)
    


44. "No Chess Grandmaster is normal; they only differ in the extent of their madness" - (Viktor Korchnoi)
    


45. "If your opponent cannot do anything active, then don't rush the position; instead you should let him sit there, suffer, and beg you for a draw" - (Jeremy Silman)
    


46. "If your opponent offers you a draw, try to work out why he thinks he's worse off" - (Nigel Short)
    


47. "When your house is on fire, you can't be bothered with the neighbors. Or, as we say in Chess, if your King is under attack you don't worry about losing a Pawn on the Queen's side" - (Gary Kasparov)
    


48. "When asked, -How is that you pick better moves than your opponents?, I responded: I'm very glad you asked me that, because, as it happens, there is a very simple answer. I think up my own moves, and I make my opponent think up his" - (Alexander Alekhine)
    


49. "The tactician must know what to do whenever something needs doing; the strategist must know what to do when nothing needs doing" - (Savielly Tartakover)
    


50. "I played Chess with him and would have beaten him sometimes only he always took back his last move, and ran the game out differently" - (Mark Twain)
    


51. "You may learn much more from a game you lose than from a game you win. You will have to lose hundreds of games before becoming a good player" - (Jose Raul Capablanca)
    


52. "A man that will take back a move at Chess will pick a pocket" - (Richard Fenton)
    


53. "Pawn endings are to Chess what putting is to golf" - (Cecil Purdy)
    


54. "If a ruler does not understand Chess, how can he rule over a kingdom?" - (King Khusros II)
    


55. "Chess is so inspiring that I do not believe a good player is capable of having an evil thought during the game" - (Wilhelm Steinitz)
    


56. "I prefer to lose a really good game than to win a bad one" - (David Levy)
    


57. "When I have White, I win because I am white; When I have Black, I win because I am Bogolyubov" - (Bogolyubov)
    


58. "Every Pawn is a potential Queen" - (James Mason)
    


59. "One bad move nullifies forty good ones" - (Horowitz)
    


60. "The sign of a great Master is his ability to win a won game quickly and painlessly" - (Irving Chernev)
    


61. "One of these modest little moves may be more embarrassing to your opponent than the biggest threat" - (Siegbert Tarrasch)
    


62. "The older I grow, the more I value Pawns" - (Keres)
    


63. "The beauty of a move lies not in its' appearance but in the thought behind it" - (Aaron Nimzovich)
    


64. "It is difficult to play against Einstein's theory" --on his first loss to Fischer (Mikhail Tal)
    


65. "Bobby just drops the pieces and they fall on the right squares" - (Miguel Najdorf)
    


66. "The enormous mental resilience, without which no Chess player can exist, was so much taken up by Chess that he could never free his mind of this game" - (Albert Einstein)
    


67. "Do you realize Fischer almost never has any bad pieces? He exchanges them, and the bad pieces remain with his opponents" - (Yuri Balashov)
    


68. "You know you're going to lose. Even when I was ahead I knew I was going to lose" --on playing against Fischer - (Andrew Soltis)
    


69. "It began to feel as though you were playing against Chess itself" --on playing against Robert Fischer (Walter Shipman)
    


70. "When you play Bobby, it is not a question if you win or lose. It is a question if you survive" - (Boris Spassky)
    


71. "In complicated positions, Bobby Fischer hardly had to be afraid of anybody" - (Paul Keres)
    


72. "In Fischer's hands, a slight theoretical advantage is as good a being a Queen ahead" - (Isaac Kashdan)
    


73. "Nonsense was the last thing Fischer was interested in, as far as Chess was concerned" - (Elie Agur)
    


74. "Fischer sacrificed virtually everything most of us "weakies" (to use his term) value, respect, and cherish, for the sake of an artful, often beautiful board game, for the ambivalent privilege of being its greatest master" - (Paul Kollar) MY FAVOURITE 2
    


75. "I look one move ahead... the best!" - (Siegbert Tarrasch)
    


76. "Fischer prefers to enter Chess history alone" - (Miguel Najdorf)
    


77. "Bobby is the most misunderstood, misquoted celebrity walking the face of this earth" - (Yasser Seirawan)
    


78. "Many Chess players were surprised when after the game, Fischer quietly explained: 'I had already analyzed this possibility' in a position which I thought was not possible to foresee from the opening" - (Mikhail Tal)
    


79. "Suddenly it was obvious to me in my analysis I had missed what Fischer had found with the greatest of ease at the board" - (Mikhail Botvinnik)
    


80. "First-class players lose to second-class players because second-class players sometimes play a first-class game" - (Siegbert Tarrasch)
    


81. "After a bad opening, there is hope for the middle game. After a bad middle game, there is hope for the endgame. But once you are in the endgame, the moment of truth has arrived" - (Edmar Mednis)
    


82. "Up to this point White has been following well-known analysis. But now he makes a fatal error: he begins to use his own head" - (Siegbert Tarrasch)
    


83. "Fischer was a master of clarity and a king of artful positioning. His opponents would see where he was going but were powerless to stop him." - (Bruce Pandolfini: Josh Waitzkin's mentor)
    


84. "I had a toothache during the first game. In the second game I had a headache. In the third game it was an attack of rheumatism. In the fourth game, I wasn't feeling well. And in the fifth game? Well, must one have to win every game?" - (Siegbert Tarrasch)
    

Chess Meet Delhi

I have wanted to organize a Chess meet up in New Delhi for quite some time now. Basically just be a gathering of people who have nothing in common except their love for Chess. I play internet chess regularly on FICS and am looking forward to playing OTB. There are some chess associations and chess schools in Delhi, but most of them approach chess from a professional point of view, which is not what I'm looking for. So if you read this and would like to take this thought to the next step, then email me so that we can gather up more people and hopefully make this happen. Remember, I'm hoping to start chess meet ups in New Delhi, India. Consider this a lousy and desperate attempt, but if it doesn't work, what the hell.