Chess.com live tourny #1

peterk1

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Reporting live from the chess.com tourny room!

Alright! Finally. I've been trying to check this feature out for a few weeks and it's finally going to happen. Was planning to start at noon today but I had some errands to run and they advise you to plan for 4-5 hours to play a so called "standard" tournament at 15/10 controls. I don't know...their standard seems pretty fast to me. I'm very used to 30/30, but have no idea how I'll play at 15/10. I expect to play horribly.

Just lost an embarrassing game against Chessmaster this afternoon and am going into this on a bit of a low. But hopefully, the lesson will stop me from playing a similarly bad game tonight.

So the way it works, is they automatically start a number of tourneys each hour at a set minute according to something similar to this schedule...

:00 = 10|0 Rapid Tournament (5 rounds = ~1.5 hrs)
:10 = 1|0 Lightning Tournament (9 rounds = ~20 mins)
:15 = 5|0 Blitz Tournament (7 rounds = ~1 hr)
:20 = 15|10 Standard Tournament (5 rounds ~4 hrs)
:30 = 3|0 Super Blitz Tournament (7 rounds = ~45 mins)
:40 = 1|0 Lightning Tournament (9 rounds = ~20 mins)
:45 = 5|0 Blitz Tournament (7 rounds = ~1 hr)
:50 = 2|1 Bullet Tournament (7 rounds = ~45 mins)

According to this, the standard tournaments start at the 20 minute mark of each hour. I'm logged in right now and it looks like they're actually starting 2 of them....one is ELO 1200-1600 and the other one is open, so conceivably you might get paired against a top gun.

Was hoping to get going at 6:20 but I've just ordered out for dinner and I don't want the delivery guy showing up while I'm playing. Sigh, it looks like 7:20 will be it, and I'll be busy 'til about 12:20. Tough schedule!
 

peterk1

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Wow....huge turnout for this one. 12-15 participants with some players at high 1500's. They only had 4-5 people for the previous batch.
Round 1 about to start.
 

peterk1

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Game 1. Playing White against a guy named doc777 or something like that. Rating 900. Loses 3/4 of his games. He tried the fools mate on me. A couple of moves in he asks me if I can play quicker. I said no sorry. He asks why. I don't answer. He keeps pestering me trying to get me to speed up. I squelch him. Went into an endgame where I was up by 4-5 pawns and ended up winning.

Not encouraging though. I am totally turned off by this game and his behavior.
 

peterk1

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Game 2. Started about 20 seconds after Game 1 because I guess we were the last game to finish in that batch. Would have loved a few minutes to regroup but now I'm up against a 1500+ rated player who looks like he's the top in the bracket. Played Queens opening as Black, fell into a horrible trap inside of the first 10 moves, tried to recover aggressively and lost to a queen, bishop combo inside of 20. I was very distracted in this game by trying to get my chat re-enabled. I squelched the first guy and thought my chat was still turned off. I wasn't getting any greetings or anything from my new opponent so I figured it was still turned off. It wasn't....the new guy just didn't chat at all during the game. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of talking going on during the tourney games at all. Makes sense, playing at these speeds.

Next game should be starting in a couple of minutes. At least I got a bit of a breather this time.
 

peterk1

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Game 3 against Juanacatlan from Mexico. Rated 1618. Is Juana a guy name or a girl name? May have just lost to a woman, not that there's anything wrong with that. Good solid player. Queens's Gambit Accepted as black. In trouble again right from the beginning and blunders galore from me. resigned on move 23 down two rooks and two pawns. Making mistakes I never make at slower speeds.

Again no chat. No interaction whatsoever. Not a lot of fun. If you like your chess in a vacuum, this might be fine, but if you want just a tiny bit of socializing stay away.

This game finished early so I should have at least 10 minutes before the next.

EuroCream (USA / 1645) and ThePinkPig(Denmark / 1619) are playing for tie of the top spot right now.

1. chimobber 3/3 (my game2 opponent)
2. The Pink Pig 2/2
3. EuroCream 2/2
...
6. me 1/3

Annoying guy from game 1 has dropped out. There's only 7 of us left out of 20 who started. Lots of no-shows and drop-outs among the round 1 losers.

Looking like I will get a very welcome bye in the next round, but staying close to screen just to see if the software does it properly.

After 1hr40 minutes of playing we've all done three games. That comes to about 30 mins a game. This is going to take nowhere near the 4-5 hours chess.com said it probably would. If there was a 60 min for game control I definitely would have preferred that. I definitely get unnerved seeing my timer always under 10 mins.

Pink Pig has just upset EuroCream for a share of the lead. Not over yet, but he's 2 pawns up in the endgame with no other pieces left. The Cream's king is on the wrong side of the board. That's one feature I do like very much. When your game is over, you can wander over to the other tables and watch, just like in a real tournament.

I've never seen this before. the Pink Pig took a rook instead of the queen when he promoted. Bit of a psychological insult to the opponent, but it makes sense. I always use my queen as if it were a rook and run the same mating patterns when there's no other pieces left. Reduces the stalemate risk too. I may start doing that!

They're playing right to the bitter end even though it's an elementary endgame. Lesson: never resign because you assume your opponent knows any of the basic endgame stuff. You'd be surprised sometimes!

Another crazy chess.com tourney tactic. The game is on the last move but EuroCream is letting his timer run before making the move that leads to his mate. This gives both players a 5 minute break before the next game starts. In a real tournament it's insulting to the opponent to let the clock run down, but here it makes a lot of sense. I should have done this in game 1 (both to rest up a bit and also to annoy the hell out of that jerk).

Someone in chat just said "ggpp" which I assume stands for "good game pink pig". Good grief!

Ooooh dirty bastard. Euro Cream has just made his move with 10 seconds left on his clock after a 7 minute pause. He's hoping that the Pink Pig is away from keyboard and will let his clock go !!!
 
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peterk1

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Game 4 - against leo3045 from Peru (1183). He has won about 50% of his games. Strange how you can usually tell within the first few moves whether you will totally own someone or not. He started making very early attacks with single pieces and that was the sign for me. He had some interesting ideas but couldn't come up with anything I couldn't see a mile away. Went up a minor piece and 3 pawns early and then took it to my favorite type of endgame without much resistance or awareness on his part. Queen end game won in 61 moves. Promoted twice. Let my clock run at the end to take a breather before the last game.

Strange. I checked the standings and at this point there are only 4 of us left. Two players at 3.5/4 and two players at 2/4. It appears that players who are at the bottom of the table drop out instead of continuing. Maybe they start fresh in a new tournament so they can try to win that one? Quite rude. Not to mention it ignores the fact that the further down you go, the easier game you will get. Don't get it, but oh well.
 

peterk1

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So much for getting an easier game the more you lose. With the losers dropping out so much, it doesn't work out that way.

Finally 3 hours after starting. Game 5 is against the Pink Pig (1629) from Norway.

He's playing for at least a tie in the top spot. Very unorthodox opening where he tried intentionally to clear both center pawns in gambits and trade off queens in the first 5-6 moves. I'm very happy with the way I played in this one and I saw a lot of what he was doing....but, he was toying with me the way a cat plays with a mouse. The stuff he was conjuring up was incredible (at least to me as the game was going on). By turn 20, we were kibbitzing a ton. He was only up by a pawn for most of the game but you could tell he had way better vision than me.

Unfortunately, my place got hit with a small, very brief power failure around move 25-30. The lights only flickered for a second, but it was enough to make me lose my internet connection and couldn't get reconnected quickly. In fact I'm still trying to get reconnected as I write this.

This was the most fun game of the tournament. I lost, but I learned a ton and had fun chitchatting with my opponent. The Pink Pig will get a small apology note and a thank you for the game because I know it looks very much like I disconnected on purpose. Hope he ended up winning the whole thing. His game really saved the evening and I'll definitely give it another go.
 
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peterk1

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And the PGNs. Last game might be fun to take a look at. Is there a way to insert PGNs on here, so that they're on a playable board?

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2011.12.10"]
[White "docman771"]
[Black "peterk01"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "904"]
[BlackElo "1286"]
[TimeControl "15|10"]
[Termination "peterk01 won by checkmate"]

1.e4 e5 2.Qh5 Nc6 3.Bc4 g6 4.Qf3 Nf6 5.Nh3 Bg7 6.Ng5 Qe7 7.O-O O-O 8.Nc3 d6 9.Nd5 Nxd5 10.exd5 Nd4
11.Qd3 Qxg5 12.c3 Bf5 13.Qg3 Qxg3 14.fxg3 Ne2+ 15.Bxe2 c6 16.g4 Bd7 17.dxc6 Bxc6 18.d4 b6 19.h4 Bd7 20.h5 f5
21.Bc4+ Kh8 22.h6 Bf6 23.gxf5 Bxf5 24.d5 Rac8 25.Ba6 Rc5 26.Bb7 Be4 27.Re1 Bxd5 28.Bxd5 Rxd5 29.g4 Rc5 30.g5 Be7
31.Be3 Rcc8 32.Rac1 Rf5 33.Rf1 Rxf1+ 34.Rxf1 Rf8 35.b4 Rf5 36.Rxf5 gxf5 37.g6 hxg6 38.c4 f4 39.Bd2 Bg5 40.c5 bxc5
41.b5 Bd8 42.a4 Kh7 43.a5 Kxh6 44.b6 a6 45.Kg2 Kh5 46.Kf1 Kg4 47.Kf2 Kf5 48.Kf3 g5 49.Kf2 g4 50.Kg2 g3
51.Kf3 e4+ 52.Kg2 Kg4 53.Be1 f3+ 54.Kg1 f2+ 55.Bxf2 gxf2+ 56.Kxf2 Kf4 57.Ke2 d5 58.Kd2 d4 59.Kc2 e3 60.Kd3 Kf3
61.Kc4 e2 62.Kxc5 e1=Q 63.Kc6 Bxb6 64.axb6 Qb1 65.b7 Qxb7+ 66.Kxb7 d3 67.Kxa6 d2 68.Kb5 d1=Q 69.Kb6 Qc2 70.Ka5 Ke4
71.Kb4 Kd4 72.Ka5 Kc4 73.Kb6 Kd5 74.Kb7 Kd6 75.Ka6 Qb3 76.Ka5 Kc6 77.Ka6 Qa3# 0-1


[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2011.12.10"]
[White "peterk01"]
[Black "chimobber1"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1207"]
[BlackElo "1607"]
[TimeControl "15|10"]
[Termination "chimobber1 won by checkmate"]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e3 e6 5.Nf3 Nbd7 6.Bd3 dxc4 7.Bxc4 b5 8.Bd3 Bd6 9.O-O O-O 10.Ne4 Nxe4
11.Bxe4 Bb7 12.Qc2 f5 13.Bxc6 Rc8 14.Qb3 Rxc6 15.Qxe6+ Kh8 16.Qb3 Rc8 17.Qxb5 Bxf3 18.gxf3 Qg5+ 19.Kh1 Qh5 20.h3 Qxh3+
21.Kg1 Qh2# 0-1


[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2011.12.10"]
[White "juanacatlan"]
[Black "peterk01"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "1618"]
[BlackElo "1169"]
[TimeControl "15|10"]
[Termination "juanacatlan won by resignation"]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e4 e5 4.Nf3 Bd6 5.dxe5 Be7 6.Qxd8+ Bxd8 7.Bxc4 Be6 8.Bxe6 fxe6 9.O-O Ne7 10.Ng5 O-O
11.Nxe6 Ng6 12.Nxf8 Kxf8 13.f4 b6 14.Nc3 c5 15.Be3 Nc6 16.Rad1 Be7 17.Rd7 Ke8 18.Rc7 a6 19.Rxc6 b5 20.Nd5 Ra7
21.e6 c4 22.Rc8+ Bd8 23.Bxa7 1-0


[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2011.12.10"]
[White "peterk01"]
[Black "leo3045"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "1276"]
[BlackElo "1175"]
[TimeControl "15|10"]
[Termination "peterk01 won by checkmate"]

1.e4 e6 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bc4 a6 4.d3 h6 5.Nc3 Be7 6.Be3 Bd7 7.O-O Bf6 8.Bd4 e5 9.Be3 Bg5 10.Qd2 Bg4
11.Nxg5 hxg5 12.Bxg5 Qd7 13.Qe3 Ne7 14.Bxe7 Qxe7 15.Qg3 Nd7 16.Qxg4 Nf6 17.Qxg7 O-O-O 18.Qxf7 Qf8 19.Qxf8 Rdxf8 20.Be6+ Kb8
21.Bf5 Nh5 22.Nd5 Nf4 23.Nxf4 exf4 24.b3 Rfg8 25.c4 f3 26.g3 Rh6 27.Rfe1 Rgh8 28.h4 Rf8 29.Re3 Re8 30.Rxf3 Rf8
31.d4 Rhf6 32.d5 R6f7 33.Re1 Re8 34.Bg6 Rxf3 35.Bxe8 Rf8 36.Bh5 Rh8 37.Bf3 Rf8 38.Kg2 Rf7 39.e5 Re7 40.e6 Ka7
41.Bh5 Rh7 42.Bf7 Rh8 43.f4 Rc8 44.g4 Rh8 45.Kg3 Ra8 46.Rf1 Rh8 47.f5 Ra8 48.Rh1 Rh8 49.h5 Rc8 50.h6 Rh8
51.h7 b6 52.e7 b5 53.e8=Q Rxe8 54.Bxe8 bxc4 55.bxc4 Kb6 56.h8=Q Kc5 57.Rc1 a5 58.Qb2 c6 59.Bxc6 a4 60.Kf3 a3
61.Qxa3+ Kd4 62.Qe3# 1-0


[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2011.12.10"]
[White "peterk01"]
[Black "ThePinkPig"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1246"]
[BlackElo "1631"]
[TimeControl "15|10"]
[Termination "ThePinkPig won - game abandoned"]

1.d4 e5 2.dxe5 d6 3.e3 Nc6 4.Nf3 Bg4 5.Be2 dxe5 6.Qxd8+ Rxd8 7.O-O e4 8.Nd4 Nxd4 9.exd4 Bxe2 10.Re1 Rxd4
11.Nc3 Bc4 12.Rxe4+ Rxe4 13.Nxe4 Nf6 14.Nc3 Bd6 15.Be3 Ng4 16.g3 Nxe3 17.fxe3 O-O 18.b3 Ba6 19.Nd5 Re8 20.c4 b5
21.c5 Bxc5 22.Nxc7 Rxe3 23.Nxa6 Re1+ 24.Kg2 Rxa1 25.Nxc5 Rxa2+ 26.Kh3 Kf8 27.Ne4 Rb2 0-1
 

Scott Tortorice

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That was a fantastic bit of chess reporting, Peter! :clap:I really felt like was there following the games myself. I think you might have discovered a knack for chess journalism! Maybe we should consider a GS chess newsletter and do this type of thing on a regular basis. :)

He tried the fools mate on me. A couple of moves in he asks me if I can play quicker. I said no sorry. He asks why. I don't answer. He keeps pestering me trying to get me to speed up. I squelch him. Went into an endgame where I was up by 4-5 pawns and ended up winning.

Not encouraging though. I am totally turned off by this game and his behavior.
Sounds like a kid. Don't let it get to you: I've encountered this type of griefer before as well. Funny story: I once created an open seek with the clearly stated time control of my preferred 14 days per move. I even entitled the game "slow chess". Well, this doofensmirch accepts the open seek but then promptly starts annoying me about not playing fast enough - and by fast enough, he clearly meant at least 1 move per day. I reminded him that it was a 14 day TC with a "slow chess" match description, so why did you accept the seek? Well, as I could have guessed, the loser, after pestering me once or twice more with no reply from me, makes a move and disappears to lose on time. <shrug> I'll take the points. I was gonna win anyway as I could tell he was all about cheap tactics he must have been reading from some book, but at least this way I didn't even have to try. :D

You'll meet a bunch of these jokers in the online world of chess. I think they're mostly kids that drift over to chess after burning out on DotA or Starcraft. :D

I wasn't getting any greetings or anything from my new opponent so I figured it was still turned off. It wasn't....the new guy just didn't chat at all during the game. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of talking going on during the tourney games at all. Makes sense, playing at these speeds.
And this is the other type of player I can't stand - and they seem more common than the other type. These are the ones who are so serious about chess that they eschew all conversation. Now, I don't have a problem with players who don't care for chit chat during a game, but I cannot abide the type who won't even acknowledge a friendly greeting. Whenever I meet these players (and I have been meeting more and more), I refuse to play another game with them regardless of the outcome. It is just rude to completely ignore the other player. And don't give me that lame excuse about "we're there to play chess and not talk". That is just bad manners bunk.

They're playing right to the bitter end even though it's an elementary endgame. Lesson: never resign because you assume your opponent knows any of the basic endgame stuff. You'd be surprised sometimes!
Which is why I quote Lasker in my sig! :laugh:

Unfortunately, my place got hit with a small, very brief power failure around move 25-30. The lights only flickered for a second, but it was enough to make me lose my internet connection and couldn't get reconnected quickly. In fact I'm still trying to get reconnected as I write this.
Argh! After sticking it out for so many hours, that must have been infuriating! You really need an APC battery backup. :D I love mine as it saved me and my PC many a time.

Is there a way to insert PGNs on here, so that they're on a playable board?
Alas, no. That requires embeddable HTML code which isn't permitted here because of hacking concerns. Don't worry, we can just copy and paste the PGN into our preferred chess program.

Again, great reporting! :thumup:
 

kcdusk

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Great work Peter
I've been playing lots of 3 minute games. No time to chat, but some great games. In 14 day time controls, chessmaster normally agrees with my moves 70% of the time. With 3 minute controls its high 40's/50% of the time.

I havent played a tournament yet, but i have been meaning too.

Fantastic write up, covers everything. The games, thoughts, opponants, strategy and tactics, made for a great read.

When i opened up the thread i was expecting to find someone trying to organise our own live tournament :)
 

peterk1

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If we can manage it, we definitely should try to arrange a "live" Gamesquad tournament one day. The way they do it, it is definitely possible for a bunch of people who know one another to join up in the same group and play together all evening. I really like that. You can't stop others from also joining up, but odds are very high you'll play the majority of games against your friends.

The 15/10 time control is in this nice little grey space where blitzers and standard tournament style players can both find a little bit of happiness. I actually liked it a lot. I never got into any time problems. It's too short however to play on a physical board which I usually much prefer doing.

Regarding the people who don't chat at all. I don't know if it's necessarily being rude. You don't really have any down time at all at the start of the match to say hi which is the natural point in time to do that. The screen refreshes with your next opponent and white's clock starts automatically 10 seconds after that. Start of game is very nerve wracking in these things.

With players named the Pink Pig and EuroCream it was very easy to get a bit of comic relief into my story!

One thing I don't like is that I tried to visit the tournament afterwards to get the full scoreboard and final results including those of all the people who dropped out and I couldn't manage to find those anywhere. Looks like they get trashed right after the tourney ends.

Pink Pig gave me what I think was a great piece of advice which I've never heard expressed in exactly the same manner, that I'm going to fool around with. I've never played blitz or any of the faster types of games because I always thought it would just lead you to playing sloppier and you wouldn't learn as well as you would playing slower. Pink Pig said it's definitely a good idea to play and practice blitz and you will improve your slow play IF YOU TAKE THE TIME TO REVIEW AND STUDY ALL YOUR GAMES SLOWLY AFTERWARDS, especially the positions you self-destruct on. He said the key is that it improves your pattern recognition when you see and start to understand lots of positions in a very short period of time. That does make a quite a bit of sense. I do waste a lot of time sitting in front of the board waiting for CM to move in certain positions where I'm not actually thinking about my next moves...I either already know what I want to do or I've decided it doesn't make sense to scan too far until i see what CM does first. Playing quicker games gets rid of that empty time and would perhaps be more efficient when I play in the evenings after work. Pink Pig also says he loses a lot and sometimes very quickly when he plays blitz...that's not important at all to the learning process.

One very cool thing about last night. 5 opponents from 4 different countries. USA, Mexico, Peru, Denmark. That's amazing when you stop to think about it a bit.

In other news, I've decided to finally become a member of the chess.com site and support them. It's worth it just for access to the Chessmentor tool which is utterly fantastic. I used to have the version that you could install onto your PC and buy standalone courses for. Haven't heard it discussed too much on here. If you haven't tried it yet, give it a look.

Just checked out the Tactics Trainer feature as well at the recommendation of the Pink Pig (love the name). Very nicely done, but seems to focus on the really dramatic combos/mates we always see in books. Chessmentor also gives you a great look into openings and those quiet moves where it's not dramatic yet but you're setting something up. I don't know about you guys but I always get a little depressed working off puzzle books coming up with all these great earth shattering combos...but then when it comes to game-time I never see or have the occasion to pull any of them out of my hat. :)
 
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peterk1

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Just played my Saturday night tourny #2.
My live rating is now a miserable 1220-1230, something like that. Interesting coincidence is that my Chessmaster rating is pretty much exactly that as well these days.

Alternated wins and losses for a record of 2/4. The two wins were against horrendous players, so I almost feel as though they shouldn't count.

First guy asked for a draw in a king and queen vs king endgame and then got insulted when I refused! I had a great attack going in the first 20 moves and I'm sure there was a mate in there somewhere but couldn't find it. This was one for Fritz to take a look at.

2nd game was against an opponent a little better than me. Close but I dropped two pawns along the way that came back to haunt me. I don't lose too many pawn endings but this was one of them. We both had lots of passed pawns in this one.

3rd game was a rare mate in the mid-game for me. Nice guy from Australia and we chatted a bit. Funny thing about this one, I wasn't sure if I was playing a child or a really immature adult through the whole thing. He kept alternating personalities. Good for a little humor midway through.

4th game was against the eventual winner, rated 400 points higher. Played strong for 23 moves and then blundered a piece away and collapsed. he deliberately traded off his knights for my bishops and had nice long diagonals for both of them.

5th game was scratched because all active players had already met one another.

Good news: I won my first live tournament medal with a 3rd place finish.

Bad news: I'm getting a little tired of defending against fools mate and scholars mate against people with similar ratings to me. It's exhausting and makes me suck up so much clock in the first few moves because I keep double and triple checking that I'm exacting the right punishment. I feel there's always pressure to come up with a devastating move in those because you're trying to teach them a lesson.

In spite of all the Chess Mentoring and Mephistoing and book reading I'm doing, I feel like I'm playing absolutely horribly these days. I can't wait for the benefits of all this work to explode out.
 
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kcdusk

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Nice guy from Australia and we chatted a bit. Funny thing about this one, I wasn't sure if I was playing a child or a really immature adult through the whole thing. He kept alternating personalities. Good for a little humor midway through.
Um, that might have been me? (joking!)

Re inspite of all the work your doing but playing horribly? I went through a similar thing 6 months ago. I was doing allot of off-board work, results were slow in coming (if at all), and then i went on a real run ...... and then in the last week or so i've lost 3 of my last 5 games and drawn the other 2 (one against Rooks baily, so i cant complain about that!). All i'm saying is, i think you take a step back, then 2 or 3 forward, then a 4th step forward, before taking another step back.

I'm glad i did the work i did, and plan to do more, a little break now though, and then i'll be back in there.
 
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peterk1

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i think you take a step back, then 2 or 3 forward, then a 4th step forward, before taking another step back.
It's normal. I'm also a musician and when you practice a lot and are learning lots of new things fast, your playing almost always goes downhill for while until it spurts back upwards quickly. It's a little strange, almost as though the brain is rewiring itself and it takes a few weeks for it to get it right.

Also wanted to mention that the 15/10 time control that they use for standard tournys on chess.com is very, very good and I've started using it in all my Chessmaster games. You still have time for a nice deep think on the complicated positions, but games still move very, very quickly and there's plenty of time to finish the game. I can now play 3 practice games in the time it used to take for one and I don't think there's that much change in either my level or Chessmaster's level at that setting.
 
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peterk1

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Just played in weekly tourny #3. Went 1/5, which isn't a big deal for me. But i think it will be my last set of live games.

It's ironic, but I find playing against Chessmaster is actually more fun and even more human because at least in my mind I can imagine the "personalities" taunting me or being pissed off after losing. But in the chess.com live rooms, there's no chatting or socializing going on at all, and it's quite depressing really. I thought I would be OK with it, but I'm finding I'm not. Here you have tens of thousands of human beings getting together to play a game and they're all acting like machines. You may as well be playing a machine, really. Tonight was a total waste of time.

Blah. I'm down on chess again. Starcraft is supposed to be good you say?
 

Scott Tortorice

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Just played in weekly tourny #3. Went 1/5, which isn't a big deal for me. But i think it will be my last set of live games.

It's ironic, but I find playing against Chessmaster is actually more fun and even more human because at least in my mind I can imagine the "personalities" taunting me or being pissed off after losing. But in the chess.com live rooms, there's no chatting or socializing going on at all, and it's quite depressing really. I thought I would be OK with it, but I'm finding I'm not. Here you have tens of thousands of human beings getting together to play a game and they're all acting like machines. You may as well be playing a machine, really. Tonight was a total waste of time.
Yeah. It's like what I wrote above about people refusing to even offer a greeting at the start of a game. It can be annoying to say the least. However, I don't let it get me down on chess. Truth is, you just described the typical experience for other online games too. :) All you can do is add friendly people to your friends list and leave the others in the dust and move on.

Also, try CC. I have noticed that CC players are generally friendlier than the online crowd. I think this might be due to the fact that a slow CC game can take months, so avoiding chit chat isn't really an option except for the most anti-social out there. :D

Blah. I'm down on chess again. Starcraft is supposed to be good you say?
Starcraft is great. :D But don't expect to find a friendlier crowd. I find the official SC forums to be sadly dull and mostly comprised of people complaining about balancing, or people complaining about people who complain about balancing. :laugh: However, I will say that I believe SCII to be a natural progression for chess players. Outside of chess, I have never seen such a dedicated community of gamers. For example, I just read that the total number of views for SC gameplay videos has surpased the billion mark! And only in SC can you find discussions that remind me of chess chat, such as:

StarCraft Art of War - Taking Your Third

Strategy, tactics, and skill. At the heart of StarCraft II are the legion of skilled tacticians and brilliant strategists leading armies of zerg, protoss, and terrans to war across the scarred battlefields of the Koprulu Sector. Knowledge is power; the greatest commanders throughout history earned their victories not merely by virtue of strategic brilliance, but also by applying themselves to rigorous study of warfare and the tactics used by those who fought before them. You too can tap into this valuable resource, and that’s where StarCraft Art of War comes in.

...

Taking Your Third - Transitioning into the mid-game can be challenging, but learning how to take a third base is crucial to improving your StarCraft II skills. How do you safely expand to three base play and beyond?
See why this chessplayer has fallen hard for SCII? :laugh:
 

peterk1

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Also, try CC. I have noticed that CC players are generally friendlier than the online crowd. I think this might be due to the fact that a slow CC game can take months, so avoiding chit chat isn't really an option except for the most anti-social out there. :D
This is so true. I've just played a few slower games and people are way more sociable that way. Just finished a long CC game in a single day because my opponent and I were always on-line at the same time. Felt a lot like a friendly game at the pub. :)

In other news, just for kicks, I volunteered to be a chess.com greeter playing unrated games against new folk. I might have to tone that down a bit...was not prepared for the flood of games that got thrown my way. Just how many new members does this place get in an hour?!?! Hopefully I'll get shellacked a few times and will pick up some tricks, free of charge, as it were.
 
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