This is a single post from deeden.co.uk made during the period May 2002 to April 2009. During a previous grand redesign I decided to make a break with the past and consign the old entries to history. This entry is from August 2002 and lives here forevermore.

Free Chess

I was playing chess online last night and it’s really bringing home to me how much I’ve forgotten. I haven’t played much in the last 12-13 years and I can safely say that the 14 year old me would destroy the 27 year old me. The only thing I’m playing well is suicide chess where the aim is to lose all of your pieces. I’m unbeaten (in only 3 games I admit), which makes a nice change.

Anyway last night I played a game of 5-12 Blitz, where you start with 5 minutes on the clock and get an extra 12 seconds for every move you make. The game turned into a frantic scramble at one point as we both ran out of time, but in the end I forced checkmate. Anyway the PGN looks like so

[Event “FICS rated blitz game”]
[Site “FICS, Fremont, California USA”]
[Date “2002.08.07”]
[Time “20:20:29”]
[Round “-“]
[White “srushe”]
[Black “luno”]
[WhiteElo “881”]
[BlackElo “1119”]
[TimeControl “300+12”]
[Mode “ICS”]
[Result “1-0”]

Moves: 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. d3 g6 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Be2 Nf6 6. b3 Nxe4 7. dxe4 Bxc3+ 8. Bd2 Bg7 9. O-O O-O 10. Rc1 e6 11. c3 d5 12. exd5 exd5 13. Bg5 Qa5 14. Qxd5 Qxa2 15. Rfe1 Re8 16. Bc4 Rxe1+ 17. Rxe1 Be6 18. Rxe6 Qb1+ 19. Re1 Qc2 20. Bd3 Qxc3 21. h3 Bf6 22. Bxf6 Qxf6 23. Ne5 Rd8 24. Qe4 Re8 25. Qc4 Nxe5 26. Rxe5 Qxe5 27. Qc1 Qd4 28. Bb5 Rd8 29. Be2 a6 30. Qg5 b5 31. h4 Qd6 32. b4 cxb4 33. Bf3 b3 34. Qc1 Qd3 35. Bb7 Rd6 36. Qc8+ Kg7 37. h5 b2 38. h6+ Kf6 39. Qh8+ Kg5 40. f4+ Kxh6 41. Qf8+ Kh5 42. Bf3+ Kh4 43. Qh6+ Kg3 44. Qg5#

At the end I hounded the black king around the board, mainly due to the fact that if I stopped putting him in check I’d probably lose. The best part of the game was the fact that I was up for a good while, before I made a stupid mistake under time pressure. At that point we were both running out of time and I was slightly up on material, and I offered a draw (I think it was at the 24th move). It was declined and within a few moves I was in trouble and thought I’d lose. However I held on and finally managed to sneak the win.

The play was by no means fantastic, but having played what I’d have to describe as my worst game ever a few nights ago (where as black I lost on white’s 9th move), it’s an improvement. So now I stand at 9 wins and 15 losses in my chess comeback, Kasparov must be shaking.