DHLC Newsletter DECEMBER edition
Dan Heisman Learning Center
Contents
Welcome!
News
Dan's Corner
Puzzles of the Month
Easy Links
Want to get in touch with the newsletter crew? Write to them at DHLCNewsletter@gmail.com
WELCOME!
Newsletter December edition, volume 22
Welcome to the Dan Heisman Learning Center!
All members of the DHLC share a common interest and we all have the strong desire to improve our chess playing. We are truly a group BY the members FOR the members. No matter if you are a master or completely new to the game, we welcome you. Please do take a look around the forums to see where other members can help you improve or you can help others as well.
We at the DHLC encourage active participation, good sportsmanship and above all, fun in learning this wonderful game. Whether your preference is for live chess, longer correspondence (“online”) games, some vote chess or working your way through the instructional articles written by some of our stronger members, there is something for everyone at DHLC.
New to our events?
League Qualifer Tournament
QUALFIER 26 SIGN UP!
This is the event that all new league players MUST compete in successfully to qualify to enter regular tournaments in the DHLC Slow Chess League.
This is a 3 round event with games played at a time control of G/45+45. In order to qualify you must participate in all 3 rounds, observe all league rules, and complete at least 1 game.
Before signing up below, read our rules here. Use this time zone converter to help with scheduling your games. (Enter New York in the converter to get ET. Tournament #26 will begin on Monday, December 8th.
Invitations to the playing group will be sent during the week before the tournament start.
Add your comment below to signup up for this tournament. Veteran or qualified league players MAY NOT sign up for this tournament.
If you haven't yet joined our Slow Chess League headquarters sub-group, go here to get started--
http://www.chess.com/groups/home/slow-chess-league
To sign up for Qualifer #26, go here: http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/dhlc---slow-chess-league-qualifier-sign-up2
DHLC S-L-0-W Swiss #20 - 45/45
3 RATING SECTIONS PLUS AN OPTIONAL UNRATED SECTION
"Unrated" in this case means the GAMES will be played as Unrated. It does NOT mean that YOU have to be unrated.
If you wish to play in the Unrated Section you must state this when signing up. Otherwise you will be assigned to a section based on your rating.
Yes, you CAN play BOTH as rated and unrated, but you MUST request to play both ways when signing up. Remember that means that you will have TWO games per week in this event.
This will be a 3-6 round tournament (depending on turnout) and will be played in one round per week scheduled according to the rules of the Slow Chess League using ET (New York - USA).
We will have at least FOUR sections -- 3 Rated and 1 Unrated
Under 1500 (May be adjusted)
1500 to 1799 (May be adjusted)
1800 and Up (May be adjusted)
UNRATED (Optional)
You will be assigned a section based on your Live Standard Chess rating unless you request to play in the Unrated Section ONLY.
To sign up for this tournament you MUST be a veteran Slow Chess League Player, or have successfully completed a League Qualifier tournament.
Begins Monday, December 15th
REMINDER -- YOU MUST BE QUALIFIED MEMBER OF THE DHLC IN ORDER TO PLAY. PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO SIGN UP IF YOU HAVEN'T COMPLETED A DHLC QUALIFIER.
http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/slow-swiss-20---rating-sectons-and-optional-unrated-section
DHLC Slow Chess Weekly
Signups Are Now Open!
This tournament format is designed to let regular league players get an extra game on any single week that they'll have the time to play.
We now offer both G/45+45 and G/90+30 sections. Let us know when you sign up which time control you want - or sign up for both! Being a single round event means that due colors are not observed week to week. Each week's pairings will not in any way be based on pairings or results of previous weeks. You must be a qualified league player to participate in this event.
What's all this about a NEW WEBSITE?
Eternal_Patzer
By now you have probably noticed posts from SirIvanhoe like this one:
"Signups are open now for our 1st beta tournament to test our new website! Qualified league players can get in on the action now by going to our new site -http://slowchessleague.org/ "
New Website? What's going on? Is the DHLC leaving Chess.com?
No, the DHLC isn't going anywhere. The new website is an experiment along with our sister group, the Slow Chess League, to see if we can find more efficient, less labor intensive, tools for managing our Tournaments.
Most people don't realize it, but administering our Slow Chess events requires quite a bit of manual labor. The fundamental organizational unit here at Chess.com is the Group, and early on we decided to create a separate Group for each Tournament.
Why Separate Groups?
Slow Chess events require quite a bit of negotiation between the players to find playing times to work for everyone. Unlike Blitz games, which are over in a few minutes, 45/45 games often last 2 or 3 hours, and 90/30 games can go 4 hours or longer.
When we first started running Slow Chess tournaments here at the DHLC we tried putting all the negotiation forums on the main DHLC site, but that inevitably led to a lot of chatter in the group notes that non-playing members found annoying. It also led to dozens of forums for each event, which quickly became unmanageable in a single group, since we cannot nest the forums here by topic and have to list all of them side by side, page by page.
So we decided to create a separate Group for each event, which works fairly well, but has resulted in (so far) about 100 DHLC sub-groups, with new ones being added each time we start a Qualifier or a Slow Swiss.
Each of those groups has to be set up with Forums, Admins, and invitations for the players in the events. It adds up to a fair amount of work, even when we do our best to train new volunteers and delegate what we can.
The Chess.com requirement that players be invited to, and accept an invitation for, a new group, always results in a few players signing up for events, overlooking or deleting their invitation to the playing group, and then being disappointed when they don't wind up playing in the event.
Suppose, however, that Chess.com had the capability to 'nest' forums by topic, instead of listing all of them side by side? What if you could simply put those who sign up for event in the proper group? That would help a lot.
"He said...She said"
Other problems arise when games are scheduled and one player shows up after the grace period has expired, or doesn't show up but claims he did. On some sites the server provides the TDs with a time stamped log of the players arrivals and departures, but not here. This would be invaluable in the "he said" "she said" situations our TDs encounter.
These items have been on our Wish List for Chess.com upgrades for a long time, but we realize that they have other, bigger, fish to fry. Serious Slow Chess players are a very small part of the 10 million + Chess.com population -- maybe 1/10th of 1 percent. So we aren't holding our breath and Chess.com has not indicated that they are seriously working on any of our requests.
We ARE, however, looking at the possiblity of organizing our Slow Chess on a different server with these sorts of tools at our disposal. If this experiment works, it could reduce and simplify the workload for our overworked TDs and admins, reduce our forfeit and dropout rate, and result in a better Slow Chess experience for everyone.
We would still advertize these events and sign people up here at the DHLC. From the point of view of the players, not much would change, except that instead of going to a different group to negotiate playing times they would go to a different server. At least for now the games would still be played here at Chess.com. Only the negotiation would take place elsewhere.
What Would Change?
For the many DHLC members who don't play Slow Chess at all -- NOTHING would change.
However, for our slow chess players, TDs and Admins, hopefully, life would get a little easier. As with any experiment, we'll just have to see.
Dan's Corner
NM DanHeisman
Here I get a winning game against a good GM in a G/15 championship (15 0) and blow it when I have 2 minutes left to his 4:
Want more tips? Turn to Dan's Tip of the day!
http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/dans-tip-of-the-day
Puzzles of the Month
Gunners2004
Premature ends to games
One of the great subtleties in chess is that even in a situation where all hope seems to be gone, all defensive resources are exhausted and all you want to do is to stop the clock, shake the opponents hand and get out of dodge - sometimes, albeit sometimes, hidden defensive possibilities can be found.
I present to you a series of situations where one player has resigned as it turned out, prematurely, Can you succeed where the player failed?
Good luck!
1. Black resigned in this position, believing that the loss of the c4-pawn would cost him the game. Was he correct?
2. In the following position, Black called it quits, as he is compelled to exchange queens (White will play Qh8# when the Black queen moves) and the c-pawn strolls to the queening square. What did he miss?
3. After Kg3 Black immediately resigned (he calculated 2. f5,h4?; 3. f6, h3; 4. f7, h2; 5. f8=Q; h1=Q; 6. Qf4+ mates.
Did he have anything better than 2....h4?
4. In the position below, Black has just taken the white knight on d4, and the players agreed a draw owing to Kxd4, Nc2+ and the a-pawn will White his rook and the Black knight would mop up the remaining pawns. However taking on d4 was a terrible mistake - can you see the refutation?
EASY LINKS
Past newsletters
http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/dhlc-newsletters
All the DHLC newsletters, linked in one convenient place.
Game Analysis Department
http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/game-analysis-department3
A forum where any DHLC member can post a game for others to help out with ideas, analysis and advice. It is not meant as a showcase of brilliancies or only winning games. You learn much more from your losses so those are probably the best options for anyone who is serious about improving.
Find a Study Buddy
http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/find-a-study-buddy
Use this forum to find someone to work with to improve your skills.
I Want to be a Slow Chess Friend
http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/i-want-to-be-a-slow-chess-friend
Post to get other DHLC members who have a similar interests and a "study buddy".
My Last Lesson With Dan
http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/my-last-lesson-with-dan
We can all benefit from members' lessons.
The DHLC Store
Not just a place to get cool DHLC gear, 100% of the profit goes directly to Dan's charity, the Dan Heisman Chess Support Fund. Find out more about it here:https://www.facebook.com/ChessSupportFund
DHLC Suggestion Box
http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/-suggestion-box
Use this for any suggesitons for improving our DHLC.
Slow Chess League
http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/slow-chess-league2
The place to meet for the players of the DHLC.
Online Chess League
