Current through January 7, 2012 Including ongoing games, since joining chess.com just about exactly two years ago I've played 271 games against 146 different opponents from at least 45 countries (I have no location information for one opponent). ...
A couple days ago I glanced at the value for my average opposition rating for my correspondence games and wondered how my performance held up against specific rating ranges. I've still played few enough games on chess.com that I can quickly go th...
So far I haven't posted any of my wins, and it's not my intention to do so very often, but here's one of my rare wins from a few months ago. Usually I win only through my opponent's incompetence, and it would be embarrassing to make a regular eve...
I don't have many games that advance to a point where only Kings and pawns remain on the board. Generally my incompetence asserts itself early enough and intensely enough that I've resigned before getting anywhere near a King and pawn endgame. Con...
I might as well give this a plug from my blog, too. As part of a forum discussion, I just made available a PGN file I put together of King's Gambit games played by top players as White. The collection is 935 games from 25 players, and the game dat...
Here's a game where a stronger opponent slowly squeezed the life out of me. There was no gotcha moment or blunder where I slapped my forehead, just a quarter of a turn on the vise handle with each move. My plan to take advantage of his open f2 squ...
Q: Have you always been a phailure?A: In my previous life I was a dog, but I misbehaved and reincarnated as a phailure. Q: Are you the Leader of the Loyal Order of Phailure?A: Yes. The phailest of them all. Q: Do you have a title?A: You bet. I'm...
I've seen some comments in the forums to the effect of "anyone who says they don't really care about their rating, and the impact of a game on it, is lying". Wrong. I'm one such person. Some people can't imagine there are others who believe or th...
Studies in Phailure is going to be a series focusing on the losses of Cystem_Phailure, your humble host. Of all possible chess-related topics, this is the one I can be most sure will never lack for material. Game summary:Opening: Rubinstein openi...
