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Ok, lets get started!

Ok, lets get started!

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djrojas
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Ok, what I plan on doing is every day submitting one personal game, one professional game, and one chess trap. My name is David and I have been playing for about 2 years now, I hope that this blog will make me a better player. And if you happen to stumble upon it and are interested, send comments and games and I will analyse and post! (yes..I do have alot of free time!!)

Lets get started...

The candidate matches for the world championship have begun and the US is lucky enough to have an American (formerly Russian, defected and became an American citizen) participate. GM Gata Kamsky knocked out GM Veselin Topalov recently and has managed to stay in the tournament. What are his chances? I really don't know. Kamsky managed to win the U.S. championship this year against lesser opposition, and seems to be in good form. During the championship Kamsky elected not to play the Grunfeld against 1. d4, since he was saving his preparation for Topalov. I will post two games in the Grunfeld by Kamsky. One in his younger days and a more recent one against Topalov. Do you think he has changed his style? The commentary for these games are mine, while the side variations provided are found in his biographical work. I have added to the side variations since in the book it is not always obvious why they are winning or losing. So here we go:

The first game we will look at is Kamsky's win over Boris Gelfand before his temporary retirement from proffessional chess. In this game, Kamsky plays in a hypermodern style, this game is not typical of Kamsky in terms of style an it seems that white maintains an advantage for most of the game until a series of mistakes turn the tide for black.

 

The next game was produced in the recent World Championship Candidates matches, and is also in the Grunfeld. In this game, both black and white strive to explore new grounds. White however is slowly and methodically choked to death by black's play on both sides of the board. It is clear that even with black Kamsky was out for blood!

The underlying reason why I chose these two games in particular is because Kamsky is set to play Gelfand once more. I look forward to this game and will definitely post it on my future blogs.

As promised, lets move on to the trap of the day...

This is a favorite of mine!

Speaking of traps, lets look at one of the games that I played recently in an over-the board tournament. For some reason I had it in my mind that my opponent was rated 500 points lower than me. If I defeated him I would secure second place. I was extatic. When you are playing against a supposedly inferior opponent, you tend to take more risks and gobble up material, not fearing any repercussions. You simply don't believe your opponent can defend or win when he is materially bankrupt. This is wrong, and my loss that day is a good reason why you should never play like this! I must admit I feel a little insecure posting this game for the general public, everyone has bad games and good games; so please don't judge!
It turns out that this player was unrated, and I can only blame myself for playing so poorly. One day I beat a USF 1950, the other I lose to a 1265. Im simply erratic and unpredictable.