Nova Daily - 26 March 2025

Hi!

After having played my game yesterday, I decided to do a few more bullet games because my rating had gone from 2553 to 2468. Along the way I was challenged to do some 10 second bullet games, which takes a whole different set of skills that I've never developed properly, but if I didn't want to play it I could've just refused the challenge. It was fun, but my rating took another seven hits, and I felt I should stop before I got tilted, adopted, or worse: before I'd be getting hooked on 10 second chess.

My opponent was aiming for a 2700 bullet rating, and apparently my points have helped because last time I checked I saw a max of 2720. Great job! But in all honesty: it's not really for me. I try to study an opening repertoire, and there's no opportunity for studying, contemplating or let any ideas foster with a rapidfire quiz where the total thinking time is a mere 10 seconds.

I'm back to 2500 bullet now, though, so no serious harm done.

The game

Today I had a nice and straightforward game in one of the Light-Square English variations that I typically have the most trouble with. Against 1...c6 and 1...e6 systems I've chosen to appropriate the Marin approach with 2.g3, so that I'd have a solid base before I begin to consider expanding my repertoire. I know that there are options such as 2.d4 to transpose to the Queen's Gambit, or 2.e4 as proposed by Williams and Palliser. But I don't want to be studying 20 things at the same time, so first things first.

My thoughts:

Model games:

On move 6, there are essentially two moves that white can play. Neither of those moves was in my thoughts during the game at that point. The first is 6.d4, leading by transposition to the Catalan in which white has circumnavigated variations with dxc4 and Bb4+. The other is suggested by Marin, and it's the top move in the database (not counting the transpositions). Marin has 7 chapters on these variations, so it's good to start studying them. My breakdown of the position was alright, but it didn't lead me to the right move; 6.e3 is a bit of a waste of time.

As a tribute to the author, I'll include one of his games with this line here.

The analysis:

The opening was suboptimal, and I only got away with my sloppy play because my opponent missed the chance to highlight the drawbacks of my moves. Now that I'm aware of these drawbacks, I can make sure not to make the same mistakes in the future.

Takeaway points will be forthcoming.