I have written before about trying to find a strategy for Black in the French Tarrasch, 3. Ne2. White spends time arranging his pieces, and Black should be able to use that time to his or her advantage, most definitely at club level. In today's ...
I have written before about trying to find a strategy for Black in the French Tarrasch, 3. Ne2. White spends time arranging his pieces, and Black should be able to use that time to his or her advantage, most definitely at club level. In today's ...
Though I went down in flames in this OTB game in a local tournament, it was an interesting try of a quick queenside attack in the French. Here is a reference game, where quite a strong player (Weetik, 2365) won after a similar opening: So, ...
Playing in the Norweigan Championship, I had the chance to seize a likely winning initiative in all my three defeats. Why did I go wrong? Tired of blogs that only present one's nice wins? Look no further. I think the question "why did I lose" is...
Being an amateur player, can you assess the situation on the board correctly? If not, how can we improve our evaluation? Evaluating a position is of course important. If you think you are losing, you tend to look for other solutions than if you t...
If you want something different for your vacation, try Portugal Chess Festival this summer! A number of consecutive tournaments around the country with the emphasis on both chess and familly holidays - heartily recommended! Portugal Chess Festiva...
What to play against 1. c4? I tend to play the same openings in order not to make a mess of the opening, but I struggle to find something against 1. c4 that I am comfortable with. This blog is for my preparation purpose only. Chess.com is a goo...
I don't know if I had won the national championship in my class, had I won this game. I knew I would have played the penultimate game on Board 1. Instead I went from heaven to hell in milliseconds, due to my own arrogance. This blog is a way to ma...
So, you navigate through a slightly worrying opening phase, go through an unclear middle game and start defining a plan for how the end game could look like. And then... blunder. Some mistakes seems eternal. (This blog is a way to take down my no...
My defeat vs my good chess friend Bob, who is way better than me but doesn't mind easy wins! This is a blog to make it possible for us to analyse post mortem. If anyone finds it interesting, that's just a bonus.
Having just finished with 4/8 in Split Open (including a first ever draw vs a 2000+ player), it is easy to bask in the personal "glory" of doing a lot better than rating would suggest. However, there were plenty of mistakes; 2/6 vs players with an...
Can you find the best continuations in five games where I faltered this week? Having just finished a quite terrible national championship, it is time for the inquest. How come I self-destruct again and again in decent to very good positions? (Th...
In seven days, the most important tournament of the year takes place in Trondheim, Norway. It's the national championship, with nine rounds of chess to be played over eight days. This blog is a way for me to collect my thoughts and preparations....
How can it be that everything looks rosy after 11 moves, and is then in tatters after move 16? A lesson in passivity - and being your own worst enemy. This is a game played at Oslo Schackselskap's tournament Knut Bøckmans Pinsecup this June. I pl...
As I am not a great player, my opening repetoire is limited. I tend to play 1. d4. When playing against the KID, I have been too passive in the past. Here are some preparations in order to improve in the future. This blog is basically notes that m...
After going wrong in an OTB, I need to look at this opening for Black. This is my documentation, to make it easier to refresh my memory for later. In a game this week I made it very hard for myself by committing a huge error as early as move 4. A...
As a mediocre club player, my preparations for a game is usually very poor. This time, I thought I should take it more seriously and document my preparations against the King's Indian, fianchetto without c4 (A49) - which I will most likely meet on...
(Problem now solved. Chess.com has reverted to the old mobile app. Thanks for handling the complaint well.) Have just posted this message to Chess.com tech team: Not possible to accept friend requests. EXTREMELY unstable, crashes al...
Here are some puzzles from the autumn tournament at my local chess club, Kampen in Oslo. Basically put together to show my club mates interesting positions where there are mainly one move that saves the game. They're not very tactical, these puzzl...
An interesting correspondence game (albeit played at high speed by both of us) where my esteemed opponent had more and more weak squares and points I could attack. I did not have a very brilliant plan, apart from continuing attacking vulnerable sq...
When was the last time you played 0-0-0? Judging by the excellent DHLC Slow Chess league games database, maybe you never did! The double-edged move occurs in less than every six games in our archive. Lets have a look at a few games where the lon...
How often do you find yourself losing, drawing, winning, drawing, losing, drawing and then winning again during a chess game? If you are at my level, probably pretty often! I won my 2nd game in the Slow Swiss #7 Tuesday, important to give the t...
This blog takes material from the excellent Dan Heisman Learning Centre's game archive, brilliantly put together by SirIvanhoe and now Farnel. So, you get paired with a higher rated player, and your heart sinks. Oh no! He's rated so much higher...
An entertaining game in the Slow Swiss #6 tournament, where I managed to convert an early advantage to a win, but only after two sacrifices (one at least a hairy one) to get out of the trouble my opponent put me under. A few mistakes in this ga...
A game where I started off great, and then fell into a ping-pong game of blunders left, right and centre - finishing with the greatest blunder of all; queening at the wrong moment... Really, really poor end game play by me. Very pleased with my ...
