Tale of Two of Three Games (or why you should look at the board)
After boosting my Blitz (I play 5 min) rating up to 900 (I claim not to be a master chess player. I guess 900 is Class F range? I only picked it up a few weeks ago again after not playing after many years. I'm blogging only to make myself look at my past games and figure out what I did wrong or right. Feel free to critique or give tips), I said to myself, "I need to enjoy this moment. But I still want to play chess. So I started playing some unrated blitz games.
Part of the problem with playing blitz games unrated is that, well, nobody wants to play unrated. So even though I didn't challenge this one player to a rematch, we played each other again twice.
This player is about 100 points higher than me in Blitz. (I could get my rating up there if I won maybe 8-15 straight... maybe...) He won the first two, I won the third; Still losing the series, but a little redemption in the rubber game. The second match I don't feel like writing about, I blundered in the most obvious of fashions that it isn't worth writing about. If a Rook is in front of your queen, moving it straight backwards solves nothing, nitwit. But looking between the two games, there are some similarities. In fact, both ending up being opened with the Sicilian defense. (What lines should white take against it? I'm still confused.) In my self-criticism, both fall into the same tragic flaw of mine where I take out my queen and it is forced to be chased across the board. However, he won the first, and I won the third, nevertheless. What was different?
So I guess the virtues of the night are:
1) Look before you even click. That blunder costing the queen in the first match could have easily been avoided had I figured out where I could and could not go. This also goes for the moment where I could have taken his rook. My computer science teacher would yell at me, "Read the f@#%ing problem", here is "read the f@#%ing board."
2) Nobody's invincible. Just because you lost to someone twice doesn't mean you'll lose to him again.
3) Going towards the corner seems to be the theme between the two mates. Maybe you ought to keep your king out of them?
4) Queen chasing can in fact get you into trouble sometimes, as shown in the second game. Those opportunities to decimate his defense would not have come if he kept his knight where it was. I think he could have won just by seeing that my defense on the left side of the board was relatively weak. But no... he had to go chase a girl.
5) Pawn to d4 is not that great an idea against the Sicilian. And if you do, keep the queen at home for a bit. Things learned the hard way.
