Checkmating Frustrated Ponziani
This is an edited version of a blog I posted yesterday with the youtube video of the Ponziani Opening.
The opening as shown on the video is so sharp. Sharp enough for my opponent to end up becoming a sore loser. There's a saying, "you learn how to be a gracious winner and an outstanding loser". Getting a message like the one shown below tells you that some good players here are sore losers too. What can I say? Next time we play, I'll let you win?
This tells you that good rating in online chess does not equate to good etiquette. In fact, as I move up a few points in rating to a little over 2000 (but I'm back again to about 1960) in 5/0 blitz, there are more and more machine-like players. Some are really good players but many are just pretenders with software-precision moves regardless of the level of difficulty. It's easy to tell how, as I have explained on my first blog last week. I have been playing online in 5/0 blitz for a long time from yahoo, to pogo, to ICC, and now here at chess.com. I can tell which of them are real and every time I encounter a cheater, he goes to my blocked list. No need to send messages like the one shown here.
In general I think the main difference between ICC players to players here and other onine chess sites is the number of cheaters. In ICC, it is very seldom that you would encounter cheaters. The real chess players enjoy "playing" chess, and are willing to pay a premium to enjoy the game. So it would just be a waste if you would just be playing with a program after paying a premium. I'd rather sleep or watch TV. Here, in my opinion the site is a litte lenient on cheaters because even cheaters are still considered traffic or "hits" for the site - good for business. But this is just my opinion, I hope this is not true.
In the game shown here, if black knows 3...d5 is the best move, he can avoid all the tricks in the opening. I saw the video on this opening in youtube and watched it several times two years ago. It is a very good opening for white and if black is unfamiliar with it, it is not going to be a long game.
In this game, the high-rated opponent probably felt humiliated (to himself) when he was checkmated by a lower rated opponent in a game she/he seemed to be too confident about. White knew that I'd been trying to set up the position for a Greco's mate when I moved my knight to h5. So he first forced the exchange of queens. When I was able to bring up the rook so it can deliver the checkmate on the h-file, he saw what was coming and pushed the g2 pawn leaving the f3 pawn unprotected. Incidentally another bishop was waiting and delivered the final checkmate in what is termed as Double bishop mate.
In the position above, black threatens Ng3+ followed by Rh5 mate (Greco's mate). White saw this and pushed g4 and was checkmated instead in the Double bishop checkmating pattern (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmating_patterns) as seen in the position below.
The game is shown below. Checkmate, ouch! would you be a sore loser too if you get checkmated like this? It hurts, I know.
I'm sorry that I needed to rub it in.
