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This is from a 10 minute blitz game earlier last week against a 1800 player that has a lot of things going on throughout the game. The middle and ending are of great instructional value IMHO due to the fact that the concept of the active Rook to advance the pawns and make the opposing Rook passive and also how to get a pawn to promote by decoying the oposing King just far enough to bring the intended pawn home. One last point of note: From the exchanging of the Rooks to the mate, the sequence of moves completed was done in approximately 15 seconds whith around 20 seconds remaining at the beginning. THis highlights rh importance of getting solid endgame play concepts seared into the memory and being able to confidently play certain specific endings.

Here is a video explaining some of the lines in the Dragon Variation of the Sicilian Defense. The opening derives its name in that the pawn formation resembles the constellation Draco or Dragon constellation. It is a very shapr line and highly analyzed, with a single mistake often being fatal. Please feel free to comment on the video and ask questions as well so that they cn get answered and overall, we can all get better. Later there will be an unrated thematic tournament that I will have Robert set up for us and we can play through the openingon both sides. Finally I would ask that all players please post their match games with some annotations in the Dragon Forum which will be set up soon as well. The following post will have the video posted shortly.

Credit Chase (AKA CaptainPlanet) for helping me to look at expanding on tactics after we played yesterday @ PCH (Thanks for the book as well). Following is a game I just finished that gives me great confidence that this is where i need to study on now. Annotations are mine and comments on improving are welcome (including you Chase and Tony). thanks guys.

Here is the game I was talking about earlier. I will attempt to annotate in sections as much as I can. Comments, feedback and analysis are greatly appreciated. Overall, this was a very nice game though even some of my losses have been nice ones (which i seem to learn more from and I will post one at a later date as well). Is there anything that could have been done to win more convincingly or were there moves that I missed that were better? I am typing this up at the library and have no analysis software or a board to look the position over so let me know if there is anything I could have done differently. Thanks, Adam (Vengence69)

Hi, Team Oregon is looking for new members for the State Team. Please come join us and support Oregon in it's US Team Championship tournaments against other states. Thanks. Terry ( knightspawn5 )

Hello -- There's a new team in town -- Rose City Chess -- and several of you are already on board with it. Cool! My question for the Portland, Oregon! group is: are we interested in continuing as an independent group, reactivating and challenging other teams, etc.? Or does it make more sense to disband and fold into the new group? Let me know what you think, and I'll make it so. Michael5000

Hi everybody!

Hello! Just a few pieces of news to catch up on: } Our first team match came to an end -- we lost to Samarkand. Their city is 2700 years old and ours is only around 150, though, so they had a head start. A rematch has been arranged, if you would like to sign up. } A team match against New Jersey needs one more of us to sign up; if you join that match it will start right away. } I put out other new challenges today to teams from Fife (Scotland), Greenland, Merseyside (Liverpool), and Kazakhstan, as well as a <1500 challenge to Team Brasil. If they accept the challenges, there should be a number of opportunities to sign up for team play! } I also fixed a mistake that made it impossible for other teams to challenge US. } We won a Vote Chess game against a Boston club last month. Are y'all interested in playing more vote chess? Let me know if so, and I'll get some games started. } Or, if you have any other ideas or suggestions, let me know! michael5000