OTB Match

Although I won I doubt this is good enough for the exhibition section.

I played poorly until a blunder by my opponent allowed me a cheap tactical trick 26...Rab8? 27. Rxe7!, then followed another period in which I neglected my king safety to a criminal degree 32. Ne5? for example before my opponent blundered away his queen 35...Qb1+?.  In a poor position black managed to trap his own rook 40...Bc8? and that was it.

My opponent insisted on being mated, which I duly did.

Any thoughts?

Replies are like buses...

I think you played well here, aggressive and Inventive.  The tactic on the last rook was particularly cute, very good game for a 92.

It looked tough to find a plan for white...I don't care for 15.e4 because d4 becomes weak, but it's not like I'm turning up with a better idea.  As you say, 32.Ne5 is an error because 32...Qd1 33.Bf1 Bh3 and you're in a bit of a knot, might have to take the queens and light bishops off leaving BN vs R which /is/ a win but easy to get wrong.

There's a nice checkmate after 56.Kf6, have fun.

A 92 ?  Whats that ? I remember my German rating was 97 .... I never understood it and they called it an "ingozahl" rating......some German rating system that I wonder do they still use? This was back in the 80s.

That's my ECF rating, which stands for English Chess Federation

Which makes me just over 1320 Elo.:P

Or 1700+FIDE

Thank you for your reply.

Yes, cute does seem apt when describing it.

I was actually rather disappointed with this effort, but it seems to be improving with hindsight. :S

I didn't like e4 either, but, as you say, white's poor play has lead him to this position.  If anyone has a chess computer could they see if there's anything better for white?

I think black needed to keep his dark squared bishop (as a KID player I will almost always value the dark squared bishop highly :P).  One of the pluses from 27. Rxe7 was that it broke through blacks blockade of the d pawn.

I liked 18. b5, but was it me or was 24. Re4 just totally odd?

I'll take a closer look at 56. Kf6 later on today.  I'm just back from my first match of the East Devon Minor congress (which I won :) ) so I'm a little hazy atm.

Sorry for the ramble.

1320 Elo ~ 1320 FIDE.  They're basically the same...  They use Elo in Wales, and the WCU grades I have seen are always very close to the FIDE grades.  I think FIDE actually uses an Elo system itself. 

 I got my information from the English Chess Federation.

They use different calculations to get from ECF to FIDE than they do from ECF to Elo.

Check out their website.

I really dont buy the lower half of that table on the website.  It makes no sense whatsoever.  They seem to be constantly playing around with the formula to covert between grades, but obviously they never get it right.  The systems are too different.  When it works for one part of the rating range, it goes off for another.  Having the different formulae is stupid too.  Actually ridiculous is more like it.  It's really just an admission that the original conversion was way off the mark in most cases.  Except in certain fluke cases this second forumla is going to be no more right than the first, and is going to produce equally silly results, which can be clearly seen in the table on their website.  ECF 70 probably is around the 1200 Elo mark, but to then say it's around 1600 FIDE too is just crazy.  That table needs to be binned, and probably it should be followed by ECF grades imo.

Cludi: Thank you for your comments.

I'm to much of a dyed in the wool c4 player to consider playing d4 early, unless my opponent has played really insipidly.

Lol, now d4 is bad is it? ;)

Yeah, I hated that move, but I didn't want to see ...d4 played even more.

Hmmm, most of the games around my level will be won by the more tactically aware player, but as I progress I will need to be more of an alround player.

How would you recommend studying strategy?

Regarding ECF, meh, I like it.

Regarding changing to drive on the wrong side of the road...Nevah! ;)

I think I played this game better strategically.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-showcase/a-must-win-match

The ecf don't really know what they're doing with ratings.  they've had several bashes at changing the conversion formula, now they've deliberately inflated everyone's ratings by about 20-25pts (200pts in elo terms, a full rating class).  one has to imagine that as soon as these new ratings come into effect, scots and welsh will stream over the borders to conquer your puny tournaments.  except hastings, it's a bit far.

have you found the Kf6 checkmate yet?

i agree about the bishop, of itself the f6 bishop isn't a particularly good piece so it's trade value diminishes, but with a nice opening board the bishop pair is tasty.

there are many pluses to Rxe7, his position basically falls apart there, but who taught you "blockade"?  this is secret knowledge not normally entrusted to <100s...at least you didn't call c5 an outpost :)

Re4 is a very logical move, white is doubling rooks with tempo by scoring off the undefended bishop.  this is actually a pretty good example of how to use threats to improve your position.  a common tendancy among ~100s is to make one move threats that don't really achieve anything, they attack the bishop, you move the bishop, but they don't really think about where the rook and bishop are going to be now and whether that's an improvement.

cludi is right about 12.d4, he neglects to mention that 12...Nd6 will be followed by 13...Bf5 rather than an immediate Nc5 but I neglected to mention it at all so fair's fair.  i wouldn't call it a disaster, it's a problem.  and yes i'd also have probably gone with the a4 b5 idea but it's just build up, we aren't crashing through here...i think it needs to be remembered that these are pretty small errors given the OP's rating, I might have stated the case this severely at a 16XX, but not a 13XX :)

my advice on studying openings is to have done it reasonably seriously about 8 years ago and never got round to it since then.  or if you're looking for constructive advice, avoid the books of eric schiller because they're hackneyed garbage.  like most openings books.  tell you what, give us a tenner and i'll pull you twenty random pages out of informat and write "with chances for both sides" and "unclear position" on them in various places...am i going to go off on my opening books rant?...no.

i'd solicit recommendations for books that, as cludi says, explains what is happening in the opening, what both sides are trying to achieve with their moves and what their middlegame ideas should be.

as to studying strategy in the broader middle and end games context, How To Reassess Your Chess by IM Silman.  Everyone wants you to read Amateurs Mind first these days, IMO it's much less of a how-to-play-chess manual and it's 500 pages that could be spent reading HTRYC.

There's your summer reading now the league season is drawing to a close.  how did your team do this year? :)

Thanks for the posts.

My next team match will be next week (I'll be board 3 and probably white).

I think for the B team this time.

The season won't be over for a while.

I'll let you know how we do though.

Diet_Coke - Could you please let me know how you convert ECF ratings in FIDE ratings? Is there a specific formula for that? Thanks!

CONVERSION BETWEEN FIDE ELO, OTHER NATIONAL ELO RATINGS AND ECF GRADINGS

The following conversion applies to national Elo ratings and for FIDE Elo ratings greater than 2327:
(Elo - 600) / 8 = ECF
ECF x 8 + 600 = Elo

For FIDE ratings lower than this, and for ECF Grading purposes only, a different formula is used:
(FIDE - 1250) / 5 = ECF
ECF x 5 + 1250 = FIDE

From http://grading.bcfservices.org.uk/help.php

I don't know if the grading changes this season will affect the formulae

Thanks! Great help! 

This line might be worth consideration:

Black cannot castle in view of d4 and e5.

White also makes it difficult to play d5.

Here is my second match for my team.

This time I was third board for Sidmouth B away to Exeter B (I assume they where the B team).

Here I give away a pawn early on but innaccurate play by my opponent allows me to get away with it.

Overall our team won 3-1 with our 4th board overcoming a near 40ECF point deficit to draw while our top board player sacced both rooks for knights in order to mate his opponent.

I have no idea where that puts us in the league.

These two games and another 2(I think!) I posted have contributed towards me new grade of 141.