will the match ever finish?

me and chris were supposed to play games 3 and 4 tomorrow, but that's not gonna happen. i'm going to ottawa next weekend so it won't happen then either...grrr

i was reading through Winning with the Sicilian by Mark Taimanov and trying to play the Kan/Paulsen/Taimanov Sicilian. It's very interesting, i like the opening and i'm learning alot. There's also a new tabiya for me



it's interesting, i'm gonna play a bunch of games v. kirk with both sides. the idea is that with 1.e4 c5 2.nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 Qc7 7.O-O Nf6 8.Be3 Bb4 there is a hole on b6, so the move 9.Na4?! tries to take advantage of that. It's an interesting line and an idea I can use as White.

the cure

i've been on a rule "the cure" kick lately, and i'm curious why no right wing band has done a cover of killing an arab lately. probably not in the original intention of the song, but in the post 9/11 united states, it would almost be a folk song.

Note : in no way am i anti-arab, nor right wing, but i was just thinking that this mornign

another one bites the dust...

this time is was Purdy's Fine Art of Chess Annotation by Cecil Purdy the first world correspondence chess champion. It is a fabulous book and I highly recommend it. one funny thing, out of the 120 games listed, there is a repeat

[Event "AUS-FRA m"]
[Site "Australia"]
[Date "1946.06.29"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Renaud, Georges"]
[Black "Green, Martin"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "E62"]
[PlyCount "52"]
[EventDate "1946.06.29"]
[SourceDate "2005.01.01"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. Nf3 O-O 5. g3 d6 6. Bg2 Nc6 7. O-O e5 8. d5
Ne7 9. e4 Nh5 10. h3 Bd7 11. Kh2 f5 12. exf5 gxf5 13. Ng5 Nf6 14. Bd2 a6 15.
Rb1 Ng6 16. b4 Qe7 17. Qe2 Rae8 18. Nf3 h5 19. Ng1 h4 20. Rbc1 e4 21. Qe3 Ne5
22. Qe2 Nd3 23. Rb1 Qe5 24. f4 hxg3+ 25. Kxg3 Qd4 26. Nd1 Qxc4 0-1

he must have liked it ;)

the curse

i love the new audioslave album...here's the last song off it

"the curse"

help me i don't know what i'm doing
help me before i fall to ruin
and if i'm blind
i will lead you on
come follow me now
before our time is gone

and as your laughing at this fool tonight
let me rid myself of any line that i might use to trip you up
and as i'm howling at the moonlight
don't you kid yourself i will be luck
never be your curse
never be your curse

help me i don't know what i'm saying
sometimes this tongue can be betraying
and if i'm wrong
is that such a crime
and if you want
you can set my words to right

as you're laughing at this fool tonight
let me rid myself of any line that i might use to trip you up
as i'm howling at the moonlight
don't you kid yourself i will be luck

and if your eyes forget to well
and if your lies forget to tell
and if our paths forget to cross
it doesn't mean you're lost

so if you're laughing at this fool tonight
let me rid myself of any line that i might use to trip you up
as i'm howling at the moonlight
don't you kid yourself even at my worst
i won't be your curse

i learned something this morning...

my alarm clock's "drop height" is less than 4 feet

can i play the semi-slav again?

i was always afraid of the meran variation, but while going through Purdy's "Fine Art of Chess Annotation" I saw this move order

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Bd3 dxc4 7.Bxc4 c5!

turning it into a QGA (Black took 2 moves to play ...c5, but White took two moves to play Bxc4) maybe Nbd7 isn't the greatest move in the QGA, but Lasker tried it against Capa Capablanca-Lasker. it may be worth a look, eventually ;)

1-1 after the first set of games

the first game i won neatly and the second i lost in a terrible blunder. my excuse is that a bunch of people came into the restaurant and was noisy. the proper response would be to get ragozin to turn up the radio and blow smoke in my face ;) here are the games, mostly proper, from memory...i haven't annofritzed it yet...maybe two sets of moves are out of order...

CS - CO
1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 Bg4 4. Nc3 Bxf3 5. exf3 e6 6. Bg5 Be7 7. Be2 Nbd7 8.
O-O O-O 9. Qb3 Nb6 10. c5 Nc4 11. Bxc4 dxc4 12. Qxc4 b6 13. b4 Qd7 14. c6 Qd6
15. b5 Rad8 16. Rad1 h6 17. Be3 Nd5 18. Ne4 Qb4 19. Qxb4 Bxb4 20. a4 a5 21. Bd2
Be7 22. Nc3 Bf6 23. Nxd5 Rxd5 24. Bf4 Rc8 25. Rd3 Rxd4 26. Rxd4 Bxd4 27. Rd1 e5
28. Be3 Rd8 29. Bxd4 exd4 30. Kf1 Kf8 31. Ke2 Ke7 32. Kd3 Ke6 33. Kc4 Ke5 34.
Rd3 g5 35. g3 f5 36. Rd1 f4 37. Kd3 Kd5 38. Re1 Kc5 39. Re7 Rc8 40. Rd7 1-0

CO - CS
1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Bg5 e6 6. Bd3 Be7 7. c3 Nbd7 8. O-O O-O 9. Nbd2 b6 10. Qc2 h6 11. Bf4 Re8 12. Ne5 Nxe5 13. Bxe5 Nd7 14. f4 Nxe5 15. fxe5 f5 16. exf6 Bxf6 17. Bh7+ Kh8 18. Nf3 e5 19. dxe5 Bxe5 20. Rae1 Qd6?? 21. Nxe5 1-0

there are a couple adjustments i will make for the next two games...apparently he likes to pin the knight on f3/f6 ;) off to search for some pepsi

bleeding edge of the caro-kann

(for the uninitiated, the bleeding edge is even newer than the cutting edge)

so i've been pretty much set in my ways regarding caro-kann theory since i began...karpov system v. the advanced (...Ne7, ...Nd7, ...c5, ...Nc6) ...Bf5 with ...Qc7 in the main line, ...e6, ...Bb4 in the Panov, etc. i got my new NIC and they had some analysis on a different line in the main line after 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.Nf3 Nd7 7.h4 h6 8.h5 Bh7 9.Bd3 Bxd3 10.Qxd3



now i always played 10. ...Qc7 here because i was always afraid of 10.Bf4 if i didn't. and with practice it was difficult. it screwed up my development because i liked things like ...Bd6 and going at the king. of course the theoretical books said things along the lines of "...Qc7 is unnecessary because Bf4 isn't that strong anyways" not for me! but in my new NIC they gave a couple of lines with 10. ...e6 11.Bf4 Qa5+ 12.Bd2 Bb4 and i decided maybe it was time to take a look at this. the lines they showed featured 13.c3 Be7 14.c4 with the idea that the c-pawn push made his king less safe if he castled queenside. they showed a bunch of games, but the one that got everyone horny about this was Leko-Bareev it looks like a typical Caro to me, but i think it's stronger for Black. it was first played in 1994 at the World Open or something, revived in the Leko-Bareev game and played a bunch of times at the Olympiad, IECC, etc. so it's bleeding edge theory. if i get 3.Nc3 v. the Caro this weekend, i'll give 'er a go

also, i've decided to stop playing on auto-pilot in the advanced Caro and look to play ...c5 earlier, since i've gotten move ordered since i've been playing correspondence by playing the Karpov line.

maybe tomorrow i'll wanna settle down...

maybe tomorrow i'll just keep moving on

in any case tomorrow i'm starting up my "match"...wish me luck...i thikn i'm gonna play the grunny v. 1.c4 (1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 d5!?) a la Botwinnik and Smyslov. I was gonna try the Dutch but i decided against it...and really the grunny isn't that bad ;)

NIC

i just got my first New In Chess magazine. i love NIC. it has grischuk on the cover, the first ever article by kasparov (as a retiree) and a bunch of stuff on the Russian Team Championships.