Category: Analysis

When You See a Good Move

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Many chess players are familiar with the quote by the second world champion, Emmanuel Lasker, that “When you see a good move, look for a better one.”

Knowing the quote and taking the advice are clearly different things.

Thursday I was foundering in the opening, and so afterwards a friend of mine was showing me this line he plays as White against the Sveshnikov. After 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Nb5 d6 7.Nd5 we reach this position:

Of course Black can’t take the “hanging” pawn on e4 since there’s a knight check on c7 picking up a rook

Wait a minute…it’s not just a rook. The only move is 8…Kd7 and now after 9.Qg4+ f5 10.Qxf5 is mate!

I start wondering if anyone has ever taken the e4 pawn, so I check. There are two games in my database. There’s this one:

And then there’s this one:

Notice that the first game is a blitz game, whereas the second game appears to be a classical tournament game. In that second game a player of almost 2100 FIDE strength misses a mate in two. My guess…he forgot to look for a better move.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Verbus-Wainscott 0-1

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Part of my goal this year is to get every game I played annotated and published here. I have been semi-lazy about that goal, but here is the earliest game I have annotated for the year so far. It took place in the third round of my first tournament.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Daniel Perelman Memorial Tournament

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Recently a former member of the Southwest Chess Club, Daniel Perelman, passed away at the untimely age of 18 in a plane crash as he was training to get his pilot’s license.

We changed the name of our most recent tournament to the Daniel Perelman Memorial. Here are my games with analysis. This was an up and down event for me. I won two nice games. I lost horribly in one, and I drew one after missing a free rook.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Chess Blindness

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In my Thursday game this past week I sat down to play Minghang Chen, who’s a solid 1800 player. I had a good feeling all day and was in a great frame of mind at the board.

I had the White pieces and in short order I achieved an almost winning position:

A few moves later we reach this position and now I’m thinking it’s time to get my material back and win some of my own.

After taking the d pawn, we arrive at

And now I can just bail out into a better position with Re6, but my idea is to capture on f6 with the d6 rook. So I do, and Black captures back.

Here I can just take again on f6 and then after …Bc3 Qb6 I have an edge

Instead I decide (correctly) that Qxe5 is much better.

Now I start thinking that Black might have something with …Bc3, and this is where chess blindness kicks in. Black plays the move.

The blindness takes two forms here. It starts with the fact that for some reason I’m not realizing that my rook on f1 is protected by the bishop. So I play what I feel is the forced 34.Qxc3 Qxc3  35.Nxc3 and offer a draw, which was accepted (I’m going to lose the c pawn, so I’m probably on the worse end of this draw, but my opponent had little time left on the clock.)

However, do you spot what I  missed?

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Yep, I can just play 34.Qxb8 and I’m completely winning. The rook on b8 hangs, but since in my mind I think that my rook on f1 is hanging with check I don’t see this at all.

Chess blindness is a disease which must be eradicated.

Here is the whole game.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Round One USATN – Draw vs 2066

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I am playing in the US Amateur Team Tournament and in round one my team faced the top seed.

I am on board four and was playing a kid rated 2066. I absolutely should have won this game. Here it is with no real notes. I’ll annotate and re-publish later.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Draw vs a NM

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Last night I played my weekly club game against NM Ethan Allen. Fortunately for me he is returning to chess after a long layoff, and so is a bit on the rusty side. He used an awful lot of time, and when we agreed a draw I was ahead by about 40 minutes on the clock.

Now on to the US Amateur Team tournament starting tonight in Chicago.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Recovering Some Ground Wainscott-Williams 1-0

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A little over a week ago I entered what will be my final tournament of the year. A three round, G/100 Swiss. My rating had plummeted nearly 100 points in two events, and my first-round opponent was seven-time state champion Bill Williams.

While Bill is finally started to show some signs of his age, he’s still a very dangerous opponent who can’t be taken lightly.

In this game I was fortunate, as after one blunder, he quickly committed others.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Tactics Were Flowing: Dreuth-Wainscott 0-1

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My last game was a nice miniature. For the first time in a while I could feel a lot of things coming together. From the first move, when I took a minute to think instead of playing an automatic reply, to realizing my opponent blundered with d3, to the final move in the game.

I will continue working to try to keep this feeling growing.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

Declined the Repetition Against a Stronger Player

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Last Thursday, while playing my weekly tournament game at the Southwest Chess Club this position was reached after my opponent played 12…d5

I already had the genesis of the idea to play Bg5, but now realize that I can do so and force a repetition. 

Then, as I look just a little deeper, I see that if we play 13.Bg5 Qe5 14.Bf4 that if the queen goes back to f6 I actually have another idea rather than just repeat. I start trying to calculate it, but realize that my opponent can simply sidestep all this and take the draw by shuffling between e5 and d4. 

Therefore, I decide to go ahead and play the first move to make the rest easier to calculate if my opponent does, in fact, go from f6-e5-f6. Which he does, giving us this position:

Now I can settle in and calculate. If I can’t find something concrete, I can just bail out with the repetition.

So what did I play here? Scroll down for the rest of the game after taking a few minutes to come up with a solution.

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Well, for some reason my pgn board isn’t working so well right now, so here is the answer:

 

I played 15.e5

Now if the queen goes to f5 16.g4 traps it. So after 15…Qh4 16.Rd1 there are no good squares left for the queen. 

I won quickly after my opponent blundered with 16…Nf5

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott

A Nice Finish

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I could really use your help. If you’ve seen this more than once that means that you’re hopefully getting something useful out of this blog. I pay all of the costs for hosting, and put a lot of effort into creating the content. Please consider becoming a Patreon supporter. 

If you can spare it, please click here and become a supporter. Even $1 a month can help me continue this project.

Wednesday saw a nice finish in my game.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott