Loomis's Blog

Loomis's Blog

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Chess960 Miniatures

Chess960 Miniatures

Loomis
| Jun 19, 2011

This time I present two Chess960 games because one of them is only 2 moves long! The first game is 14 moves and ends with a nice mating tactic. During the game, I could not convince myself to play the stunning 12. Ba6! But in analysis, it appears ...

Double (edged) Dutch

Double (edged) Dutch

Loomis
| Jun 6, 2011

A standard chess game is rare for me these days, but I'm involved in an interminable tournament, so I can't escape playing a few. Here is one where I faced the Dutch Defense. The game had the potential to be very double edged as black had a lot of...

Getting Crushed at Chess960

Getting Crushed at Chess960

Loomis
| May 31, 2011

In this game I played poorly from the opening, continued to make mistakes and my opponent continued to find very good moves to punish me. It's a simple recipe for getting crushed. Hopefully games like this will teach me something about how to han...

Fighting back from an opening mistake

Fighting back from an opening mistake

Loomis
| May 24, 2011

Poor opening play characterizes my current Chess960 games. I'd like to chalk it up to being new at the variant, but it's really a matter of not paying attention. In this game I hang a pawn on move 2. I was able to fight back later in the game, avo...

Hidden Gems in Chess 960

Hidden Gems in Chess 960

Loomis
| May 16, 2011

Some starting positions in Chess960 include "Hidden Gems". The game I show here features a bishop coming out of the corner to snatch up a pawn and later for a discovered attack. Another fun moment in this game are the castling moves. Just as the k...

Developing a Weakness in Chess 960

Developing a Weakness in Chess 960

Loomis
| May 10, 2011

Continuing my plunge into Chess 960 I'll show a game where I didn't play very well. During the opening I failed to recognize  that I created a weakness in my position and my development choices gave me a difficult time defending it. Only by some i...

Chess 960 is still mostly Chess

Chess 960 is still mostly Chess

Loomis
| May 2, 2011

I've decided to gives some games of Chess960 a shot and make some observations on this variant. I'll show in this post one of my first games that wasn't a particularly fierce battle. One of the points to be made is that the usual chess principles ...

Accelerated Dragon No-No

Accelerated Dragon No-No

Loomis
| Apr 13, 2011

The accelerated move order for the Sicilian Dragon is supposed to prevent white from playing a typical "Yugoslav" type attack with queenside castling and a kingside pawn storm. This doesn't mean white won't sometimes try it! As a player of the acc...

Bullet Puzzler

Bullet Puzzler

Loomis
| Oct 5, 2010

I couldn't let this juicy position slip by un-recorded. This comes from a recent bullet game (1 minute, no increment). Black has compensation for being down a pawn, but would like to put his activity to use before white finds any king safety or co...

Blitz Puzzler

Blitz Puzzler

Loomis
| Aug 18, 2010

I haven't posted a blog in a long time, and I wanted to record this position somewhere, so I'm dropping it here as a puzzle. The continuation in the puzzle is from the game continuation. Tougher defenses from black are given in the movelist.

Drawing a master

Drawing a master

Loomis
| Aug 18, 2009

As a class player, the master title has always seemed like a distant level of chess ability. I have had a few decent games against masters in my life, but of course I've lost nearly all my games to them. I do have a few draws and the game I'll sho...

A surprising miniature

A surprising miniature

Loomis
| Jul 30, 2009

In a recent game I played an opponent well known for his intense opening study. We had played a semi-slav about a month prior and I felt I shouldn't repeat that line having put no effort into learning about the opening we played. So I chose to avo...

Find the Winning  Move

Find the Winning Move

Loomis
| Jul 6, 2009

Today I want to share a position where you are challenged to find the winning move. This is from a casual (I take these very seriously!) game I played recently and my failure in this position highlights two of my weaknesses. Also, I later went on ...

The value of threats

The value of threats

Loomis
| Apr 13, 2009

There are lots of familiar and easily assessable positional features -- bad pawns (isolated, doubled, backward), the bishop pair, central occupation, knight outposts, rooks on open files and the 7th rank, king safety -- and there are some that are...

Overcoming positional problems through tactics

Overcoming positional problems through tactics

Loomis
| Apr 5, 2009

It's been famously said that chess is 99% tactics. It's also been said that tactics flow naturally from superior positions. In my experience in play below the expert level, quite often a superior position crumbles due to an overlooked tactical blo...

This has to be winning, right?

This has to be winning, right?

Loomis
| Mar 29, 2009

In a couple of games recently I've had positions that by any positional measure had to be winning for me. Here are two positions where material is even, but everything else seems to be in my favor.     White's advantages include a protected ...

Patience in attacking

Patience in attacking

Loomis
| Mar 22, 2009

Often when an attack is being mounted there is a tendency to look for decisive moves. And for good reason, forcing moves -- checks, captures, threats of checkmate -- are often the most effective. But sometimes there is no overpowering blow and the...

Return of the off-side queen

Return of the off-side queen

Loomis
| Mar 14, 2009

One of the fundamental reasons a successful mating attack occurs is that the defense does not have adequate pieces near the king. One of the chess teachers near where I live told me he first noticed in his students games that mating attacks occur ...

Ultimate Blunders

Ultimate Blunders

Loomis
| Jan 31, 2009

It happens to everybody. You have played a brilliant game and you throw away hours of hard work on one monumentally stupid move. It even famously happened to World Champion Vladimir Kramnik when he allowed a mate in 1 in his match against the comp...

Perpetual Check

Perpetual Check

Loomis
| Jan 24, 2009

Every so often we'll see a forum topic here at chess.com along the lines of "hey, my opponent won't stop checking me so that I can finish beating him." The poster seems to think this is unfair, that he's being denied his right to win by a player w...

Checkmate Puzzlers!

Checkmate Puzzlers!

Loomis
| Jul 31, 2008

Learning typical mating patterns is one of the keys to being able to create checkmating combinations. In a few recent games I had mating combinations with somewhat unique patterns. Give them a try: In the first puzzle white has some extra materi...

Things I'm doing wrong

Things I'm doing wrong

Loomis
| Jul 28, 2008

I have been playing some strong players lately and I hope to be able to fill the blog with good losses that help me learn what I'm doing wrong. In the game I will show here I have two chances to play good moves and blow it. So what was wrong with ...

Sicilian Sideline

Sicilian Sideline

Loomis
| Jul 3, 2008

I recently played a Sicilian Defense where white played a line I rarely see. Probably because black gets a lead in development. White's compensation seems to be getting out of the main line and trading queens. But even without the queens on bo...

George Costanza Ending

George Costanza Ending

Loomis
| Jun 29, 2008

Firstly, the title deserves an explanation. I see frequently enough people abbreviating Bishops of opposite colors, BOOC. This post is about the opposite, Bishops Of the Same COlor, BOSCO. Bosco is also George Constanza's favorite chocolate sa...

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