Lately I've just been blogging when I analyze one of my own games with interesting results, so posts are fairly sporadic.
I often see the opinion that 1. e4 is for tactical games and 1. d4 is for slower positional games. It may happen this way more often than not, but to think the choice of the first move completely determines the nature of the game is somewhat naive... Read more »
A few months ago I had a post where I gave an example of a knight that was better than a bishop in the middle game, in this post I'll give an example of a knight that is better than a bishop in an endgame. I find these interesting since more o... Read more »
In Part I of this topic I wrote about players who decline the Queen's Gambit incorrectly. This time I'll write about accepting the gambit and trying too hard to hang on to the pawn that black believes he's won. This almost surely puts ... Read more »
After playing 1. d4 for many many years, I've noticed a few trends in the wrong way to play with the black pieces. I don't advocate studying a bunch of opening lines for people my level and below, but I do think the process of looking at o... Read more »
I have for years played the Queen's Gambit. It's not really a gambit in the sense of giving up material for long term positional advantages so I'm not really a gambit player. But when I have the chance to play the Marshall Gambit, I wi... Read more »
The game I'm sharing in this post is one I lost a few months ago. I think I should use this game to overcome some of my positional weakness. My plan of expanding and opening lines on the queenside wasn't just unproductive, it created weakn... Read more »
We all learn fairly quickly that rooks are stronger than bishops and knights. But sometimes in the endgame you can make up for the deficit of the exchange if you have dynamic pawn play. Of course, the objective will be to promote a pawn safely. &n... Read more »
Hopefully I don't seem like a broken record regarding king and pawn endings, but all of these examples come from actual games I've played, so it's clear to me that they are frequent and it's important to get them right. The ... Read more »
I recently posted a couple of my games where I played a rare system for white against the King's Indian defense featuring an early Bg5 with the intent of taking on f6. I have recently decided that I'd like to try something different agains... Read more »
Many tactical workbooks and online training sets are full of examples from the games of great masters. But even patzers like me can get into positions where we spot tactical gems. So why not take advantage of these positions to lump ourselves in w... Read more »
Welcome to my blog! In the USCF I am rated 1921.
The content posted here is from my real chess experience, either games I've played or observed. I'll try to put an instructive twist on it. So if you're looking for a glimpse into how a B player thinks about the game, check in and see what I've got. Well, recently my rating has gone over 1800, so perhaps I should list myself as class A instead of class B, but it's not a huge difference.
LoomisUnited States
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