Attacking Chess

Places to Play Chess online, part 7 - Chesscube update

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Sat, 25 May 2013 14:50:00 +0000

ChessCube Update: A message from the CEO | ChessCube Blog On June 21st, 2011 Chesscube changed their free to play model and now they charge you 15 cubits to play even unrated games. You have to "bet" an amount of cubits to be able to play. I can see this being a negative for people looking for free places to play chess. You can get 5000 cubits for $5 - which do expire slowly if you don't use them or you could use the small amount of free cubits they give you for logging in. Personally I dislike the change - they could have found another way to monetize. Related Posts
Places to Play Chess online
Places to Play Chess online, part 2
Places to Play Chess online, part 3
Places to Play Chess online, part 4
Places to Play Chess online, part 5
Places to Play Chess online, part 6

Puzzle of the Week - 2011 Nov 17

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:10:00 +0000

Here is the chess puzzle of the week. This position occurred in a game between O'Kelly de Galway vs Vincenzo Castaldi in 1947.

FEN: 1qbr1rk1/pp2Rp1p/2p3p1/3n2Q1/3P4/1B3N2/PP3PPP/4R1K1 w - - 0 1 Answer for last weeks puzzle Attacking Chess Puzzle of the week - 2011 Nov 10 1.Rxe8+ Bxe8 2.f6 Qc5 3.Qh6 Qxf2+ 4.Kxf2 Bb6+ 5.Kf1 Rcb8 6.Qg7#

Puzzle of the week - 2011 Nov 10

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:26:00 +0000

Here is a puzzle for this week - it has been a while since I posted one. Hopefully this one is fun.

FENr1rbn1k1/2qb1p1p/3p4/5P2/p1p5/P1B4P/1PBQ1PP1/R3R1K1

Places to play Chess

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 00:57:00 +0000

At work there is now a large number of people who have started playing chess around lunch time. Most of them have not studied much chess but it is very enjoyable to sit and watch them. I have played a few times with them but it is not as fun as watching them play each other. Sometimes trash talking starts and it is even more fun when someone makes a comment while watching a game that ruins it. :) It is a good break to sit and watch some people play chess even if I am not playing. I have been working towards starting my studying again. The past year has been very difficult for personal reasons and I have been too busy to play or study chess very much. Things are finally starting to calm down and I think I am ready to start playing again. Last month I read the book Chess Tactics for the Tournament Player by Lev Alburt and Sam Palatnik. It is a fairly good book and it was nice to study chess again. Just to follow up with the title of the post: Where are some cool places you like to play chess and what are you currently studying?

Studying Chess on Ubuntu Linux - Part 1 Setup

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 11:00:00 +0000

The first thing that you need to do is to setup your programs that are needed for studying. Generally players use a chess engine and a chess database program. Luckily for us someone created SCID an open source database program that works fairly well and is available on all platforms. I use Ubuntu Linux so my guide will be specific for Ubuntu but it should be easy to set this up on any system, including OS X, Windows and Linux.

Another benefit that Chess Players have received from open source is the chess engine Stockfish.

Stockfish is an open-source UCI chess engine based on Glaurung. Stockfish is an alpha-beta searcher and uses a bitboard representation.

Install SCID

sudo apt-get install build-essential - This installs a Linux C++ compiler so that SCID can be built.
sudo apt-get install tcl8.5-dev tk8.5-dev - This installs a runtime in Linux which enables the UI for SCID.
Download SCID and extract to a temp directory.
./configure
./make
./make install

Install Stockfish

Download Stockfish
Download Stockfish Opening Book
Extract Stockfish and run make profile-build ARCH=x86-32 for 32 bit Linux systems. 64 bit Linux systems can use make profile-build ARCH=x86-64
Installation of this is a bit different than SCID. I copied my executable (the file named stockfish) to ~/bin so I can have a place to save my opening book.
Extract opening book to ~/bin.

Setup Stockfish in SCID

Click on Tools and then Analysis Engine...in the menu
Create a new chess engine by clicking on the New... button.
Type in Stockfish in the name
The command field should contain the executable for Stockfish. Mine was ~/bin/stockfish
Directory should be set to . to indicate that the directory to use should be the same as the directory that the executable is located in.
Click on Configure UCI Engine.
There are lots of options here - I mainly only change the book file to book.bin and set the Multiple variations to 4.

I will discuss how to use these programs next time I post about studying chess on Linux.

Attacking Chess Puzzle of the Week - 2011-03-17

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 11:00:00 +0000

It has been a while since I posted a puzzle of the week. I will provide the diagram and a FEN string this week and then provide the answer next week. Feel free to discuss the problem and talk through it with everyone. The next week I will provide the answer to the puzzle and then another puzzle to solve.

Studying chess tactics and puzzles is a very important step in learning chess and it will help all levels of players increase their skills and abilities.


White to move

FEN : 3r2k1/pR3p2/2n3pQ/2Bp4/P2P3K/5R1P/4r1q1/8

Chess News of the Week - French Cheating in Chess

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 11:00:00 +0000

Cheating in chess has become a very real problem. Online it has been around for years. People start up their chess computer and make the moves it says just to "win" and get rating points online. What these people don't understand is that it is not really their rating if they are cheating this way. What fun is it to just use a computer to try and win? I do not know what kind of satisfaction someone cheating like this gets from a game of chess. The following article talks about the specific case.

Text Messaging not admitted as evidence in cheating case

The judge ruled:

- Firstly, that “although he is not himself the subscriber to the telephone line [in question], Mr Marzolo enjoys the right to the confidentiality of the correspondence exchanged via this line, since its permanent use had been granted to him by the owner of the line, Ms. Pomian.”
- Secondly, that “no legal provision gave him the authority to waive this confidentiality”, unless the infringement involved “criminal or security matters.”
- Finally, the magistrate judged that “it would be unfair for Mr. Marzolo, Feller and Hauchard (…) to bear the full cost of the proceedings,” and he ruled that the FFE should reimburse part of the fees.

As it announced in a press release on January 27th, the FFE reserves the right to turn to the criminal courts, which could lift the confidentiality of correspondence.

It is a lot easier to cheat in chess tournaments now. Everyone has access to computers, many of the computers are so small they are sitting in our pockets. That is why being on a phone while you have a game going on is against tournament rules. It is easy to call someone else and ask them what move to make. Also, they could enter the moves themselves into a phone and see what move to make next. It is very sad that problems like these have to be brought to light. Hopefully if those players were cheating they are found guilty and the cheating is stopped.

Live Chess Analysis from Reykjavik

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 15:45:00 +0000

Nice interesting feature by Chess Bomb. It should be fun to watch some games.

Chess News of the Week - Programmers write open letter about Rybka-Fruit issue

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Programmers write open letter about Rybka-Fruit issue

This is very interesting to me as a chess player who has used Fruit and as a Software Developer interested in open source. This is very poor judgement by these guys if they did just steal the code.

Recently the author of Fruit, Fabien Letouzey, wrote an open letter to the computer chess community where he raised the concern that Rybka 1.0 beta may be a derivative of Fruit 2.1 in this public post.
Since then it has emerged from highly respected sources like Zach Wegner, Bob Hyatt and others that there is a lot of evidence that has been accumulated over the last few years that Rybka 1.0 beta is a derivative of Fruit 2.1.
Zach Wegner has presented evidence of alleged significant copied/derived Fruit evaluations in Rybka 1.0 beta here.

The large problem with these guys who stole the code was that Fruit was released under the GPL - part of the license states that any and all code contributed to a project after it uses GPL code is also now considered GPL. That is a part of the deal when you use the code that people are making open. Also you are required to publish any added or changed code. If Rybka is guilty they are stealing from the public and selling what they stole instead of building on a project that was established as an open project. It will be interesting to see how this procedes and if they are required to open their code and pay a fine.

Places to Play Chess online, Part 6

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Chesscube is another newer site to online chess. I have found it to be a very good place to play. The flash interface is great - makes it easy to be available across all platforms without any need to download an interface. You get cubits from logging in and winning games that will allow you to get chess videos. The tournaments are available all the time and you get a game fairly quickly. The only thing I would want is an Adobe Air application of the interface so I could avoid having to open my browser.
Here is a description from their website:

Play chess online for free on ChessCube, the global community of chess players. Get chess videos and chess lectures, chat with friends, play live chess and ...

If you want an easy place to get to play, don't mind using flash in a browser to connect to the server and want an interface that is standardized ChessCube is a very good option for playing chess. I have found it very good - especially when I only have access to a browser on a computer it becomes very nice.

Related Posts
Places to Play Chess online
Places to Play Chess online, part 2
Places to Play Chess online, part 3
Places to Play Chess online, part 4
Places to Play Chess online, part 5

Upcoming Chess Tournament in Salt Lake City

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 17:53:00 +0000

Farewell Bobby Fischer Tournament
Tournament Flyer

There are 2 schedules - a 2 day and a 3 day schedule. There are 2 byes available as well. The time controls are fairly short - G/31 for the 2 day schedule and G/72 or G/64 for the 3 day schedule. Round 5 and 6 merge together and have longer time controls.

I have not been to one of these tournaments yet but this one sounds like fun. I might stop by and see how it is.

How to prepare for a Chess Tournament

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:00:00 +0000

What do you do to prepare for a tournament? I am getting ready to get back into tournament play and I am looking for ideas on how to best prepare for it. I have not played in a tournament for a good number of years - only played online recently.

I feel that I need more tactics study - but my gut is saying some endgame and opening would be useful too?

I did some Google searching and found an interesting link.

Roman Chess - How to prepare for a chess Tournament

This gives me some more ideas on how to prepare for a chess tournament.

1. Play some slower games - if you only practice with speed chess it will be harder to player slower when you are in the tournament.

2. Practice Tactics - this is very important and will help sharpen your game and help avoid simple blunders.

3. Decide on openings to play - don't go in and guess on which openings to play - you will not be able to prepare a lot of different openings and be strong in all of them.

4. Study basic endgame ideas so you will be able to win or draw games in close situations.

5. Have fun and relax - it is all about enjoying the game anyways.

Favorite Chess Sites

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 01:15:00 +0000

What are everyone's favorite chess sites? Where do you like to play? Where do you like to study? Where do you like to find games?

It has been a while since I have posted - work and summer caught up to me and I had too many things going on. I am hoping to start posting regularly again. I have played a game now and then and watched my coworkers fight out some games while I worked and had lunch.

As for my favorite sites, I really like to play on freechess.org. I like Chesslab for finding games. I still have not found a prefered website for studying on, but I do like Chess Tactics Server and Chess Tempo.

Places to Play Chess online, part 5

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Chessboss is a newcomer to the online chess arena. It is an all web interface - but it seems to be missing a lot of features. The biggest problem with Chessboss is the lack of players. Anyone can create and run a tournament which is nice. With the many other options it feels like Chessboss does not have a large enough following for one to have a good number of people to play with. But if you are looking for a quick casual game it might fit you.

Related Posts
Places to Play Chess online
Places to Play Chess online, part 2
Places to Play Chess online, part 3
Places to Play Chess online, part 4

Attacking Chess Game of the Week - 07-23-2010

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

your web browser and/or your host do not support iframes as required to display the chessboard

Attacking Chess Puzzle of the Week - 07-23-2010

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:26:00 +0000

Last Weeks puzzle:

Solution: 1.Nh5 Qb2 2.d4 Qxd4 3.Rxd4 with 4.Qxg7++

An easy one this week.

FEN - rnbb1rk1/3q1pn1/p2p3Q/1ppN4/4P2P/5N2/PPP1BPP1/3R1RK1 w - - 0 1

Chess News of the Week - Anatoly Karpov out for a fight

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 04:05:00 +0000

Anatoly Karpov out for a fight - Telegraph

Karpov's lawyers, White & Case, are a global firm based in Manhattan. They seek nothing less than the disqualification of the incumbent FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov who is standing for a fifth term.

The rules demand that at least one member of a Presidential ticket be female and Ilyumzhinov's choice is American WIM Beatriz Marinello. Supporting documents indicate Ms Marinello was not nominated by the US Chess Federation but by her native Chile and Brazil. Karpov contends she is not even a member of either federation.

Karpov's lawyers also seek a ruling confirming he was nominated by the Russian Chess Federation. There is a supporting video of a meeting endorsing Karpov on May 14th. Subsequently the RCF was hijacked by Ilyumzhinov's supporters. Propaganda is very important at this stage as many smaller countries await events to be sure of being on the winning side. The election will be held this September during the Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk.

Seems like an odd rule to me - but I have no problems with it. I don't follow too much about the FIDE - but I do like Karpov. I would love to see another Kasparov - Karpov match. What I would like to happen is for the new FIDE president to push for chess in the Olympics.

Places to Play Chess online, part 4

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Another good place to play chess online is Gameknot.com. There are some good things they provide. The teams are really cool, and the ladder is pretty nice as well. The problem with this site is that to get some of the nice features one must pay a pretty high membership fee. To be able to captain a team one must pay $60 a year. For that price it seems better to consider a Diamond chess.com account. You get a much better overall experience there. But if you are looking for another place to play some email games, Gameknot is fairly good.

Related Posts
Places to Play Chess online
Places to Play Chess online, part 2
Places to Play Chess online, part 3

Attacking Chess Puzzle of the week - 2010-07-15

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Last weeks puzzle:

Solution:1. Qxf8 Kxf8 2. Bh6+ Kg8 3.Re8 ++

This weeks puzzle:

Attacking Chess Opening Overview - Reti Gambit

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Overview
This gambit against the French is not very well know and has not had a large amount of popularity. It is slowly gaining players who like and - and there are some GMs are also playing it. It is a fun chess opening that is played against the French defense. The most recent book on it was written by Thomas Johansson and is called The Fascinating Reti Gambit.

History
The gambit was first played by Reti just before he switched from 1.e4 to playing 1.Nf3. Sad to say that he did not continue playing the variation and it was fairly obscure for a long time. In the 90s a number of GMs starting playing the variation. Most players of the French Defense look down on it and most books only give a line on it and say Black as equality or an advantage.

Moves
The gambit starts out like this. 1.e4 e6 2. b3

This takes Black out of his standard French play and White ends up playing a gambit. The main line plays as follows:

2... d5 3. Bb2 dxe4 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.Qe2 Bb4 6.O-O-O Qe7 7.Kb1 Ndb7 8.g4 O-O 9. g5 Nd5 10. Nxe4

Common Tactics

Opposite side castling - this often leads to crazy attacks where White and Black try to mate each other first.
g4-g5 - This attack often forces the Black knight to a less than ideal location.
Bg2 will give White more influence in the center and often wins back the sacrificed pawn.

Summary
The main purpose behind the gambit is to throw Black into a tactical game instead of the many quiet games that they can have playing the French defense. The game is much more open than the standard French defense, and with opposite side castling it is sure to have both sides attacking. The Reti Gambit is very interesting and the games are full of interesting tactical ideas.

Chess News of the week - Nepal Chess Association granted membership to Nepal Olympic Committee

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

MYREPUBLICA.com - News in Nepal: Fast, Full & Factual

KATHMANDU, July 5: Nepal Olympic Committee (NOC) granted its associate membership to Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) and Nepal Chess Association.

An NOC meeting has endorsed the requests by the respective associations for membership recently on the basis of participation of the games in regional and continental tournaments and their popularity in Nepal.

"We have consulted international authorities and decided to grant the membership," said NOC President Dhruba Bahadur Pradhan at a press conference on Monday.

This is the first time NOC has added members after its establishment.

"International Cricket Council is already in Olympic movement and we are also participating in tournaments like SAG and Asian Games. We are not separate from the Olympic movement," said CAN President Binaya Raj Pandey. Likewise, Nepal Chess Association President Rajesh Hari Joshi thanked NOC for the membership.

Would be fun to see chess in the World Olympics. Maybe have speed chess or game/30 to keep the speed interesting for spectators. I remember seeing some chess matches that were covered on PBS on year.

Places to Play Chess online, part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

One of the more popular places to play online chess is the Internet Chess Club.
It has been around for a long time. ICC and FICS split many years ago when the internet was in its infancy. FICS wanted to provide a free place to play chess while the ICC wanted to provide some services which had a cost. Both are good sites and provide a good service. ICC has a lot more players on normally, and there are some other benefits to the service. The problem is the cost. It costs $70 a year for a membership. The price seems very high and it has kept me from playing there since there are many other places to play.

If the $70 a year is not a problem, ICC provides good services and has a good number of players to play against. You get access to chess.fm - videos teaching chess. Personally - I play at FICS and chess.com for free.

See my previous posts for more places to play chess online.
Places to Play Chess online
Places to Play Chess online, part 2

Attacking Chess Game of the Week - 2010-07-09

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

your web browser and/or your host do not support iframes as required to display the chessboard

Attacking Chess Puzzle of the week - 2010-07-08

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Answer to last weeks puzzle:

1. Rxg6 hxg6 2. Qxg6 Bg7 3. Bxg7++

This weeks puzzle:

Attacking Chess Opening Overview - Smith-Morra Gambit

noreply@blogger.com (Justin McClure) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Overview
The Smith-Morra gambit always evokes a very strong response from many players. It is the ideal idea - limit the large amount of theory that one must know and learn a system that allows White to have an initiative while putting the Sicilian player on the defensive. It has a less than ideal reputation but it is a good alternative for players to learn tactics, open lines and have less opening study to do.

History
The gambit is relatively new, but the idea has been around for a while. Morphy was the first player to do the c3 gambit, but it was not in the modern move order. Tartakower was the first grandmaster who actually tried to play the modern move order. He played the gambit on and off through his career. In South America there was some analysis done by Rivadavia. The major contribution to the popularization of the gambit was done by Pierre Morra and Ken Smith. They provided a good amount of analysis and played it enough to get attention.

Moves
1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3. c3

This is the starting position of the Smith-Morra gambit. It can be declined at this point, although accepting it with the intent to show it is weak seems like the rage right now.

3...dxc3 4. Nxc3 Nc6 5. Nf3 d6 6. Bc4 e6 7. O-O Nf6 8. Qe2 Be7 9. Rd1

This is the classical main line position. White is threatening 10. e5, is castled, has an active position and development is ahead of Black.

In general, White develops with the following scheme Nf3, Bc4, O-O, Qe2, Rd1 followed by deciding on the best place for the queen bishop. Sometimes Black plays to take advantage of this setup and it must be changed but normally Whites setup is fine.

Common Tactics
There are some common tactics that exist in the Smith-Morra. I list them below.

e5 thrust
Knight sacrifice on d5
Piece Sacrifice on b5

Summary
The Smith-Morra gambit is a fun, exciting gambit that takes Black out of his comfort zone in the Sicilian. The game usually ends up with White having the initiative in a fairly even game. Black is denied from playing his pet Sicilian system and has to be more defensive. There are a number of ways for Black to equalize, but the games are fun and complex.