Chess In The Fast Lane

Game Of The Week

This week's game comes from Colorado Springs Chess Club's event at COATI, 4th Wednesday May Unrated Blitz (6SS, G/5+0).  It was our second chance for the club to test out a new location since our long-time home at the Acacia Apartments Ballroom is still closed.  Will Wolf won the first event when our boards were split between the upstairs bar and the back alley.  I was the house player that night to focus on directing (TD) the event.

This time, we were in the upstairs game area and not split up.  With less players, I was able to play and be the TD.  Also, John Brezina, President of the Parker Chess Club, volunteered to be the house player so he could take photos.  I chose a couple of his pictures for the blog, but you can view the rest online:

Surely make you lose your mind

https://photos.app.goo.gl/rHDxiv2yB1SAz8M8A

Over the past year, I have played a lot of Blitz, which is fast chess.  When I get my taco and water for lunch, I will play a game or two on my phone while I am eating.  Usually when I am opening the mild salsa, I blunder my Queen and have to try to win LM Brian Wall's Burden Award for dropping your Queen but still winning the game.  In addition, since I have been organizing online tournaments for the club on Chess.com, I will play a game or two of fast chess to relieve the stress of trying to find the club features on the site's complicated website.

I was surprised to see I got my Chess.com rating over 2200 and in the 99th percentile.  It is also surprising that I have so many strong chess players as friends.  I am only in the 97th percentile among my friends.

Blitz

2207

Friends (742)

 #20

 

Global 

 #14623

 

Percentile

 99.5%

Highest Rating

 2214

Apr 20, 2021

In addition, my Chess24 rating is over 2200.

c24 Blitz

2233

Does that mean I am a Blitz Master?

I guess Will has been playing a lot of fast chess online during the pandemic too. He won our first Blitz event and was steam-rolling through the field again when we met in round 4, both unbeaten. He seems to know all the tricks of playing chess in the fast lane. He was pre-moving and auto-queening. When I was down to 13 seconds on my clock, he claimed stalemate despite having a Bishop and King with legal moves.

Chess In The Fast Lane

I didn't fall for any of it. I knew he had a nasty reputation as a cruel dude.

When I got low in time, I just decided to get the extra Queen and leave him the Bishop to avoid that dreaded stalemate. However, I missed a quicker win. It is Mate-in-5, but I doubt if I could have found it in 13 seconds. See if you can do better and you only have 13 seconds!

Black to move

With Will in the rear-view mirror, I was on cruise control. I just had to pass the master tortoise, Mark McGough. But Mark had been getting advice from Joe Pahk about how to beat me in Blitz. The first trick was to get home-board advantage. Mark uses a glowing, neon board that will surely make you lose your mind and places his pieces in between two squares rather than in the center of a square so that you can never really tell where his pieces are supposed to be.

Was it really any wonder that I couldn't see the darken clock display showing the flag and 0:00 on his side?

On which square is that King supposed to be?

Then the tortoise shouts, as he passes the hare, "Time!" I was just stunned that 0:00 was showing on my side too.

I guess that slow and steady doesn't always win the race.

Chess In The Fast Lane

[Event "4th Wednesday May COATI"]

[Site "https://cschessnews.blogspot.com/"]

[Date "2021.05.26"]

[Round "4.1"]

[White "Wolf, Will"]

[Black "Anderson, Paul"]

[Result "0-1"]

[ECO "E62"]

[WhiteElo "1398"]

[BlackElo "1951"]

[PlyCount "84"]

[EventDate "2021.05.26"]

[TimeControl "300"]

1. c4 c6 2. d4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. g3 Nf6 6. Bg2 O-O 7. Nf3 Bg4 8. h3 Bxf3 9. Bxf3 Nbd7 10. O-O Qc7 11. Bg2 e5 12. d5 c5 13. Nb5 Qb8 14. a4 a6 15. Nc3 Qc7 16. a5 b6 17. axb6 Nxb6 18. Qe2 Rfb8 19. f4 exf4 20. gxf4 Nfd7 21. Qg4 Nxc4 22. f5 Nde5 23. Qg3 Nxb2 24. fxg6 hxg6 25. Bg5 Nbd3 26. Bf6 Bxf6 27. Rxf6 Qe7 28. Raf1 Rb3 29. Ne2 c4 30. Nf4 Qxf6 31. Nxd3 Rxd3 32. Qxd3 cxd3 33. Rxf6 d2 34. Rf1 Rc8 35. Kh2 Rc1 36. Rxc1 dxc1=Q 37. h4 a5 38. h5 a4 39. h6 a3 40. h7+ Kxh7 41. Bf3 a2 42. Bd1 a1=Q 0-1

https://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game-replayer.php?id=116589

This Week In Chess

On May 26th, the Colorado Springs Chess Club held the 4th Wednesday May Unrated Blitz. I won the mug and sunglasses, in overall 1st, while Josh Markowicz and Jacob McCloud split the unrated prize.

Place, 4th Wednesday May Unrated Blitz, Score, Prize, $ Type

1 Paul D Anderson 5.5 Mug & Sunglasses 1st place
2 William Leo Wolf 5.0
3 John Micha McCann 4.0
4 Mark McGough 3.5
5 Joseph H Pahk 3.0
6 Josh Markowicz 3.0 Sunglasses 1st Unrated
7 Jacob McCloud 3.0 Mug 1st Unrated
8 Yuna T Pahk 3.0
9 Jose Llacza Magno 2.0
10 Anu Sharavdorj 2.0
11 Tim Saffold 1.0
12 John Jose Brezina 1.0
13 David Mueller 0.0