Sunday, October 7, 2018

Another Great Chess Session @ Siglap South CC (7th Oct 2018)

I'm so happy to see Mr John Wong back again (thanks for the souvenir!), having just returned with the Singapore Teams from the Chess Olympiad 2018 held in Batumi, Georgia.

I don't think I'd be using it on my own. I'd just keep it somewhere, and whenever I meet any participant in person, bring it to them for their autograph ^o^ 

I only played 2 rapid chess games today. Can't say I love the quality of my games (both White), but on the bright side, I did not make any major piece drop blunder.


First Game

Thoughts / Learning Points
  • It really helps to know the theme of the opening. I almost didn't spend any time to punish 9...Nbd7 because it occurred as a common mistake when Black moves the dark square Bishop to d6 to fight White's Bishop on f4. We can learn "tactics" and "strategy" when studying openings correctly too!

Second Game

Thoughts / Learning Points:
  • I started slipping at around move 16, whereby the entire fight revolve around control for c6 (and d5). The subtle but important contest was happening over the a1-h8 diagonal too, whether White's b2 Bishop will hang.
  • On the bright side, this is probably the type of position I'm happy to play with. Despite my slips, the position remains bearable (even if punished accurately by my opponent).
  • Last but not least, despite lacking the actual concrete endgame skills, I'm glad my endgame play was decent enough.
  • Overall, I'm happy with my White play in both games. At last, I do not feel worse out of the openings. 

Featured Game: Eric v.s. William
It's probably a bit boring to just keep looking at my own games. Here are 2 of my chess friends having a go at each other =) Since I have already provided my views live (after the game is over, of course), I will not repeat myself here. Should any reader have feedback or pointers to share, please feel free.

I will share my overall impressions on the game, however. I think it is correct to say that Eric is good at attacking, but lacking in terms of sense of danger. Ideally, we would want prefer to make moves which allows us to attack without over-compromising our own position. While William seems to have made a mistake in his opening phase, dropping a pawn, I really like his practical decision making afterwards (avoid unnecessary exchanges when down, defence and excellent pawn push and break in the endgame). I like this type of down-to-earth approach to the game -- there's no need to win a game by "big moves" all the time.

Bird's eye view (not Bird's opening, lol!) between Eric (White, left) and William (Black, Right)

I climbed up the chair to take this shaky shot ^o^

Eric, a.k.a. "Sunday Chess Uncle" working hard over the Board. A pity he dropped the game from a promising situation, but we will only get better with more practical experiences.

William played a great game, overcoming a pawn deficit out of the opening and won the endgame in convincing fashion. Even I may not have converted as smoothly. In case you are wondering why the room is so empty, we went overtime again (this untimed game started after our official closing hour of 6pm, ended past 7pm as I recall.)



Other Games Captured by the DGT Board
(I'm so glad that my investment is being utilised a lot -- good that it did not become a White elephant.)


Thanks again for your time!


Yours sincerely
Ong Yujing (newbie_learner)
a.k.a. scorekeeper

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