Kingscrusher in top 50 - lichess Bullet Titled Arena - September 2021

Hi all

I had an overall fantastic time and experience in the recent titled bullet arena - September 2021 edition. Things started well with a win vs an IM in the following game. I adopted the "Smyslov system" with an early fianchetto and gives an easy to play game if you get to play it like a Kings Indian defence but where White's c pawn is still on c2. After 12...g5 I was already rather confident it was like an "upgrade" to Kings Indian Defence:

Final position

And then I managed later to take down 4 GMs in total, which is always pleasing :)

GM Scalp #1

My opponent played a bit too many pre-moves in the opening and blundered a piece there. I managed to simplify and reduce counterplay - an important thing to do whatever the time limit!

Final position

GM Scalp #2

I was gutted I missed 22.Qxh6

but he still fell apart anyway:

Final position

GM Scalp #3

I thought I would play the "Elephant gambit" for a laugh - and it paid off. A British player called Jonathon Rogers used to play this regularly on blitz and normal time limits with some great wins. It has always seemed dangerous and outrageous to me and kind of appropriate to faster time controls if opponent's have to improvise more.

Got to a better endgame:

And then I emerged with a runaway passed 'h' pawn - where a little tactic really helped to promote it - the move h2:

Final position

GM Scalp #4

My favorite win - I felt a little bit like Tal in this one and was relieved to see Ne7+

and also the interference moves before that to disconnect is bishop from g5 support

Final position

Video annotation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYlDid0-Rlk

I snuck into Rank #50 out of #399 players with a good finish to the tournament. This is my highest ranking in such titled bullet arenas to date!

Things that may have helped recently

My Mikhail Tal studies seem to be paying off - paying attention in particular to Tal's shorter games (less than 26 moves in general). The intensity of such a study will have the downside perhaps of not too many endgames to study or "grueling, grinding" games in general. But the upside of looking at shorter games I feel is greater tactical awareness, especially when trying to work out what the magician from Riga was thinking! I am hoping to release my Tal course before the end of this month - so look out for it :)

Related to this Blog:
https://lichess.org/@/Kingscrusher-YouTube/blog/bullet-chess-titled-arena-september-the-commentary-video/kS7ZCsHg

Takeaway points

• Check out the games of the "Old masters" before too much Opening theory existed. Fischer and before that would be good.
• Find the truth in such games as far as possible and draw 1-5 takeaway points from each game if possible. Variations are easy to forget. Principles and philosophies are less easy to forget :)
• I would recommend for players under 2200 to focus on the shorter master games (<25 moves) to help improve tactical and middlegame abilities as a priority but I am biased towards a tactical perspective on chess. Also, I feel this increases "optimism" as shorter games are often decided by blunders - and if we are more optimistic about blunders, that is good positive psychology. Kasparov seems to recommend 51% confidence though - don't be overconfident or underconfident but err on the side of slight overconfidence.
• Maximising win probability is also a key tool - sometimes you just need to play quickly - especially in bullet chess. But generally try and play as if it is normal chess but just a lot quicker!

Hope you enjoyed this blog :). Any likes and follows are really appreciated. Also, I also have some interesting chess courses at https://kingscrusher.tv/chesscourses to check out.

Cheers, K