THINK Chess Blog #11

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Liga

I have the duty to inform you all that... THINK Chess ARE IN LEAGUE 6! Our highest ever placing! A game from our second-highest scorer @I_Am_Not_Me_Maybe, a game where they defeated a titled player:

https://lichess.org/sXURJFBm

It begins as an English Opening, and shifts to a King's English/Reverse Sicilian variation. The queens were exchanged on the 5th move. The opening progresses into what I would call an "abnormal queenless middlegame" with the pawns a bit out of whack due to an unorthodox piece exchange, and @I_Am_Not_Me_Maybe 's opponent has a slight advantage. @I_Am_Not_Me_Maybe plays 17 c5, which looks innocuous, but there is a vicious trap behind it if the wrong moves are played, and sure enough, their opponent completely missed the threat and played 17...Bxf3?? 18. Ba6+ forces checkmate in another move, because the move forces the king to b8, and there are a few ways to mate afterward. Sure enough, @I_Am_Not_Me_Maybe played that, and chose 19. Rb1+ which forces Bb4, and Rxb4 is check and mate.

Great win for @I_Am_Not_Me_Maybe, which certainly helped with getting to league 6! Thank you to everyone who participated, you did me a huge favor [because I literally scored 0 points]. And you know what? If YOU want to do me and everyone else in THINK a favor, please show up and contribute to the Liga 6 on Sunday! https://lichess.org/tournament/jerytWJa

Masters

Overall

To view the overall progress of the Masters, click here.

Atomic Masters

As promised in my last blog, I have the winner of the Atomic Masters (drumroll please...) It is... FM @royalblue04 ! Congrats! The match for the title was a close one (especially since Royal lost the first game), contested by @royalblue04 and @George6W-obs yet it finished as a 1-3 win for @royalblue04. I have chosen one game in particular to focus on, and this time, let's not even bother with my unintelligible atomic commentary, we have a special guest appearance (one of two in this blog) by none other than FM @royalblue04! (Thanks @Rankrotten for this idea!)

When I use brackets [ ] it means that whatever is in those brackets wasn't in the actual conversations, I added them to make this be more fluid:

https://lichess.org/9pcQoJ7G

@chessmessi14: Hello, I am the THINK blog writer, I am wondering if you would be willing to answer a few questions for the blog about this game: https://lichess.org/9pcQoJ7G

@royalblue04: This was the third game of this match if i remember right. Well, of course as long as you keep in mind that i am by no means any expert regarding atomic.

chessmessi14: Yeah me neither. Alright first of all (it's not about the game, but about the first one): what did you think after you lost the first match?

royalblue04: That was really bad. Losing in atomic playing white is critical in a match like this. On the spot one is in real danger to loose the match. And it was a game with a superior position and better time - but he was fast enough to flag me. I was too sure to win this, this is stupid and deserves punishment. But there was no time to think very long such dark thoughts - the next game was to be played the next moment - and more or less i had to win the next match for a fast comeback. After this had worked i was optimistic again.

chessmessi14: Nice self-motivation! Second question: what did you think after 3... Qf6?

royalblue04: A blunder, Ng5 is the the refutation. After that white should win.

chessmessi14: Third question: on a scale of 1-10, how sure were you that you would win [after the 3rd move]?

royalblue04: It does not make sense to think about this. Nothing is achieved before you got 3 points. Thinking about your chances leads to nothing. Make the best of your chances in the game is important - and church never is over before the fat lady sings. So better not being forced to recalculate your chances after being too optimistic to make good moves anymore playing fast. You remember what happened in game 1? Sometimes I forgot things, sometimes I learn them new very quick ;-)

chessmessi14: That's literally the best question response I've ever heard in my life woah. Fourth question: is there a specific reason why you play 1. Nh3 for Atomic?

royalblue04: There is no specific reason why i play atomic at all ;-)

chessmessi14: [Same here!] Fifth (and last) question: do you think this win was the turning point in the match?

royalblue04: Maybe more the second game. After that i had white - a big advantage in atomic, as long your opponent is not in the lead.

chessmessi14: Alright, thank you for your time!

royalblue04: No prob. Its good that someone does this blog - so thank you for doing it! [They actually said this, it is not shameless advertising :) ]

chessmessi14: Thanks again and I will see you in the next Masters!

Many thanks and congratulations again to @royalblue04 for participating (and winning this Masters), and great job to everyone who participated in the Masters!

UltraBullet Masters

This competition has not started yet! To join, please post in this forum before or on Monday the 20th of June. The competition starts the day after that.

Share your Successes!

This subject is a mash-up of two ideas, suggested by @Rankrotten and @Windrunner315. (If you want to post your own successes, post here: https://lichess.org/forum/team-think/share-your-success?page=16 Thank you both for your ideas! If you would like to send some suggestions yourself, please DM me @chessmessi14 or write here: https://lichess.org/forum/team-think/think-blog-11-suggestions. Our second guest appearance is the one, the only: @Michael_Campbell ! The game we are going over is:

https://lichess.org/aFpYWL8X

@chessmessi14: Hello, as you may know, I am the THINK blog writer, and as per your recent post in share your success, I would like to interview you about it if you are comfortable with that.

@Michael_Campbell: Sure.

chessmessi14: I'll only have a few questions so to not bore you :). First question: what did you think when you got that high rated player?

Michael_Campbell: I had a moment of uh oh because I do tend to blunder early against higher rated players though at the time I only registered that he was 2000+ rated. it wasn't until after the game I realised it was 2481.

chessmessi14: Yeah those would be my thoughts too!

Michael_Campbell: :)

chessmessi14: Is the king's gambit your main opening?

Michael_Campbell: Yes, after 1... e5 I always play f4 it was actually a present surprise for me that he played e5 as I was mentally preparing myself for my pet peeve c5, the Sicilian. If it wasn't for the king's gambit I would long since switched to 1.d4 to avoid the Sicilian.

chessmessi14: [I also don't like the Sicilian] After 10. Nbxd5 (supposedly the main blunder) what did you think?

Michael_Campbell: I think my mental jaw dropped, I still didn't expect to win though as I felt that he would have seen the following move and that he just disregarded it as not a threat, I nearly didn't play what I did because of this. I suppose this is a lesson to all of us, just because your opponent is highly rated doesn't mean you should assume they have seen everything.

chessmessi14: I have one more question and that's it, what did you think after you won?

Michael_Campbell: Onto the next game, let's hope my form continues, I can't really remember what happened next but I imagine it probably didn't ;)

chessmessi14: Okay thank you for your time!

Outro

Thanks for reading, I should have another blog out in July!