A better endgame.

Great game. When you said it took 49 seconds to sort out Nb7, is that supposed to be a long think? One minute isn't nearly enough for a real deep drink from the well of chess think. Can you even apply the thought process thoroughly in those short 20 minute games?

Blue Devil Knight wrote:Great game. When you said it took 49 seconds to sort out Nb7, is that supposed to be a long think? One minute isn't nearly enough for a real deep drink from the well of chess think. Can you even apply the thought process thoroughly in those short 20 minute games?

Your right bdk, in a 20 minute game you don't have time to go deep.

Looks like a nice game where you took advantage of the mistakes of your opp in a very convincing way. Well played!

Nice game! I was actually wondering if 51.Ne4 is strictly necessary?
If I'm counting correctly, it looks to me like you will queen first, on move 53, and Black will also queen on his 53rd move. But then you get to play 54.Qb8+, which forces the reply 54...Qb7 (only legal move), and then you win with 55.Qxb7# (the queen's capture on b7 is supported by the knight).

I realize this is kind of a moot point, as you win easily either way, but I thought the pawn race with mate in 2 after queening was aesthetically kind of "cute"...

But in time pressure of course it totally made sense for you to play the safe move and block his promotion with your knight, rather than risk a promotion race that you might not have time to calculate all the way through to the end!

Best regards,
Hank

Hank wrote:Nice game! I was actually wondering if 51.Ne4 is strictly necessary?
If I'm counting correctly, it looks to me like you will queen first, on move 53, and Black will also queen on his 53rd move. But then you get to play 54.Qb8+, which forces the reply 54...Qb7 (only legal move), and then you win with 55.Qxb7# (the queen's capture on b7 is supported by the knight).

I realize this is kind of a moot point, as you win easily either way, but I thought the pawn race with mate in 2 after queening was aesthetically kind of "cute"...

But in time pressure of course it totally made sense for you to play the safe move and block his promotion with your knight, rather than risk a promotion race that you might not have time to calculate all the way through to the end!

Best regards,
Hank

Thanks Hank,
your right, but I was running into a time issue and at this point I thought safe easy moves would work best. How is the course going?

chesstiger wrote:Looks like a nice game where you took advantage of the mistakes of your opp in a very convincing way. Well played!

Thanks Tiger.

Chess? wrote:

Hank wrote:Nice game! I was actually wondering if 51.Ne4 is strictly necessary?
If I'm counting correctly, it looks to me like you will queen first, on move 53, and Black will also queen on his 53rd move. But then you get to play 54.Qb8+, which forces the reply 54...Qb7 (only legal move), and then you win with 55.Qxb7# (the queen's capture on b7 is supported by the knight).

I realize this is kind of a moot point, as you win easily either way, but I thought the pawn race with mate in 2 after queening was aesthetically kind of "cute"...

But in time pressure of course it totally made sense for you to play the safe move and block his promotion with your knight, rather than risk a promotion race that you might not have time to calculate all the way through to the end!

Best regards,
Hank

Thanks Hank,
your right, but I was running into a time issue and at this point I thought safe easy moves would work best. How is the course going?

Absolutely -- the correct time management practice is to play the easy safe moves to ensure the win while minimizing risks and counterplay!

I'm ashamed to say that I haven't taken the plunge to start the course yet, so I'm a bit of an interloper - lurking and enjoying the great conversations in the forum as a way of getting psyched up to maybe try the course. (I wandered over from BDK's blog to check out the forums and have been following the discussions with interest.)

-- Hank

take the plunge Hank. You will love it.