hardcore pawnography

* paraphrasing the old bullwinkle cartoon, most of you probably won’t get it

i love sleight of hand magic, enough to have studied it and learned it and even performed it briefly. one of the things magician’s do is practice in front of a mirror, to see what angles need to be covered and see if their “secret” moves can be seen.

one of the problems many amateur magicians have is blinking during the crucial moment. yes, blinking. i’ve caught myself doing it. when you do “the move” you blink, so you don’t see it, so you think no one can see it. but they can and do and you look like an idiot. (more so then just wearing the tuxedo t-shirt and red converse sneakers and big top hat). you DESPERATELY WANT the trick to work, so you subconsciously cheat and make it work by blinking and not seeing that you fucked up and can be seen.

for me, analyzing games and such, i tend to have a similar problem. when i try to figure out what would be the best move, i am biased toward one side, i don’t see ALL the good moves the other side has. “oh yeah, if i take this pawn, he will take with his queen and i will take the queen! easy!” so i take the pawn, and he moves his knight to fork my king, queen, both bishops, both rooks, three pawns, and the super tasty sandwich i made and was saving to eat after the game (it was a mighty knight fork) so i end up losing.

why? cause i “blinked.” i played it out in my favor. i need to be more impartial, more objective, i need to SEE that the move i was thinking about is actually not a good one. i need to give my opponent more credit, he will see that my threat isn’t real, and he will counter my weak threat with a real one.

until i really learn to do that, i will continue to fuck up games and lose. but at least i know how to eat fire, so i got that going for me.

all that said, i won my last two games, and in the words of R.E.M., i’m feelin’ pretty psyched!  it was against a guy who i’ve played a bunch of times before, and usually i just lose.  he is internet rated higher than me (which i assume means he is better than me) and i beat him two times in a row.

first game i decided to play the ruy lopez, just to see what would happen.  i won, that’s what happened.  and it was a nice finish, i was happy with it.
second game, against the same guy,  i don’t know why i won, i really don’t.  i’ve gone over the game (not with fritz, i should use the damn fritz) but i can’t see why i won.

here are both games, in case anyone wants to see em….

game1 - i’m black     1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Bc5 5. Re1 O-O
6. Bxc6 bxc6 7. Nxe5 d5 8. exd5 Qxd5 9. Nc3 Qd4 10. Nd3 Ng4
11. Nxc5 Qxf2+ 12. Kh1 Qxc5 13. Qxg4 Bxg4 14. Ne4 Rae8 15. d3 Qxc2
16. Bf4 f5 17. Rec1 Qxb2 18. Nc5 Re2 19. Nd7 Rd8 20. Ne5 Rxg2
21. Nxg4 Rxg4 22. Bxc7 Qg2#

game 2 - i’m white   1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c4 dxc4 4. e4 Bg4 5. Be2 e6
6. O-O Bxf3 7. Bxf3 Qxd4 8. Nd2 Rd8 9. e5 Nxe5 10. Bxb7 Bb4
11. Qa4+ Qd7 12. Qxb4 Rb8 13. Rd1 c6 14. Qc3 Rxb7 15. Qxe5 Nf6
16. b3 cxb3 17. Ba3 bxa2 18. Nc4 Qc7 19. Nd6+ Ke7 20. Nxb7+ c5
21. Qxc7+