Refuting an Optical Advantage

After a bad losing streak I have been confronted with this position yesterday, after having declined a King's gambit. The center avalanche of White looks impressive and I already was preparing my mind for another hard fight, probably a loss. But then, more and more, I came to the conclusion that it does only look like an advantage, but may be not really threatening. Just look at the King in the center.



Black to move

After one or two minutes I saw the tactical counterstike Nxe4 which destroys the pawn avalanche, leaving White with serious problems due to the exposed King. I used five more minutes to visualize and double-check the future position. White was so shocked that after Nxe4 Nxe4 d5 he missed to take the pawn. The game went on Bb3? dxe4 Ng5 Qxe4 and already I was two pawns up. I won the game in 28 moves.

What makes me happy about this game is the fact that my opponent had played as I usually do, i.e. launching a heavy attack, and has lost as I usually do, running into a counterstrike. I have always thought that I am a White player. But this game has brought me to love Black. Black is beautiful. I am looking forward to my next black game.

UPS Excellent, But No Guarantee

I have been away from chess and internet for a week. After my return, many other things than chess demanded my attention. But yesterday, I played two grandmaster games from my newspaper, doing a move-by-move UPS. For one part, this is a training. And for the other part it is an opportunity to see how far UPS can bring me to the best move.

Not very far, I must admit. But these are grandmaster games. Grandmasters do not blunder most of the time. But even so, UPS gives me better insight into a game, into its hidden structures and possibilities.

UPS is a must, but there is a big caveat: You must not forget other motifs. For instance, one of the games was decided by a weak back rank together with an advanced passer - immune due to the back rank weakness.

Med Journal Watch Blog Started

I'll keep the non-chessical blogging on this site on an absolute minimum. But this time I cannot help doing some cross-site metablogging: I am happy to announce my new blog here: Med Journal Watch.

I have been doing this watch job for a number of years, generating output in German language, first for a print newsreader only, later also in the web. I even make some money with my web content now, and the trend is upwards. My sources are medical journals in English, and why not generate an output in the same language, I have asked myself more than once.

Well, it is always hard to start a new site with zero traffic. But today I did it. That's all what I have to say about this subject. My next posts will be chessical again, this is for granted. But you are welcome to switch site from time to time. You find the link in my profile.