{"id":5879,"date":"2019-06-01T20:49:05","date_gmt":"2019-06-02T04:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=5879"},"modified":"2019-06-01T20:53:59","modified_gmt":"2019-06-02T04:53:59","slug":"the-three-things-i-hate-about-online-chess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=5879","title":{"rendered":"The Three Things I Hate About Online Chess"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Okay, I admit it, I\u2019m a dinosaur. The whole chess world plays online chess, and I don\u2019t. The last time I played online was maybe 15 years ago. But I thought it might be fun to give it another try, especially in the PRO Chess Summer League, competing as part of a team. I was curious to see how this new league would work, with fans competing along with the \u201cpro\u201d players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So today the San Francisco Mechanics had our first match, against the San Diego Surfers. Sixteen fans against sixteen fans, with two games apiece played at a time control of 10 minutes for the game plus 2 seconds per move. And once again I was reminded of the three reasons that I hate playing chess online: bad play (mostly mine), bad software, and bad sportsmanship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s start with bad play. In the first game my opponent and\nI got to this drawn position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Position after 39. Kg3. Black to move.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

FEN: 8\/p7\/1p3p1p\/1Pp1kPp1\/P1Pp2P1\/3P2KP\/8\/8 b – – 0 1<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, \u201cdrawn\u201d does not mean \u201cdrawn under all circumstances.\u201d It means \u201cdrawn if both players keep their wits about them.\u201d And I certainly didn\u2019t keep my wits about me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The simplest way to draw is to simply play 39. \u2026 Kd6 and await events. The main thing to realize is that I do not have to do anything active. All I have to do is move my king back and forth between d7 and e7 forever, unless and until White plays Ke4, and then I have to shut him out with \u2026 Kd6. White has no way of breaking through against this strategy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead I played 39. \u2026 h5?!<\/strong>, which is already courting disaster a little bit. White could try 40. gh Kxf5 41. Kf3 and then Black cannot play the natural-looking 41. \u2026 Ke5?? because 42. h6! wins. Instead Black has to play 41. \u2026 Ke6, which holds the draw but does require a little bit of calculation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, my opponent played 40. Kf3 h4 41. Ke2<\/strong>. And then I made the horrific blunder, 41. \u2026 Kf4?? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This looks \u201caggressive\u201d but it is the only way for Black to\nlose! White seizes the opposition and then squeezes Black\u2019s king backward\nthrough the center like toothpaste through a tube. Again, the way to draw was\nto retreat with 41. \u2026 Kd6, heading for the d7-e7 squares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Position after 41. \u2026 Kf4. White to move.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

FEN: 8\/p7\/1p3p2\/1Pp2Pp1\/P1Pp1kPp\/3P3P\/4K3\/8 w – – 0 3<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course my opponent played 42. Kf2<\/strong>, and the rout was on: 42. \u2026 Ke5 43. Kf3 Kd6 44. Ke4 Ke7 45. Kd5 Kd7<\/strong>. Even though Black has gotten the opposition back, it matters not because White now plays 46. a5! Ke7 47. ab ab 48. Kc6<\/strong>, breaking through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a super-instructive endgame. Black\u2019s strategy of remaining flexible with the king on d7 and e7, and only coming forward to d6 \u201cin the nick of time\u201d to stop White\u2019s king, is a common idea in king and pawn endgames. What\u2019s galling is that I drew in exactly this way in a tournament game a few years ago, and yet I wasn\u2019t able to retrieve that memory today. And I had no excuse. I still had 5 minutes to play on move 39. I absolutely could have taken my time and figured it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that\u2019s the \u201cbad chess.\u201d I hate online chess because I\nplay badly, partly because the board is only 2-dimensional and I grew up with 3\ndimensions, and partly because online chess is always rapid and I\u2019m not very\ngood at rapid chess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the \u201cbad software.\u201d The one thing I was most nervous before the round was that I didn\u2019t know how to offer a draw or resign on chess.com. I asked one of my teammates, and he said that the \u201cDraw\u201d and \u201cResign\u201d buttons would appear as soon as the game started. And so they did\u2026 for the first move at least. I remember noticing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But after we got to move 48, and I was ready to resign, I hunted high and low for that \u201cResign\u201d button and I couldn\u2019t find it anywhere! So I had no choice but to keep on playing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A word of advice to the programmers: Put the draw and resign buttons in a prominent place, and have them there before the game starts<\/em> so that a newbie can familiarize himself with where they are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That brings us to the third part of the equation: \u201cbad\nsportsmanship.\u201d Okay, I get that my opponent was probably pissed, because I was\nin a completely lost position and yet I wouldn\u2019t resign. Nevertheless, one has\nto ask: Does this justify continuing to play on for 99 more moves, capturing\nall six of my pawns, promoting all six of his pawns to knights, and then\nrunning my king on a merry dance around the board with his six knights until the\nlooming 50-move rule forced him to get serious about checkmating me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It left a really bad taste in my mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, on to game two. King\u2019s Gambit. I got a great position, and the computer says I was +2.8 pawns at one point, but from then on I played \u201chope chess\u201d (as in \u201cI hope this sacrifice works\u201d) rather than doing any actual calculation. After sacrificing a piece and then a rook, for no compensation, I would once again have liked to resign. But again, I didn\u2019t know where the button was. So again, I had to sit through about 30 moves of my opponent queening both of his pawns, etc. At least he didn\u2019t make them knights this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All in all, it was one of the least pleasant chess experiences I\u2019ve ever had. But I got the last laugh: my team won, 20-12! My 0-2 made no difference, and it wouldn\u2019t have made any difference if I had gone 1\u00bd – \u00bd, which I realistically could have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I mentioned in my last post, the fans vs. fans match was only half of the evening\u2019s excitement. The other half is the pros vs. pros part. The way this works is that each of the four teams (Chengdu and St. Louis were also playing) selects one pro player (ours was Daniel Naroditsky). They play a short knockout tournament, with first place scoring 3 points, second 2, and third 1. These scores are added to the 3 points for the winners of the two fan-vs.-fan matches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t watch to the end, but Daniel for San Francisco and Varuzhan Akobian for St. Louis won their first matches and faced each other in the finals. So if Danya beat Var, then the Mechanics scored the maximum of 6 points and had a great night. And even if Danya lost, we got 5 points and a pretty good night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, I admit it, I\u2019m a dinosaur. The whole chess world plays online chess, and I don\u2019t. The last time I played online was maybe 15 years ago. But I thought it might be fun to give it another try, especially in the PRO Chess Summer League, competing as part of a team. I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,1363,10,16,3669],"tags":[4362,755,3785,4364,4363,381,1205],"class_list":["post-5879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chess-clubs","category-current-news","category-endings","category-positions","category-pro-chess-league","tag-bummers","tag-daniel-naroditsky","tag-hope-chess","tag-inexcusable","tag-king-and-pawn-endgames","tag-sportsmanship","tag-varuzhan-akobian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5879"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5885,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5879\/revisions\/5885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}