Chess Pain
.I’ve never been any good at chess. I like it, but the higher orders of understanding it elude me.
And so playing it is an exercise in frustration. Even playing against people I can beat is like that, because I never know when the appropriate neurons will fail to fire and I’ll find myself doing something really stupid.
I played against Niall Murphy this evening and (naturally) lost. I was playing White, and we ended up in the Levenfish variation, an attack on the Sicilian Dragon. I wasn’t previously aware of this attack, and stumbled into it because it looked like it made sense at the time…
Sadly, I wasn’t able to sustain the tight play that is apparently required to make that attack work, and eventually (afer being allowed a couple of takebacks for embarrassing blunders) stumbled into an endgame where I was down several pawns. This didn’t work out too well.
Clearly this would have been a better result, but I was too chicken to do 7. e5. I can’t remember what I did go for, possibly 7. f4.
Sadly, stumbling through that was probably one of the better games I’ve played against Niall.
I do have to remember, though, that we should really write down the moves. It’s not hard to do so, and I would definitely like to be able to replay my games (so as to be able to look over them and say “what the hell was I thinking?”). Hopefully I’ll remember that the next time I play chess.
03 Jun 2007 at 10:35
It was the tightest sharpest game I’ve played against you yet. Looking forward to more!
05 Jul 2007 at 12:43
Niall: I definitely enjoyed it! Sadly, I haven’t played since, and I’ll need to get some practice in before our next contest to make it as compelling!