Patzer's review

Wijk aan Zee is a tiny wind-swept town on the Dutch coast. The main attraction for the town seems to be the large beach that is several kilometers long. But in the winter, the town is invaded by hundreds of chess players and fans who want to see the World's greatest players battle it out over the 64 squares. Wijk aan Zee As part of the whole Tata Steel chess event there is a weekend tournament for amateur players. A friend and I decided to play and do a bit of chess tourism at the same time. This was the first time for me at a major international event, so it was a bit exciting. After checking in at the hotel on Thursday afternoon, the first person we saw was Anish Giri. And at breakfast the next morning, Vishy Anand sat down just a few tables away from us, and several famous grandmasters appeared: Fabiano Caruana, Rustam Kazimdzhanov and Pavel Eljanov. We were speculating whether Magnus Carlsen was staying at the hotel as well, but he did not show himself. However,...

In this round, I was paired up against a quite strong player, so I didn't have high expectations. I had even forgot about the game until about two hours before, and had very little time to prepare. Between feeding the children and getting them to bed, I took a brief look at a few of my opponent's games. I found that he liked to play the French, so 1. e4 was out the window. Against 1. d4, he seems to like the English defense - an opening against which I have some experience. I refreshed my memory about the opening, and especially the variation in which black keeps his knight on g8 and plays Be7-f6. And what do you know? My opponent played this very line. The first 9 moves were pure preparation from my side. After that, I was on my own. The game was quite even up to the point where I decided to push my e-pawn and realized that I had missed one of my opponent's resources, and he won the pawn by removing a defender. However, it cost him the bishop pair, so it wasn't all...

Round 4, and I am paired up against an opponent I know next to nothing about. I checked his Lichess profile, and found just a few games. I saw that he had played the London system a few times, so that was my best guess as to what I could expect. The game was a bit dry. Both players made a few mistakes and failed to fully utilize each other's mistakes. After a few positional inaccuracies from my opponent, I had a chance to play for a win, but didn't manage to find the right continuation. The game ended in a draw. I gave the resulting position to an FM at my club, and asked his opinion about it. He said the pushing b4 was not necessarily the right plan. Rather, he suggested playing g5 and opening up the kingside. In his opinion, doubling on the g-file would be a good try for black. My opponent arrived at a similar conclusion after having fed the position toan engine and having it play the game out. The computer closed up the queenside and went for a kingside attack. Black w...

Here is my first game from the Twitter chess tournament (I know, they come in the wrong order). Before the game, I had looked at my opponent's profile on Lichess, and saw that he liked to play the Spanish and Scotch. So I chose to give my Scotch repertoire a chance to come out and play. Up to move 10, I was still in preparation, and I got a really good game. After 13 moves, I had a completely winning position, and I felt it. I even thought to myself that this would be an easy win. But I guess this made me lazy, and I failed to consider my opponent's possibilities and counter threats. At move 20, I saw the opportunity (or so I thought) to win an exchange by pinning his queen to his rook. But the counter-pin Qg6 saves everything and throws away my entire advantage and gives it to black. After a few defensive moves, I killed the game with a horrible blunder. I was only looking at my own options, and failed to recognize my opponent's threats. That is not a good approach to ch...

For a few weeks now, I have been a part of a tournament within the Twitter chess community. The tournament is hosted by fellow blogger Say Chess , and resistance is quite tough. I came into this round with two losses, and felt good about finally scoring a point. The game was quite one-sided, but I realize that my board vision needs some work. I missed a free pawn and misevaluated the position a few times. Apart from that, I felt quite good about the game. Click through the moves below for more detailed comments.