Rating 1830
Puzzle Rush Score 38
Game analysis today as I work through more games from the book “How To Become A Candidate Master”. Interestingly, the engine liked a few different lines to what the book was suggesting today.
In the game below the key idea of discussion is the danger of leaving the king in the center, especially if your opponents plan is to break through the center.
Rating 1821
Puzzle Rush Score 26
Today I analysed a few games from the book “How To Become A Candidate Master”. The book looks over games in the 1800-2000 rating range and gives brief explanations. It is a fairly easy read with some simple ideas to be reminded of.
The Meltwater Chess Championship Finals continued today (round 6) and Magnus Carlsen played an insane game against Anish Giri, letting go of his queen for 3 minor pieces. Do yourself a favour and check out the game below!
Rating 1812
Puzzle Rush Score 43 (new high score)
Today I got a 43 in puzzle rush. I was really happy with beating my previous personal best. Something fun that I noticed was that Hikaru Nakamura had done a puzzle rush during the day and his high score for the day was 60 (his all time high score was over a hundred though).
Lets continue to talk about Hikaru Nakamura and his match against Magnus Carlsen in the Meltwater Chess Championship. Nakamura lost his match today against Carlsen. It is always fun to watch them verse each other.
They played a game that reminded me of an endgame study I had recently done. In the game Nakamura has his king on the queenside far from the incoming kingside pawns of Carlsen. Nakamura manages to get his king across, but not quickly enough and the white king walks all the way down (in a similar fashion to the endgame study I had done).
I found it to be an instructive endgame.
Rating 1799
Puzzle Rush Score 38
Today the puzzle rush pays off. In the following game I set up a simple “puzzle rush” style back mate and my opponent makes a mistake allowing mate in 2. In the game the mating idea came very naturally as it’s a tactic I have been revising each day.