Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! Hope you have all had a great Christmas time! I have had a really great Christmas.
I have enjoyed my time with family and friends and celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. I have been quite spoilt getting some very nice gifts! In regards to chess I was given Fritz 13 which I am looking forward to using to analyse my games. So far Fritz has smashed me in a few Blitz games. I am not sure how well I will go in the future facing off against the strong software.

 

I also received a few books! My System, Zurich International Tournament 1953, How To Reassess Your Chess and Better Chess have all been added to my chess library. As I make my way through each of the books I will post my thoughts on each of them and add them to The Bookshelf!

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DGT 2010 Chess Clock Review

Just a post about the DGT 2010 Chess Clock. I recently purchased one for my Birthday in September and have been enjoying using it to play games with some friends and family. I love playing chess with a clock! In particular I love playing Blitz and would like to get even better at playing good moves quicker and blundering positions and pieces a lot less! This was my main reason for purchasing a digital clock. I have an old analog clock which is a good clock but it is harder to see how much time is left and does not give the options of added time after making a move or different clock variations such as hourglass. 
 
 
So this clock is a great digital clock. I have the most recent version with the buttons having the blue background. The clock does exactly what it is supposed to do and does it very well. It has numerous different pre-set times that are commonly used. These are all numbered and easy to understand with a list of the pre-set times on the bottom of the clock. There is also the option to create individual time limits using the manual set times. At my last tournament these clocks were being used with a time of 1hour +10 seconds per move. They are easy to understand and the players seemed very comfortable using them. I have played tournaments with the DGT model before this model and the changes are not overly dramatic but to me seem to work quite well and make it a solid tournament chess clock. 

The one thing that did surprise me about the clock is how light it is. I almost wish it were just a little heavier to make me feel as though it were a little more sturdy for fast past blitz games where people tend to hit the clock with a heavier strike of the hand. 

Overall I am very happy with this clock and would recommend it if you are looking to purchase a digital chess clock. 

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Back home!

I am back home after being away with my family and enjoying a relaxing camping trip. Before the trip I played in a local teams tournament. I finished with an individual score of 3.5 out of 6 but my team did not score so strongly. I was playing board one for my team as I was the strongest rated player (ACF 1500 – Turns out I did have a rating on records somewhere?!?) I had a really fun time and it was great catching up with some old friends. I played some good games without making too many errors. Surprisingly when I made a mistake, I made a mistake! Losing my Queen in two of the matches I played (Painful!). Over the next couple of weeks I will post some of the games that I played at the tournament.

After the tournament it was great to have some time away and relax! I did however manage to play a few games of chess with my dad. I recorded one of the games we played. This was a Fisher rapid game (25 minutes + 10 seconds per move).

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Blitz Game

In this Blitz game I successfully used the Traxler Counter Gambit to gain the win. Last time I posted about this opening I had used it unsuccessfully as my knowledge of the possible continuations was limited.  After studying the lines in more detail I have managed this nice win over a 2000 rated player on Chesscube.

 

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