Atom Feed for 'chess' Articles

I ran 40km and knit a hat for my 40th birthday

2024-03-04T23:57:24Z

For my 40th birthday I decided to run just over a mile (1.66km) every hour for 24 hours for a total of 40km (almost 25 miles) from midnight to midnight. This challenge is inspired by Beau Miles' video "Running a marathon, one mile every hour", where he ran 26 miles in 24 hours and did various chores between miles. But instead of chores my goal was to knit an entire cabled hat between laps. The hat pattern I decided to knit is Uljhan by Shweta Shankar Khatri, a two-color cabled worsted weight hat.

Figure 1. Finished hat

When my sister and brother-in-law heard about my plan, they bought me 24 snacks. They wrote the name of each snack on a card. After each lap, I drew one of the cards at random and at whatever it said. That was my calories sorted.

To measure the effects of sleep deprivation I also did one round of Puzzle Storm on lichess after each lap every hour — it is a game where you solve as many easy (but progressively harder) chess puzzles as you can in 3 minutes. I usually consider a Puzzle Storm score of over 30 to mean I’m feeling sharp (my all-time high is 39), anything between 20-30 is normal, and if I score below 20 I know I’m too tired to be trying to play chess.

I had expected the lack of sleep to be the most difficult part of the challenge. I’m someone who generally operates on a solid 9 or 10 hours of sleep per day. But it was surprisingly not an issue. Looking at the Puzzle Storm sparkline chart below, there’s not a pattern corresponding to tiredness. The only naps I took were between 4am and 7am, and those totaled less than an hour together. I think having the knitting to concentrate on (“just get one row done”) was enough to distract my mind from sleep.

Data

Explore the results with the interactive dashboard below (use arrow keys or the buttons to go to progress between hours). Full-screen version here. Click photos for larger versions.

Colophon

For details on the hat pattern, see my project on Ravelry: 40km Birthday Beanie

The dashboard I made from notes I took during each lap. I converted the notes to a JSON array of objects, and then used my usual approach of write an es6 class to store the state and a bunch of DOM references for each component. It is a technique somewhere between the spaghetti of storing state directly in DOM everywhere and using some “modern” framework like vue/react that I usually settle on for small projects (and sometimes big projects).

You can see all the data and javascript here: dashboard.js

It took me almost two years to get around to converting my notes into the interactive dashboard. I finally asked an LLM to prototype something up, and even my local model (qwen3-30b-a3b) got something working and fun almost immediately! I didn’t use the code it generated in the end, but it was enough to get me motivated to work on my own version. I also had it give me examples of the card flip animation and SVG sparklines that I based my code on.

2023 Denver Open

2023-08-11T19:16:30Z

I had the opportunity to play in the Denver Open 2023 chess tournament (along with almost 200 other players!) I played in the U1800 section, winning 4 games and losing 1 to tie (with 7 other people!) for the 2nd place prize pool (I got $100). This is my best tournament performance so far; my rating increased from 1501 to 1574. My rating is still provisional until I play two more rated games. I’m hoping to be close to 1600 after my next tournament.

Figure 1. Round 5 just before my opponent sacs a rook. Photo by John Brezina.

For an overview of the event see DCC 2023 Denver Open report on the Denver Chess Club’s site. For the official results and crosstable see the 2023 Denver Open USCF event page

Below are my five games with a few notes.

Round 1

My first opponent was rated 1141, almost 500 points lower than me, so I was hoping for a non-taxing, preferably short game to give me time to relax in my hotel room before the more difficult rounds later in the day. Instead I got a 3+ hour game where I was paranoid the entire time I would mess up the end game and draw (or lose).

I had the white pieces and played 1.e4. She played a French, so I played the Advance since that’s the only variation I know comfortably. But she exchanged lightsquare bishops on b5 and then left her queen on that diagonal preventing me from castling. It was uncomfortable, but she underestimated my knight moves and lost 2 pawns before we traded down to an endgame. I made several mistakes in the conversion but managed to stop her pawns and push mine to victory.

Round 2

In the second round I had the black pieces against a 1700. This time I played the French and they played the King’s Indian Attack. I don’t know how to play against the KIA so I just mirrored white and fianchettoed my bishop as well. I think I had a worse understanding of the position for most of the game, but we got to a point where they could trade their bishop for my bishop or for my knight and they chose my knight (27..Bxc4?). That decision left them with weak lightsquares, me with a strong lightsquare bishop, and suddenly I was the one making threats against their king. They resigned with a Mate-in-1 on the board.

Round 3

The last round of the day and I was hoping for a good pairing to give me a chance of a perfect 3-0. Instead I got the black pieces against the highest rated player in the U1800 section. This was another King’s Indian Attack. Ugh. Whatever I did in Round 2 against a similarly rated opponent seemed to work, so I once again went for a setup where I fianchettoed my kingside bishop.

I never really felt in control this game, and I got into some tactical trouble, but calculated out a tenacious defense that saved a piece that I was proud of. Unfortunately the resulting position was worse and more tactically dangerous for black than I realized (until I was once again losing a piece with no way out). I resigned after 24 moves.

Round 4

The next morning I was paired with the white pieces against a 1234-rated player. Out of the opening I won one of their center pawns, but in compensation they got a tremendous amount of activity. I think we were about equal (though I would need several moves to develop my bishops), when he decided to try an exchange sacrifice with 17…Rxb2?! It was exciting but turned out to be unsound and I soon capitalized on their weak back rank; they resigned with Mate-in-1 on the board.

Round 5

Last round. I have white again. If I win then I probably get some prize money. We both played some opening inaccuracies, but I saw a chance to sacrifice a pawn for a strong positional advantage. I had to calculate a bunch of knight moves which hurt my poor little brain, but it worked: out of the opening I was down a pawn but +5.5 according to Stockfish!

I continued to restrict my opponent’s moves until they finally sacrificed an entire rook just to be able to move their pieces. Out of all of the tournament games I’ve played so far, this one felt by far the most like I was playing real, positional chess.

Tournament Report: DCC Fall Classic 2022

2022-10-24T01:45:58Z

Background

I played my very first over-the-board tournament at the 2019 Denver Open. I did surprisingly well in the U1800 section at that tournament, getting 3 points our of 5, and finishing with a rather optimistic provisional USCF rating of 1615. I wrote a full report: Tournament Report: Denver Open 2019 (my first chess tournament!)
Later that year I had the chance to compete in a rapid tournament (game in 25 minutes with a 5 second delay). I won two and lost two games to finish in the middle of the pack. At least one of my losses was to the overall winner of the tournament. I wrote a much-less thorough report of that event: Tournament Report: DCC Rapid
The Denver Open was canceled for the next two years because of Covid19, but I did manage to play the 1-day, 3-round “DCC Nearly Normal Tournament” in June, 2021. I lost my first two rounds (my oponent during Round 2, where I let a nice opening advantage slip away, commentated our game in the DCC database: Jason McEwen (1761) - Chris Burkhardt (1615)), and then the tournament software gave me a bye for round 3. Apparently a bye was good for 1 point, so at least I didn’t get last place, though my rating dropped to 1523. The tournament director said that if I wanted to I could play a rated game against a player in the lower section who was also given a bye, and I accepted. I had a relatively short game against a 635 rated player. I won, but the game got reported to the USCF as a loss for me, dropping my provisional rating further to 1409. I contacted the tournament director who in turn contacted USCF, but it has been three years and it is still not corrected. Oh well.
The Denver Open returned in May, 2022, and I played (along with a friend from our local chess group)! I felt sorry for my opponents facing me with an erroneously low rating, but I was confident I would be able to get my rating back to where it should be. I was playing in the U1800 section and my friend in the U1400; we were hoping we would both win some cash. I won 2, lost 3, finished in 42nd place (toward the bottom), and my rating dropped to 1370. My chess club friend didn’t do much better. Chess is hard! In my first game I blundered a totally winning endgame to a loss (a 21 point blunder according to stockfish). Lichess study for my Denver Open 2022 games.

Figure 1. Black to move and lose. Round 1 at Denver Open 2022

Fall Classic 2022

That brings us to the Fall Classic this October. I played in the U1600 section (I paid $15 extra to play one section up), and my brother-in-law played in the U1400 section as his first ever over-the-board tournament! I wrote in my first tournament report, over three years ago, that I had meant to study endgames (read De la Villa’s 100 Endgames You Must Know) but didn’t get around to it. I still haven’t. Though I think my openings are better just from playing games on lichess and looking at the database afterwards.

Many of my tournament losses have been from better positions that I just couldn’t hang on to. My goal in the Fall Classic was to stay focused even when I have a winning position. I’m happy with how I did on that front. I won all the games I was winning, and managed a draw in one of the games I was losing. According to the lichess analysis, I played over 90% accuracy in every game (which means that only 10% of my moves made me more likely to lose).

I scored 3.5 out of 5.0, good enough for 6th place in my section and a rating boost to 1501 (a tournament performance of 1642). I drew the game against the eventual winner of the section; I was losing the whole time, but he let me find a draw in the king-and-pawn endgame. If I had won my last round I would have gotten 2nd place; instead I lost after playing the opening poorly and got no prize. But it was still my best tournament to date!

Saturday

The first two rounds on Sunday were game in 90 minutes with a 10 second delay. The remaining round and the two rounds on Sunday were game in 90 with a 30 second increment.

Round 1 (white)

All set for battle and my unrated opponent (his first USCF tournament, and his first otb tournament in a long time) made a blunder in the opening and I won in about 10 minutes. Afterward he and I played a couple of games out in the hotel lobby; he won the first and I won the second.

White to move and get a decisive advantage in the position below:

My brother-in-law’s first game went on for about 3 hours… so I had plenty of time to wander around and do some knitting before lunch and Round 2.

Round 2 (black)

My opponent in this round was the highest rated player in our section and would go on to win. A friend from my local chess group warned me that he liked to play in a very aggressive style; I was definitely on my back foot the entire time and felt lucky to get a draw.

Round 3 (white)

My turn to play against the French. My opponent made a knight sacrifice on move 11 which scared me at first, but I eventually saw what he missed: that I could just block the follow-up check and I’m fine. I not only held on to my material advantage after that, but managed to find a tactic and win another piece, and then his queen. At that point I forgot that I had a bishop and kept missing checkmates. My opponent finally resigned rather than wait any longer for me to figure out how to win.

Sunday

Round 4 (black)

I have the black pieces and play the French, and my opponent just let’s me control the center giving me a comfortable position. They then blundered a bishop and I took my time to convert for the win.

Round 5 (white)

If I win this I get prize money. If I draw or lose, I get nothing. My opponent is from Russia (I think?) and has no USCF rating. He plays the Pirc defense, and I put my pieces where he can chase them with his pawns and then continue with the initiative for the entire game. I spent a lot of time trying to dig myself out of the resulting bad position, unsuccessfully, and ended up playing a losing endgame on increment.

Other reports

Denver Chess Club report

Tournament Report: DCC Rapid

2019-08-15T17:27:22Z

I recently had the opportunity to compete at a one-day (four-round) rapid chess tournament put on by the Denver Chess Club. The venue (a nice suburban library branch with the friendliest staff) was almost two hours away by bus and rail, but the tournament itself was only $20. Well worth it for some over-the-board experience. I won two and lost two games to finish in the middle of the pack, and I now have a provisional Quick USCF rating (1510… but it is only that high because it is based on my provisional 1610 normal rating. My tournament performance was 1350). I hope the DCC puts on more of these rapid tournaments!

The time control was 25 minutes with a 5 second delay (so that the clock doesn’t start ticking on your turn until after an initial 5-second count down). That is slower than most games I play online, but every game felt so fast! I was in time trouble during each round except the second (in which I managed to lose rather quickly). We were not required to record our moves because of the quick time control, but I tried to in the first three rounds (until I felt I might lose on time if I kept writing). Below are the games as far as I recorded/remembered them along with some notes.

Round 1

I got the white pieces in the first round, made an illegal move, and then finally got the checkmate with only a few seconds on my clock.

The pivotal position in this game, and probably the most instructive for me from the tournament, arises after 18…fxe6:

Should white go up in material with Rxf8+ or retreat the rook and let black double her h pawns?

Here I have a chance to go up slightly in material with 19.Rxf8+, or to retreat my rook and let black double her h pawns after taking my bishop. I made the wrong decision. Much better than 19.Rf3 (in which my attack is completely neutralized) would have been 19.Rxf8+ Rxf8 20.Bf4. In the resulting position I still need to get my knight active, but once I do I have two active minor pieces against black’s rook in a dynamic position (where pawn structure is less important).

Later in the game (after 36…Rxc3+) I didn’t realize I was in check and made a move that left me in check. Oops! We kept playing (after I undid the move and moved out of check), but asked afterward what the penalty is in that situation. We were told that if she had called the arbiter over then she would have had 2 minutes added to her clock. That made us both feel better, since she was already so far ahead on the clock that it probably would not have made a difference.

Round 2

In the second round I found myself at Board 2 with the black pieces facing a much higher-rated opponent (probably the strongest player I’ve played other than the time I played IM Danny Rensch in a simul exhibition).

I was happy with the not terrible middle game position we reached, until I blundered on move 26.

My opponent in this round would go on to a perfect 4-0 score and win the tournament outright.

Round 3

This one was disappointing. My opponent made a mistake in the opening which gave me a much better position, but then I tried so hard to force a win instead of playing solidly that I lost.

Round 4

In this round I decided not to keep notation, which definitely allowed me to move more quickly, but is the game I remember the best (I’m not positive of the opening move orders, but it gets to all the essential positions).

I had a difficult time defending my pawns in the end game and white was gaining the upper hand when he blundered with 35.g4. He played that move pretty quickly (despite being ahead on time). I think he wanted to make a passed pawn. But before he hit the clock he hesitated — he saw how strong my en passant was, but he had already touched the pawn so it was too late. He made an attempt at finding a stalemate but I was able to win fairly easily.

Tournament Report: Denver Open 2019 (my first chess tournament!)

2019-05-11T03:17:31Z

Table of Contents

Introduction: My first chess tournament
Friday: DCC Open Simul with IM Danny Rensch
Saturday
- Round 1
- Round 2
- Round 3
Sunday
- Round 4
- Round 5
Championship section
Other reports

Introduction: My first chess tournament

I’ve heard repeatedly that one of the best ways to improve at chess is to start playing long over-the-board games. It’s advice that makes sense to me: I think it is the act of concentrating on a position that really develops efficient calculation. So I looked online earlier this year and found a small (there are usually 2-4 of us there) chess club that meets weekly one town over. In March I also saw that the Denver Chess Club (DCC)'s 2019 Denver Open was a month away — I made it my goal to prepare for and play in that.

By “prepare for” I thought I would work on my lichess tactics rating, go over some chapters of De la Villa’s 100 Endgames You Must Know, and maybe learn a bit of theory in the openings I like to play (Scotch game and French defense). None of that happened, but I signed up for the tournament anyway! And at least at chess club I got used to playing with a clock and writing my moves down, two aspects of tournament chess I’d never practiced before.

In order to sign up for the tournament I joined the USCF, the CSCA, the DCC, paid the extra $30 to play IM Daniel Rensch in a simultaneous exhibition, and rented two nights in a nearby motel to avoid an impractical 3+ hours of public transit every day. I think the whole experience came out to about $50 per game, but that will be amortized as I continue to attend DCC events (which I hope to do).

The Denver Open is a five-round Swiss-style tournament, with the Open section spread over three days and the Under sections playing all five games on Saturday and Sunday. The time control for the Under sections was 90 minutes with a 10-second delay for the Saturday rounds and 90 minutes with a 30-second increment for the Sunday rounds. As an unrated player with no prior tournament experience I wasn’t sure which section to sign up for: U1400 or U1800. Based on my lichess rapid 1750 rating and looking at lots of online comparisons, I estimated my USCF rating to be 1400-1600. But I also knew that might be optimistic.

Ultimately I decided on the U1800 section, and I’m glad I did. I had prepared myself for the eventuality that I’d lose every game, and my main goal during each round was to not make any 1-move blunders like hanging a piece. I think I succeeded at that, and I managed to finish with 3 points (won all my games with black pieces, and lost both my games with white pieces) which put me in the middle of the U1800 standings (23rd out of 57) and a provisional USCF rating of 1615.

I was pretty nervous going into the tournament, partly just because I’m a shy person. But everyone I interacted with including all of my opponents, whether they won or lost, were friendly and respectful. The whole weekend was a good experience.

I’ve embedded my games with commentary and some highlights below; if the embedded player doesn’t work well with your browser, try going directly to the study on lichess. I’ve annotated moves that I hadn’t considered with “!?” (so they are not necessarily objectively interesting moves, only moves that I didn’t expect for whatever reason).

All of the photos in this report were taken by John Brezina of the Parker Chess Club. You can view his full albums on Google Photos:

Friday: DCC Open Simul with IM Danny Rensch

On Friday night, during the first round of the Open section, IM Danny Rensch took a half-point bye so that he could give a lecture and play a simultaneous exhibition against 26 of us. He scored +23-2=1 during the simul, then went on to have a very good tournament winning all of his games and tying for 1st place with GM Jesse Kraai.

IM Daniel Rensch delivering a lecture on the opening night of the 2019 Denver Open before playing a simultaneous exhibition against 26 opponents. Photo by John Brezina.

His lecture was mostly advice on how to study to improve at chess. While of course there are dissenting opinions on almost every suggestion that could be made, Danny’s advice all seemed reasonable to me and addressed many of the frequent questions that get asked on chess forums.

His main point was that studying should be goal-oriented (try to achieve such-and-such tactics ratings) rather than sheer rote or discipline (do tactics for 30 minutes). He’s noticed that children especially improve more rapidly with goal- and award-oriented practice than with time-based practice. He recommended GM Murray Chandler’s classic 1998 book How to Beat Your Dad at Chess.

Danny is a vice president at chess.com, and he obviously puts a lot of energy into that site and company, but he liberally plugged competitors' sites during his lecture including chesstempo.com for tactics and chessable.com for openings. I think he also mentioned lichess once. (The guy sitting across from me during the simul was wearing a lichess t-shirt which I thought was pretty funny; Danny seems like a good sport about that sort of thing.)

In defense of the timer on chess.com’s tactics (which is often criticized), he presented a chess-player spectrum with ‘gamers’ (those who like to play and win, even if not in the most theoretical manner) on one extreme and ‘scientists’ on the other (those who want to find what he calls the ‘truth’ of every position — the best possible move). If you’re all gamer you’ll probably just play intuitive moves during blitz all day and never improve much, and if you’re all scientists you’ll be paralyzed by the complexity and never play. I think Danny probably leans a bit to the gamer end (as reflected in chess.com’s timed tactics and puzzle rush).

As to learning openings, he is an advocate of choosing a narrow repertoire and sticking with it so that you get lots of practice with the same sorts of pawn structures and positions. He also emphasized the importance of endgames — in order to accurately evaluate a middlegame position you have to have an idea of where it is you are trying to get.

Regarding analyzing games, he said the idea is to find patterns of mistakes in your games so that you know what you need to work on. He named three mistakes/critical moments you should identify in every game:

The first non-book move
Where the first advantage shifted
The last mistake (why did the game end the way it did?)

He said to optimize learning from games, you should analyze them for about two hours before turning on the engine. I think I usually look at my games for about two minutes before turning on the engine to find my mistakes. I can definitely make big improvements here.

To a question as to whether playing blitz was useful for improvement, Danny answered in the affirmative: it can be useful not only to test your progress but to also get lots of practice in openings by repeating similar positions.

After the lecture the simul began. He walked around the room making his moves (usually after a few seconds… I saw him linger for maybe 30 seconds or so a few times), and then we had until he came back around to make our next move. Everyone was allowed to pass 3 times (I used two of mine during the game). Against me he opened 1.e4 to which I played a French and actually got a decent position after about 30 moves before blundering mate:

Somewhere during the opening he came around to a board a few people to my right, looked at the position, and said “oops.” It turns out that was the game against Dwight Sehler (1761) who went on to win. Here’s the position the move before Danny realized his blunder on that board:

Rensch v Sehler: Black to move and win a piece.

The woman playing immediately to my right resigned a few moves before I did, and when she packed up she inadvertently packed up several of my captured black pieces so I didn’t have a complete set during the main tournament.

Me thinking hard after 12.h5. My captured black pieces mingling with my neighbors'. Photo by John Brezina.

IM Rensch playing 18.Bc5 in our game. Photo by John Brezina.

Saturday

The first round started at 9:30am on Saturday. I got up early, put on my running clothes, went outside, and was shocked at how cold it was. I’m not used to going out early. I promptly went back inside and just jogged for 25 minutes on the treadmill in the motel’s fitness room before eating a large continental breakfast.

My motel was about a kilometer from the hotel where the tournament was being held (because half the price). I walked over to the tournament about 10 minutes before each round and walked back to my room after each. Between rounds I decided not to go over games or do tactics puzzles or anything chess related. I just ate and rested. About 30 minutes before each round they updated the website with the pairings so I could see my opponents name, rating, what color I was playing, and our table number.

Round 1

I followed the signs from the lobby to the room where the Under sections were playing (the Open section was playing in an adjacent room) and found the table for my first ever tournament game. I was hoping my opponent would be there so that we could use his board since mine was missing pieces from the night before. But it was getting close to starting time and he hadn’t gotten there yet, so I got one of the extra sets provided by the DCC. My opponent arrived as I was setting up and we discovered that the DCC set was missing even more pieces than mine, so we ended up using his set instead. (All of my other opponents during the tournament got there with even less time before the start, or a few minutes after the start in one case, so I used my board and borrowed a complete set of pieces from the chess club for the rest of the games.)

He played the London System, and I responded with the King’s Indian Defense. We got to a middle game position where the tactics favored me and I managed to win my first tournament game:

Here’s the position after 23.Re1 where he is losing at least an exchange and a pawn and things are looking good for me:

23.Re1?? allows …Bxf3 and black has a winning position

Afterward my opponent was kind enough to go over the game with me in the lobby and was complimentary about my play for an unrated player. An encouraging first round!

Round 2

My opponent in this game traveled from Farmington, NM, to play in the tournament, but appropriately chose to defend with the Colorado Gambit against my opening. I lost the game, but considering that he went on to score a perfect 5 points and a clear first-place finish in the U1800 section I don’t feel bad about it. After the last round on Sunday he also mentioned that it was his 65th birthday!

I don’t think either of us handled the unusual opening very well (or at least we both avoided the craziness that is usually the point of these kinds of gambits), but he outplayed me to a winning (for him) endgame:

The position after 22.g4 which was apparently my fatal mistake because I am unable to defend all of my pawns henceforth

Round 3

I have the black pieces again and can play a familiar French. My opponent puts his knight and queen on the side of the board and then falls into tactical trouble:

Me after playing 4…Nc6 during Round 3. Photo by John Brezina.

Here is the position after 13…Qb4 where things really started falling apart for white:

The d4 pawn is pinned, attacked twice, and white has no good way to defend it.

Sunday

In total I played about 7 hours of chess on Saturday. The first game was my longest at 3 hours — probably one of my longest chess games ever. I woke up early again on Sunday but decided not to run, so I had plenty of time to breakfast, pack up my stuff, check out of the motel, and walk down to the Embassy Suites hotel for Round 4.

Even though the Sunday games had slightly longer time controls, they were both a bit shorter than my earlier games. And since there were only two, I had plenty of time between rounds but no motel room to hang out in. I spent some time after my fourth game in the hotel lobby charging my phone, then walked to McDonalds for some food and napped in the sun in a nice grassy park near the hotel.

The tournament room on Sunday during Round 5.

Round 4

My fourth opponent was the youngest I faced. With the white pieces and two wins the previous day against similarly rated players, I was feeling confident. I won my third game with a French defense, but unfortunately now it was my turn to play 1.e4 and lose against the French. I didn’t find 9.Na4 (which I now know is a standard move for white to drive black’s queen away from the d4 pawn) and then played an aggressive 12.g4 which soon had my king in trouble:

The position after 16..Be7. I played the disasterous 17.Qg7 here thinking I’d have time to make some threats before I got checkmated.

The lethal tactic I missed revolved around a distant bishop; that is a persistent blindspot for me. (In a recent game at my chess club I forgot about a bishop so often that I first tried to move into check and then a few moves later blundered the exchange on the same square.)

Round 5

Going into this round I knew that if I could draw then I’d leave my first tournament with an even score. That sounded good to me. My opponent played a passive opening (e3, d3, c3, Qc2, which I’m assuming is his pet opening that I will call the Beane system from now on), but he defended very solidly and my attempts at trying to attack too early got me into trouble:

My opponent after playing 25.Rxd6 and achieving the better position

My opponent was clearly the more facile chess player. I would spend minutes calculating what I thought was a threatening move and he would refute it almost instantly. Most turns he spent more time putting on his reading glasses to write the move (in what looked like his own mixture of algebraic and descriptive notation) than he spent calculating. It was only when he started attacking with a good position (I had about despaired of even finding a draw) that he blundered a fork which allowed me to win:

After 31.Qd5?? Black to move and win.

Championship section

I paid almost no attention to the Open section during the tournament. I stopped in to the commentary room where local NM Christofer Peterson was providing live commentary a few times, including once when he and IM Rensch were discussing one of Rensch’s wins. Much of Peterson’s commentary was streamed on the chess.com Twitch channel:

The tournament attracted some strong players including several Grand Masters, International Masters, a Woman Grand Master, and some local National Masters. All of the games from the Open section have been added to the Denver Chess Club’s online games database: https://denverchess.com/games

Other reports

Denver Chess Club report
John Brezina’s report
The local CBS affiliate aired a segment about the tournament: ‘Very Humbling Thing’: Colorado Kids Learn Strategy At International Chess Competition

Instructive Chess YouTube Playlists

2018-12-16T16:19:29Z

I rediscovered chess as an adult thanks to YouTube. Sometime in 2012 or 2013 I came across a video by Jerry of ChessNetwork playing on some website called ChessCube (watch out for the Adobe Flash Gambit!)

Since then, many more chess players have started posting content to YouTube. The games — and inner thoughts — of very strong chess players are more accessible today than ever before. You can find top GMs, including Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, and Daniel Naroditsky, streaming themselves playing marathon blitz and bullet sessions online. But the most instructive — and, to me, the most entertaining — are those who take the time to explain their thought process as they are playing at longer time controls (and without constant chat and donation notifications).

Here are some playlists from my favorite instructive chess youtubers:

IM John Bartholomew

International Master and national treasure John Bartholomew is extraordinarily good at explaining his thoughts while he plays. His free YouTube videos are a valuable resource for those of us trying to improve. For his longer games with commentary see the Standard chess (15-minute games) playlist. He also has a very good "Climbing the Rating Ladder" series where he plays progressively better players pointing out common mistakes along the way. Embedded below is an example video from that series. Most of his recent content has appeared on Twitch, but he promises he has not forgotten about his youtube channel.

ChessNetwork

The pseudonymous Jerry of ChessNetwork is an American National Master, and the first chess YouTuber I discovered. His longer games are in his Standard Chess Games playlist.

Below is a video of Jerry analyzing Game 10 of the 2018 World Chess Championship match:

Tony Rotella

YouTube

Tony Rotella is not a titled player, but he is still much stronger than most of us (his lichess rapid rating is around 2350) and is particularly knowledgeable in opening theory (having literally written a book on the 1.e4 Sicilian Kalashnikov). Hist most instructive videos are listed in his Rapid Games playlist. Here’s an example game of Tony playing a French Advance with the black pieces:

FM Dalton Perrine

Youtube

FM Perrine is a chess coach and author of several Chessable courses. I like his Fixing My Rapid Rating videos. He also has a "climbing the rating ladder"-style playlist I have not watched yet: 800 to 2200 Blitz Challenge.

As a French player, I also like his French Defense Speedrun (600-2200) playlist. Here is the first video in that series:

Stacia Melinda

YouTube

Melinda is close to my own strength (though she was rated only 1000 a few years ago!), and we seem to make similar mistakes, so watching her games and after-game analysis can be more engaging than watching a stronger player making everything look easy. Her current project/playlist is to Climb to 1800 on chess.com. Here is a video from that series:

Other Playlists

Grand Master Simon Williams has a very daring and aggressive style which is fun to watch. He has a Longer Games playlist with longer time-control games he plays while commenting, and also a GM Analysis playlist of videos where he provides analysis of other people’s games.
IM Andras Toth has several playlists of instructional videos for the improving player including The Amateur’s Mind and Inside My Head
GM Daniel Naroditsky has several instructional SpeedRun playlists (like John Bartholomew’s "climbing the rating ladder").
The ChessDojo is a hub for chess improvers run by IM Kostya Kavutskiy, IM David Pruess, and GM Jesse Kraai (who tied for first place at the first over-the-board tournament I ever played in). They run a YouTube channel with many great playlists for improvers (as well as a Twitch channel).
I’ve only watched a few of his videos, but Agadmator’s entire channel is dedicated to reviews of master games. He includes historical context for each game and his videos seem very popular (even among very casual chess players).
Toby Litt has a similar post from 2017: Watching Chess