Brian Rountree Chess

 I suppose this would have seemed more appropriate as a goal during the pandemic, but better late than never sums up my entire chess career.   Before this, I had had a difficult time getting my bullet rating there to 1500 and my blitz rating there back up to 1700.  I never seriously considered making 2000 Rapid on this site, but as slow chess is my strong suite it makes sense that my play would be stronger on the longer side of ten minutes.  A nervy game that I wouldn't normally bother to post, but well sums up a typical style of game for me on that site.  linuxguy1 makes 2000 Rapid on Chess dot com! [Event "Live Chess - chess"] [Site "Chess.com"] [Date "2022.10.11"] [Round "?"] [White "linuxguy1"] [Black "serabigaul"] [Result "1-0"] [BlackElo "1917"] [ECO "B28"] [Termination "linuxguy1 won by resignation"] [TimeControl "600"] [WhiteElo "2002"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 a6

 Tuesday night was my first time back to the club in 2 1/2 years!  As I self-predicted back then, the realities surrounding Covid for me were far, far greater than for example when I got the virus itself.  I got Covid back to back so had it for a month, and never took a day off work since I worked from home, it was more of a nuisance than anything else. Round 1 10.Bg5  Okay, I realized that I had left theory here, and played this move since Nd2 drops a pawn and at least I came up with an aggressive response for defending my center pawns, not knowing any theoretical move for the Arch-angelsk variation at this point.  I always thought I'd just figure something out at the board if I got this variation, then this happened! 11.Bd5  I did think about playing h3 here, which probably makes more sense, as it allows the Bg5 to retreat to ..h4, instead of trading it on f6, as played in the game.   13.BxNf6.  I was afraid of the variation 13.Bh5 g5, 14.Bg3 g4, 15.Nh4.  He said he would have tr

Round 1 I gave up a pawn to trade queens in time-pressure, which backfired when he played ...f5! which I hadn't seen.  Then I simply made a visual error in a long calculation, since the bishop was controlling g8 at the time, but not once the knight take it, since I had planned Rd2 pin, but then comes ...Rg8+!. Round 2 I got impatient and adventurous.  After the game, I thought that I should have kept blocking his rook with ...Rd8, and keeping my rook battery together, instead of wandering off with my king, in search of adventure in time-pressure. Round 3 The clock said one second after I played h4 and pushed it.  Expecting the clock to say 31, it instead went to zero.  I lost about 2 or 3 seconds as my fingers kept dancing between g4 and h4, playing the odd h4; it's like I couldn't stop them from doing it, while I was flustered. Round 4 My nerves were under control for this game, but it meant a more devil-may-care attitude at the board.  I spent seven minutes on the game lo

Round 1 Hard to believe that my last tournament game was a year ago.  So, I went into this tournament with some trepidation.  The only thing, chess-wise, that I was concerned about was getting bogged down in tough opening.  Unfortunately, I the only variation that I had prepared against the Ponziani was the Bruton-Franzer attack, which I realized was probably coming once I saw the Ponziani on the board.  When she played 8.Qd5, I figured that she had seen this line before, and that I would be in trouble, as I did not know the ins and outs of it.  Online, the Ponziani is a rare sight to see, and one side or the other tends to go down fast in this opening. There is simply too much analysis for now, much of it crazy, so I'll post the game first, and try to add analysis later. [Event "Two Saturdays"] [Site "IHOP"] [Date "2022.05.07"] [Round "1"] [White "Tanya Gurp Prabhu"] [Black "Brian Rountree"] [Result "0-1"] [Blac

 Round 1 I bought the Excalibur King Master computer the other day at the Ark store; it says on the box that it plays at a 1600 level, but I was eager to try it out.  There are 72 levels, but I played this first game on level 30, with the Black pieces. I was moving quickly through the opening, but then slowed down, as if I were playing a real tournament game, which is something difficult to do online, because of the quicker time-controls.  From a chess point of view, it was more satisfying to try my best at calculating, rather than using the clock as a weapon, which I feel that online quick-chess does rather splendidly. [Event "First match"] [Site "Home"] [Date "2020.05.23"] [Round "1"] [White "Excalibur"] [Black "Brian Rountree"] [Result "0-1"] [BlackElo "1903"] [ECO "A00"] [EventDate "2020.05.23"] [WhiteElo "30"] 1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. d4 Bf5 4. Bf4 e6 5. h3 Be7 6. g4 Bg6 7

   This was an unrated tournament, and yet was still treated seriously by the players.  With no realistic prospect of any tournaments soon, due to the covid, I voted to have this tournament be un-rated, largely to avoid renewing my membership.  Though there were only enough accommodations for two boards, it still bothered me a bit that there had been no advertised tournaments, which had actually taken place in Colorado, since the pandemic.  To me, not listing or giving a notice of a tournament somewhere, during the pandemic, makes it seem a bit undercover.  That being said, I see nothing wrong with holding chess tournaments, and I believe that it is high time to go back to the past way of doing things; air elbow-bumps are cute, but no cigar.  It still didn't feel like this tournament was real, was really going to happen until the clocks started; it was a last second vote to agree on time-controls, and whether or not it would be rated.  One thing I'll say about ratings is that w