OMC Weekly (Volume 1, Issue 4)

Welcome to **OMC Weekly** (formerly *My Chess Week*), where I write about my weekly exploits across the chess board and give perspectives on chess in my own life and around the world. I am on the road this week, so I am posting this from a region with limited internet access and limited time to full annotate this week’s games. This has been a very exciting week in the world of chess as the 2014 Chess Olympiad in Tromsø has been raging with some of the greatest chess talent in the world! I spent much of my week following the games and cheering for the United States Chess Team in its various matches, so I did not get to play nearly as much online chess as I normally would play.

I played five correspondence chess games this week and had two wins. The first game I want to examine was an exceptional game played against a player with a 1300 ELO.

[pgn]
[Event “Let’s Play!”]
[Site “Chess.com”]
[Date “2014.07.29”]
[Round “?”]
[White “AmishHacker”]
[Black “1303”]
[Result “1-0”]
[WhiteElo “1212”]
[BlackElo “1303”]
[PlyCount “59”]
[EventDate “2014.??.??”]
[TimeControl “1”]

1. e4 d5 2. Bd3 e6 3. Nc3 d4 4. Nce2 e5 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. c4 Be6 7. O-O h6 8. Qb3
Bd6 9. Qxb7 Bd7 10. a3 Nf6 11. b4 O-O 12. b5 Rb8 13. Qa6 Ne7 14. Qxa7 c5 15.
Rb1 Ra8 16. Qb7 Rxa3 17. Bxa3 Ng4 18. h3 Nf6 19. Qa6 Ng6 20. Qxd6 Bxh3 21. Qxc5
Nf4 22. Nxe5 Bxg2 23. Nxf4 Nh5 24. Nxh5 Qg5 25. Qxf8+ Kh7 26. Be7 f6 27. Nxf6+
gxf6 28. Bxf6 Qg8 29. Qe7+ Qg7 30. Qxg7# 1-0
[/pgn]

No game provided more frustration this week than the one below. This is where my blitz rating reached its floor of 692 this week before bouncing back up slightly. I am back to studying tactical puzzles this week…I have a long way to go.

[pgn]
[Event “Live Chess”]
[Site “Chess.com”]
[Date “2014.08.04”]
[Round “?”]
[White “609”]
[Black “AmishHacker”]
[Result “1-0”]
[WhiteElo “609”]
[BlackElo “704”]
[PlyCount “49”]
[EventDate “2014.??.??”]
[TimeControl “5”]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Bb4 4. c3 Bc5 5. d4 Be7 6. dxe5 f6 7. exf6 Bxf6 8.
Bg5 h6 9. Bxf6 Qxf6 10. Qd4 Qf4 11. Qe3 Qd6 12. Nbd2 Nf6 13. e5 Qf8 14. exf6+
Kd8 15. fxg7 Qxg7 16. Ne4 Qxg2 17. O-O-O Re8 18. Bxc6 bxc6 19. Rhg1 Qh3 20. Rg3
Qe6 21. b4 Qxa2 22. Qxh6 Qa3+ 23. Kd2 Rxe4 24. Qf6+ Ke8 25. Rg8# 1-0
[/pgn]

Instead of going through the second correspondence game, I figured that I would simply post the final position and ask my readers to consider how they would proceed from this position.


[fen caption=”AmishHacker – 1186 (Chess.com, 2014) Position after 24.Rxc4″]r4rk1/5ppp/p2Rpn2/6N1/2R5/1K6/P4PPP/8[/fen]

There were many more blitz victories this week than last week, which was a welcome change. Next week’s OMC Weekly will be the last post for awhile (details to come).

In other news, the August issue of [Chess Life](http://www.uschess.org) and 2014/#5 issue of [New In Chess](http://www.newinchess.com) is out and should be coming to a mailbox near you. The August issue of *Chess Life* has post game analysis from the 2014 U.S. Championship in Saint Louis and one of the *worst magazine cover photos* you will probably ever see. It is free to download in PDF format for US Chess Federation members. 2014/#5 of *New In Chess* features Grandmaster analysis from Hou Yifan and Magnus Carlsen and is available in print and online editions.

I plan to post an addendum to this entry later in the week. My wife and I are currently visiting family out of state and I am excited about the opportunity to play and post the results of a long overdue match between myself and my brother-in-law, Scott Russell, who describes himself as an “old tournament player.” What out, Scott! Whether you win or lose, you will be immortalized here on the pages of *Off My Chess*.