Lichess4545 Ledger 018

Lichess4545 Ledger

Issue #018 - February 27, 2017

State of the League

Season 6 of 45+45 has ended. Congratulations to Petrojan Horse for winning with 1 week to spare! Chess Players Anonymous and R to D2 took second and third, respectively. See the full standings at https://www.lichess4545.com/team4545/season/6/summary/

A few end of season things to take note of:

There is an end of season survey that the 4545 moderators encourage you to take (https://goo.gl/forms/CqZ3kkJKtBd70r192). Importantly, let us know your thoughts on doing a end of season Youtube Review. The mods take all your feedback seriously.
Everyone will need to fill out a new registration for season 7. For those who want to compete in season 7, the moderators have set up a mailing list. Please fill out the google form (https://goo.gl/forms/XVk2NLJkrYjVSCCE3) if you want us to email you when season 7 registration opens (in addition to the regular announcements on slack/reddit).
Please send any fun stats/awards you want to be highlighted in the Season 6 End of Season Awards/Stats page to @tnan123. See the previous pages of awards for an idea: Season 5 https://www.lichess4545.com/team4545/document/season5-awards-stats/ and Season 4 page https://www.lichess4545.com/team4545/season/4/document/awards-and-stats/. Who wins this year's Giri Award, Marathon Man, Accuracy King and much more?!
We will open nominations for season 6's best games. Nominations will be done via the website. Each player can only nominate 1 game. When you have a game in mind send @chesster a DM with nomination 45 and you will be given a link to enter your nomination. The link will expire after 1 hour.

In Lonewolf, there are 4 rounds remaining with over 100 participants still playing. @DonJohn retains the sole lead with an amazing performance of 6.5/7 points. @Groundhopping and @ghdef457 are the closest chasers with 6/7 points.

In Blitz-battle we had our first repeat winner in the strongest field yet (including FM @lovlas, and past winners: @Alex_1987 and @FelixNL). Congratulations to @Abhy0024 for his 2nd Blitz-battle win.

Finally, here's an update on the ladder league as well: @Alex_slow currently holds the top spot. @theino has been the biggest mover. He only recently joined but has made his way up the entire ladder into 5th place! If you are interested in participating in ladder join #ladder on slack.

Coaches Corner

This is a new feature in the Ledger and hopefully other chess coaches in our community will find something to contribute.

Here’s a tip on chess calculation by FM @lovlas

Chess calculation technique suitable for every age and level

You might have heard of the common phrase: ”Patzer sees a check gives a check”. It’s used to describe players at beginner level who gives a check without any thought. You will usually notice this behaviour with kids, who just learned the rules. What if I told you it isn’t necessarily a bad approach?

I certainly don’t mean that you should always give a check, but rather that you should always look at the most forcing moves first. The most forcing move is the one that leaves your opponent with the least options. If this move turns out to be rubbish, we look at the second most forcing move, and so on.

Take this position for example:

Black has four moves that leave white with only one response: Qxh2+, Qg2+, Qf1+ and Qxf3+. We can easily conclude that the first three simply blunders a queen. That leaves Qxf3+. After a quick calculation, we can conclude that white is getting mated after 2.Bxf3 Bxf3#.

Next one:

A less informed player would probably start calculating 1.Qh8+, but we know better. The most forcing move is 1.Qxf7+, which leaves black with only one option Rxf7. After doing the math we see that 2.Ng6+ Kg8 3.Rg8# is mate.

This approach to chess calculation allows you and your student to find the position's killing blow while saving time. It can also be applied to any position and will usually give you the answer, especially at lower levels. It’s perfect for teaching your students how to calculate, no matter their level.

For additional reading I would highly recommend Forcing Chess Moves by Charles Hertan.

Notable Lichess4545 community member video/contributions:

@Atrophied continues to post his Lonewolf and 45+45 games

Stats from Round 8 of 45+45: Thanks to @somethingpretentious for his work to automate the process of coming up with these stats. It is much appreciated!

Biggest upset: 129 point difference tnan123 1774 beats BlunderPatrol 1903 Gamelink
Lowest ACPL game: 7 ACPL by both players in DonJohn vs badplayer_CM Gamelink
Lowest combined ACPL game: 14 combined ACPL DonJohn vs badplayer_CM Gamelink
Highest ACPL game: 119 ACPL by ZweiSpeedruns in loss to jorjor5379 Gamelink
Highest combined ACPL game: 179 combined ACPL urjah vs tchang1997 Gamelink
Longest game: Reached move 61 Knoddel vs Ben_Yeomans2 Gamelink
Quickest mate: Mate on move 30 by demonicringworm vs isaypotato Gamelink
Fastest draw: Ends on move 34 yeyq vs linail Gamelink
Fastest resign: Resignation on move 11 by BlunderPatrol against tnan123 Gamelink

Stats from Round 7 of Lonewolf:

Biggest upset: 292 point difference kris9191 1835 beats tadch 2127 Gamelink
Lowest ACPL game: 9 ACPL by NonNocere against FelixNL Gamelink
Lowest combined ACPL game: 19 combined ACPL FelixNL vs NonNocere Gamelink
Highest ACPL game: 108 ACPL by pawnsac101 against phib Gamelink
Highest combined ACPL game: 176 combined ACPL pawnsac101 vs phib Gamelink
Longest game: Reached move 95 NM Unicornz vs Groundhopping Gamelink
Quickest mate: Mate on move 31 by krzem against kponds Gamelink
Fastest draw: Ends on move 23 sanadan vs Ben_Yeomans2 Gamelink
Fastest resign: Resignation on move 15 by jameslantham against marshmallow55 Gamelink

Finally as always feel free to join #lichessledger on slack if you want to help or contribute in any way to this newsletter.

Chess For You

Among a great many other things that chess teaches you is to control the initial excitement you feel when you see something that looks good. It trains you to think before grabbing, and to think just as objectively when you’re in trouble. When you’re making a film you have to make most of your decisions on the run, and there is a tendency to always shoot from the hip. It takes more discipline than you might imagine to think, even for thirty seconds, in the noisy, confusing, high-pressure atmosphere of a film set, but a few seconds’ thought can often prevent a serious mistake being made about something that looks good at first glance. With respect to films, chess is more useful preventing you from making mistakes than giving you ideas. Ideas come spontaneously and the discipline required to evaluate and put them to use tends to be the real work.

—Stanley Kubrick, in a September 1968 interview with Eric Nordern for Playboy magazine

Chess Puzzle

From a round 8 game in 45+45 on board 6: @thebishopschaplain vs @hive. Black just played Qd7. White to move. This one might seem easy at first, but think about black's response to the obvious move you might be thinking about.

For the answer see gamelink.

Gamelink

Thanks to @lovlas and the lichess4545 mods for their contributions. Thanks to @petruchio for his help in editing this issue.