Chess in Israel

The player I am most often matched with on Lichess is one HumildePeon, rated 1663 Blitz out of Mexico. Yesterday when I began writing this report, my match score against Humilde was a lousy 15-23. As of this morning it stands at an even lousier 15-25, after losses in the Englund Gambit and the Accelerated London. The problem with the Englund Gambit is its trappy nature. Natural moves are dangerous to play, because experienced players memorize punishing lines against them. The only way to reliably defeat the Englund in fast time controls is to outmemorize the opponent. Against the London System I employ a Double-Fianchetto setup. It isn't a top defense, but that is the point. London players have a reputation for being risk-averse and superficial, and the Double-Fianchetto is a way to draw them out of their comfort zone. 1. 2026-04-21 Englund Gambit with 6...Nb4 Position 1: White to move Assigned the white pieces, I opened 1.d4 and Black replied 1...e5 . I chopped with 2...

When we start out playing chess, we fall prey to simple tactics like pawn forks and back-rank mates because the geometric patterns that give rise to them are still unfamiliar. As we gain experience, we internalize the danger of leaving two pieces at 45°-angles to a square that an opponent is defending and to which he can advance a pawn and of our king being sealed in by three pawns with no square to escape to should an enemy's major piece infiltrate to the bottom of the board. In my case, the cognitive system whose programming has been refined over hundreds of chess games and has been trained to filter out blunders like pawn forks and back-rank mates still isn't filtering out early queen checks that fork material. For some reason, this geometric pattern remains a blind spot of mine. It was a blind spot a year ago in an OTB tournament game featuring the Nimzo-Indian, it remained a blind spot in February in an online Blitz game featuring the Samisch King's Indian, and it...

On account of the war with Iran, rounds 9 and 10 of the Jerusalem C-League -- in which my club is participating as part of the Israel Chess Federation 's Winter League games -- were postponed to yesterday. We could only muster three of four players to make the journey to Bet Shemesh, where the Gvanim chess club hosted us, and we arrived thirty minutes late due to a car accident on the highway and our driver missing an exit. Fortunately, our opponents were also late and also a player short. My opponent at Board 1, Yonatan Geffen, played the Marshall Defense against my Queen's Gambit in Round 9 , and I played the French Defense against his 1.e4 in Round 10 . The first game was a proverbial victory snatched from the jaws of defeat where I came back from a losing position with two desperation rook sacs and opponent resigned on move 50. In the second game, possibly still reeling from the shock of his loss in our first encounter, opponent blundered mate in one on move 14. The matc...

In two days, barring a resumption of the war with Iran, my students will be returning to school. The free time I enjoyed from not having homework to check and tests to grade, as well as the surplus energy from not having eight classes to manage every day, will slowly fade into memory as the teacher grind takes hold again. In today's unrated game Lichess matched me with one mightypidgeon, provisionally rated 1618 Blitz. Our opening developed into what Lichess classifies as the Noa Variation of the Classical Nimzo-Indian, and I emerged from it with a comfortable advantage. The middlegame and engame, however, were a roller-coaster ride of eval swings: ↗+3.2 ↘-3.2 ↗+5.0 ↘-4.4 ↗+4.2 ↘#-5, ultimately ending in me winning by checkmate. Position 1: White to move Assigned the white pieces, I opened 1.d4 , and after the moves 1...Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 we were in the Classical Variation of the Nimzo-Indian Defense. Here as Black I typically attack White's d4-pawn with 4......

The teachers' room at our school has three desktop computers. A couple months ago the one on the right started shutting down abruptly in the middle of powering up, then a month later the middle computer began experiencing powerup failures, and last week the failures spread to the computer on the left. Since it's only at work that the environment exists for me to bring my A-game to the chess board, my wartime streak is on hold until further notice. Instead, why not polish up my opening repertoire? The Samisch Variation has long been my weapon of choice against the King's Indian Defense. Against inexperienced players it leads to quick checkmates: White trades off the dark-square bishes early, and by the time Black recognizes the danger to his king from White's pawn storm, he is helpless to stop the invasion of White's major pieces on the h-file. Victories in this vein have made me spoiled, lazy and superficial. More experienced opponents delay castling, find ways ...