Chess in Israel

On Mondays and Thursdays my first class doesn't start until 8:30. Typically I arrive at school at 7:30 and use the time to prepare for my first few classes, but last Thursday I had nothing to prepare, was feeling bold, and on a whim sought a 2+1 Bullet opponent on Lichess while sitting in an empty classroom. It was my first rated Bullet game since December 2024 . Thursday's game went badly. I lost as White in a Queen's Gambit Accepted, and Lichess slashed my rating from 1455 to 1334. Maybe it was rust, I thought, and played another game. This time I won, and Lichess restored 83 of the 121 points it had just docked me. Then I played a third game, won again, and was awarded another 71 points. On Monday I found myself in a similar situation, queued up for an opponent, won as White in a Samisch King's Indian, and my rating surged 63 points. This morning's win earned me 62 points and boosted my rating from 1551 to 1613. 1. 2026-04-30 : Konoty-ahmed v. physics211...

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...