From Newsgroup: rec.games.chess.misc
On Sun, 23 Nov 2025 11:10:18 -0600, Elendil <
horchata12839@gmail.com>
wrote:
I've got a bad habit of leaving a vulnerable flank and having the enemy
go at my back rows with their queen or other powers.
I guess what I see as their primary weakness is the vulnerability of
their pieces. They are right up there and it's not too difficult to find
an attacker to try to shrug them off. And when it's valuable pieces they >can't ignore the counterattacks for any weird sacrifice moves either.
Then you either have the choice of continuing what you're doing and
getting pounded regularly especially by local opponents who know you
often do so or learn to stop doing that. (A few speed games with
players of about your strength should make it clear to you what you
need to do)
I can't imagine being masochistic enough to go with the first option
since I'm more interested in doing that to opponents - which may not
happen all the time but probably often enough to keep you playing
<grin>
I know that about 15 years ago I had the tournament of my life (beat a
1600 player, then a master, then drew aginst an expert and in the last
round lost to a fellow about my strength). Then in the next tournament
lost to 2 teenage brothers who hadn't played a rated game in 6 months
BUT had been playing either each other or opponents on IMDB and
improving their strength.
A month after the second tournament I was about 30 points above my
initial rating..... don't let this happen to you!
(As a personal aside, I'm a national officer of the Chess Federation
of Canada and noted that in the first 6 months after the resumption of
in person tournaments after COVID, ratings had RADICALLY shifted and
my guess was that you could tell who had been studying chess and/or
playing speed chess online during the pandemic. (The CFC discouraged
TDs from encouraging players from handshaking at the start of
rounds...)
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