Mar-09-21 Kotronias vs G Mastrokoukos, 1991 
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| pdxjjb: I think this "1.5 star" puzzle was much easier than Monday's "1 star" puzzle. |
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Feb-01-21 K Burger vs C Lyon, 1952
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| pdxjjb: I also found Rh4. It's longer only because it gives black the chance for two spectacularly pointless sacrifices (32. Rh4 Qxg2+ 33. Kxg2 Rxg3+ 34. hxg3 black any and then mate.) |
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Jan-28-21 A Donchenko vs Caruana, 2021
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| pdxjjb: <perfidious> Stockfish recommends 15 dxc5 rather than d5. If you follow that with the chess engine, it looks more like the boring draw we all expect from a QGD between GMs. An example is 15. dxc5 Nxc5 16. h4 Rc8 17. Kb1 Na4 18. Qd3 Qxd3+ 19. Bxd3 Rd8 20. Be2 Nxc3+ 21. Bxc3 ... |
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Aug-12-20 McShane vs D Howell, 2017
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| pdxjjb: Why is this puzzle a 2? I am not very good at puzzles, and I solved it in about 15 seconds. |
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Jun-25-20 Acs vs J Konnyu, 2017
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| pdxjjb: Really nice puzzle. I failed to visualize the effect of White opening the f-file with 25 fxe3. Engine confirms (as others have observed) that 26...Qe7 is a mistake. With proper play by Black, e.g. 26...Rc7, White can "only" win the Exchange, leaving Black with some compensation in ... |
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Jun-01-20 M Mrva vs Movsesian, 1998
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| pdxjjb: <TheTamale>: exactly. An "easy" puzzle that was actually easy. I needed this. |
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Jan-01-20 Flohr vs I Koenig, 1929
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| pdxjjb: On my late-model Mac, Stockfish took 20 seconds to give up on Qxc5 and get the right answer. To me that says something about how surprising the correct answer is. |
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Dec-04-19 London Chess Classic GCT Finals (2019)
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| pdxjjb: Carlsen was about 90 ELO better than MVL before these games. And the last I looked, he was a pretty tough competitor. So are all the naysayers here accusing Carlsen of not trying, or accusing MVL of some kind of misconduct because he succeeded in drawing twice despite a 90 ELO gap? I |
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Oct-15-19 N Batsiashvili vs V Nebolsina, 2019
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| pdxjjb: 4 ... ♗c5 looks horrible because of 5 ♘xe5 ♘xe5 6 d4 with a pawn hook as happened in the game. But black can keep the game pretty even after the pawn hook with 6... ♗b4 7. dxe5 ♘xe4 8. ♕d4 ♘xc3 9. bxc3 ♗e7. There are 63 games in the ... |
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Oct-12-19 Ding Liren vs K Alekseenko, 2019
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| pdxjjb: Black was doing sort of OK until 15 ... Ne5 which was a serious tactical mistake. |
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Kibitzing
