The Blog of Jonas Martinsson

In my late teens I feel in love with the game of chess. That is way too late in life to have a realistic chance of achieving true mastery of the game. Regardless, this hasn't prevented me from continuing my journey, trying to increase my knowledge and becoming more skillful.   I am now starting a new serious attempt to improve my understanding and execution of chess. Building on my past failures, I will implement a few novel ideas to this approach. My plan is to document the process for my own benefit and accountability, and for others to hopefully get inspiration from. My Hitherto Chess Journey Let's start with briefly recounting my chess journey so far. I can safely state that I've invested my 10,000 hours in chess without achieving anything resembling mastery. I started playing in my late teens. Today I am 47. I have been playing in the Swedish national league, postal correspondence chess, online leagues and been active in computer chess organizations. My FIDE Elo rating...

The sign-up period for the inaugural Online Chess Match Championships is now over. The list of registered players for the two divisions are: Open Division Player Rating ZwaartePaard 1942 Valiantangel 1866 leomalagar 1864 Acho 1861 tseltzer 1850 jonasil 1840 Tensaigg 1759 castleden 1745 SklavinLydia (tentative) 1737 surGeonGG 1660 TonyPrice - jumong (tentative) - Under 1600 Division Player Rating offtherook 1595 ranban    1576 farbror    1561 jerichob    1530 ...

The Online Chess Match Championships is scheduled to take off on June 1. It is your chance to play in a chess tournament cycle similar to the official World Championships. The main reason that I organize this tournament is to make the excitement of chess matches available to everyone on the Internet. The games will be played on the free FICS chess server. You can sign up right away!

My first match on Chess Matches HQ , was versus RealChosenOne. To me, chess matches are the ultimate form of chess; I especially enjoy the preparations between games. Slated for 12 games, the match was unfortunately interrupted after only 7, as my opponent without explanation disappeared from all online chess communities. I still don’t know the reason behind this, but I hope that RealChosenOne is OK. As I’ve always spent a disproportional amount of study on openings, I’d like to present a glimpse of what was played, including one strong novelty. As White, I faced the Sicilian Sveshnikov [B33] and as Black I defended with the 2..Nf6 Scandinavian. As White As White, I met the Sicilian Sveshnikov in games 2, 4, 6 and 7. All four games started with 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 6. Ndb5 d6 7. Bg5 a6 8. Na3 b5 9. Bxf6 gxf6 10. Nd5 . This is the main line Sveshnikov. From here, Black usually continues 10..f5. My opponent opted for this move only once in our ...

The most efficient way to improve your chess is to play lots of games. The online chess community makes it easy to find opponents of any skill level. This is the reason why the number of great young chess players is much greater today; anybody can gain experience on the Internet, 24/7. In the old days, players had to travel to tournaments to gain the same experience that can now be gained in an online equivalent overnight. So, you ask, how do I best take advantage of the online chess offerings to gain experience and improve my chess? First , select a server that is dedicated to chess. More generic game servers that offer a multitude of board games invariably offer a worse experience and a weaker community for the chess fan. Second , choose a server that has a decent amount of players logged in at any given time, so that you always can find an opponent that wants to play at your preferred time control. Third , go for an intuitive interface that fits your requirements. Fourth , de...

Yesterday, the opening game of a new 12-point chess match against tseltzer was played on FICS . I am having great hopes and expectations that it will turn out to be a close and exciting series of games. The fact that both our ratings are identical (1825) at the start of game 1 bodes well. During my preparations as White I learned that my opponent uses a clever move order as Black against my king’s gambit to avoid the bishop’s gambit lines: 1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5 3.exd5 exf4!?. After this, White does best in transposing into the modern defense lines of the king’s gambit, which I also did in game 1. Black was not properly prepared for the line I played (4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Bc4), and after some inaccuracies I early gained a clear advantage, and delivered mate in move 21. It will be very interesting to see how my opponent will deviate in his next game as Black. Game 1 can be viewed here .

After a painful 0.5-3.5 loss in round 5, our team is no longer in contention of reaching the playoffs. One round remains, but without any real significance. I am starting to plan on finding an even-matched match opponent when the league finishes. Below is my 5th round game. In the diagram position below, I am clearly winning, but blundered away the game on a silly mistake on move 28. Fuzion (1740) – Jonas Martinsson (1808) [B01] TeamLeague T38 Free Internet Chess Server (5), 15.03.2009 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Nf6 3.Nf3 Qxd5 4.d4 Bg4 5.Be2 Nc6 6.c4 Qf5 7.h3 Bxf3 8.Bxf3 Qa5+? [8...0-0-0=] 9.Nc3 0-0-0 10.Bxc6 bxc6 11.0-0 e5 12.Qf3? [12.d5 cxd5 13.cxd5 Nxd5 14.b4!+/=] 12...exd4 13.Ne4 Nxe4 14.Qxe4 Qc5 15.b3N [RR 15.b4 Qxc4-/+ 16.Bg5 f6 17.Rfc1 Qd5 18.Qg4+ Rd7 19.Bd2 Bd6 20.Rc2 f5 21.Qd1 d3 22.Rc3 Be5 23.Rc5 Qe6 24.Rac1 Qxa2 25.Rxe5 Qa6 26.Qf3 g6 27.Rxc6 Qb7 28.b5 Rd6 29.Qe3 Rhd8 Gulati,J (2122)-Lynn,J (1871)/Edmonton 2005/CBM 107 ext/1-0 (33)] 15...f5?! [15...Bd6=/+] ...

In round 4 of TeamLeague , my game was left to be played last for my team. We were leading 2-1 before my game started, so I needed at least a draw to secure the team win. I came out clearly worse of another declined Benko gambit, but my opponent failed to capitalize on my choice of opening, and we eventually reached an even rook endgame (the 2nd diagram below). However, that endgame was badly mistreated by yours truly… Interesting to note is that in all four games, my opening gambits have been declined. Party-poopers! ValenceJordan (1936) - Jonas Martinsson (1821) [A57] Teamleague T38 (Round 4), 11.03.2009 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5 4.Nf3 Bb7 5.e3 I was unprepared for this move. In our previous encounter ValenceJordan played 5. Nbd2 5...bxc4 6.Bxc4 e6 7.Nc3 exd5 8.Nxd5 Nxd5N [RR 8...Nc6 9.Bd2 Be7 10.0-0 0-0 11.Bc3 Ne4 12.Qd3 Nxc3 13.bxc3 Na5 14.Bb5 Bf6 15.Rac1 d6 16.Rfd1 Be5 17.c4 Nc6 18.Rb1 Qa5 19.Bxc6 Bxc6 20.Ne7+ Kh8 21.Nxc6 Qxa2 22.Ncxe5 dxe5 23.Nxe5 Sokolova,O-Hvostov...

Now that FeedJournal posts have their own blog , I'll take a more liberal approach to what I post here. With the risk of losing subscribers, I am now starting to post about anything that relates to my life – because that is and will remain the “niche” for this blog. Today, I make the first post about chess, a new subject here. I currently participate in TeamLeague #38 , an online team chess tournament, playing for Poisoned Pawns, in the under 1800 division. After two rounds we're 1-1, and in the middle of the table. In Round 3, my team plays the group leader, Arch Bishops. Here's my game, where my opponent goes for a rather dull choice of opening. Novita (1835) - Martinsson,Jonas (1821) [D94] TeamLeague T38 (Round 3), 22.02.2009 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.e3 The Anti-Benoni gives Black a choice of defenses, typically transposing into a Queen's Gambit, a Tarrasch or even a Caro Kann. I find the Grunfeld setup to be an easy equalizer for Black. 3...cxd4 4.exd4 g6 5...