The Dreadful Portuguese

Hello everybody. I'm a new member of Bulletchess blog and I'd like to kindly thank Andrej for letting me write some of my thoughts on bullet and blitz chess. Ok, without further ado: on my first entry I'm going to give a short analysis of my favourite bullet opening, the Portuguese variation of the Scandinavian.

1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Nf6



As we shall see, this variation is one of the most appropriate openings for bullet chess. It may lack long term stability for black, it may be positionally inferior, but gambit style of play always offers good chances in bullet chess. Furthermore, this variation is not all that popular (of course, more usual is 2. ... Qxd5) and most white players suddenly find themselves in an uknown territory as soon as the second move takes place.
White have several responses and one could divide them into two groups: ones that try to hold on to the extra pawn and ones that give up material advantage. The most common response in the first group is probably 3. c4. But this "natural" look is in fact almost a blunder. Consider this variation:

3. c4 e6
4. dxe6 Bxe6

Here black is probably already better. Note that white's play so far has been full of natural looking moves: as we all know, pushing central pawns is a mark of solid opening. But not in this case. In most of my games white chose a continuation 5. d4.

5. d4 Bb4+ An important intermezzo move, clearing way for castling and preparing a hard-to-meet Qe7. White have several options here, the most promising being Nc3. Nd2 is apparently hopeless and after 6. Bd2 black plays ...Bxd2 and on both Qxd2 and Nxd2 black responds with Qe7, threating deadly discovery check (or simply threatening to take the c4 pawn with check).

Main and most common variation is 6. Nc3. Black of course answers ...Qe7, which in bullet chess is a difficult move to fight against. Most of my opponents played 7. Be2, which at first glance (as it is common in bullet) seems adequate, but naturally fails in view of 7. ... Bxc4 grabing back a pawn with initiative.

Another common bullet response after 6... Qe7 is 7. Qe2 protecting the open king. Here is an interesting miniature I played once in this variation:

7. Qe2 Nf6, inviting d5, which in bullet just about everyone will play. Note that here white is considered superior, but only if he is provided with the time to find a proper defense. And as we all realize, in bullet we tend to overextend our pawns, so 8. d5 is to be expected.

8. d5?? Nd4

As we perceive, white is absolutely lost here. Threat of c2-check, discovery check and attacked queen are too much to handle. Note that white has played moves all having a a quite natural air, but were in fact leading to demise.

The important thing in 3. c4 e6 4. dxe6 Bxe6 is to remember a Qe7 motive, which will, I assure, catch off guard even the most experienced players.

Ok, so much on the Portuguese Scandinavian for now. In my next entry I will concentrate on 3. d4, which perhaps offers the strongest play for white.

Take care,

Puzzle

Ok for today's post i will just post a puzzle because i am not feeling well - i have a fever. I will post the solution tomorrow as a comment to this post.

White to play and win in 7 moves.

General Bullet Tactics

Ok for my today's post i want to discuss some general ideas, tips, to improve your strength in bullet games. You have to realize, that bullet games deviates a lot from let's stay "standart chess" and by that i mean games played in slow time control. On the other hand there are some things common to both types of chess. We must know our openings well in bullet but it is quite common to play certain openings in bullet chess in such a variation, that no one would probably play them in a standart game, but playing it in bullet chess will maybe get you in position where you will be slightly worse positionally than your opponent, but you will gain a lot of time and maybe you will be able to force the game to come into the position you are most used to. I will start posting the specific openings within the next days so please comment this post in regard to which opening would you like first to be explained.
The most important thing in bullet chess is to remain calm. You will play a lot of games where, for example, you will be 3 , 2 or even 1 move away from mating your opponent but you will lose on time. Ofcourse this games are the worse for your inspiration, but the best thing is to just forget about that as soon as possible. I could probably write a book just from those games in which i had mate in 1 or 2 and lost on time. Eventually you will learn to think faster and the number of those kind of games will decrease significant. One of the best ways to become faster in bullet chess is solving chess puzzles and timing your performance. If you will do it often your percentage of correct answers aswell as the time elapsed to solve the puzzle will increase. By doing this the goal is to achieve an "instant chess thinking". When you achieve that, you will be able to find a solid plan in bullet chess with just 2 or 3 seconds thinking, and ofcourse once you got a plan, stick to it! The worse thing you can do in any chess game expecially bullet chess, is to find a plan and than "forget" about it or switching to another plan for no particular reason, or even worse - to play without a plan. You cant imagine how many online players out there just "moves the pieces" over the board. My advice is, if you start playing bullet games with a plan, your rating will get up for atleast 200-300 points - if we assume you havent be able to find any good plans before that. The majority of players in bullet games are nervous and we can use that to our advantage. The biggest mistake a player can do in a bullet game, is to think "i have to be fast this is bullet, i have to be fast...". I always say - you have to be skilled AND be fast. And its much better to be more skilled than faster - because you will learn to play fast that is easier to improve than to start playing better . If you encounter players on your server, who everyone knows they just play fast and they're not that good, dont worry about them. They will find players which will be as fast as them, but far better positionally, and than they will see of what they are in reality made off so to speak.

I will systematically begin to post opening lessons, endgame lessons in the next days which will improve your bullet chess strength and to addition i will post some random posts from time to time as well as some more annotated games.

Drawish

Ok so for my first annotated game i want to show a game, which I played a few days ago vs. WGM Martha Fierro. I ended up to be white in this game which i was quite happy about, it's always a nice touch to be white vs. Grand Masters or Women Grand Masters ofcourse. The game actually started as a tipical indian game, it was tending towards King's Indian game. We started : 1.d4 g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.Nf3 d6

, with the position like this. I personally always play a fianchetto variations in my 1.d4 openings, so if she would have chosen to play KID, i would continue with Nc3, g3, Bg2, 0-0 and than e4, instead of Nc3, e4 and Be2, where her moves would be something like Nf6, Nbd7, 0-0 and e5.

But infact the game transpoted to a typicall benoni position, modern fianchetto benoni, to be precise. The game continued with 4.g3 c5 5.d5 Nf6 6.Bg2 0-0 7.0-0 Na6 8.Nc3 Nd7 9.e4 a6, and the position looked like this:

a typicall benoni systems, where white is trying to push e5, where black will go for the queen side rush with a plan like Rb8--->b5. At this point i was a little surprised, because the way the game started i was expecting a nice King's Indian game, but i like playing benoni also so my "mental strength" if you will was ok. The game continued with 10.a4 (normal motive when black plays a6 in benoni, i encourage the idea of immidiate counter to that move with a4, therefor blocking the b5 motive for black.) So, after 10.a4, she responded with 10...Rb8 following her plan of b5. I went for "my part of the game" and played a solid 11.Bf4, trying to get that e5 move going. Ofcourse she knew all about that and didnt allowed e5 to be played. She returned with 11...Nd7, blocking the e5 move. At this point i had to chose another plan, because the "e5 plan" is currently firmly blocked from black. I played 12.Qd2. The idea behind this move is a plan i played quite a few times vs. some other strong players. The plan is to trade the black bishop, and try forcing the move f4, than trading and taking control of the f file. Here is what happened: so after my 12.Qd2 the game went forward in this way : 12...f6 13.Bh6 Ne5 14.Bxg7 Kxg7 15.Nxe5 fxe5 16.f4 exf4 17.Rxf4 Rxf4 18.Qxf4 Bd7 19.Rf1 Qf8 and the position looked like this:

after Qf8, i actually thought for 5 seconds ( i couldnt afford to think more thats the beauty of bullet chess), with the Qf8 she was clearly playing for a draw and it is obvious than after Qxf8 the game is almost dead drawish, while on the other hand i had a strong move Qg5! attacking her queen with my rook and attacking the pawn on e7 with my queen, so after Qg5 she would had to either play Qe8 or Qd8 defending the pawn. Both possible moves are very passive and i finally have control of the f file which was my plan. But on the other hand, after Qg5 her rook would still be on b8, so her next move would be b5! right ahead, rushing me over the queen side. So i was a bit sceptical about that and besides i didnt see a clear way to win after Qg5 in the little time i had left (about 40 seconds). So i simply chosed to play Qxf8 and said to my self "well this is a draw now". The game went like this : 20.Qxf8 Rxf8 21.Rxf8 Kxf8 22.Kf2 b5. Note that b5 is not dangerous anymore, because of the lack of the heavy pieces. 23.axb5 axb5 24.cxb5 Nxb5 25.Nxb5 Bxb5 26.Ke3 Kf7 27.Kf4 and the position looks likes a death draw regardless to the fact that my king's position is better.

The game was finished in this way: 27...Kf6 28.h4 h5 29.Bf3 Bd7 30.Be2 f6 31.Bc4 exd5 32.Bxd5 Be6. At this point i saw that if i trade the bishop with 33.Bxe6 it is still a draw the line is simply: 33.Bxe6 Kxe6 34.Kg5 Ke5 35.Kxg6 Kxe4 36.Kxh5 d5 37.Kg6 d4 38. h5 d3 39.h6 d2 40.h7 d1=Q 41.h8=Q,.

And we both promote the queens, although i am a pawn up its her move so she can check me until i ran out of time. I chosed a more simple way just moving the Bishop cause the pawns are impossible to break and the game was ended with a 3 move repetition. 33.Bc6 Bc5 34.Be8 Be6 35.Bc6 Bc4 36.Be8 Be6 37.Bc6 "-"

Well this is how bullet chess works. One must see tactical motives and combinations on almost instant notice and ofcourse makes very fast judgements. Probably after 20.Qg5 the game would be more interesting, maybe even a win, but instead I have chosen to finish the game in a clam fashion with the drawish 20.Qxf8. At the end of the game we both had about 6 seconds left on the clock.

Introduction

Hi all.
I wanted to create this blog to share my achievements, my happiness, disapoitments consirning bullet chess. For those of you who are not familiar with it - bullet chess is a game of chess usually played online, where the players have only 1 minute of thinking time for the whole game. That's where the word bullet comes from. A lot of players worldwide will say that bullet chess is nothing other than using your mouse good, but that's simply not true. Bullet chess is a whole other prospective of chess, and any good bullet player will tell you that. The point of having only 1 minute of time to think for the whole game, simply means that one must know the theory behind chess really good. The point of having 1 minute of thinking time means you can't afford to lose anytime in openings for example. If you want to be good in bullet chess you must know the openings you play really good.If you dont know the variations you choose to play until, I would say move 15 to 20, dont play them. Seriouslly, dont. Like in any "field" of chess we have ratings here too. Every server one chooses to play has their own ratings, but usually they are either very close from one to other or basiclly the same. What i mean by that is simply, if you're going to be lets say 1800 on server A in bullet chess, you will not be for example 2200 on server B. With my experiences i would say the servers are preety much within 100-150 points of diffrence. Rating diffrence is really big in bullet chess. If we observe a random game of two 1800 players playing bullet chess, and than observe a game of two 2200 players we can really feel the diffrence in the quality of the game. On another hand, if we than look at two players rated 2400+ in bullet chess, the game is even more beautifull. The facts are actually, two high rated bullet players will play a game of bullet chess that will be played in such a level than a game of two low rated players can never be, regardless to the time control, and that's what is all about.
I will analyse the games on this blog, explain some general ideas in bullet, I will also give lessons on certain openings, so I hope you will enjoy reading the posts as much as I will enjoy writting them.