Rybka Aquarium

If anyone out there has the Aquarium interface for Rybka please let me know. I'm having a hard time figuring out how to make opening trees and databases. Any help would be greatly appeciated.

Club Championship Qualifier: Round 3 or "Drunken Boxing"

My thrid round game in the Reno Club championship Qualifier was against Vern Young.He has recently become A class and has a chess teaching business with youth players in the area.He has a blog as well which can be accessed at http://vernonryoung.wordpress.com/

Weve now played three times with an even score of +1-1=1.With the school semester starting the same week of this tournament I have had very little time and energy to try any sort of preparation for my opponents so I decieded to play the Closed Sicilian this night.I have a basic understanding of the ideas and knew it could present for a positional and if I was lucky tactical oppourtunity.

I must say though, I made many mistakes in this game by not using my clock wisely.After 15 moves I had used only 28 minutes and my opponent had used about 53. Enjoy the blunderfest!

Chris Harrington 1600 v. Vern young 1912

Just blew a won game against an expert...

The game will be posted along with my third round game as soon as I get a chance.Probably later this week.Just know for now that I was in a worse position,played an exchange sacrifice,and caught him playing a failed tactic,but then didn't bring it home.Needless to say I'm happy to have fought hard and have had a good four games, but this sucks to be so close and fail...

Club Championship Qualifier Round 2

My second round game in the Reno Club championship Qualifier ended in a lose.Aside from that I was pleased with most of my play and the ideas I had, as well as my opponents ideas that I was able to read.I out played him a bit in the opening and reached a pretty nice position with black, defended pretty accurately against a scavenging queen and then inexplicably drop a pawn and with it the game.Hope you enjoy the game!
George Fischer 1907 v. Chris Harrington 1600

the Dragonslayer returns

The knight smelt the burning aroma from a good deal away from the scene of battle.The dragon had been spotted several days prior by several townsfolk.The knight was sent with the specific mission of bringing back the corpse of the great beast.

He wasn't by any means a veteran but then again this wasn't the first dragon to meet his blade.He knew absolutely nothing else about this beast.Sizes and color varied in the different accounts but the general feeling was a mid-sized monster with decent skill at destroying the men that had come to challenge it.

The smell of the smoke eminating from the beast's nostrils allowed the knight to prepare himself mentally for battle.As he stepped out into the clearing he saw the beast lumbering out of the entrance of a large cavern.The knight drew his sword and charged the dragon.The dragon was immediately in the air and they circled each other as the beast swooped and eventually touched down in the clearing.The kinght saw the glistening purple scales and the large talons and became focused on the struggle that was taking place.It was him or the beast.This wasn't going to end in anything but death.

The knight began swinging his sabre very skillfully at the dragon.The dragon began backing up and trying desperately to dodge the sharp, cold metal.He was knocked back and began tumbling back and the knight took up a very aggressive stance.

The dragon then unexpectantly charged the knight.The knight was suprised, from this distance it wasn't so difficult to avoid any attack from the dragon and continue his assault.In fact the knight allowed a blow to glance off his armoured shoulder to allow himself to get closer to the dragon's underbelly.

The knight took the chance he was given and delivered punishing blows to the dragon.The beast was taking great punishment and soon vanquished in a manner unspeakable for this vernacular.

Chris Harrington 1600 vs. Ryan Van Reken 1738

Round 5 of the western States Open-French fight!

This was the only game I won in the B-Section of the Western States Open. It went back and forth and I got to work a bit on my French defense.

Richard Martin 1658 vs. Chris Harrington 1600

Fertile battle grounds in the French Tarrasch or my sixth round game of the Western States Open

I know I said that I would post my third round game next but I actually was pretty interested to go over this game. That's one of the most important part of looking over your game is to actually be motivated and this one intrigued me by what i might find. The distinguished gentleman in the above picture is Tarrasch himself. Old school chess master whom this line of the French gets its name.

One of the things that was interesting in the opening of this game is that we both knew the ideas pretty well. I think both of us were in book theory for 12 moves, I was sublimely aware of the book moves for 15 moves. Which brings me to a point I wanted to make. There is an interesting dogma in chess that I hear alot, "they" say you shouldn't study opening play/lines. As i've looked over more and more chess games i've found that this is simply bad advice. The only thing you shouldn't do in regard to openings is rote memorization, other than that openings have really enhanced my game in several ways.

First, I can choose openings based on style of play, pawn structure, piece strength, etc. The games might not always follow and allow for this but in general you can have some say in dictating what type of game you get into.

Secondly, by going over the opening you get a feel for different ideas in similar positions from the game you have studied, which is the same thing you are trying to do when going over middlegame and tactics, endgame, etc.

Thridly, you will get into the same or near to the same position in many of your games. This helps you develop a sense for taking an advantage when an opponent makes a subpar move.

Fourthly, you don't have to waste so much thinking time/clock time on the first few moves of the game.Therefore extending the time you can spend on the moves from the point of unknown position to the next time control.

Here is the game = )

Chris Harrington 1600 vs. John Locke 1729