The 2,000,000th post game

Found something new to explore to go along with the Benko Gambit now called the Halosar* Trap .

(Well, having been learned about today, it's new for me at least ...)

The Lasker Trap , might prove even cooler than the Halosar, if I can figure out how to under promote on ChessBase dot com ...

... and now is probably as good a time as any to re-introduce the Benko Gambit back into this thread ...

I'm thinking of starting a thread that teaches Algebraic notation, the universally accepted way to describe and record chess moves. Wikipedia had an excellent image covering the basic concept at a glance:

Relatively recently played game against a higher ranked, which I was relatively proud of:

[WhiteElo "2600"]
[BlackElo "1864"]
[PlyCount "38"]

1. e4 {[%emt 0:0:2]} e5 {[%emt 0:0:2]} 2. Bc4 {[%emt 0:0:8]} c6 {[%emt 0:0:10]} 3. c3 {[%emt 0:0:2]} d5 {[%emt 0:0:12]} 4. exd5 {[%emt 0:0:7]} cxd5 {[%emt 0:0:2]} 5. Bb3 {[%emt 0:0:4]} Nc6 {[%emt 0:0:6]} 6. Ne2 {[%emt 0:0:5]} Na5 {[%emt 0:0:6]} 7. Bc2 {[%emt 0:0:11]} e4 {[%emt 0:0:17]} 8. 0-0 {[%emt 0:0:5]} Bg4 {[%emt 0:0:7]} 9. h3 {[%emt 0:0:5]} h5 {[%emt 0:0:4]} 10. hxg4 {[%emt 0:0:3]} hxg4 {[%emt 0:0:2]} 11. Ng3 {[%emt 0:0:11]} Qh4 {[%emt 0:0:6]} 12. f3 {[%emt 0:0:7]} Bc5+ {[%emt 0:0:5]} 13. d4 {[%emt 0:0:31]} exd3+ {[%emt 0:0:9]} 14. Rf2 {[%emt 0:0:1]} Qxg3 {[%emt 0:0:11]} 15. Qe1+ {[%emt 0:0:8]} Ne7 {[%emt 0:0:13]} 16. Bxd3 {[%emt 0:0:2]} 0-0-0 {[%emt 0:0:31]} 17. Be3 {[%emt 0:0:10]} d4 {[%emt 0:0:52]} 18. cxd4 {[%emt 0:0:5]} Bd6 {[%emt 0:0:18]} 19. Qxa5 {[%emt 0:0:9]} Rh1+ {[%emt 0:0:11]} 0-1

Let me see if I can't clean up the move log, editing out the distracting overlong percentage time stamps, from the message directly above:

[WhiteElo "2600"]
[BlackElo "1864"]
[PlyCount "38"]

1. e4 e5
2. Bc4 c6
3. c3 d5
4. exd5 cxd5
5. Bb3 Nc6
6. Ne2 Na5
7. Bc2 e4
8. 0-0 Bg4
9. h3 h5
10. hxg4 hxg4
11. Ng3 Qh4
12. f3 Bc5+
13. d4 exd3+
14. Rf2 Qxg3
15. Qe1+ Ne7
16. Bxd3 0-0-0
17. Be3 d4
18. cxd4 Bd6

19. Qxa5 Rh1+

0-1

The answer is "no". It can be done, but not quickly; that bit of editing on my phone effectively took 10 minutes.

Sonovagun...

ChessBase cleared the memory of that last game in the time it took to transcribe that. Blast it ...

Well, if in the future I happen upon a site that allows one to place pieces on a 2D board, I'll always be able to come back to this page and recreate the game from the log texted above ...

And I did manage to record 2 moments from the game, including the move that ended it:

Forced mate in 1, following the sacrifice of several pieces, with the last sacrifice being the rook giving check to my opponent's king. He has no choice but to take that rook, whereupon my queen, empowered by my bishop on that same diagonal, checks and mates him in the corner.

Think of chess as opening a window.

I actually found a website that will do what I talked about doing.

(For now, at least.)

I googled "online chess board" or some such, and that yielded a lot of useless, but googling "play against yourself" yielded the following:

https://www.liavaag.org/English/Video-Games/Chess/

Learn the invisible hand.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/10/martin-luther-wife-protestant-reformation-500/

Hm.

Discovered that "play against self on 2D chess board" site linked above does not believe Queenside castling is a thing.
Also gives a wordier "start position -dash line- end position" description for its recording of moves. That would probably make it more complicated for beginners to follow.

('Cause it's more stuff to look at.)

At any rate, in the search for something better I found a "you can play against yourself on a 3D online chess board!" website.

This one, to be exact:

http://www.betterthanchess.com

----------

While it's hardly truth in advertising, this site DOES promise some ability to help me with one problem I saw long ago; namely that a chessboard in real life looks VASTLY different than the flatter, far more visually-easy-to-follow 2D affair used when playing online.

But what if you practice on something that effectively LOOKS like the harder-to-follow "real-life" version?

So ...

http://plainchess.timwoelfle.de

Semi decent one here.

Only complaints so far are slowness, lack of ability to see from Black's point of view, and no log of recorded moves.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e23oi9U7OnA

Vanessa of Virtual Fighter 5; presented here in one of the games VF4 "throwback" mods. Vanessa was bleached and "softened", to the distaste of many a fighting fan, between VF4 and VF5.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ND4kvK41-AQ

Vanessa in the actual Virtua Fighter 4 video game, reminding me that even the VF5 mod shown a post ago, cool though it is to see, is a mere shadow of the original.

Sadly, even now gaming developers display bias against featuring women with African features, let alone fight-capable physiques. The presentation of Vanessa of VF4 was a happy accident that, unfortunately, probably WON'T soon find itself repeated.

Victor Woodley versus Du Dang,
Grand Finals, Street Fighter 5, American East, 2019
(Punk v. Nuckledu)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ7aqxEpzkk

Played a fun and interesting but strange game awhile ago.

Still can't QUITE figure what my opponent was trying to do with me.

Who knows? Maybe in analyzing the game that realization will come to me:

So, above, in response to my opponent's d4 start, I tried to set up for the Benko Gambit. Didn't succeed; thwarted even by the 2nd or 3rd move.

Nevertheless, having heard Benko G has a fianchettoed King bishop, i.e. a bishop placed on one of the board's longest diagonals, exactly as you see in the third scan above, I tried to set the gambit up in the wrong order.

For a time my opponent played well, thwarting even subtle hints of threats, but then started chasing and herding me into more advantageous situations ...