King's Indian Tuesday

So... what is the King's Indian?  The King's Indian is a standard opening in chess.  After hundreds of years, players have learnt that there are some sequences of moves in the opening which get you into a good position, some which are OK, and some which can lose you the game.  If you are White and you play the wrong moves, Black can win the game after only two moves.

So, once you have learnt how to play chess, perhaps the next step is to learn an opening or two.  Even Grandmasters study their openings and try to extend their knowledge, so if it is good enough for them, it is good enough for the rest of us.  Also, if you look at it this way, if you have the same ability as your opponent, but they have learnt some of the lessons, then they would hope to do a little better - so learning a little about openings has got to be a good idea.

While there are many openings, the good news is that most kids know just a few.  And, as two openings seem to be the most popular, this is a good place to start.  The two openings are "The Italian Game", and the "Queen's Gambit".  In case you were wondering, the King's Indian is usually studied once you have learnt some of the other openings.  If you do want to see a King's Indian opening, the game at the end of this post is a good example.

I could tell you a bit about these opening's, but you will get much better information from a search of the internet or reading a chess book.  If you have a ChessKid login, then there are a couple of great video's to watch (although unfortunately I think you need a paid login).  These are at the following links:

The Italian Game: https://www.chesskid.com/videos/the-italian-game2
Queen's Gambit: https://www.chesskid.com/videos/what-is-the-queens-gambit

Generally opening's only get you a few moves into a game, but having a good position and options to get other pieces into the game is a good place to be.

And now... the results from tonight's tournament...

U1250
In the U1250 we almost had a 4 way tie for 1st place with 4 players all finishing on 2 points.  AbleLopsidedGiraffe hung to clinch victory on tiebreak score despite almost being pipped to the post by SillyLimit who won the final round match between the two of them.  In joint 3rd place were RedNuttyCactus and kolifl0w37, also on 2 points, but a little further behind on tiebreak score.  Well played to all players.

1st: AbleLopsidedGiraffe
2nd: SillyLimit
3rd equal: RedNuttyCactus  & kolifl0w37

Open
In the Open, Rowantree won the event by winning all his games.  ZanyHummingBook and WiseCrabbyCoconut came in 2nd and 3rd places respectively with 3 points from 4 games, each only losing a single game to the eventual winner.  Again, well played to all players.

1st: Rowantree
2nd: ZanyHummingBook
3rd: WiseCrabbyCoconut

Chess Game
Tonight's game comes from the game between ZanyHummingBook and Rowantree and the first 5 moves are a good example of a King's Indian.  Click through and see what happens...