Chess960 SP554

Two days ago I intended to play a couple of games of chess960 at ICC again with ten minute time controls. I tried to get a game on couple of occasions, but no one was interested to accept my challenge, so I looked for other possibilities to play chess960 games on one sitting. I went to Chess.com and tried to see if I can get a game there, the problem there is that on the older version of the site it can't be done and on the newer version which I do not personally like all that much, I could not get a game either even if the possibility for it is there, so I had to search for other possible sites to play chess960 at. While I was searching, I came across a help site for the Internet Chess Club which mentioned that there is a special pool for chess960. So I headed back to ICC to try it out. I did get a game quite quickly, but the problem with the pool is in my opinion that it uses the 3 1 time control, which means the base time is 3 minutes and increment is one second. These are a bit too fast time controls for me. It was especially difficult because I tried once more to do a live commentary while I played, which made me lose both of the games I played on Tuesday. I played in that pool again yesterday and this time without the live commentary, so I was more concentrated on the game and I even won that game on time. I still would prefer to play with longer time controls and if there was another pool for chess960 at ICC with longer time controls, I would like to play in that one instead of this one.

In other news, I finally won my first tournament at Red Hot Pawn. It took maybe longer than would have been necessary because my opponent in the last game dragged the game out a bit too long in my opinion because the result was clear for a long time before he or she resigned. I mean had it been me, I would have resigned several moves and weeks ago. Then again, it is not against the rules of chess or anything like that to play to the bitter end. This was my second win in a correspondence chess tournament, the first one I was able to get some years ago at the Queen Alice Internet Chess Club where I am still at my peak rating of 2203, because I have not played there in weeks. I should activate myself there again, but it might take me quite some time to do that. I have added two mate in two, two mate in three and one mate in five puzzle today. I have also added one analysed game to the following posts: A15 English Opening: Anglo-Indian Defense. Mikenas-Carls Variation, C53 Italian Game: Classical Variation. Giuoco Pianissimo, A30 English Opening: Symmetrical Variation. General and D02 Queen Pawn Game: Zukertort Variation.