Shira Chess Challenge: Update!

Shira and I finished our first training game. It was a slaughter (Shira slaughtered me): [Event "Challenge"] [Site "http://www.redhotpawn.com/"] [Date "2009.08.02"] [EndDate "2009.08.21"] [Round "?"] [White "Shakerjan"] [Black "shira"] [WhiteRating "1109"] [BlackRating "1518"] [WhiteELO "1109"] [BlackELO "1518"] [Result "0-1"] [GameId "6569788"] 1. e4 d6 2. Ng1f3 Bc8g4 3. Bf1e2 Ng8f6 4. Nb1c3 c6 5. d4 e6 6. O-O Bf8e7 7. Be2d3 O-O 8. Qd1e2 d5 9. exd5 cxd5 10. Bc1f4 Nb8c6 11. a3 Nc6xd4 12. Qe2e3 Nd4xf3 13. gxf3 Bg4h5 14. Kg1g2 d4 15. Qe3d2 dxc3 16. bxc3 Qd8d5 17. Qd2e3 Be7c5 18. c4 Bc5xe3 19. cxd5 Be3xf4 20. d6 Bf4xd6 21. Bd3e2 Rf8c8 22. Rf1d1 Rc8d8 23. Rd1c1 Nf6d5 24. c4 Nd5f4 25. Kg2f1 Nf4xe2 26. Kf1xe2 Bd6f4 27. Rc1b1 Rd8d2 28. Ke2f1 Bh5xf3 29. Rb1e1 Rd2c2 0-1 I resigned rather than attempt to fight on, as checkmate was inevitable. I hope to be better prepared in our next game! I have been training hard - just not making any headway against people who are higher rated than I am. When I got back from Las Vegas I took a good hard look at my ongoing games with Frog Breath and PrincessChess and decided it wasn't worth the effort to try and continue to play. I was down too much material and hadn't a clue. Sure, I could have tried to eek out a few more moves, but to what purpose? I thank them for their games. I believe I have improved in my play from the lessons learned from those games -- In the meantime, Chessdaddy has dropped off radar. While Mr. Don was here for our Las Vegas Gambit we played four OTB games - two on the deck during a lovely afternoon, and two while traveling back and forth to Las Vegas on Midwest Airlines. Now those were games! As a match arranged by the Great Goddess, Mr. Don and I are truly evenly matched in all ways, including our relative chess skills. That led to hard fought drawn out games with hearts beating and adrenalin pumping. Amazingly, in 3 of our 4 games, Mr. Don managed to bungle away his Queen, much to my relief! I'm not laughing though, because I managed to bungle away some good positions and pieces too. Geez! Mr. Don conceded three reluctant - extremely reluctant - draws to me - after we'd battled each other to standstills and exhaustion in our three prior games. And then there was Game 4! Game 4 was fought on the jet ride from Las Vegas back to Milwaukee. We were both tired and worn out after three days of walking endless miles around Las Vegas. After boarding our flight we'd both tried to sleep/rest for the first hour and more. But when fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies and coffee were offered by an engaging flight attendant, a now wide-awake Mr. Don challenged me to a game of chess and I said okay. Out came the little magnetized travel set I'd received as a bonus gift back in 1999 for becoming a member of the U.S. Chess Federation. That little travel set has seen some interesting games, let me tell you. Mr. Don came out swinging hard. He was going for a win, no question in my mind. He was frustrated over our three prior draws - he wanted to prove his masculine and/or chess superiority over my (according to his way of thinking) relative feminine weakness - he felt he should have won all three games. No slow development of pieces during this opening for him. He went right for my jugular vein in an attempt to win by overwhelming force. Ha! I do not like being forced. Mr. Don seems to have forgotten that little lesson (I have to remind him every now and then about how stubborn I can get when I feel pressured to do something I do not want to do...) It was perhaps move 8 and Mr. Don had wiped out every piece that I had developed into the center of the board, as I was attempting to be a good Chessdaddy student and develop my pieces into the center while protecting my King. And so, I returned the favor. Our queens were openly exposed. I was black, and up a pawn. Mr. Don seemed intent on forcing a queen swap. As he had his fingers on the tiny magnetized travel set chess piece, I looked into his eyes over my glasses, and said to him "Do you really want to do that?" I do not think he realized at that moment just what he was letting himself in for. He made the move anyway. It was like something out of a movie, LOL! Guess what, Mr. Don. SWAP! Queens were off the board. It took about 10 seconds for that fact to sink in. I believe at that point Mr. Don realized he had made a very bad mistake. Not only had he sacrificed his queen for nothing (only my queen, but I was still up a piece and had better development), he had really pissed me off. The game went on, the battle back and forth, back and forth. At a crucial moment I blundered away a Rook - oh goddess I can't believe how Stupid that move was, totally overlooked! But I was absolutely determined and battled my ass off. And then, later in the game, Mr. Don blundered away a Bishop by moving it to a square opposite from where he'd intended to move it - right into the arms of my remaining Rook which had been protecting a pawn about to promote. If he had played to the left instead of the right, he would have gobbled up the pawn, but I would have taken the Bishop. As he played it, I ate the Bishop and also promoted my pawn :) OH, SWEET MYSTERY OF LIFE AT LAST I FOUND YOU... You can imagine the look on his face when I once again looked into his eyes over the top of my glasses as I promoted my pawn and asked for my Queen back, please. Alas, Mr. Don and I do not write down our moves, as our games our purely for leisure purposes only (yeah, right). So I cannot give you the moves of this game for the ages :) It did, however, seem to attract a great deal of attention whilst we were playing away. Our seats were 22 A and B, the last seats at the end of the plane on the left side. The bathrooms are just behind. Across from us (going to Las Vegas and back), on the right side of the plane are three seats and on both trips those seats were occupied by parents with small human-like creatures that I believe are called children. Noisy, smelly creatures with soft-looking skin and bare feet, given to screaming outbursts and throwing food and other things about for no discernable reason. The little smelly, noisy creatures seem to be particularly fascinated by chess, and during Game 4, so were a myriad number of people who lingered over our seats watching the game between Mr. Don and I as they waited for the bathrooms to become available :) Thus goes my chess training...