player of the week

Each week I will be looking at a player from our Chess @ 4 series. This will be the player of the week and it is possible to be Player of the Week more than once! To be considered for this position, all you need to do is score 15 points during the week in the Chess  @ 4 series on Tornelo. Chess @ 4 is a series of 5 round events that run Monday to Friday, starting at 4:00pm. Between the rounds there are interviews with players, analysis of games and positions, and chat about other chess related things.

In our Chess @ 4 events we run 2 divisions. These are divided by ratings, so there is a tournament for players rated above 800 (Premier), and a tournament for players rated 800 or below (Challengers). There are some players who move up from the Challengers to the Premier, and some who move back down to the Challengers from the Premier. There are even some players who bounce back and forward between the 2 events. In the past week, we saw Utku Tanin make the jump from Challengers to Premier, and stay in the top event. Utku's progress has been steadily rising, but with a few setbacks.
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Starting with a rating below 500 Utku improved slowly until our lockdown when he started playing more regularly in our tournaments. You can see from the graph that it has been hard for Utku to hold on to his improvements, and he's had a few dips, but generally he is improving.

In the past week, what I've noticed is that Utku has really strengthened his tactical vision, so even if he gets into tricky positions, he is trying to find tactical tricks to get himself a lead in the game.

White has just played Bb5 pinning Black's knight. Black decided to kick the bishop away by playing 1..a6. Was this a good move? Answer is here.

Utku is Black, and is a pawn down, but he decided to try out one of his favourite tricks, a discovered attack. What do you think Black played here? Answer is here.

Utku is Black and has another discovered attack in mind. Here Black plays 1..Ne7, a crazy looking move as his knight can just be taken. What do you think the idea is behind this move? Answer is here.

Solving tactics is a great way to improve your game, especially when you can then use the tactics in your games to win points or checkmate your opponent. There are some good places to solve chess tactics online. Try either ideachess or chesstempo, as they're probably the best.