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Thanks to the Internet

By Chad Lieberman

Like any other sport, hobby, or skill, chess requires a lot of practice and experience in order for a player to grow. You can learn many openings, strategies, tactics, and endgame techniques from books, but you will not have truly grasped their concepts until you try them in a real game.

It is these experiences from which we learn the most.

We should be thankful that we live in a time where a chess game is as close as a mouse click away. With the internet uniting players of the world, you could find a chess game at any time, day or night.

A previous CHESSforum column contained a run down of the various chess sites on the internet and a review of each of them. Although I hear that ICC (Internet Chess Club) is the best, I am still loyal to USCL (USChesslive).

I've decided to dedicate the next few weeks of CHESSforum to games from USCL. I hope to demonstrate a variety of skill levels as well as time controls.

This week's game was played on Monday morning and the time control was 3/0 (3 minutes with 0 second increments for each move).

The opening is the Fried Liver Attack, a popular one among beginner players. But don't be deceived! There is a lot of theory behind the sharp defense that Duncan11 employs. Black sacrifices a pawn for significant development and a strong attack. Duncan11 missed a chance for a mating combination on move 16. See if you can find it!