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By Chad Lieberman Over the past few weeks, I have praised USCL for its ease of use, game availability, and quality of play. I have neglected one very important point however. With thousands of chess players online at once, it is not only possible to play a game but also to kibitz with others. This week's featured game was played this past weekend and I had the pleasure of analyzing the game with another member of USCL while it was being played. This gentleman's screen name is Thor. Thor and I exchanged possible variations, discussed the ending, and even referred back to possible mating attacks for each player. While analyzing your own games is extremely important, it is almost always better to do so with a partner. You can't possibly see every correct move in a game. Even grandmasters make mistakes. Therefore, having more kibitzers increases your chances of finding important relevant variations. On USCL, this is not only possible, it is easy. Some notes about the game: White got off to a poor start when black steered the game into a rare variation of the French Defense. But as we all know, the game is never over until someone is checkmated, and white definitely missed his fair share of chances. On move 27, he could have ended the game with 27.Bh6 when the threat of mate on g7 could only temporarily be stopped by 27...Qg5 (dropping the queen) or 27...Rg8, which would be answered by 28.Qxg8+ Kxg8 29.Re8#. This week's mate in two is taken straight from the game. Another missed chance for white on move 31. See if you can find it.
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