Ty Window

Dear Hungry-Man,

Upon consuming your new "Sports Grill: Beer Battered Chicken" I do, in fact, for the first time ever, have a few questions and comments.  While the directions on the cover of your product read "simply cook & serve," the directions on the back of this particular meal tell a dramatically different story.

1. Remove film cover from chicken.  *check*

2. Remove chicken and set aside.  ... *really?* ... (at this point I feel it necessary to explain the meal in question consists of one solid block containing both chicken and potato suspended in frozen cheese like bricks in so much mortar.)

3. Keep film cover over cheese fries.  ... ... *um*...

4. Microwave cheese fried on HIGH 2 minutes.  Return chicken to tray in single layer.  ... *shit* ...

*Ty spends 10 minutes of his lunch break prying and hammering most of the chicken away from the cheese fries and continues approximating preparation of said meal to the best of his abilities.*

(Note: a box just to the right of these directions warns "Do not thaw.")

While I will say that after that ordeal the 1 IB of chicken and cheese fries 'hit the spot' in a serious manner (though it did not fill me up,) I feel you may be making some assumptions about 'hungry men' which I find sexist and  deeply offensive.

A. Men like hitting things with hammers and chisels and will enjoy the catharsis involved in breaking this meal to bits before devouring it.

B. Men don't follow directions.  We can write whatever Herculean endeavor into the food preparation we desire.  No one will read it anyway.

or possibly:

C. You have completely and utterly failed to troubleshoot this meal. 

Good afternoon,

Ty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM 

The pentatonic scale is important!!!!

 

( Want to read a long-winded technical article about melody? )

 

This will be the third and last of my "best of James Meny" series.  I'm attempting to make these as short as possible, but this one needs time and space. 

This is for anyone with a passagio problem caused by the activation of swallowing muscles in singing.  Feel your throat (a lot of guys can look in a mirror and watch their Adam's apple) as you sing.  Don't push on the larynx with your fingers.  Don't mechanically force it in any direction ever (when your muscles are fighting.)  You can do permanent damage if you force the larynx at all.  You need those muscles to work right when you swallow, just not when you sing.  Don't force the larynx, but touch it and be aware of what it's doing.  If you're larnyx is following your voice, going down when you sing lower and up when you sing higher, this post is for you.  

This is obviously for men who yodel, break, crack, or have no choice but to take their high notes in falsetto on their high notes*, but it can be for women as well. 

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Anyway women, please don't hold out for a video of a female teacher showing a female how to bridge.  (Especially not on Expertvillage!... the other teachers on that site are not good for bridging... a lot of their exercises (while possibly good for other things) will make it harder to bridge, not easier.)  Your bridges will be in a very different place from the man in this video, but if your larynx is moving on you this same approach is likely to help.

Weren't these supposed to be *little* blurbs featuring James Meny, Ty? quit talking and show a video. ... ok, here's a bit of James for you, defining falsetto:

http://www.expertvillage.com/video/46391_singing-lessons-falsetto-technique.htm  Well not every counter-tenor uses falsetto, but some do.  This is what happens to guys who's voice crack into falsetto in the bridge.  It has nothing do with vocal range and everything to do with tension and airflow.  When you tighten the chords too tight to phonate and blow air passed them the edges vibrate and you get a falsetto tone.  If you're singing higher and higher in one register you're tightening the chords more and more and blowing more and more air until it's too much, the chords disconnect and all that comes out is falsetto.  It doesn't mean you've gone too high, it means you're too tense.

So how do you get passed this?  The answer is to use less, not more.  I could talk a lot about what is going on when the voice bridges right, but I'm already talking too much and these should be short.  In that interest what you need is a smaller sound and a closed vowel.  Pretend you're not singing, just "talking on pitches" and closed vowels will be easier... but we're not going to pick a closed vowel to start.  If your swallowing muscles are involved we have to get rid of them first.  We're going to pick a low larynx vowel ... "uh," even though it's open.  To make it easy we are going to surround it with closed humming... "mmm"  ... put it together and we have the amazingly useful "mum" exercise:

http://www.expertvillage.com/video/46379_singing-lessons-voice-breaks.htm

http://www.expertvillage.com/video/46380_singing-lessons-exercises-1.htm

http://www.expertvillage.com/video/46381_singing-lessons-exercises-2.htm

When your larynx isn't flying up uncontrollably you can (go for high larynx vowels "nay nay nay"  "nee nee nee" "nya nya nya" etc... not demonstrated here and) eventually work on stabilizing it to normal speech position with neutral vowels like "oo" as in "book" and "good" as James continues to demonstrate:   

http://www.expertvillage.com/video/46382_singing-lessons-exercises-3.htm

http://www.expertvillage.com/video/46383_singing-lessons-exercises-4.htm

The high larynx was my problem when I was breaking for years under several teachers before Liz bridged me in under an hour.  I think it's a very common problem and would go as far as saying if someone can't bridge this is *probably* the reason.  If you're larynx isn't going up and you still can't bridge then it's not your swallowing muscles getting in the way, and ... I don't think I can help with a blog post.  If you're trying the "mum" and your larynx is still going up there are other things you can think of besides a "woofy" or "dumb" sound.  I like to think of crying.  When you cry your larynx drops to the floor and your voice often goes very high... it's a ready made recipe for head voice.  Seth Riggs often asks singers to mum with "a little cry in the voice."  You can also imagine you're vomiting if you want an uglier image to drop your larynx; I believe this is popular in classical opera training (can't imagine why.)  Another one is to imagine you're Sylvester Stallone... say "Adriane... mum mum mum" and your larynx might stay down.  Remember you're trying to relax muscles, not add tension in the other direction.  I hope this helps someone. 

Ty

It took me c. 3 years but I have composer news on the index page of my website.  Details of the performance came from Tyler Forsythe quite a while back but I've been too busy with the holidays to post it.  Yeah, the date of the Festival is ominous but it's not the real "premier" according to Tyler. 

1/4/2009- New Choral Piece "Dream Song" for SSA, text by Sara Teasdale,
Composed for the 2008-2009 Casa Grande Union High School Chorale, Tyler Forsythe, Director
Dream Song will be performed at the Northern Arizona University Jazz/Madrigal Festival at Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Flagstaff, Arizona at 3:20 PM on Friday, February 13, 2009. The “premier” will be a few weeks later on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 7:00 PM at in the auditorium of Casa Grande Union High School in Casa Grande, Arizona. It may also be preformed at the Southeastern Arizona Solo/Ensemble Festival in late January, but this performance is not open to the public. Score (PDF,) midi

...continuing the series of very short very useful vocal tips with James Meny's videos...  this one will be even shorter: 

"I'm tired / hoarse after singing / singing is hard" ... Maybe you're doing more work than you have to!  I believe this one is for just about all of my friends who sing.  Really this is for anyone who fails the "chin muscle test;" read on.  There are a lot of muscles connected with biting, chewing, and even pronouncing text.  You need these muscles to pronounce the text when singing, but you don't need them to phonate.  Because they're close to the muscles that are actually used in phonation, and because you do need to tense them a little for the text, people tend to overuse them when singing.  These muscles actually work against your singing muscles.  The result of this unnecessary dynamic tension on every note is vocal fatigue.  You're making your voice work much harder than it has to!  If you can hum, monitor, and remove any tension in these muscles, it'll be a huge load off your voice when you sing.  Try this:

http://www.expertvillage.com/video/46366_singing-lessons-chin-test.htm

http://www.expertvillage.com/video/46367_singing-lessons-chin-strength.htm

Ty

PS. There is another set of muscles connected with swallowing which you also shouldn't be using to sing.  If you flip into falsetto on your high notes or don't have a very big range at all, it's probably becuase your swallowing muscles are engaged.  Calling off those dogs is a little more complicated; we'll talk about it next time.  :)

PSS. (Yeah I have trouble keeping these as short as they should be.)  Of course this exercise as well as the lip bubble will help ensure a healthy voice your whole life.  Unlike the lip bubble, this doesn't lend itself to a group rehearsal, though.  It's too individual.  One thing a conductor might do would be to show the exercise to the ensemble, and to suggest each member try it sometime on their own. 

This is the Internet, people have short attention spans, and without already knowing just how good those James Meny videos I posted links to are all singers may or may not have taken the time to watch them.   For these reasons I'm now cherry picking the videos.  Here is the first in a series very short very useful vocal tips.  This one is for *all singers.*  It's short; just a few easy paragraphs, and I'd like to think they're a good read; the two videos are short.  It won't take 5 minutes.  You have the time to check this one out.  All singers should be doing more lip bubbles.  If you are a singer, you should be doing more lip bubbles.  If you are a conductor, you should warm your choir up using lip bubbles at least once per warm up.

Imagine you are a choral conductor.  Your life touches more singers than you can count and remember... some may spend most of their lives singing under you.  When they're 25 they'll have easy high Cs, brilliant, clear, bright voices, ... and as they get older, their voices will darken, naturally get lower, they'll lose their highest notes ... by the time they're 80 or 90 their vibratos will be so wide you could drive a mack truck through them and they won't be able to sing out for the entire rehearsal without a lot of vocal fatigue.  They're old and tired, and their voices are old and tired too.  This is the way of the world; it's sad, but there's nothing anyone can do about it.  Right?????  ... Wrong.

Loss of high notes, loss of vibrato control and excessive vocal fatigue have nothing to do with age.  They are symptoms of vocal damage.  Older singers are likely to show these, but only if they've been singing badly their entire lives.  I'm going to say something here.  If human beings have been singing badly and damaging their voices under your baton for most of their lives, I have to say you share some of the blame here; don't stay ignorant about this.  Of course people will do what they do with their voices, you can't follow them all around all day and see that they never do anything that will cause damage... but here is one easy thing you can do to help ensure your singers sound as good and feel as good about singing when they are 90 years old as they did when they were 25:

You should be doing lip bubbles / lip trills with your choir!  I know they sound / feel silly.  (Singers: I know when you're asked to do these you feel like a child... you've advanced so far why do you have to do this beginner excercise???  The answer is it's not just a beginner exercise; if you warm up with this excercise every time you warm up you will be a much happier, healthier singer late in your life.  Conductors: see previous rant.) 

James Meny demonstrates lip bubble technique... watch this closely, even if you think you already know how to do lip bubbles there are subtleties that are easy to miss:

http://www.expertvillage.com/video/46304_singing-voice-lip-bubble.htm

James Meny talks about why lip-bubbles are the best thing since loaves of bread were first divided into convenient, serving size cross-sections:

http://www.expertvillage.com/video/46311_singing-voice-balance-tips.htm

Happy 2009

Ty

8 bit NES style renditions of popular Christmas carols:

http://www.doctoroctoroc.com/video-games/8-bit-jesus-full-album-release/

Hello all,

Back in my days of browsing the interweb looking in every direction for help with my bridge I ran across the "Expert Village" site, and saw, a composer (of all people... giving composers a bad name) telling people that singing high was exactly like screaming.  I couldn't believe it.  A little later I saw a woman teacher on that site who at least didn't tell anyone to do anything that would damage their voice.  This second teacher did, however, tell students the most important thing when extending range was to use a lot of air... something which will make sure her students never extend their range by more than a few whole steps. 

As I discovered more and more about how the voice actually works, I discovered there are teachers everywhere either selling or giving away good information, good lessons, and good demonstrations.  The problem is that for every one of these excellent teachers there are literally 1000 teachers who may be competent singers, but have no idea how the voice works, also selling and giving away information with the best of intentions... in doing so making the good information nearly impossible to find.  So the internet and the world in general is a maze.  In order to find good help you have to be very lucky, or you have to already know what you're looking for. 

Here you go!  ExpertVillage finally has someone who knows what he is doing, James Meny.  He's studied with Seth Riggs.  He's not a certified SLS teacher, but it costs a lot of money to keep an SLS certification.  The difference between James and someone like Guy (who's blog I posted earlier) or Brett Manning or an SLS teacher like my teacher Liz is this... James, like me, is giving it away.  Follow the link, watch all his free videos, and become a healthier, better singer... it's his gift to you.  (Actually ExpertVillage probably pays him from ad revenue, but anyway...) finding it for you and posting it here is my gift.  Sometimes life *is* that easy!  Happy holidays.

Ty

PS. After watching all of James' videos on Expert Village I have two complaints. 

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Those are knit-picky, though.  Considering the wealth of free information in these videos it's easy to deal with the unpleasant oral hygiene of this particular gift horse in these two isolated cases. 

http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/317198

Good to know I have job security in this recession.  :)

I ran across the blog of an SLS teacher the other day.

He's not giving away anything free, but here's a good article about breath support.

http://speechlevel.blogspot.com/2008/06/breathing-and-beginner.html

He's not as hard on the idea of using a lot of breath pressure as I am, but he gets the point across, and maybe it carries more wieght coming from a voice teacher. 

The problem is that teachers are telling people to use a ton of air support when going for higher notes, and all that does is make it more difficult for them and often impossible.  This is how people get the idea that singing high is hard or that they just can't sing high.  Guy's metaphor with the personal trainer is excellent.  If you start out trying to bench 200 you'll never make it.  You need start out with less weight... in singing that means less breath pressure *not more.*  Now he says "beginners," but what he doesn't say is everyone is a "beginner" in a register they haven't sung in before.  If you're trying to add notes to your range you're a beginner on those new notes even if you're otherwise an experienced singer. 

Ty

I've often alluded to my non-musical past on this blog.

I failed to match a single pitch on my first sight-singing test in music school.  After that I got special lessons at an odd hour in the morning.  Karen (UW music grad student, Viola player, not my current dear friend Karen,) and I stumbled in the dark trying to get me beyond "tone deafness."  It was a joke; we didn't know what we were doing.  We did make some progress, but only years later was I at the level of aural skills I should have been at when we I started music school.  Having been through that experience as well as a great deal of vocal training I feel I'm in a unique position regarding this sort of teaching.  I feel prepared, unlike Karen was (sweet as she was to even try,) to take on this kind of teaching.  Now maybe I feel more prepared than I am... I haven't done anything like this before... it will be an experiment... then again I'm not planning on charging anything... so what do you have to lose? 

I cleaned my apartment two weeks ago; it's as presentable as it'll probably ever be.  I'm a busy man, but I'm not getting any less busy.  I've been thinking about this for some time; now's as good a time as any to try.  I doubt anyone will even take me up on this offer.  Believe me if you do the surprise will be a pleasant one.  Here goes:

***** 

If you can't sing a note and you want to learn I'd like to help.  Come out to my apartment on the West Side; I'll teach you to sing competently.  If you can make the time to learn I'll make the time to teach.  First come first serve, though, in case there is a big response to this of course I will turn people away or start charging at some point.  

If you sing fine but have a friend who needs this and might be interested enough to see it through, by all means pass my invite on; I want to do this. 

If you think you can't sing a note I think you're wrong. 

Ty

I'd like to start this by saying these are my own personal views; this entry does not represent the opinions of MusicNotes.com

Musicnotes just did a deal with Faber; we're rushing to get their biggest hits in MTD format.  I pull up "Bittersweet Symphony" and begin to work.  I notice the imprint on the source file is different from the old sheet.  More importantly the author names have changed.  Where once it read "Words and Music by Richard Ashcroft, Mick Jagger & Keith Richards" it now reads "Written by Mick Jagger & Keith Richards."  'Well that can't be right?' I think to myself... and I check it... and it is right.  As I engrave the sheet and prepared it to be pushed to the site I get madder and madder.  Richard Ashcroft wrote this song.  Everyone knows that.  Yet I have to write "Written by Mick Jagger & Keith Richards" at the top of page one!  How did this happen?!

 

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I can't believe, in the age of the Internet, the Stones can get away with this kind of "legalized plagiarism."  I know this theft of hit song is old old news... but I only just now found out about it, and I'm a music publisher.  The reason the Stones got away with this and remain popular is that people don't know it happened.  Between the war and the election and the financial crisis there are a million more important things going on right here right now, but all the same I'd like to make people aware this theft of intellectual property took place in the hope that those artists who practice this sort of theft in the future will be held accountable. 

Take care,

Ty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bittersweet_Symphony#Song_credits
http://www.superswell.com/samplelaw/horror.html#verve
http://www.musicsaves.org/verve/interviews/30.shtml

Hello all,

I haven't posted a chess game in a while and I just played a pretty flashy one against one RootBeerPlus2000 on Yahoo! Chess.  It was another 3 minute Blitz game with me playing black again, of course.  In the game I sacrificed my entire queenside army to force mate with with a Queen and pawn... certainly not the flashiest checkmate in the world but one of the flashiest I've had the pleasure of creating over the board in 3 minutes. 

Since I still don't think Chesspublisher works with this site I've posted the game here, but this time the following annotations are also copied to that page, so you don't have to have two windows open if you want to follow the game while you read them.
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um... w00t.

http://www.madison.com/tct/business/304115

I should make a good post again sometime soon, but that's relatively low on my to do list lately.  Meanwhile here's something you don't see every day:

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4820

They might have had me if they'd used only that one first picture of 'underwater chess,' but the pictures get progressively more and more obviously fake as you scroll down the page.  Usually chessbase only does crap like that around April Fool's Day... What's Chessbase up to this time?  I don't understand, but I am amused.

Ty

  

The new legal version of MX TABs went live last night.  Free legal TABs for all. ... and free guitars for some as well, apparently.  

Here's the official press release:

I just received an email from one Tyler Forsythe, the director of vocal music at Casa Grande, AZ High School.  Apparently he's a fan of my music.  He performed my piece "Snow" with their advanced Woman's Choir in 2007.  Apparently they "found it a great challenge at first" but "came to thoroughly enjoy the challenge."  And he wants to commission another woman's choir work on a Sara Teasdale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Teasdale text:

I made up a move 4 sacrifice in the 2. f4 Sicilian which I believe is perfectly playable and a lot of fun.  I think I may be the first to have ever played or written about this move. 

More often than you'd imagine in online blitz, you run into players who have no idea how to meet the Sicilian.  It's quite popular for a player to attempt a Grand Prix setup but without 2. Nc3 first, "2. f4."  Of course this doesn't work, you can play d5 and if they take the pawn you have a pleasant choice between the recapture with the queen and the Tal gambit, the line that actually killed this setup for white.  But these players don't care about any of that.  They wouldn't dream of capturing the pawn, they'll push on.  This can seem good at first, putting the big clamp on the black position, but not if you're familiar with French Defense positions.  The French Defense is just about playable at the super grandmaster level, but it has an obvious weakness, the bad "French Bishop."  If white pushes on in this position, you can play the bishop out to f5. ... now you'll play e6 with an improved version of the French Defense.  This improved position has all of the benefits of the French but without the bad bishop.  Most opening books stop here with a phrase like "at least good for equality" or "more that satisfactory for black." ... my opinion of this position is closer to the second quote.  

But what to do if white still thinks he's winning, and really "pushes black around" with 4. g4 (a very bad move), hitting the bishop?  Well, 3. Be4 is probably the best move ... but I thought about an interesting sacrifice a while back and have been analyzing it.

I believe 4... e6!? is perfectly playable.  This very loud version of the French Defense e6 sacrifices the bishop but doesn't actually drop material.  Black will get 3 pawns for the piece and an attack against the white king.  Even Fritz 9 thinks white only has a slight edge in this line... of course it was black who had the edge before the sacrifice.  It's not the best move.

So why play 4... e6?  Surprise value!  A piece sacrifice for equality on move 4 is a scary as the Muzio gambit.  Unlike the Muzio gambit, though, your opponent is unlikely to have ever faced, or even heard of this sacrifice before.  A player who pushes for e5 is likely to be in love with his pawn center.  He probably plays a King's Gambit or similar against 2. e5 and dreams of sacrificing pieces for an attack himself.  This move demolishes his center and puts him on the defensive from the get go creating huge psychological pressure... it's a scary move.  It's also fun.  

I'd appreciate the opinion of others on the soundness of the sacrifice as the position is too unclear for me to trust Fritz's assessment 100% and I believe my sacrifice is completely original.  I've never seen or heard of it anywhere.  It's no wonder as it's not the best move in the position and white must play terribly from move 2 even to reach the position.  But I'm all the same excited about finding fun new lines from move 4 (if I am indeed the first to discover this sacrifice)... it shows how much room for originality and creativity there is in chess theory, even today!  

So I surveyed this line earlier today against a player who's play was so bad I've kept him anonymous.  White played inaccurately and gave me a slight edge right away only to blunder completely play into a checkmate.  This is what can happen when a crazy sacrifice upsets your opponent (particularly in 3 minute blitz... I was 'cheating' I know.)  Of course most sacrifices designed to work that way aren't sound.  I believe his one is.  

Here's the game: http://www.tykroll.com/chess2.html

Ty

My first attempt at a chess post:

For a little context on my skill level, I'm not rated. I only started working on chess 'seriously' a few years ago. I mostly screw around playing 3 minute blitz games on Yahoo! chess. My 'rating' there varies from 1500-1700 depending how tired I am when I play. Based entirely on blitz this nothing like a real rating. I've out-blitzed my share of players with real 1800+ rating on a good day, but it's not the same as real chess. I need to slow down if I want to improve... but I'm only playing for fun and I get a lot of joy out of the fast games.

Earlier today I ran into a player with the handle "schach_radfahren_wandern," a German I'm guessing. His/her Yahoo! rating was just below 2000, a higher class of player than I usually run into. I lost a few games to this player but won what I feel is one of my better 3 minute blitz games against him/her. I think you'll find it surprisingly clean for such a fast game. I made a few errors which I'll point out. My opponent made a few bad moves which I'll also mention.

I've attempted to use ChessPublisher's java applet (we'll see how that goes,) and I can't be too wordy in it or it crashes (probably a good thing.) So here's a bit about the game the annotations won't explain.

About the opening, the Benoni is named from the Hebrew 'Son of Sorrow.' According to wikipedia this name is a jab at the black pawn structure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benoni_Defense "The often weak black pawn on d6 gave the name." but Wikipedia is wrong. Benoni was the name of Aaron Reinganum's 1825 manuscript on the line. He analyzed these positions when he was depressed, sublimating the bad feelings into something productive (the chess book,) so it made perfect sense to call the finished work 'Ben-Oni' the 'son of (his) sorrow.'

About the move order, I like 1. d4 c5 (the 'old' Benoni) best because it gives white more opportunities to go wrong. If white takes the c pawn of course he can't keep it, and that gives black a central majority. The main problem with the 'old' move order is the Taimanov variation which only occurs if black goes for the 'modern' setup. (modern in this context doesn't mean 'contemporary' so much as 'anti-classical,' contemporary players play more classical systems than modern ones except for Indian defenses.) I like the super-closed Czech Benoni with e5 so the bishop check is not a problem.  I got a lot of good theory on the Czech Benoni from Andrew Martin's excellent Fritz Trainer DVD, btw.  I recommend it.  By no means am I parroting any of his analysis here, but the way I play these kinds of positions the way I played this game has been heavily influenced by his discussion of them.  When you can take the *ideas* from a work and apply them to similar positions you know the work has taught you something good.

About the game, I'd love to see 4. dxe6 when I could recapture with the f-pawn and get my central majority that way (it's hard to believe, but people play this line against me all the time.) White wisely avoided that continuation and played the main line instead. When I play 7 ... Nf8 Fritz 9 (chess software) wants to say "black has a cramped position." I don't think Fritz understands this position very well. Closed positions like this are difficult for computers to asses because the plans for both sides are deeper than most computers' horizons. That knight is going to g6 to serve the important function of clamping down on f4. This is the way Nisipeanu plays the Benoni and gives black excellent kingside chances.  (See the first sideline in the game.)

For move 10 we have to talk about closed positions and pawn breaks. With the closed center each side wants to make favorable pawn breaks. Black wants to play b5 or f5 if he can. White, likewise wants to prepare and play b4 or f4. However white needs more preparation to play f4 than he takes here. Playing f4 this early frees up e5 for my knight. In a perfect world, once I have a knight on e5 I'll never let go. Black's powerful central knight will rule the game. (In this game I put the wrong knight on e5 first, and lost contact with that square for a while... it was a 3 minute game after all.)

For 27. we must discuss good and bad bishops in closed positions. White's pawns are locked on light squares and his white square bishop is stuck behind them... it's movement is incredibly restricted... it's little better than a pawn. We call this a 'bad bishop,' white should be trying to exchange this piece off. White's dark square bishop, on the other hand, has free run of the board. We call this a 'good bishop,' it's not only mobile, but it control the important dark square 'holes' between white's pawns. White wants to hold on to this piece at all costs. Of course I should have taken it back on move 11, but when white gives it up on 27 it's an important turning point. Sure, he gets rid of my monster central knight, but I still control e5 with a bishop. After that exchange my dark square bishop is developed *outside* my pawn chain. It's not a 'bad' piece anymore, but very powerful now that white's dark square bishop is gone and it controls the 'holes' between white's pawns. White had to do something to get rid of my powerful central knight, but he'd have done better to trade his knight for it or not to have played f4 so recklessly in the first place.

It isn't until 28 when Fritz (finally goes over the horizon and?) says black is clearly winning. Here black connects the rooks and makes mate threats with the queen. I don't know if white could have done better with his queenside counterplay (the one concrete move Fritz suggested which I included in the sidelines doesn't look like much to me,) could have done better to keep my knight off e4 when I lost contact for that minute back there, or if Fritz is just misunderstanding the closed position that badly and doesn't 'see this continuation coming' until just now. White has a space advantage, but black's pieces are more mobile than white's. Black isn't cramped.

33... the sacrifice. Fritz wants to give this move an '!' meaning it's a good move that isn't obvious. It is obvious, though, to any attacking player. As I annotated, I spent only about half a second on that move. When you play too much blitz as I do you get an eye for these patterns. This sacrifice gives me control of all the 'flight squares' around the white king. It puts the king under 'house arrest,' (he can't go anywhere,) and sets up mating threats all over the place. What's more, all of white's pieces are pinned and tangled up. Even if there isn't a forced mate (which there is, but I didn't stop to calculate it out) it's easy to see black can regain the material by force. (I ended up missing the mate and going for the material ... greedy me ... it was a win either way, but the check mate would have been more stylish... of course white let me checkmate a couple moves later, but that was a blunder. ... the very end is pretty much the messiest part of this game... we were both in time trouble by that point.  I don't think the rest of the game is at all bad.  Like I said, it's a 'pretty good' blitz game, IMO.)

And without further ado, I'll attempt to post the game. Keep in mind (especially when I put the wrong knight on e5 and miss the checkmate combination choosing a much longer winning line istead) each player had exactly 3 minutes to make all of his/her moves. This game went by fast. 

I can't get the applet to load in LJ, so try this link instead: http://www.tykroll.com/chess1.html (I suggest opening in new window if you want to follow along in the game while reading the notes above.)

Ty